WWII unit gets celebrity treatment in British town

HORHAM, England — The first time a training sergeant told Marion “Mac” Makarewicz to climb into the ball turret of a B-17 Flying Fortress, the lean and lanky teenager asked, “Are you nuts?”

But Makarewicz, now 80, of Crosswell, Mich., eventually would fold his frame into those cramped quarters 35 times for combat missions over Europe during World War II. He finished his final mission before his 20th birthday.

His efforts made him a celebrity Sunday at Horham, where he was sought out for autographs and photos. Makarewicz was one of about a dozen veterans of the 95th Bomb Group who returned last week to their home during World War II.

More than 200 people showed up to honor the veterans at buildings once used by the 95th during the war, but recently turned into a museum.

“He’s better than a rock star,” said Rachel Smith, 33, after receiving the autograph of Leonard McReynolds, 87, a former pilot from Chehalis, Wash., who flew 35 combat missions. “When you realize they did what they did when they were so young — 20 years old some of them — it’s phenomenal.”

During the war, dozens of airfields sprang up in eastern England as America joined the fight in 1942. Many have completely disappeared. Remnants of others can be found if one knows where to look.

In Horham, locals used money from a lottery fund to refurbish a few remaining huts and create a museum. The first goal was to preserve murals painted on the brick walls by an airman named Nathan Bindler. Bindler’s paintings of a knight, court musicians and other scenes of Elizabethean England are still there.

Sunday’s ceremony attracted vintage World War II vehicles and folks in 1940s fashion.

U.S. Air Force Col. Audrey Wolff, commander of the 100th Maintenance Group at RAF Mildenhall, was the keynote speaker. She traced the history of the U.S. Army Air Force in England and the shared heritage of the 95th and the 100th Bomb Groups.

Addressing the vets, she said, “I salute you for your dedication and sacrifice.”

Veterans were blown away by the fuss made over them.

Dick Saucier, 81, of Eagan, Minn., said Americans don’t understand how much the British suffered as they battled Germany virtually alone for two years.

“They recognize that we actually did save them,” he said.

Albert Forrester, 86, of Ferriday, La., a former navigator, said not only Brits alive at the time are appreciative.

“The second and third generations [remember],” he said.

Widow finds honored ground

HORHAM, England — More than 60 years ago, Barbara Spork got the worst news a military wife can receive: Her husband, William Starns, was missing in action over France.

It was the eighth mission Starns had flown for the 95th Bomb Group from an airfield at Horham. The mission was Feb. 6, 1944, barely 18 months after the couple’s wedding date.

Thirty days later, another telegram arrived. Starns was listed as killed in action.

On Sunday, Spork, 84, who remarried five years later, visited the last piece of England her husband saw.

“It’s very sentimental to me,” she said, accompanied by her two grown children from her second marriage. “When I walked in the Quonset hut, I almost broke down.”

Spork said she spent the war years hoping against hope that her husband had been taken prisoner. But when the war ended, the brother of the mission’s co-pilot was able to learn about the mission and confirm the death.

“Sixty-one years, I’ve wanted to put my feet on the ground where my husband flew his missions,” she said. “I’ll remember this the rest of my life.”

Spork accompanied 12 veterans of the 95th Bomb Group to Horham last week. At a ceremony honoring the vets and the 618 men from the unit who died, the cost of the war was never far from the surface.

Leonard McReynolds, 87, a former B-17 pilot from Chehalis, Wash., who flew 35 combat missions, recalled, “I lost two crewmembers. I lost a tail gunner on the first mission. My radio operator had a nervous breakdown on the fifth mission. He crawled up on the radio table and cried like a baby.”

McReynolds also told about his co-pilot, who refused to fly while they were in combat. Instead, he said, the co-pilot would sit in his seat and pray.

“You’d be surprised how much that helped,” he said.

— Ron Jensen