Kenneth Radnitzer and Ed Mampre were born and raised in Oak Park, three years apart and both still live here quietly as old men.
As young men, though, each endured horrendous trials by fire in World War II, Radnitzer on the ground on Okinawa in the South Pacific, Mampre in the skies over Germany.
On Sept. 27, 1944, Mampre’s Squadron 703 lost 28 of its 32 B-24s returning from a bombing run over Kassel, Germany. On April 1, 1945, Radnitzer participated in the invasion of Okinawa, the bloodiest of a line of bloody South Pacific island battles that saw 50,000 American casualties.
This Sept. 9, that service and sacrifice was honored, as Mampre, 85, and Radnitzer, 83, were among 80 veterans who flew to the nation’s capitol to visit the new World War II Memorial as part of Honor Flight Chicago. Mampre’s brother, Albert, had a reserved seat on the flight, but had to cancel because he was invited to fly to Holland to participate in observances of the 65th anniversary of the Allied invasion there. Albert Mampre served in the legendary 506 Easy Company of the 101st Airborne, whose exploits were chronicled by Tom Hank’s and Steven Spielberg’s HBO television series, “Band of Brothers.”
Besides experiencing one of the worst days in U.S. military aviation history, Ed Mampre vividly recalls his first commanding officer- film star Jimmy Stewart, who flew 10 combat missions with Squadron 703.
“A great guy,” Mampre said of Stewart. “Same as he was in the movies.”
Pride of service
For all the suffering and horrors of war, and perhaps because of it, Radnitzer and Mampre have enormous pride in their military service. Radnitzer can still tick off his military attachment- Company G, 2nd Battalion, 5th Regiment, 1st Marine Division.
“You never forget some of the experiences you have in the military,” said Radnitzer, who later served in Korea as a Marine lieutenant. “One of the best things in my life was serving in the military.”
“I was proud of what I did,” said Mampre, a lieutenant and B-24 pilot. “I’d serve again if I had to.”
“These guys are the real deal,” said Debbie King, a local real estate property office manager who volunteers for the USO and with the Honor Flights program. She decries the manner in which our country handled returning World War II vets and other later veterans.
“Our vets were sent home with a bus ticket or a train ticket,” said King.” It’s like they stuck it [the war experience] in a box in the basement.”
“I think a lot of veterans never got the congratulations they should have gotten,” Radnitzer agreed. “They put me on a train when I got to San Diego, and shipped me to Great Lakes (Naval training station). That’s where I was discharged.”
There’s not a lot of time to correct what King and others call an unacceptable mistake.
“We’re losing 1,200 World War II vets a day,” said King, who said such flights to the memorial in Washington were “literally a race against time.” That reality was underscored last year when one of the veterans with a reservation on an Honor Flight died before he could make it to Washington.
“We had a memorial on the plane, with his photo pinned to a seat,” said King.
Of the 80 people on Radnitzer’s and Mampre’s flight, “half were in wheel chairs.” Many more end up in one as the day wears on, from sheer exhaustion. The frailest vets have a single guardian with them, overseeing their every need. For the healthiest, the ratio is 2-to-1 or 3-to-1, but no one is left to fend for themselves.
King said supervising the Honor Flights is “incredibly labor intensive.” The youngest vets – those who lied about their age to enlist at 15 or 16- are 81 years old now. The oldest so far was 98.
Thrilling, cathartic
King said each and every veteran is “thrilled” to be on the flight with his colleagues. “All you have to do is come to one welcome home celebration and see what it means to them,” she said.
The experience is filled with catharsis, both for the veterans and for those watching over them. Again and again, King said, she hears veterans basically say the same thing- “I thought no one remembered us. I didn’t think anyone cared about what we did.”
King and her colleagues are out to prove that some people do remember.
After breakfast at the airport, the vets are treated to a performance by The Legacy Girls, an Andrews Sisters tribute group, with renditions of “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” and “Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree.”
“It’s 5:30 a.m., and all these 80 year old vets are up jitter bugging,” said King.
The high spirits continued in Washington, with some 1,000 people present.
“There were a ton of people cheering us on,” said Mampre. “Complete strangers are applauding and waving flags,” said King.
The vets would be greeted by another cheering crowd welcoming them home back at Midway Airport in Chicago that night.
“I’ll never forget it,” said Mampre. “Outside of marrying my wife and having my (four) children, this was the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Radnitzer said he was also thrilled to view the World War II monument, which wasn’t completed until 60 years after the war. “It was something to see,” he said. “Tremendous.”
Radnitzer gave special thanks to his hosts. “These guardian angels are something else,” he said. “They did a great job of taking care of us.”
While Honor Flight volunteers are there to watch over the veterans, not participate, the line sometimes gets blurry. .
“We have to learn to step back and let the vets have their experience,” said King.
But her own feelings are something else.
“I don’t go on a (veteran’s) flight without crying,” she said. “It’s impossible.”