Memorial Day Rememberance 2006

B-17s and 24s on Suicide runs
Daytime missions over Germany
Luftwaffe fighters swoop and strafe
Bandits from on high
Lumbering bombers and Brave crews
On their way to Bomb and destroy
The backbone of the German War Machine
The crew of the Miss Dianne
One fateful day
Made her way into the fray
Only to be chewed up by the Luftwaffe fighters
Crashing into the farmlands of France
A young waist gunner from Pennsylvanian Coal land
The other unknown
Were the only ones fortunate
To hit the ground
Burned, bleeding and injured
Saved by the Nazis from a French Farmer’s anger
His wheat field on fire from the crash
The Boy from the Coal Country
The only survivor of the crash
His comrade dying in his arms
Much more can be said about the Coal Country boy
His incarceration for 2 years plus as a Prisoner of War
Inhumanely treated because of nationality and surname
A traitor to the Fatherland he was considered to be
His surname was German
He was kept near Krems
In Stalag 17b
Marched across the Austrian Alps
Fleeing the wrath of Stalin’s troops
Into American troops arms
Repatriated and told to forget their pain,
After thirty days leave back in the planes again
These are the men who fought and died
In the second most costly war
Fought by American hands
Men who would blush if called Patriot
They did what they had to do
And when they finally got to come home
No one shunned for doing their job
In fact they were welcomed by appreciative mobs
Remember this day those who survived and who died
Not only this war but the ones to follow
Young men called to do what they must
To right wrongs
To maintain a nation’s legacy
Cemeteries filled with remains of these men
Hallowed ground, their only reward
Their credo is this, in the words of The Christ
Greater love hath no man,
Than to lay down a life for a friend.

© Gary Hurst 2006