He Bombed the Nazis. 75 Years Later, the Nightmares Began.

[oldbrownhat]

Like most of his generation, John Wenzel returned from World War II with no interest in sharing memories. Just shy of his 100th birthday, he found he could no longer ignore the past.

Article here.

...John Wenzel, a veteran, automotive executive, father and grandfather, had recently moved into a senior living apartment in Brooklyn Heights, the Watermark on Clark Street, a new, frills-and-all building with a Manhattan skyline view. He would soon turn 99 and become the oldest resident there. Since his wife, Alice, died more than 10 years earlier, he had settled into a quiet rhythm, alone with his jazz records and his painting.

And suddenly, out of nowhere, these nightmares. He feared he had suffered a seizure, but his vital signs were normal. His adult daughters, Emily and Abby, were also worried. Their father had always been so steady and predictable and was never prone to this sort of profound disquiet.

Looking for its source would send Mr. Wenzel and his daughters on a journey back more than 70 years, to a time and a place he had worked purposely his entire adult life to leave behind, to World War II and the skies above Italy...

...On April 14, [1945] Lieutenant Wenzel led a team of four fighter planes, providing air support for units pushing toward a rail hub in the town of Zocca. Lieutenant Wenzel scored a direct hit with his bombs, destroying enemy guns.

Then a German shell burst right outside his cockpit.

Fragments sliced into his plane, tearing his uniform. Bleeding from his neck, he circled around for another attack before guiding his heavily damaged aircraft back to the base.
His actions that day would earn him a Purple Heart, but first, Lieutenant Wenzel returned to the air.

..."The fire had consumed most of my chute, plus the seat of my pants, and was starting on my seatbelt, which burned like the wick to a cheap firecracker."

He couldn't eject without a parachute, and opening the cockpit would feed the flames with oxygen. His only option was to push on to Pisa..."
​

John Wenzel in his Brooklyn apartment on his 100th birthday. Credit...Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times

 

[kaaskop49]

During 1995, the 50th anniversary of the end of WWII, there were parades, celebrations and remembrances. And for the 1st time, never before, some of the elderly veterans began to have flashbacks...

Kaaskop49
Shield #5103

 

[Krogen]

Thank you for posting the article, oldbrownhat. Those old warriors have my deepest respect. They gave so much to us that I can't begin to repay. It is vital to hear, absorb and remember their stories.

 

[oink]

My dad died at 86 in 2006. A twice wounded WWII Army vet of the European theatre. He never had issues until his last years. Then he too started having nightmares of the war. Other than some continuing issues from Nazi shrapnel that he carried in his lungs to his grave, he never had any obvious issues and never complained of any until his final years. That saddened us because he already had enough going on in his later years.

I gather from this thread that it must be a somewhat common occurrence for combat vets.

Edit: Fix missing word.

 

[oldbrownhat]

...I gather from this thread that it must be a somewhat occurrence for combat vets.

I'd guess that for many, "getting on with life" after the war kept the demons at bay, but perhaps in later years, when life slows down and you have more time to yourself, they can come back to haunt you. I suppose it has always been this way, but today we are more aware of it due to our understanding of what is now known as PTSD.

I recently posted a thread about Dr. C.W. Minor, a Civil War veteran who was a major contributor to the fledgling Oxford English Dictionary but whose battle trauma caused him to suffer hallucinations and murder an innocent man while living in London and spent many years in an insane asylum.

 

[Krogen]

I've written before about my Uncle Joe. Not a blood relative, but such a close family friend he was my Uncle. I always believed he was an enlisted man. I didn't know the reality until the day of his military funeral. I saw his marker and learned he was a Lt. Colonel. He had served in WWII and Korea. The honors at his funeral choked me up and the memory still does. I never knew of Uncle Joe's history except for one time he told me a little bit. It was hard for him, but Mom convinced him "the kid" should know. For that reveal, I am forever grateful. He gave a part of himself to me during that talk. One can only wonder what he kept inside that I don't know.

 

[djohns6]

My Dad was a gunner on a B-17 . He would talk about the war when you asked .I think his demons came while he was there .He was an 18 yr old kid at the time and the realization that he was taking lives was tough . Once he made it home he just got on with his life . I never saw or heard of any issues later on in his life .

 

[Beemerguy53]

Given what those veterans endured, I don't know how any of them came home and went on to live normal lives.

In the 1980s, George Wilson finally wrote about what he experienced as an infantry officer in Europe in World War II. The result is "If You Survive", one of the most graphic and gripping books I've ever read. If you ever had a relative who just didn't want to talk about what happened to him during the war, read this book and you'll understand why...

[ame]https://www.amazon.com/If-You-Survive-Normandy-American/dp/0804100039/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3R5Y9OR8V0WZS&keywords=if+you+survive+george+wilson&qid=1682999834&sprefix=if+you+survive%2Caps%2C99&sr=8-1[/ame]

 

[A10]

I think I've mentioned here before my Uncle Bill was a Hollywood marine. Met my Aunt Ivy at the USO before shipping to the Pacific theater. He would never talk about his experience.

 

[ameridaddy]

I'd guess that for many, "getting on with life" after the war kept the demons at bay, but perhaps in later years, when life slows down and you have more time to yourself, they can come back to haunt you. ...

I encountered that in a friend of my father's.
Whenever Dad came north from Florida to visit me, I'd take him to Baltimore to see his long-time friends. We'd go to his former golf club for lunch and often met a number of old friends there, some he had known since he was a teenager. On one of those lunch days, about 1995, his good friend and golf buddy George came by with his wife and sat with us. After a bunch of small talk, out of nowhere, Dad said "George was in the infantry in WWII and got a battlefield commission, then was called up again for the Korean War."
George commented about how he felt screwed by the Korean War call up, because he had already done his part in WWII.
I asked him what outfit he served in during WWII, and he paused for a long moment. Then he told us "the 89th Division" He went on to tell us that they liberated Ohrdruf in April, 1945, the first concentration camp entered by the Americans. He told us they were hardened combat veterans by this time, used to hardship and death, but after walking into the camp and seeing the stacks of rotting bodies, partially incinerated bodies, piles of bones, walking skeletons begging for food, and the overpowering stench, they were at first stunned, then they flew into a rage, gathering up the remaining guards intending to shoot them, until an officer stopped it. It was so stunning, Generals Eisenhower, Patton and Bradley visited a few days later. George said that the place was so horrifying, even the tough Patton ducked behind one of the sheds stacked full of starved bodies and vomited.
As he related this story, George became visibly choked up, struggling to get the words out, tears streaming down his face.
His wife leaned over, cradled his head and said softly "Oh, Georgie, we've been married all these years, and you never told me this before." By this time, my eyes were full of tears, as they are now just remembering George spilling that awful memory for the first time, after keeping it in all those years.

 

[Krogen]

ameridaddy: I put a "like" on your post and others' because we don't have a "respect" button. What they went through - for us - stuns me to the core. So many have said they were just doing their jobs. It was much, much more than that.

 

[Buford57]

Thank you OBH for posting the link. A friend sent it to me last week, but it wouldn't open.

Interesting and sad how society has treated our veterans.
WWII vets were honored, Korea vets ignored, Vietnam vets vilified. I suspect the veterans of our past 20 years will be considered irrelevant by their age peers who think they were there because they reached a high level in Call of Duty.

 

[Walkin Horse]

I have a dear friend who was a helicopter mechanic in Vietnam. He spent 4 days with me recently during my hernia recuperation. He had talked a little about his time there. But during his visit he opened up about the whole enlistment. From his training at Ft Eustis. The girls he met, the boat ride out of San Francisco. The living conditions at Bearcat and the things he saw during his time there.
We have been close for almost 40 years. When I was about 6 my uncle was an air traffic controller at Langley AFB. We went to visit him and he took us through a burnt out neighborhood where a plane had crashed and wiped out the houses. I remember going there and the sights but I don't remember the details. Sooo I told you that story to tell you this story. When my friend was at Eustis he met a girl with a car at a bar. She gave him her address to come see her. When he finally made to the address he found a burnt out neighborhood and never found her. He remembers this as the summer of 66. We surmised this was the first time we crossed paths. When I was 6 and he was 20.

 

[tedog]

My stepfather was in the philippines during the war. He never spoke one word about the fighting. During the news about the Vietnam war, he would just leave the room. I never asked him about his war.

 

[TXBryan]

Had an uncle, long since gone to his reward, that hit the beach on Leyte in the Philippines some hours before Douglas MacArthur. He never spoke much about the war except about the friendships he made and the comradery of his unit.

Towards the end of his life I learned he had earned a Bronze Star, and saw it, so naturally asked how. He was silent for some time but finally, amid tears, told me the story starting with his denial of having "earned" anything.

Turns out about a week into the fighting on Leyte the graves detail in my uncle's area could not keep up with the pace of battle and was falling behind. My uncle thought this a combination of the detail's own attrition and more total casualties than anticipated. The Army asked for volunteers to assist graves detail and failing that assigned some soldiers to the task, including my uncle. The TDY was to last one week before rotation.

My uncle said most soldiers did not last a week as they simply could not "take it." Those that did, my uncle included, received a Bronze Star. He was literally ashamed of it and felt completely undeserving of any commendation for helping identify and bury the "true heroes" that were his comrades.

 

[oink]

I had several uncles that served in WWII. On my fathers side, he and three others served. Other than my father, only one other served in combat. That uncle, a really great guy, survived being sunk on the escort carrier USS Bismarck Sea. He adapted well to civilian life. I don't know if he had issues in later life.

On my mother's side, her brother served in combat in the European theatre. Unfortunately, until my mother went out to Arizona (I think) and retrieved him from a hospital and brought him back and placed him in a rest home near their home town, I don't think he ever spent many days sober unless institutionalized somewhere. I don't think they knew much about PTSD at the time but he clearly suffered from it. The war took his life but did it slowly over many years. He didn't survive into old age. Well he did manage to get married and father 3 kids before he abandoned them due to his demons. And yes, all three of those kids had trials of their own, IMHO largely due to his PTSD, alcohol and abandonment. I sure hope the VA does a much better job now. He is still a hero to me and a member of the "Greatest Generation".

Sorry to bring a depressing story to the thread. But he was a hero too. Not everybody handled the stress well.

 

[jtcarm]

My dad was a Navy Pharmacist Mate, though his duty more closely resembled a corpsman.

While not in combat, I know now he must've seen some horrific sights during stints in Psych and Burn wards in the Pacific.

He only ever told us funny stories about his service, until late in life he related to me some of his experiences in a special burn hospital. This was in response to increasing burn casualties from kamikaze attacks.

He must've watched a lot of men die. Not so much from burns, but pneumonia. While men certainly died from the impact or flames, he said fumes from the burning aviation fuel claimed the majority of lives.

They once took the entire crew of a British tanker that had exploded. Over 40 men. Every one of them lost to pneumonia.

You didn't have to be in combat to die a terrible, early death.

OK, funny story:
He had to perform a lot of vaccinations.
In the 1940s, a lot (if not the majority) of young men had never been jabbed in their lives, and would tense up so hard the needle would bend.
So he would have them bend over, deliver a hard slap in the *** to relax the muscle followed quickly by the syringe thrown in like a dart.

I'm not convinced it was necessary, or if he was just having fun with a mundane job. But from the way he told the story, I think he may have enjoyed it a little too much[emoji6]

 

[Doug M.]

I knew a man who served in the Airborne in WW II. He told me never drank before he went to Europe, and that he never stopped for 35 years or so after his experiences. You tell me. I find a message there.

 

[BSA1]

My Father-in-Law was a B-29 Flight Engineer during the Korean War. He has guilt over bombing and killing innocent civilians.

On one mission a engine was hit by flak and caught fire. At this stage in the war they knew how North Koreans were mistreating POW's and the crew had taken vow not to be taken prisoner. The engine was on fire and all attempts to put it out failed. In desperation my F-I-L told the pilot to put the plane in a steep dive and try to blow the flames out. Pilot asked him if it would work to which he replied he didn't know. Well the pilot put the plane in a dive which blew the fire out. They made a safe emergency landing in South Korea. The crew went back to Japan while he stayed with the plane until the engine was replaced three days later. He was given a Air Medal for saving the plane and crew.

My F-I-L said he was pretty scrappy back then. He carried a revolver, a 1911 and a M3 Grease Gun with a extra magazines stuck in his flight boots as he was determined not to be captured alive. He had occasional nightmares reliving that bombing mission. He is 92 so I am not sure if he still does as he has dementia.

 

[Pig Hunter]

I doubt even the ones that didn't show it didn't suffer. My dad was Navy. He was on a mine layer that was in charge of a squadron of mine sweepers. Lots of stories but he still drank a lot. A friend of his from HS was in New Guinea he didn't talk about it but drank like a fish. A guy told me one time dad's friend was the only guy he knew who could drive a combine, eat a sandwich and drink beer all at the same time. I needed stitches in my hand when I was about 12. The dr that stitched me up asked if I was ok. I said I might puke. He said to miss my hand if I did. He said he had cut his hand like mine on a Thompson during a night attack. He indicated he had voided his bladder and bowels at the same time. On my mail route I met several WWII vets. One was an AA officer in ETO. He said when they finally got proximity fuses from the navy they could hit an engine with there 90mm guns. He hesitated to tell me about a fire mission his battery had on a cross road. No description other than nothing got through. He got dementia. Another was a B-17 mechanic on Mindano . He went into the hills and fought until they brought him out 3 years later on a sub. If he talked about it after noon he couldn't sleep that night. One was a B-17 navigator bombadier. He didn't say how many missions he flew but some where to Ploesti. He was an author and proffesor. I didn't know him well enough to know many of his demons but you could sometimes see the sadness in his eyes. I contend it effected every combat veteran of every war. Some just hide it and deal with it better than others.