LeeAnna Hutchins took some World War II veterans to lunch Tuesday at the Cove’s Edge retirement facility. She thanked them for their service and told them it was an honor to be with them.
Retired National Guard Staff Sgt. Hutchins, the commander of the Damariscotta American Legion Post, meant every word.
Then the veterans, many now feeble, some in wheelchairs and others who had trouble remembering the past, told a few stories.
Lucille Baker served four years in the Navy in Oklahoma at a facility that rebuilt damaged aircraft.
Elliot Stimson was in the Navy too, but he was not too keen to share any tales.
Dick Gordon, 85, was a radio operator on an Army Air Force heavy bomber, a B-24. Raids on European targets were not much fun. “Anti-aircraft fire and fighters,” he said as he stared across the room.
Gordon came home after surviving 50 missions, took advantage of the American Legion-backed GI Bill that educated a generation of American veterans. He earned an electrical engineering degree and worked for Westinghouse until he retired.
Dick Day graduated from the University of Maine, was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant and got his orders to report to Fort Knox on the same day.
In Europe, as a 24-year-old Major, he was assigned to help supply a tank division.
“We won the war because we could feed and supply our troops better than the other side. An armored division on the move uses 1000 gallons of gas a mile,” he said.
“I can still remember driving through Europe and the smell of death was in the air. It was sickening,” he said.
Day attended the luncheon wearing a Civil War Union Army cap in honor of his relative, Edward McClure, the son of Thomas McClure of McClures Landing in Walpole who was slain in Virginia during the nation’s most heart wrenching conflict.
Of the Civil War, he said, “It was American citizens fighting against American citizens. Awful.”
Day related a tale of the day when he was a staff officer with an American general who accepted the surrender of the German commander in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia.
“The German general stood up at his desk and opened a desk drawer. Then he pulled out a pistol and shot himself,” Day said.
Later, Day, who retired as a county extension agent, was given a special pass to attend the Nuremberg (Germany) war crimes trials of top Nazi leaders.
Day, who lives off Rt. 215 not far from cow corners, brushed his eye when he told of his classmates.
“We lost 23 of our [UMO] class including three of the four class officers. They were the very best of us.”
“I feel very blessed that I survived it all.”
