LYNNFIELD — Veterans of World War II and the Vietnam War shared their experiences at an event called “Those Bastards Are Trying to Kill Me,” hosted by the Lynnfield Historical Society.  

Ed Pertz said he served in World War II in the 12th Air Force out of Italy, where he flew B-26 Marauders. 

These planes had the nickname the “Widowmaker,” Pertz said.  

“I suppose the best way to start is, ‘How did I start?’ I was 18 years old — didn’t know any better. I ended up going into the service in 1943, two weeks out of high school,” Pertz said. 

Pertz said he was taught how to take .50 caliber machine guns and 75-millimeter cannons apart at an armament school in Denver, Colorado. 

Pertz said he earned his first stripe after going to school and went through gunnery training in Laredo, Texas. After graduating, he landed at Tyndall Field in 1943, where he was assigned to a B-17 Flying Fortress bomb group as a turret gunner in November of that year.  

Of the nearly 600 missions the 320th Bomb Group flew, Pertz said he flew 67 of those missions. 

The 320th spent more time in combat than any other Air Force group and received two presidential citations and the Croix de Guerre (Cross of War), Pertz said. 

Lou Grossman said, “My tour of duty was in the Pacific for two years. At that time, as Ed was saying, we were all youngsters, 17, 18 years old.”

Grossman served in the Navy during World War II and said he attended fire-control school at Carnegie Tech while his ship was under construction. 

Grossman said he served on a Landing Ship, Tank (LST), which was designed by the British and sent to the United States to be assembled. 

“Evansville, Indiana, Pittsburgh, right here in Boston, Hingham, the Boston Navy Yard, they were all building LSTs. And they built a total of 1,000 LSTs,” said Grossman. 

Grossman said his duty was on the main deck on the bow of the ship. 

He said a rite of passage in the Navy is the transition from “pollywog” to “shellback.” 

Grossman said that on their way to New Guinea, they had to cross the equator. Before sailors cross the equator, they’re called “pollywogs.” After they cross the equator, they become “shellbacks.”

“That’s one of the biggest things in the Navy for a sailor,” said Grossman.   

“I was glad to serve in the Navy. I’m proud to be here today,” Grossman said.  

Jack Lucas, who served in the Vietnam War, said he trained at Fort Dix, New Jersey. 

Lucas said that after eight weeks of being trained as a mortarman, he attended jump school at Fort Benning, Georgia, and was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division. 

Lucas said he was flown to Vietnam as a member of the 3rd Brigade after the Tet Offensive began in late January. 

Lucas said the 82nd Airborne Division is known as “America’s Guard of Honor.”

He added, “If there’s any problem anywhere in the country or anywhere in the world, the 82nd Airborne always has one brigade ready to leave within a week. And in that brigade, there was one battalion that was ready to leave in 18 hours, and that’s what happened.”

Lucas said he was the commanding officer’s radiotelephone operator, and the night he first felt, “These bastards are trying to kill me,” was on a small trestle bridge near the village of Phủ Bài. 

“It was dark, and all of a sudden, just boom, we were ambushed. We were ambushed at the bridge. We weren’t three kilometers from our base camp, and we had to go all the way to Huế,” said Lucas. 

Lucas said there were no casualties during the ambush, but there were injuries. 

He added that he earned a Purple Heart due to an injury sustained to his wrist.

The full stories shared at the event are available on the Town of Lynnfield’s Vimeo. 

The post WWII vets trade stories in Lynnfield appeared first on Itemlive.

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