Memories of World War II from Essex, Deep River, and Chester

In a bestselling book, news anchor Tom Brokaw called the men and women who served in the Second World War the Greatest Generation. And after Elizabeth Van Wazer of Essex read an article in the magazine of the American Association of Retired People (AARP) reporting that some 1,000 veterans of World War II pass away every week, she decided she needed to do something.

Van Wazer, British by birth although she has lived in America since the l950s, joined the Royal Navy during the war. Recently she invited four Connecticut friends who also served in the military during the Second World War to share their memories. With her, reminiscing around a table on her terrace, were United States Air Force veterans Bob Blair of Chester and Bill Cooney of Marlborough, along with Robert Johnson of Deep River and Doug Demarest of Essex, both of whom did their military service in the United States Navy.

"There are so few of us left to tell our stories and we're in our 80s and 90s," Van Wazer said.

She showed a picture of World War II veterans in Essex taken on Memorial Day several years ago. Now, she is the only one in the photograph who is still living.

Van Wazer, who grew up in Liverpool, said she couldn't wait to join the Royal Navy at 18.

"Everybody that could was joining something. I was desperate to get in," she said.

Once in the service, she worked as a secretary.

She was in London during the period of the Blitz when German rockets flew into the city every night and Londoners huddled underground in subway stations for safety.

"All you heard was the whistle they made as they passed over," Van Wazer said of the rockets. "If the whistle stopped suddenly instead of fading away, then you knew the rocket was falling and you'd better pray."

Demarest said the danger in the west Pacific where he served on a destroyer escort was not only from Japanese submarines but also from destructive typhoons.

"I was a deck officer at the age of 20. That's an awful lot of responsibility for a young man," he recalled.

Johnson didn't serve overseas, but at a naval base in Pensacola, Florida.

"I was in the office. It sounds like a racket, but that's where they needed me," he said.

Blair remembered his last flight, his 25th, as a top gunner on a B-24 fighter plane based in Italy and flying missions over Austria. That's the flight on which the plane was hit, badly injuring the pilot and another crew member. With the plane badly damaged, the rest of the crew decided to jettison its bombs and land at an American base in northern Italy. Blair, who wasn't harmed, was sent back to the United States to train on B-29s for the Pacific theater.

"The war ended before that happened," he said.

Cooney wasn't so lucky. He served with the 8th Air Force in England and was shot down on a mission over Germany. He parachuted to safety, but spent the next year and a half as a prisoner of war in a German camp on a peninsula jutting out into the Baltic Sea. The prisoners, he said, were fed twice a day, always the same thing-black bread and soup.

"What I remember was how cold it was," he says.

At the prison camp, he says, the guards told all the prisoners that Germany would win the war because it had the V-1 and V-2 rockets. The prisoners, however, had a comeback.

"We told them we had Henry Ford and he had the V-8," Cooney said.

The veterans recalled the small things as well as large outlines of the war. They remembered the sound of Glenn Miller and the words of the songs like "Don't Fence Me In" and "Chattanooga Choo Choo."

Blair remembered the Andrews Sisters's singing "Rum and Coca Cola." He also remembered the small survival kit sewn into his flight vest that contained a needle and thread, a compass, a knife, and clean underwear.

"I'll never forget that-the clean underwear," he said.

Cooney recalled the British airmen who described the Americans as overpaid, over-sexed, and over here. The Americans, in return, described their British colleagues as underpaid, under-sexed, and under Eisenhower.

Van Wazer recalled complaining so loudly about the food served when she was stationed in Scotland that she was brought up on court martial. Defending herself, she won acquittal.

All the veterans remember an attitude toward the conflict that was different from more modern wars.

"We knew who the enemy was. It's different today with terrorism," Blair said.

Demarest pointed out that the conflict had almost unanimous public support.

"It was the last popular war. The most important thing then was that the whole country was behind the war. We have not had a war like that since then," he observed.

That feeling, everybody agreed, was manifested in different ways. Cooney said that if a soldier with a weekend pass hitchhiked, someone would always pick him up. And if you went into a bar, Blair added, the drinks were always free.

"You couldn't buy a drink," Cooney agreed.

After her discharge from the Royal Navy, Van Wazer took a job at an American army base, married an American, and moved to this country. Professionally, she was an interior decorator and a real estate agent. Johnson also had a successful career in real estate. He recalled when he got back from the service, he partnered with somebody from Hartford who was supposed to teach him the business.

"After two months I had sold six houses and he hadn't sold any," Johnson said.

Demarest, who graduated from Yale with an engineering degree, ran his own engineering firm. Blair served for 22 years as first selectman of Chester.

Today, a few walk with canes; others walk with care.

"We're a bit unsteady on our feet," Van Wazer said as they gathered for a group picture. "All except Doug; he plays tennis, or is it racquetball?" she asked.

Their uniforms, all the veterans admitted, would no longer fit; mostly, they agreed, because of somewhat-expanded waistlines. And their military service is just one of the memories of a full life, but a memory of which they are proud.

When people see the letters "POW" on his license plate, Cooney said, they sometimes still thank him. Van Wazer said the same thing has happened to her when people learn she was in the war. Still, Van Wazer, with her hair attractively coiffed, her smile lively, and her conversation forthright, said with a wide smile that people tell her they are amazed to learn she is old enough to have served in the military at that time.

And Blair explained what motivated his generation-a generation of young men and women more than 60 years ago-to face the possibility of death on a regular basis.

"You see," he said, "we never thought it was going to happen to us."