Real Heroes!

Damn folks, these are REAL HEROES! Not the likes of Tom Cruise, who gains or loses weight for a stupid movie. I'd like to whale the crap out of him but for the fact I would be accused of bullying an effete little prick. He couldn't handle the rigors of Campfire Girls! I don't like the little pervert anyway but I would not spend a nickel on any of his movies after that crap he spewed. What a little midget! Thanks to Michael Dollar for capturing this news articles about some real Oklahoma heroes, one of which is a man from Seminole I have known all my cognizant memory:

STAFF WRITER
Memories of World War II remain vivid for veterans
Bryan Dean
bdean@opubco.com

Wilburn Henry flew a B-24 Liberator on bombing runs over Nazi Germany. Merle Lebbs served on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific that was sunk by the Japanese in the Battle of the Coral Sea. The two 96-year-old veterans talked recently about their experiences 70 years ago as they prepared to observe Veterans Day on Monday.

Heavy losses
Henry, of Oklahoma City, said he volunteered for the Army Air Corps in 1942. He wanted to fly. Henry got his wish, earning his wings before he was sent to Italy early in 1944. He flew his B-24 Liberator in the allied invasion of Italy and other targets in Europe. A standard tour was 35 missions. When Henry was assigned to his unit, he asked what the rate of losses was and was pleased to hear it was about 4 percent. “What I didn’t realize is that was for one mission,” Henry said. “You multiply that by 35 missions, and losses were pretty heavy.”

A crew of 10 manned the four-engine bomber. Most would never return home. Allied aircrews suffered some of the worst casualty rates in the war. “Of the 10 men, there was only two of us that finished our tour,” Henry said. “We got fighters some, but flak was our worst enemy. There was nothing you could do about flak.”
The toughest time was the night before a mission, Henry said. “Everybody was scared all the time,” he said. “Don’t let anyone tell you they weren’t. But you had a job you had to do. You couldn’t let yourself be nervous in the air.”

Abandon ship
Lebbs, of Krebs, joined the Navy in 1936, five years before the United States entered World War II after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He was stationed on the USS Lexington for much of his career. The Lexington was one of the United States’ first aircraft carriers and became an indispensable part of the Pacific strategy after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The Lexington, nicknamed “Lady Lex,” was sent to the Coral Sea in early 1942 along with the carrier USS Yorktown. The two carriers defended against the Japanese invasion of Papua, New Guinea, in May 1942. The Lexington was attacked by about 40 Japanese bombers and torpedo planes while its own planes were attacking the Japanese carriers. “We got hit with about four torpedoes and two bomb hits,” Lebbs said. “It set the thing on fire, but we were still able to steam.” The Lexington continued launching and landing aircraft, but the ship was doomed. Fires raged in the forward part of the ship, causing a series of explosions.

Lebbs’ station was toward the back of the ship. When the Lexington finally lost power, the order to abandon stations came, forcing the ship’s crew to mass on the flight deck and prepare to abandon the ship. “Where we came out was all the way aft near a flight deck gun gallery,” Lebbs said. “We couldn’t abandon ship until the skipper gave the word. Right inside that gun gallery was a doorway to the ship. It was right next to the ice cream shop.”

One of Lebbs’ fellow sailors broke the lock on the shop’s freezer. Amid the chaos and raging fires, Lebbs and about a dozen other sailors treated themselves.
“We just stood there eating ice cream waiting for the order to abandon ship,” Lebbs said. When the order came, Lebbs and thousands of others aboard the ship went down ropes into the water and made their way to waiting life boats. The carrier’s destroyer escorts picked up those who were able to get off the Lexington. “I didn’t get to see it go down,” Lebbs said. “I was picked up by a destroyer. As soon as we got aboard, we were taken down and given a bunk. I didn’t ever see the ship actually sink. It’s just as well I didn’t. I loved that ship.”