From Marianna to Moosburg ... and Back: One B-17 Crewman's Story of War, Redemption, and Family Reunion

By Wayne B. Wetherington

Everyone knows that the collective sacrifices and legacies left behind by those who both fought in, and live through World War II, provide much of the basis for the personal freedoms which we all enjoy today as Americans. While everyone had a story to tell, none is more endearing, or more heart wrenching, than this personal story of one particular B-17 bombardier, Leonard Gordy. His small town upbringing and the circumstances which led up to his enlistment in the military, help to frame a beautiful setting for the saving graces that come for those who place value upon family, brotherhood, and faith in God. He was captured by the Germans, almost starved to death, and yet, managed to persevere and succeed. This is an uplifting recollection of the series of events which led up to his eventual liberation, reunion with his younger brother while at war, and their trip together back home. You will relive his actual experiences during the war in a manner that will make them your own, and put you right there, right then. inspired by actual events in Leonard's life, you will learn a little about the preparedness and skills that went into the efforts of every soldier that was attached to the United States Eighth Air Force during the war. You'll be able to picture yourself inside the B-17s as they flew their missions, not knowing if they'd ever come back. Experience the thrills and agony that went with the realizations that you'd made it safely through another mission into enemy territory. Learn the real story behind the story of what ended up happening to the prisoners of war of the famous Stalag III, where the "Great Escape" took place. Experience the humanity, and lack of it, at all levels, as you follow this brave airman and his fellow bomber group members up in flight and over enemy held territories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9781631923272

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

PREFACE

A unique and distinguishing characteristic of many of those who have lived through the most trying of times, and left the most positive of impacts on later generations, is their unquestionable humility and honor. These individuals saw themselves as simple people with jobs to do, no more, no less. They were often easily recognizable among crowds by their display of common courtesy, reverence for Almighty God, their keen awareness of their surroundings, and an unsurpassable abundance of what everyone knows as just plain horse sense. Family, friends, and foes, alike, were to become the focus of many such strong men and women. These were men and women who sought only to protect and preserve the great liberties they had fallen heir to as children of the United States of America.

I have always been amazed by the stories that flowed from the mouths of the military veterans who had many times surrounded me to tell their versions of what it was really like to be at death’s door for a worthy cause. It was easy for me to become excited and interested upon hearing from those who were actually there, since I had never taken part in any of it. For a very short time only, I was subjected to the possibility of becoming a part of the armed services, but I never ended up going in. The government was still drafting nineteen year olds in the early 1970’s when that particular birthday came along for me and I became a member of the 1972 group of draft eligible teenagers. My Vietnam era draft lottery number ended up being so high, though, that I was able to stay home and pursue my education. All of that happened, only after I had gone through the anxiety of being classified by the Selective Service Administration as 1-A, then 4-SF, again 1-A, and finally, 1-H, all within a twenty-four month period. That basically meant that I had to be ready to go, that I didn’t have to go anymore because I was a college student, that I had to go again, and finally, that I didn’t have to worry about going off to fight in the jungles of Southeast Asia, ever again. I did feel, though, as if I was there on the battlefields with all who had offered up their personal recollections of grief, grime, and glory while away serving our country in the United States military.

Though I had heard many fascinating wartime accounts, one such encounter among veterans has always particularly held my interest and touched my very soul. It took place on a morning that had started as nothing out of the ordinary. A navy veteran was eagerly explaining the aptness with which he had once performed deep-water dives of over five hundred feet during his past enlistment. At the time, he was at the wheel of an eighteen-wheeler, traveling down the highway towards Orlando, Florida. I heard my first version of the story a day later, and thought to myself, just another story, simply a different day. He was parlaying his experiences into tales to which you just had to stop and take a listen. His employer, who was riding with him in that tractor on the day before, was clearly taken aback by the serious nature of his exploits. Man, you mean to tell me that you really dove that far underwater? That stuff’s way too dangerous. A fella could end up dead doing that! He hesitated a moment and spoke again. I was in the service, though. I was a B-17 bombardier during World War II. Of course, the sailor came back with, Now, that’s the kind of stuff that I call really dangerous! Being way up in one of those airplanes, much less being one of those paratroopers who went jumping out of something that was moving that fast. No way! Especially, with nothing holding them up but a crumby piece of cloth. It only took one more response from the former sailor’s boss to silence him. I did that once, the old man quietly asserted, meaning that he actually had made one real live jump out of an airplane in his day, and had lived to talk about it.

This is the story of a small, yet brave, Georgia farm boy who honored his country with his service and sacrifice during the conflict and personal challenge we now know as World War II. This is my salute to Marion Leonard Gordy. He has always been a true gentleman to all whom have crossed his path. He was the man who jumped from that plane during World War II.

Wayne B. Wetherington

CHAPTER ONE

The Last Leg Home

As the big Eastern Airlines commercial airplane dropped down through a smattering of clouds, the sight of a distant concrete runway took upon a very welcomed look to at least two of its special passengers, brothers Leonard and Paul Gordy.

Paul and I had seen planes land before, but we now looked at things in a totally different way than the other passengers of flight number 103. Sitting in the economy section, next to a dinky little 12 by 12 window, wasn’t exactly how we had been accustomed to flying during the past three years. The flight’s other occupants could only imagine the underlying stories which accompanied the two of us as returning soldiers. Sitting pretty, all dressed up in our military officer uniforms and without even the slightest of flinches, we calmly checked out the sights below. In minutes, we would be descending the roll away stairwell that had been pushed into position at the doorway of the airplane’s main exit. We were finally on firm ground again.

We breezed through the terminal and quickly grabbed a taxi headed for downtown. The meal on the flight wasn’t that filling and our stomachs were already beginning to growl. In no time, we were sitting in a local diner, wolfing down a couple of hamburgers, all the way, and a couple of those little six ounce, ice cold Coca-Colas. It was a joy to us to be able to spin around on the bar stools by the counter and plop a nickel into the little juke box next to our elbows. Man, this was a great way to spend time. When we had finally gotten a good dose of the day’s best music; from Glenn Miller to the Andrews Sisters and Count Basie, we waddled our ways back into the street. Walking along, we couldn’t help but notice that some of the businesses on every block had closed down. Many of the local stores were still open, but the storefront windows just didn’t have a whole lot of stuff on display. Things were definitely different now from when Paul and I had left the states in 1943.

In the few following hours we were to spend in Jacksonville, Paul and I were able to accomplish a lot. We managed to find a Belk-Lindsey department store, where we had somehow agreed on what kind of a gift to buy for our beloved mother, Verna. There it was; a simple, but perfectly matched set of a red and white, plaid linen tablecloth and the six napkins that went with it. Momma would surely love it. Our little jaunt into downtown had brought us close enough to catch the pleasant aromas of the huge Maxwell House Coffee plant. The stuff that we had been drinking the past two years, when it was available, sure didn’t smell that good. We could also see the docks, which lined the mighty St. Johns River in the near distance. Many of the wives, sisters, and mothers of service men who had been deployed overseas had filled skilled jobs as longshoremen, welders, and riveters in the local shipyard at the port. The local yard was a wartime military repair facility, and handled repairs for civilian freighters. We continued to walk, and just in front of us emerged the prominent steeple of an old AME church. The old African Methodist Episcopal church was a simply built, whitewashed building, with one by four lapped board siding, probably surely sawn from the local woods around Jacksonville. I didn’t have to hear any real singing coming from the walls of that building. Just the pure sight of it put me to thinking of how I’d listened from a distance, before the war, to the gospel choirs of several of our local black churches back home in Gainesville as they bellowed out How Great Thou Art and Go Tell It on the Mountain. Before the two of us knew it, it was time for Paul and I to double back towards the bus station on Bay Street, hoping that we would manage to get our tickets and catch the next bus towards Gainesville. Luck was with us, and we bought up the last two remaining tickets for that afternoon’s scheduled trip.

In full uniform, we headed towards the open doors of the Greyhound bus to board for the last leg of our trip home. Paul and I were so excited at the prospect of making it this far that the thought had never crossed our minds that we had butted in line. An older local man, heading for the same destination, crudely reminded us of our life-threatening offense and set us in our place with the words, Hey, Soldier, you can’t go up there! Don’t you respect the line? I piped back with a quick Yes, sir. We respect the line. You see, we’ve been away for a while, and I guess we just weren’t thinking. But, if this bus is heading for our home, we plan to be on it. But, yes, we respect the line. With that being said, as the respectful soldiers that we both were, we moved to the back of the line. It was a stretch, but we managed to make the bus. Paul ended up riding all the way to Gainesville with his nose pressed against the glass doors at the bottom of the entry stairwell leading to the seats, and I was standing just above, holding on for dear life, one hand on the dashboard and the other on the hand railing.

For a trip only scheduled to last a little over two hours, the seventy miles to Gainesville gave the both of us a chance to appreciate the sweetness of home. The woods of North Florida had never smelled better, with the lasting scent of pine tar and turpentine trumpeting through the air. The clackety-clack of motor cars and logging trucks running up and down the concrete highway we were traveling resounded even beyond the roar of the three o’clock Atlantic Coastline Special. The train was powering its way on rail tracks that paralleled the roadway. For some reason, the diesel engine of the bus sounded mighty good too, even though you would sometimes catch a whiff of the burned fuel being siphoned back into the bus through an open window. The big bus finally barreled its way into the outskirts of Gainesville. We knew that we were close to home when we saw the airport on our left, because it was the first recognizable landmark at the edge of town. In just a few minutes, we were getting off at the station down on East Main, less than a block to the north of where the post office building stood. Everything looked pretty much the same as when we had left it a few years earlier, except for the newness of the busses. The chrome-streaked chariots were all lined up, ready to come and go down the two lane highways, which spread out into the little towns around Gainesville. Anyone traveling in and out of town in any direction could expect to see a lot of farmland, full of watermelon patches and cattle. There was no doubt that we were headed in the right direction when we caught a glimpse of the huge clock tower that rose above the county courthouse square. When we passed by, two little boys were sitting atop the two giant, stretched out bronze lions that lined each side of the broad set of concrete steps that made up the front entrance into the building. Those two lions were majestic, just lying there, soaking up everything the sun had to offer on a sultry Florida afternoon. A set of three railroad tracks ran right smack down the middle of Main Street, crisscrossing as they reached the southern end of town. One of the spur lines ran into the gated warehouse compound of Baird Hardware, a store that was one you could never forget, once you set foot inside. It had raised tongue and groove heart pine floors that creaked with every step that you took, and the ceilings looked to be at least twenty feet high. Little kids and even teens like me, liked to spin the nail bin, which was circular in shape, had several levels, and held every size of nail and fence post staple that customers could ever think of needing. It was mounted on a Lazy Susan and all of us liked to give it a whirl when we walked by. It drove the desk clerks crazy when a bunch of kids was in the place at one time. When you stepped outside and looked to the South, you could see the smoke rising from the steam engines that were making their regularly scheduled stops at Depot Avenue to refill their water reservoirs and load up passengers. The old A&P, where I had gotten my first paying job, was still around, as was Wise’s Drug Store, and Phifer State Bank. The Phifer building was still there, but the bank had been closed since the run on money that took place during the first part of the Great Depression. I had always heard that Mr. Phifer had taken a pistol up to his office one day, sat down in his big office chair on the second floor, and taken his own life when his financial matters got so bad that he just couldn’t take it anymore.

Alachua County Courthouse, Gainesville, FL, Courtesy State of Florida Archives

Everything looked extra special this particular day. It was good to be home. My mind drifted back as I remembered the childhood I’d known, and where I’d been, not even three years before.

CHAPTER TWO

Getting Adjusted to Florida

Twenty-two years earlier...

The year that I’ll always remember best from my time of growing up had to of been 1923. That particular year stuck out in my mind because a lot of big things just seemed to have happened in that part of my life that a person simply couldn’t forget. We lived, at the time, out in the middle of nowhere in the piney woods of northwest Georgia, in rural Chattahoochee County. Everywhere you looked, you could see nothing but long needle pine trees growing all around you, rising high into the sky. If you got your feet wet, you couldn’t help but know that all of that red Georgia clay was definitely going to get stuck between your toes. And heaven forbid, should it have time to dry there before you could wash your feet and get the stuff off of you. It dried like mortar and you practically had to pull your skin off to get rid of it. My little brother, Paul, and I, ran around the house bare footed most of the time, since it was a lot easier than having to go through the trouble of putting on shoes. If we weren’t looking up to the sky while Momma was pulling sandspurs out of the bottoms of our feet, then we were dealing with the clay between our toes. Being barefoot was just the way to go, because there was something special about being able to dip our feet in a cool creek or pond, if we happened to come up on one while we were outside gallivanting around, exploring every strange place we could.

Daddy’s farming had never made us all rich, but it had put food on the table and we all knew we were loved and cared about. I had barely turned six years old, but being the oldest left at home while Daddy was at work every day, I had already figured out in my mind that I was just a smaller version of the man of the house. Paul and I were playing in the yard on one particular afternoon, when we noticed Daddy as he came heading up the road towards our house. He had a set of reins in his outstretched hand and he was leading a horse along behind him as he walked. Evidently, sometime earlier in the week, he had traded our neighbor farmer a corn sheller for the animal he was pulling behind him. That day was going to turn out to be a special one for me, because the horse he had brought home would soon end up becoming my first horse, Charley. Daddy headed on up to us, guiding the smallish brown horse along behind him. That horse had to have been the most beautiful sight that I’d ever laid eyes on. It had a long, dark mane hanging from the back of its head and a light brown coat of hair that shined when caught by the brightness of the sun. The way I figured it, that horse had to be for me because it was way too small for Daddy to ride. Besides that, Momma now used the buggy and wagon when she needed a way to get into town and we already owned animals that could pull it. School had started the Tuesday after Labor Day that year, and Momma was already plenty tired of having to hitch up the wagon every weekday, get Paul ready so he could tag along, and haul me into town to get to school.

Sure enough, Daddy had figured that I was old enough to learn how to ride, and he got me started on some serious horse-riding lessons the next day. It only took a few times of