100-Year-Old D-Day Veteran Getting Married Near Beaches of D-Day-- Part 3

Harold Terens later got dysentery which almost killed him.  He later had another close call when a British barkeeper refused to serve him past closing time despite his pleadings for just one more drink.  Moments after he was kicked out, a German rocket destroyed the pub.

Following the German surrender, Terens again helped transfer freed Allied prisoners back to England before he shipped back to the U.S. a month later.

He married his wife Thelma in 1948.  She died in 2018 after 70 years of marriage.  His bride-to-be, Jeanne Swerlin married at 21 and then had a second husband who died after 18 years and a long term boyfriend who died in 2019.

The couple and their families will travel to Paris in late May where Terens and a handful of Americans will be honored.  It will be his 4th D-Day commemoration.

So Happy for Them.  --GreGen

100-Year-Old D-Day Vet Getting Married Near the Beaches of D-Day-- Part 1

From the March 11, 2024, Fox News "D-Day veteran, 100, to be married at World War II liberation site in France"  AP.

Harold Terens, 100, will be marrying his fiancee in France near where he first stepped ashore in that country as a 20-year-old Army corporal in 1944, a few days after the initial landings.

He will be honored in France in June on the 80th anniversary of that country's liberation.  Then, he plans on marrying his spry 96-year-old girlfriend, Jeanne Swerlin, near those same beaches.  They were both married to others before and started dating each other in 2021.

During the war she was in high school and dated soldiers who gave her war souvenirs like dog tags, knives and even a gun, trying to impress her.

Terens enlisted in 1942 and shipped to Great Britain the following year as a member of a four-pilot P-47 Thunderbolt fighter squadron as their radio repairman.  He said that all four of the original pilots died during the war.

--GreGen

Her Wedding Dress Made From Husband's Parachute-- Part 4: Wrote To Him Every Day

Aida "Edith" Bonsonto shared her story.  She and Jerry, her future husband, lived across the street from each other in Chicago but didn't meet until one summer night in 1938 when she ran into him as she was leaving a neighborhood ice cream shop with her sister.

He was standing on the corner with his cousin and the four got to talking.  "Before you knew it, we were walking and talking," Aida recalled.  "Then he asked me id I'd like to go to a movie."

From there they dated and spent many evenings sitting on her front porch.

By December 1942, when Gerald was inducted into the Army, the couple was going steady.  "Before he left, he asked if I would accept his ring and if I would wait for him," Aida said.  She promised she would.

"I wrote to him every day without fail.  Every day he had a letter from me.  I never stopped writing to him," she said.

A World War II Love Story.  --GreGen

WW II Service of George H.W. Bush-- Part 2: Back to the San Jacinto and Discharge

In November 1944, George Bush returned to the USS San Jacinto an participated in operations in the Philippines until his squadron was replaced and sent home to the United States.  By 1944, he had flown 58 combat missions.for which he received the Distinguished Flying Cross, three Air Medals and the Presidential  Unit Citation awarded to the San Jacinto.

He was then reassigned to a training wing for torpedo bomber  crews at the Norfolk Navy base, Virginia.  His final assignment was to the new torpedo squadron VT-153 based at Naval in Station Gross Ile, Michigan.

He was honorably discharged from the Navy  in September 1945, one month after the surrender of Japan.

While he was still in the Navy, he married Barbara Pierce in Rye, New York, on January 6, 1945.

--GreGen

John S. McCain, Jr.-- Part 3: Lackluster USNA Career, Then, Subs

John S. McCain, Jr. entered the United States Naval Academy at age 16 in 1927 and accumulated many demerits and had just mediocre grades.  He was also known as a drinker and quite the partier, very dangerous during Prohibition.  He graduated  in 1931 #423rd out of 441.

Upon graduation, he was appointed ensign and assigned to the battleship Oklahoma.  (His father had also spent time on the doomed cruiser USS San Diego which was sunk by a mine during Wold War I.)  The USS Oklahoma was sunk at Pearl Harbor in 1941.

While stationed on the USS Oklahoma, based in Long Beach, California, he met Roberta Wright and when her parents objected, they eloped and were married in Tijuana, Mexico.

He managed to get into Submarine School at Naval Submarine Base New London in Connecticut.  There he placed #28 out of 29.

Next came service on the  old World War I-era submarines S-45 and R-13.  In 1940 and early 1941, he was on the more modern Skipjack.  In April 1941, he received his first command, the World War I submarine O-8.  This ship had been decommissioned in 1931, but with WW II imminent, was called back to duty as a training ship with McCain in command.

--GreGen

World War II Marriages

Harry "Red" Madsen met his wife, Betty Kaplan, while in the Army.  She was from Brooklyn.  He was from Iowa.  It is not likely they would have met had it not been for World War II.  I wrote about him April 3 and 4  "Hoist One for Red."

Last month I wrote about the Liberty Ships and the North Carolina Shipbuilding Company in Wilmington, N.C., and the first ship launched, the SS Zebulon Vance, eventually ended up carrying war brides back from Europe.  Again, not likely these new wives would have met their husbands had it not been for the war.

My wife's father, Ambrose, grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin.  Her mother, Frances, grew up in Kansas.  Amby was stationed in Kansas which is where they met.

The War Taketh Away and Giveth, I Guess.  --GreGen

Christmas For the Boys At War-- Part 2: Miss Connie & the Sergeant

"The response was overwhelming.  About 21,000 readers volunteered o send gifts, and for some it was the start of long pen-pal relationships with soldiers they'd never met."

One even turned into romance and marriage.  Years later, the Tribune found Connie and Francis Harmon living on a farm near Ottawa, Illinois, and wrote:

"Sgt. Harmon, a member of the 129th Infantry regiment, opened a tinsel-wrapped parcel bearing an unfamiliar name, that of Miss Connie Roberts of Madison, Wis..  He was puzzled for he had not heard about the Tribune campaign.  ...Grateful for being remembered with candy, a fountain pen, and other presents, Sgt. Harmon wrote to thank Miss Roberts."

Soon they were writing each other regularly and sharing photographs.  They met in person for the first time in 1945 and got married on Valentine's Day 1946.  They had six children by the time the Tribune wrote their story in 1954.

Romance After a Gift of Friendship.  --GreGen

William Croswell Croft, USNA Class of 1940-- Part 2: A Question of Marriage

He was detached from the USS California in February 1941 and ordered to the USSIndiana which was fitting out at Newport News, Virginai.

While there, he married Barabar Engh, his 1940 "Color Girl" in March 1942, before it was legal to do so.  He married the same girl again in April 1942 after it was legal so he could claim the $40/ month housing allowment without having to lie about the marriage date.

He served as the Turret, Division and Deck Officer on the USS Indiana until 1944.

--GreGen

War Stamp Brides-- Part 1

Back on feb. 19th, I wrote about a Life Magazine with a picture of a bride with the title "War Stamp Bride."  I had not heard this term before.  I'd heard "war Brides," but not "War Stamp Bride."  I had to investigate further.  Sadly, there was no entry in Wikipedia for it so I had to do some more searching.

I found this account from the July 10, 1942, Lorain (Ohio) Journal  "Lorain to Have 'War Stamp Bide,' City Invited to Shower and Public Wedding Ceremony."

"All of Lorain is invited to a 'war stamp and bond shower for the city's first war stamp bride, Miss Irene Ketchum, 20, 1154 E. River St., Elyria.

"Climaxing Lorain's observance of Victory Corsage day today and tomorrow, Miss Ketchum will be married to Joseph G. Anthony, 21, Cleveland, in a public ceremony on the show window of the Smith and Gerhart Co..

"For the ceremony, the bride will carry  large war stamp corsage."

It was a part of a Victory Corsage Day in July 1942, "Retailers for Victory" national campaign to sell War Stamps and Bonds.

More to Come.  --GreGen