12A THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
MONDAY, AUGUST 15.2005
HISTORY
Pilot reflects on WWII crash
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
TAMPA, Fla. — Willard "Mac" McLain's story of survival after his bomber was shot down over occupied France is like the plot of a movie, a five-month journey of intrigue and danger, avoiding the murderous Nazi Gestapo while moving secretly through an underground network of French resistance fighters.
As America observes the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II this month, the 83-year-old McLain is among a dwindling number of men and women still around to tell the tales.
When McLain visits the VA hospital in Tampa, veterans of the Korean War, Vietnam War
and the Gulf War seem to outnumber the World War II guys now.
"We're disappearing." he savs.
Of the 16.1 million Americans who served during the war, fewer than 4 million are still alive. With the youngest of them in their late 70s, they're dying off at a rate of about 1.000 a day.
McLain, then a 21-year-old Colorado ranch worker, was drafted in July 1942 but enlisted in the Army Air Corps hoping to be an airplane mechanic instead of a foot soldier.
He ended up as a ball turret gunner in a B-17 bomber squadron based in central England. His job involved folding his 5-foot-9 frame into a near fetal
position inside the ball turre that rotated in the belly of the aircraft, then blasting away at attacking German fighters with a pair of 50-caliber machine guns.
"We were a bunch of green farm kids, most of us," McLain says of his crew mates on the plane, nicknamed "Black Ghost." "I barely knew where England was."
They flew in daylight bombing raids over Germany and occupied France, terrifying flights depicted in movies such as "Twelve O'Clock High" and "Memphis Belle."
Two out of three young men — their average age was 20 — who flew on those missions did not survive the war.
crew survived 13 missions, but anti-aircraft flak and the Luftwaffe's Messerschmitt and Focke-Wulf fighters claimed the airplane on Sept. 6, 1943.
With the damaged bomber kept aloft by just one of its four engines, pilot Ralph Puipher ordered the crew to bail out. McLain jumped from 10,000 feet. A German fighter circled his parachute, the pilot waving at him before peeling off.
He hid in a forest while Nazi spotter planes circled overhead. The next day, he approached a farmer and, despite the language barrier, learned that the man knew someone in the Underground, the resistance movement.
During the next few months, McLain moved from the home
of one family to another in the Underground, dressed as a farmer and getting forged identification papers. He moved among Nazi soldiers who might have shot him if they had known his identity.
From Paris he caught a train to the south of France, where in January 1944 he found himself among 62 aviators — American, British, Canadian and Australian — sent to smugglers who were paid to take them across the rugged Pyrenees to neutral Spain.
They traveled only at night in sometimes waist-deep snow. No fires were allowed, food was scarce and their feet were soon blistered and frostbitten.
On the third night, the smugglers disappeared and the airmen trudged into a Spanish town _ where they were immediately thrown in prison.
Within days, however, they were taken to Gibraltar and put on a plane back to London. McLain returned to the States, where he trained other men to fly B-17 missions.
All 10 of the "Black Ghost" crewmen survived, although six of them were captured and spent the rest of the war in a German prison camp. They held reunions over the years, but only three are still alive.
McLain says his experiences in the war gave him perspective that still serves him well.
"I think it impacted my philosophy of life to the point that I consider life dear," he says, "and I take it day by day."
Race day has happy ending
The Associated Press
Barrel racer Alicia Hrabe sits atop her horse, Pepper, as the sun sets on the Ellis County Fairground Wednesday night in Hays. The evening marked the end of the Mid-America Rodeo Company's 2005 Summertime Rodeo Series.
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1A
Theft
"We just want to get across to students that they should lock their doors, take precautions to secure valuables," he said.
Students shouldn't rely on police to make an arrest in most incidents. The clearance rate for burglary investigations was 20 percent in Lawrence in 2004; nationwide, it's 13.1 percent, according to the City of Lawrence Police Department Web site.
Adults are often arrested for the crimes, but a significant number of juveniles are as well, Ward said. Information on whether the suspects include students is not available because police don't record that information in arrest records.
Theft is consistently the number one crime on campus, said Capt. Schuyler Bailey of the University of Kansas Public Safety Office. The majority of auto burglaries on
campus and burglaries in residence halls occur because students leave windows open and doors unlocked.
According to the Office of Public Safety Web site, 84 residence burglaries and 60 automobile burglaries were reported within the University in 2004.
Both Barrick's business and its neighbor, Ace Steering and Brake Service Inc., 541 Minnesota St., had no theft problems for two years and operated in Lawrence for decades, he said.
If vehicles contain valuables they are stored inside, Barrick said. The business lacks video surveillance, but lights shine on the lot and building, especially in front, where the cars were located, he said.
"We usually try to keep cars locked before we leave," he said. "It somehow didn't work out this time."
Police have no suspects in the burglary, Ward said.
-Edited by Becca Evanhoe
AVOIDING BURGLARY
Avoiding car burglary
♦ Lock valuables in your trunk
+ Don't leave valuables such as cellular phones, laptops and other electronics visible
- Park your car in well-lit and well-traveled areas
Avoiding residential burglary
◆ When leaving town, stop delivery of mail and newspapers or ask a friend to collect them
Give your residence an occupied appearance
- Don't leave lights on 24 hours a day
- Put automatic timers on several lights and a radio. Set them so they will randomly turn on and off in different rooms, especially the bathroom
Source: Sgt. Dan Ward, Lawrence Police Department