"They were good Marines, the finest."

/

"What sticks with me now is not so much the pain and terror and sorrow of the war, though I remember that well enough. What really sticks with me is the honor I had of defending my country, and serving in the company of these men. They were good Marines, the finest, every one of them. You can't say anything better about a man." 

R. V. Burgin, 5th Marines, 1st Division, survived over a month of brutal combat during battle of Peleliu Island in 1944. It was supposed to be a "quickie" in and out. But it wasn't. The battle lasted from September 15 to November 27, with nearly 20,000 casualties. Today, you can go to this haunting island and see what is left from that terrible battle in the remains of military equipment, blown out pillboxes, and sometimes even unburied bodies. It is a tragic picture of the reality of war. But is was an island where boys became men and leaders. 

An Afternoon with Porter and Porter

/

This is the dashing Mr. Carl Porter. I first met him a few months ago when the 508th PIR Reunion was held in San Antonio.

Though Mr. Porter was a Normandy D-Day veteran, had a dramatic experience surrounding his capture and escape from the Germans, received the Purple Heart for attempting to disarm a "jerry-rigged piece of enemy ordinance," and many other paratrooper-esque events which happened to him in WWII, in retrospect I realized that little of our conversations at the reunion surrounded his war experiences. Instead, we talked about the beautiful 67-year marriage he had with his wife "Marly," their life together in Alaska, -and one of my favorite musical artists (and his "namesake" as we joked), Cole Porter.

Walking back to the hotel the last afternoon, we threw around our favorite Porter songs: Begin the Beguine, Rosalie, Night and Day, being just a few. His favorite though was, "I get a kick out of you." Upon telling me this, he proceeded to sing a few lines -quite nicely indeed. Now, as a rule, I NEVER sing. Never. But this afternoon it was too much, and I joined in. How often does one get to sing a favorite song, with a charming 94-year old paratrooper, on a lovely day by the Riverwalk in San Antonio? Next time we'll probably manage to talk more about serious stuff. Mr. Porter was greatly affected by the war, and did tell us many poignant and beautiful stories. But this once, our delightful little conversations about "Cousin Cole," will stand as one of my favorite memories. - See more at: http://iconosquare.com/viewer.php#/myPhotos/list

Frederick Kroese: Dutch Resistance Fighter

/

In 1940, it would have been a very hard time to be living in Europe, especially if you lived in one of the many little countries that were being invaded by the Nazis. The Netherlands was one of those. At first, it wasn't so bad. The Netherlanders could live with them, but when the Germans went to fight in Russia, they needed more men and more weapons. So, they started taking men out of the factories and sending them to fight the Russians. But of course they had to have someone to fill the places of all the men who were being sent to the front, so the Germans started taking the men and boys from the countries that were under the Nazi thumb.

In mid 1943, Frederick Kroese, got a message telling him to get a few belongings and report so that he could be moved to Germany to work in the factories. As a 19 year old young man, he wasn't going to be bossed around by some government that wasn't even his own, telling him that he had to drop everything he was doing and go to work to help the very people who had invaded his country. So he just said, "I won't do that!"

There were then only two options left to him: he could either wait for the Nazi police to come get him, or he could go into hiding. Well, he wasn't going to wait around for the police, so he found a place to hide himself! And then, since he wasn't going to just wait in hiding, he decided to join the Resistance. 

When I first met Mr. Kroese, he described to me in great detail the perils of joining the Resistance. It was a very real and dangerous thing to undertake. He knew that at any time he could be shot, put in prison, or tortured for information and addresses, but it gave him a way to "really do something against the Germans..." In a lovely Dutch accent, he told me, "You took part in an organization which did things you shouldn't do to survive it. In common clothes - you don't have a uniform, but we were the enemy of the Germans." He wore a band on his arm that said he was in food distribution so that the Germans wouldn't bother him or take away his bicycle. If you remember from Corrie Ten Boom's stories, bicycles were very important to the success of their plans. 

One day, however, as he was coming out of the woods, he found a German stealing his bike. He really needed his wheels to get where he was going, so he tried to talk him out of it  -but without success. He finally asked if the German would at least give him a ride into town on the back of it (oh the gall!), but he wouldn't take up his offer... And he lost the bike. Just another day in the life of Frederikus Wilhelmus Kroese.

During the war American planes would drop supplies to the Dutch resistance, especially weapons, explosive equipment, and booklets on how to use them most effectively. This booklet is explaining how to blow up a bridge. Mr. Kroese obtained it from one of the cylinders that were dropped.

When American or English pilots were downed, he was there to help them. "I was in the group that saved flying people who were shot down..." The pilots would call in to the Dutch Resistance saying, "Save us, save us, we're crashing!" and Mr. Kroese would organize the farmers to go to the location where they were falling, destroy the evidence, bury the parachutes, etc... Then find them a place where they could stay, forge false identification papers and ration cards, and finally get them new clothing! Isn't that just too rich...part of the Dutch Resistance, forging papers, and saving downed English and American pilots!!!

Mr. Kroese's false identification papers.

Although it was no doubt thrilling to their impetuous spirits, these Tommies and Johnnies were practically still boys, and didn't seem to grasp the danger of the situation or the tremendous sacrifice that these Dutch people were embracing, risking their lives, and giving them a large portion of their own scarce supply of food. "They would stay there for a few weeks, or as long as needed and they would stay in the house where I was aided. We gave them food, and some night I came upstairs after they had dinner, and I came and I saw that the soup was in the washing table," -(that was in the year that food was especially difficult to come by)- "So I said, 'Are you mad? If you don't like it, tell it to us, and we can have it, but don't spoil it!'"  

At other times, the Americans struggled to grasp the precariousness of their situation. "Sometime in the following months, there came a German car stopping just before our house... but what did he (the American flyer)? He moved to the window, pushed the curtains away, and I said; 'Are you mad?!'" 'No, but I've never seen my enemy. I want to see my enemy.' As they are young boys, they don't realize, and they don't know. They didn't know that we had few food, and he didn't realize that he, ya, was in danger of bringing us in danger by showing himself at the window. It was remarkable." 

Finally, after 5 longs years of being under Nazi oppression, after 3 years of working every moment against his country's oppressors, rescuing Allied pilots, burying parachutes, hiding radios, stealing bicycles, blowing up bridges, forging papers, scraping together food, organizing the farmers, - and every moment living in the realization that they could die any time, the Netherlands were finally liberated.

"It was happiness to be liberated." 

In all the times that I've come in contact with people from the Netherlands, I've found them to be some of the nicest people in the world. So kind, and with such a full history of their own, and between our two countries, dating all the way back to 1608 when they welcomed our Pilgrim Fathers into their land, and gave us a place where we could live in peace and worship God in freedom for over ten years, until our forefathers sailed to America. Mr Kroese is certainly no exception! Thank you, dear sir, for your gallantry and your kindness to our boys who got in a tough spot in the air over there.

Bert Stolier - USMC

/


"Bert Stolier was stranded in the placid waters of the Pacific Ocean for three days and three nights in December 1942 after his ship, the U.S.S. Northampton, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine during the Battle of Tassafaronga. With no food, no water, and little hope, all Stolier could do is reminisce about his family and home in New Orleans and sing every song he could remember. Then, Stolier said, a miracle happened. "The tide pushed me between two islands and I saw a ship," he said. "As I got a little closer, I saw, with apologies to my future wife, the most beautiful sight of my life." What Stolier saw that cold December morning was the Stars and Stripes flying on the deck of an American ship. Unable to move, Stolier cried out "Any of you sailors want to give a marine a hand?" A few minutes later, Stolier was rescued... Stolier, now in his 90s, served in the Marine Corps during the Pacific theatre and fought in battles such as Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, [Tarawa] and Iwo Jima. (Excerpts from the Sea Coast Echo)

When I asked Mr. Stolier about the Battle of Tarawa (a three day battle on a scrap of land hardly half a mile square, with over 9,000 American and Japanese casualties), he said to me, "It wasn't a battle. You can't call something that horrible a battle.... But it had to be done." Mr. Stolier is a truly remarkable man. At 97 years of age now, he spends his time at the WWII Museum in New Orleans sharing his incredible stories.