You’ve unleashed some veterans trivia in me – for a town as tiny as Arenzville, I am amazed at the historic touchpoints we have among our veterans. One of the Arenzville men served as a radio man on a C-47 and earned a Distinguished Flying Cross when his unarmed transport plane downed a Japanese fighter plane over Burma (Clyde Ginder.) Another man served in the unit which claims to be the first to (unofficially) link up with the Russian Army north of the Elbe River (Jack Burrus). Another was captured during the Battle of the Bulge and survived several prison camps until he finally evaded his German captors and rejoined the U.S. Army on Friday the 13th, in April 1945 (Eldore “Bud” Nobis). My own dad was a night-fighter who flew a Hellcat fighter from an aircraft carrier based in the Pacific. In August 1945, his unit was assigned a mission which was to take them across Japan and into China. They would not have enough fuel to return, so the plan was that they would rely on the Chinese for help. At the last moment, the mission was scrubbed (the date of the planned mission was August 6th, and their flight path would have been too near Hiroshima. The dropping of the atomic bomb changed not only their orders but the course of the whole war.) Then, of course there is the Arenzville man who worked on the Manhattan Project – Eddie Anderson’s father, Howard Anderson.
Our little town gave a lot.
