This is a wonderful video that has been shared on many social networks but this one is
to a song...
to a song...
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Friday, June 8, 2012
The Sweetest Lady....I Never Met
A few months ago I called my friend, Marian Congleton.
For my readers who will remember, Marian was
the wife of John Congleton, the co-pilot.
Marian was not feeling very well, nothing serious
she assured me, just didn't feel like herself.
I promised her I'd call back in a week or two.
Well, I never would make that call.
Several weeks ago I received a FaceBook message
from Kristen, her granddaughter, sadly informing
me that Gammie had passed away at her home
perhaps in the early morning hours.
My heart went out to Kristen and her family, but
especially to Kristen who had been shouldering so
much of the family responsibility since the death
of her dad just a few months ago. Her Gammie was
like a mother and a grandmother all rolled into one.
As for me, I had just begun to know Marian.
It had taken me almost a year to find her whereabouts.
I knew she lived in Kentucky. With only a few small
details though and a lot of cold calling I found a relative
that supplied me with her phone number.
I remember in our first conversation she shared with me
how much she enjoyed hearing from my father when
he would call, and how much it meant to John
when he would call as his health declined.
Marian was part of that "Great Generation" that
endured the hardships of the Great Depression,
a young bride in the midst of a world war. Her
legacy will be one of sacrifice, hard work, and
her unfaltering faith.
It is those values that will be our foundation to
which we will build future generations.
Having her in my life for such a brief time will always
be special. She was the sweetest lady....I never met.
In memory of Marian
For my readers who will remember, Marian was
the wife of John Congleton, the co-pilot.
Marian was not feeling very well, nothing serious
she assured me, just didn't feel like herself.
I promised her I'd call back in a week or two.
Well, I never would make that call.
Several weeks ago I received a FaceBook message
from Kristen, her granddaughter, sadly informing
me that Gammie had passed away at her home
perhaps in the early morning hours.
My heart went out to Kristen and her family, but
especially to Kristen who had been shouldering so
much of the family responsibility since the death
of her dad just a few months ago. Her Gammie was
like a mother and a grandmother all rolled into one.
As for me, I had just begun to know Marian.
It had taken me almost a year to find her whereabouts.
I knew she lived in Kentucky. With only a few small
details though and a lot of cold calling I found a relative
that supplied me with her phone number.
I remember in our first conversation she shared with me
how much she enjoyed hearing from my father when
he would call, and how much it meant to John
when he would call as his health declined.
Marian was part of that "Great Generation" that
endured the hardships of the Great Depression,
a young bride in the midst of a world war. Her
legacy will be one of sacrifice, hard work, and
her unfaltering faith.
It is those values that will be our foundation to
which we will build future generations.
Having her in my life for such a brief time will always
be special. She was the sweetest lady....I never met.
In memory of Marian
 |
| Marian and John Congleton |
 |
| Lee, Marian, Kristen |
 |
| Marian with her grandbabies |
Thursday, March 15, 2012
A Tribute to the Crew of the 415th Squadron of the 98th Bomb Group
March 15th, 2012 marks the sixty-seventh
anniversary of the last mission of the 415th
Squadron of the 98th Bomb Group. After
their successful bombing of the Schwechat
Oil Refinery in Vienna, Austria, the crew
was forced to bail out over Yugoslavia
after being hit in their #2 and #4 engines.
With the help of a small village and Marshal
Tito's men, the crew walked back over the Alps
and onto Split, Yugoslavia where they traveled
by boat across the Adriatic Sea to Bari, Italy.
It has been two years since I first posted my
father's war memoirs and it's been the most
rewarding experience of my life. I hope I have
honored these fine men in a way they would
be proud. Along this journey I have found
several of the crew's family members and
I've enjoyed getting to know them and so
privileged to be able to honor their fathers'
stories as well.
Sadly, this past December, the last of the
crew passed away, Sgt. Donald Brown,
nose turret gunner.
Each of these men are our hero's who
deserve our respect for their willingness
to serve their country and defend its
freedoms.
May we always continue to remember
and honor them.
A few weeks ago I toured a B-24 Liberator
at the Keystone Heights Airfield hosted by
the Collings Foundation. It was a thrill to
finally see a B-24 up close and to be able to
walk around and imagine where the crew
would have been situated within the plane.
Here are some pictures from that day.
This link is amazing!
It is a virtual panoramic view
of the B-24 Witchcraft from
the Collings Foundation.
www.i-ota.net/B-24Witchcraft/#
anniversary of the last mission of the 415th
Squadron of the 98th Bomb Group. After
their successful bombing of the Schwechat
Oil Refinery in Vienna, Austria, the crew
was forced to bail out over Yugoslavia
after being hit in their #2 and #4 engines.
With the help of a small village and Marshal
Tito's men, the crew walked back over the Alps
and onto Split, Yugoslavia where they traveled
by boat across the Adriatic Sea to Bari, Italy.
It has been two years since I first posted my
father's war memoirs and it's been the most
rewarding experience of my life. I hope I have
honored these fine men in a way they would
be proud. Along this journey I have found
several of the crew's family members and
I've enjoyed getting to know them and so
privileged to be able to honor their fathers'
stories as well.
Sadly, this past December, the last of the
crew passed away, Sgt. Donald Brown,
nose turret gunner.
Each of these men are our hero's who
deserve our respect for their willingness
to serve their country and defend its
freedoms.
May we always continue to remember
and honor them.
A few weeks ago I toured a B-24 Liberator
at the Keystone Heights Airfield hosted by
the Collings Foundation. It was a thrill to
finally see a B-24 up close and to be able to
walk around and imagine where the crew
would have been situated within the plane.
Here are some pictures from that day.
This link is amazing!
It is a virtual panoramic view
of the B-24 Witchcraft from
the Collings Foundation.
www.i-ota.net/B-24Witchcraft/#
 |
| I brought the crew along with me |
 |
 | ||
| Crew member Raphael Gonyea. Picture provided by Steve Gonyea, his son as they toured a B-24.
|
Monday, January 30, 2012
In Memory Of Donald A. Brown
 |
| Donald A. Brown, nose gunner 415th Bomb Squadron 98th Bomb Group |
 |
| Donald A. Brown, kneeling far right |
Today I received some very sad news.
Donald A. Brown, who served with my
father as the nose gunner and was a member
of the 415th Bomb Squadron of the
98th Bomb Group, died January 17th,
2012 in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
He was 88 years old. He was awarded
two air medals and our Nations Purple
Heart. He was the last remaining
crew member.
As many of you know, since the inception
of my Father's blog, I had been searching
for many, many months the family members
of the crew. I was elated when I found Don.
I was looking forward to hearing all his
stories and sharing them on the blog.
His son, Colonel (Ret) Don Brown, would
like to share his thoughts and some personal
stories of his dad along with family photos, and
I hope to share those with you in the very near
future. Our thoughts and prayers go out to
their family. Don said his dad was a proud
American and loved his country deeply.
He will be missed...and a grateful country
mourns his loss.
I found this poem as a tribute to the crew
of the 415th Bomb Squadron, 98th Bomb Group
High Flight
"Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
and danced the skies on laughter-silvered
wings; Sunward I've climbed, and joined the
tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds - and done
a hundred things you have not dreamed of -
wheeled and soared and swung high in the
sunlit silence.
Hov'ring there I've chased the shouting wind
along, and flung my eager craft through the
footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue, I've
topped the windswept heights with easy grace
where never lark, or even eagle flew - and,
while with silent lifting mind I've trod the
high untrespassed sanctity of space, put out
my hand and touched the face of God."
Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No. 412 Squadron, RCAF
Killed December 11, 1941
Saturday, December 24, 2011
A CHRISTMAS BABY
In the early morning hours of December 25th,
1922, the bells of St. Mary's Catholic Church
rang their bells throughout the sleepy small
town of Yazoo City, Mississippi proclaiming
the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
But perhaps for my grandparents, Charles and Anne
Estes, the bells were also welcoming into the
world, their new-born son, Charles Henry Estes,
just as midnight mass at St. Mary's was ending.
He was...a Christmas Baby...a very special
baby indeed.
To me, Christmas babies are like little
Christmas angels given to us by God
every year to deliver the message
of 'Peace on Earth Good Will to Men',
a message my Father delivered throughout
his life. He had a kind and gentle soul
and was a good friend to all that knew him.
He placed little importance on expensive
things, but rather concentrated on what
mattered the most: being a good family man,
a good friend, and a good steward to our Lord.
It is these very qualities that he has passed down
to my brothers, my sister and myself, and in turn,
for us to pass onto our families.
Christmas has and will always be a very
special time of year for me. The memories
of my parents, my brothers, Larry and Chuck,
and my sister, Hope, filled our home
with much love, joy and happiness for many,
many Christmases.
The Christmas presents I cherish
the most are the ones hidden in
my heart...those childhood memories
of Christmases from long ago...
Happy Birthday Papa
Merry Christmas...Liz Bacher
1922, the bells of St. Mary's Catholic Church
rang their bells throughout the sleepy small
town of Yazoo City, Mississippi proclaiming
the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
But perhaps for my grandparents, Charles and Anne
Estes, the bells were also welcoming into the
world, their new-born son, Charles Henry Estes,
just as midnight mass at St. Mary's was ending.He was...a Christmas Baby...a very special
baby indeed.
To me, Christmas babies are like little
Christmas angels given to us by God
every year to deliver the message
of 'Peace on Earth Good Will to Men',
a message my Father delivered throughout
his life. He had a kind and gentle soul
and was a good friend to all that knew him.
He placed little importance on expensive
things, but rather concentrated on what
mattered the most: being a good family man,
a good friend, and a good steward to our Lord.
It is these very qualities that he has passed down
to my brothers, my sister and myself, and in turn,
for us to pass onto our families.
Christmas has and will always be a very
special time of year for me. The memories
of my parents, my brothers, Larry and Chuck,
and my sister, Hope, filled our home
with much love, joy and happiness for many,
many Christmases.
The Christmas presents I cherish
the most are the ones hidden in
my heart...those childhood memories
of Christmases from long ago...
Happy Birthday Papa
Merry Christmas...Liz Bacher
Saturday, October 22, 2011
A Life Well Lived
It has been fifteen years since my Father passed away.
And I would like to remember him with a collection of
some of my favorite pictures.
 |
| Papa with my Uncle Ben |
 |
| Papa with Nanny and Uncle Ben |
 |
| Papa with his Derby car on Broad Street |
 |
| Papa with Papa T and an officer |
 |
| Papa with Bess, Uncle Ben and Nanny |
 |
Lt. Charles H. Estes, Jr. |
 |
| My Mom and Dad |
 |
| Chuck, Elizabeth, Papa, Mother Hope and Larry |
In my Father's last dictation he reflected on the paths he
could have chosen, and now some fifty years later,
it was the right path...and a life well lived.
"I had signed a contract with a company to go to
South America and fly C-47s over the Andes to mining
camps back in the sticks, so to speak; they had landing
fields there and I'm sure it would land a C-47 safely.
But I got home and my father was running Motor
Parts Company all by himself, and the boy that had
worked there with him before the service, before the war,
Otto Carter, he had been killed over in Australia on a mission.
He was a pilot -- not a pilot but he was a gunner on a bomber,
and this bomber was shot down and he was killed.
Well, anyway, my father needed my help and
I realized that when I saw the situation as it was
when I got home, so I determined that I would stay
around Yazoo City, and do what I could to help him,
and so I canceled the contract that I had with these
people and let that fly over the mountain and forgot
about it forever.
But, when you stop and look back at your life and
you see how things are now, and you try to compare
it to what they might have been, you don't know
where you would be had you taken a turn off in the
road and gone a different direction.
So I'm sitting here at home and I'm talking to you
Elizabeth. It's hard to argue with that I took any
wrong turns in my life. I seem to be ahead of the
dogs even though the dogs were pretty close at times,
but I'm still ahead of 'em. I'm 76 years old and my
health is not bad, and I'm very pleased to be able
to sit here and tell you about my experiences.
I hope -- this is about as far as I can go with any
war experiences that I had or anything that happened
to me in my life.
My father, when he retired, turned Motor Parts Company
over to Ben and myself and we ran it until my health
was such that I was not being a value to him, so I decided
to retire and I took the money that I got from the sale of
Motor Part, my share of Motor Parts Company and tried
to invest it as wisely as I could so that I wouldn't throw
it away. If I had not used it and done something worthy
in a constructive way at the time that I got out, I'm sure
that it would be long gone now and not helped anybody.
But I managed to do some fairly wise things.
Your mother and I each have a burial policy and
we have health insurance aside from our Medicare,
and we have extended care so that should we get to a
point where we need to go to a convalescent home
then it's taken care of, so I feel that I've done pretty
well with the money that was given to me for my share
in Motor Parts Company.
I still go down there to get my mail because my mail
still goes to box 169 and that's Motor Parts Company.
It makes your mother a little mad at times to think about
me having to go down there to get my mail when
it could be sent out here, but I don't know what it
would take to change that, I'd have to write too many people.
Anyway it's been a pleasure talking to you.
I hope that you can make something from what I have
said to you, and if there anything in here that is not clear
let me know and I will be in touch with you and
straighten it out with you as closely as I can."
Charles H. Estes, Jr. (December 1922-October 1999)
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
The Charlie-Boy Chronicles: A WWII Pilot's Story: "He Was The Finest Boy I Ever Knew" ---A Tribute t...
The Charlie-Boy Chronicles: A WWII Pilot's Story: "He Was The Finest Boy I Ever Knew" ---A Tribute t...: LT. COL. JOHN W. CONGLETON It was in Lincoln, Nebraska at the Army Air Corp. Airfield that Papa first met the men assigned to his crew. ...
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
