Rex Wildman and Duane Gable didn’t serve together in World War II, but on Wednesday the two local veterans were part of a group of veterans who traveled on an Honor Flight to Washington, D.C., to visit the war memorials. Wednesday also happened to be Wildman’s 92nd birthday. He was born April 22, 1923. Honor Flight Network is a nonprofit organization created solely to honor America’s veterans for all their sacrifices by flying them to Washington, D.C., to reflect at their memorials, according to the Honor Flight Northeast Indiana website. Top priority is given to WWII survivors along with other veterans who are terminally ill. All flights are free of charge to the veterans being honored. Wildman was drafted into service, though that was fine with him. “We were going to enlist, but our dads didn’t want us to, I and another guy,” Wildman said in an interview Thursday afternoon. “So we said within a few months we’d be drafted, so we allowed that to happen.” Wildman went into service in January 1943 and served for three years. He went into the Army, which incorporated the Air Force too at that time, but he didn’t like the dirty work they were doing. “I saw those guys in their nice clean uniform flying in, and I decided to give it a try,” he said. Wildman became a pilot, ending up flying a C47. “I put a lot of hours in with that, overseas,” he said, “and then they switched us to C46’s, which were the largest twin engine at that time. It had about double the payload and that’s what we used to fly what they called the Hump.” The Hump was the name given by Allied pilots in WWII to the eastern end of the Himalayan Mountains over which they flew military transport aircraft from India to China and vice versa. He said he was stationed mainly in India, then transfered to Burma and from there flew across the Himalayas into China. Over the Hump alone, Wildman estimated he flew about 50 times. “It was quite dangerous at times because of the extreme weather conditions,” he said. “They said 500 to 600 planes went down because of the weather, mostly weather,” Wildman said. “Then, of course, in the beginning you had the Japanese Zeroes that were down there that you had to contend with. In a way, the weather was a blessing because they couldn’t fly in that weather.” Most of the flights were Wildman, a co-pilot and a radio operator, but some were just him and the radio operator. He always had a different crew, so Wildman never really got to know a lot of them. Gable is slightly older than Wildman and was drafted into service a few months beforehand, too. Gable was born Aug. 11, 1921, and was drafted Aug. 17, 1942, he said during an interview Friday afternoon. “I was drafted and I took basic training in coastal artillery,” he said. His training took place at Fort Worden, Washington, but then was sent to Dutch Harbor, Alaska, after the training period was over. “We were there during the Kiska Attu Campaign. We guarded the Dutch Harbor during that period,” Gable said. He was an observer in the headquarters of Battery B. He had a 6-inch Naval Mount gun. “Two of them. We were up high over the harbor,” he said. Gable was in for 40 months and then put in for cadet training. “I came back to the states and went to the classification center. That was about the time of the invasion over in Europe. They took us all out and put us in the infantry,” he recalled. He was with the 71st Division that went to Fort Benning, Georgia, for training. They were there almost a year and then were sent to Europe. “Started out in France, southern part of France was where we entered the war. Up along the Rhine River. We were in the 7th Army down there. We came up along the Rhine River and joined (General George S.) Patton’s Third Army, and we crossed the Rhine, and we followed Patton across Germany,” Gable recalled. “We were mostly clean-up after Patton. We got a lot of artillery fire, but we never really got hit bad. We weren’t in any serious battles,” he said. They ended up in Austria for the remainder of that year. During his service, he also got to meet General Dwight D. Eisenhower. “As we got into France, Camp Lucky Strike, that was where the center was for dispersing these troops. He came through the lunch line one day and that’s where I shook his hand,” he said. Gable came back to the States after having enough points to get out. He was discharged at Camp Atterbury in December 1945. As for the WWII Memorial Wildman and Gable visited Wednesday, Wildman said it wasn’t what he expected. “I figured it was going to be an enclosure, but it was all open,” he said. It was the first time he saw it, and thought “it was great.” “I think it’ll be just as important 100 years from now as it is today,” Wildman said. Gable and his wife went on their honeymoon to Washington, D.C., 73 years ago, but it’s changed a lot since then, he said. “Since then the war memorial’s been built. Vietnam Memorial. Air Force Memorial. We saw them all on Wednesday and we saw the changing of the guard at Arlington Cemetery,” Gable. He said it was “very impressive,” and the changing of the guard was a highlight of the trip. Gable thought the WWII Memorial specifically was “great. It’s very nice. It’s big. It’s right in the center of the mall. It’s nice.” Of the whole Honor Flight program, Wildman said he was really appreciative of how people young and old alike expressed their appreciation for the veterans’ service. When the flight handed in Washington, they were greeted by many, and when they returned they were welcomed home by many more people. Each veteran received a lot of letters and cards from school children, and Wildman’s own family presented him with many birthday cards and letters. “Every place you went people were greeting you,” said Gable. “We left Fort Wayne from the Air National Guard. We landed in Kennedy Airport. There’s people, a lot of people, in lines as we got off the plane, to greet you. When we finally came back to Fort Wayne, there was a band and must have been 500 people lined up on each side greeting us.” Each veteran got a homemade blanket that is red, white and blue with stars. Gable said they are really nice. “It’s just nice to go see all the memorials,” Gable said of the Honor Flight. “I was impressed with the way they – we were on three buses and I was impressed with how the police took us through traffic through Washington, D.C. They had a motorcycle cop in front and a police car on each side of us. We had a police escort every place we went. I was impressed with that.” For more information on Honor Flight Northeast Indiana, visit the website at www.hfnei.org
