From the April 8, 2009, North Andover (Mass) Eagle-Tribune.
1. A PURPLE HEART, FINALLY--John Gale lost some hearing in a battle with German bombers over Algiers port with an anti-aircraft automatic weapons unit. Monday, in Plaistow, N.H., he got his Purple Heart.
He met his late wife, Jaqueline while stationed in France.
"I left America with a barracks bag, a rifle and a helmet, and came back with a truckload of furniture, a wife and a daughter." He met his wife in Toulon, France, "I asked her to dance, and, of all things, it was the tango. It is very sensual." He made up his mind right then and there to marry her.
2. RAF-- Douglas Oxby, 89, died. Enlisted in the RAF as a teen and fought in World War II. In Anglesey, the Mediterranean and Egypt, he and the pilot shot down 22 enemy aircraft. He was not at D-Day.
In mid-1942, he was sent to protect Malta which received more German bomb tonnage than London because of its strategic location as a port used to send support to Egypt.
The Greatest Generation. --GreGen
The USS North Carolina (BB-55) My all-time favorite warship. As an elementary school student in North Carolina, I donated nickels and dimes to save this ship back in the early sixties.
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