Meet 1st Lt Marvin Houston

Honor Flight Fort Worth will be taking 2 flights in October to Washington, DC to visit the WWII Memorial. The flights will be on October 10 and October 16 on American Airlines out of DFW International Airport. Each flight will have 26-27 WWII veterans and their guardians. We still need donations for our October 16 flight!

Meet 1st Lt Marvin Houston
On our October 16 flight, we will be taking 1st Lt Marvin Houston. 1st Lt Houston served in the Army after graduating in ROTC from Alabama Polytechnic, now Auburn University. He served as company commander in the Army Signal Corps in Nuremberg, Germany as part of the Occupation Forces. His unit was responsible for maintaining the army's communication system in the Nuremberg area.

  

Meet Cpl Bill Patterson

Honor Flight Fort Worth will be taking 2 flights in October to Washington, DC to visit the WWII Memorial. The flights will be on October 10 and October 16 on American Airlines out of DFW International Airport. Each flight will have 26-27 WWII veterans and their guardians. We still need donations for our October 16 flight!

Meet CPL Bill Patterson
On our October 10, Cpl Bill Patterson will accompany his brother, 1st Lt Jim Patterson on an Honor Flight to see the WWII memorial. Their sons will go along as their guardians. Cpl Bill Patterson, 89, served in Army Air Corp in the 8th Air Force. He primary responsibility was a weather observer in the Atlantic Theater in England and Sweden.

Meet PFC Charles Vanderbilt

Honor Flight Fort Worth will be taking 2 flights in October to Washington, DC to visit the WWII Memorial. The flights will be on October 10 and October 16 on American Airlines out of DFW International Airport. Each flight will have 26-27 WWII veterans and their guardians. We still need donations for our October 16 flight!

Meet PFC Charles Vanderbilt
PFC Charles Vanderbilt, 92, served in the United States Army during WWII. He will be going on our October 10 flight. While in the Phillipine Islands, PFC Vanderbilt was on the beach when General MacArthur "returned" to the Phillipines.  He was also part of General MacArthur's island hopping forces. Following the war, PFC Vanderbilt served in the occupation of Japan.

 

Meet Col Frank "No Sweat" Jackson

Honor Flight Fort Worth will be taking 2 flights in October to Washington, DC to visit the WWII Memorial. The flights will be on October 10 and October 16 on American Airlines out of DFW International Airport. Each flight will have 26-27 WWII veterans and their guardians. We still need donations for our October 16 flight!

Meet Col Frank "No Sweat" Jackson
Col Frank "No Sweat" Jackson, 91, served in the Army Air Corp during WWII. He will be traveling with us on the October 10 flight. Col Jackson flew 20 missions over Japan for the 504th Bomb Group.  The 504th Bombardment Group flew the last combat mission by the United States Army Air Forces of World War II, its last combat mission being on 15 August 1945.

  

Meet Lt JG Roy Moore

Honor Flight Fort Worth will be taking 2 flights in October to Washington, DC to visit the WWII Memorial. The flights will be on October 10 and October 16 on American Airlines out of DFW International Airport. Each flight will have 26-27 WWII veterans and their guardians. We still need donations for our October 16 flight!

Meet Lt JG Roy Moore
A pilot in the USN, Lt JG Roy Moore, 88,  will be going on our October 16 flight. During WWII he flew torpedo bombers and SB2C dive bombers off of aircraft carriers. 

  

Meet 1st Lt James M. Brown

Honor Flight Fort Worth will be taking 2 flights in October to Washington, DC to visit the WWII Memorial. The flights will be on October 10 and October 16 on American Airlines out of DFW International Airport. Each flight will have 26-27 WWII veterans and their guardians. We still need donations for our October 16 flight!

Meet 1st Lt James M. Brown
1st Lt James M. Brown, 94, served in the Army during WWII. He was in the 90th Infantry Division when it was hit by German artillery. During this battle, 1st Lt Brown suffered injuries that resulted in the loss of his arm. 1st Lt Brown will be going on our October 10 flight.

  

Meet HMC Otis Chasteen

Honor Flight Fort Worth will be taking 2 flights in October to Washington, DC to visit the WWII Memorial. The flights will be on October 10 and October 16 on American Airlines out of DFW International Airport. Each flight will have 26-27 WWII veterans and their guardians. We still need donations for our October 16 flight!

Meet HMC Otis Chasteen
On our October 16 flight will be Hospital Medical Corpsman Otis Chasteen, 88.  In WWII, hospital corpsmen hit the beach with Marines in every battle in the Pacific. Hospital Corpsmen are frequently the only medical care-giver available in many fleet or Marine units on extended deployment. HMC Chasteen served in the Pacific Theatre aboard the USS Bandera, the USS Herald of the Morning,  and the USS Pasadena.

 

Meet Cpl Raymond Marshall, Sr

Honor Flight Fort Worth will be taking 2 flights in October to Washington, DC to visit the WWII Memorial. The flights will be on October 10 and October 16 on American Airlines out of DFW International Airport. Each flight will have 26-27 WWII veterans and their guardians. We still need donations for our October 16 flight!

Meet Cpl Raymond Marshall, Sr
We will be taking Cpl Raymond Marshall, Sr, 91, on our October 10 flight. Cpl Marshall was a .30 and .50 caliber machine gunner for the Army during WWII. Cpl Marshall was awarded the Bronze Star during his service in WWII. He also received the Victory Ribbon and 5 Good Conduct Medals.

Meet 1st Lt James Patterson

Honor Flight Fort Worth will be taking 2 flights in October to Washington, DC to visit the WWII Memorial. The flights will be on October 10 and October 16 on American Airlines out of DFW International Airport. Each flight will have 26-27 WWII veterans and their guardians. We still need donations for our October 16 flight!

Meet 1st Lt James Patterson

1st Lt James Patterson, 91,  will be going on the October 10 flight. 1st Lt Patterson served in the Army Air Corps during WWII. He was a B-25 pilot flying in a photo reconnaissance/mapping squadron of the 13th Air Force Unit. He flew all missions in the Phillipines.

Meet Cpl Harry Whisler

Honor Flight Fort Worth will be taking 2 flights in October to Washington, DC to visit the WWII Memorial. The flights will be on October 10 and October 16 on American Airlines out of DFW International Airport. Each flight will have 26-27 WWII veterans and their guardians. We still need donations for our October 16 flight!

Meet Cpl Harry Whisler

Cpl Harry Whisler from Granbury, TX is 90 years young and will be going on October 10th flight. He was a medic in 1st Infantry Batallion of the 10th Armored Division of Patton's 3rd Army. During the Battle of the Bulge, the 10th Armored Division was the first unit to move north in an attempt to stop the German assault.

Meet PFC Keifer Marshall, Jr

Honor Flight Fort Worth will be taking 2 flights in October to Washington, DC to visit the WWII Memorial. The flights will be on October 10 and October 16 on American Airlines out of DFW International Airport. Each flight will have 26-27 WWII veterans and their guardians. We still need donations for our October 16 flight!

Meet PFC Keifer Marshall, Jr

PFC Keifer Marshal, Jr served in the USMC during WWII, Third Marine Division, 9th Regiment, F Company, 2nd Battalion, and was a rifleman. In February and March of 1945 he was involved in the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States Marine Corps, The Battle of Iwo Jima. During this battle his company was cut off from reinforcements and supplies for 36 hours, and out of of the 250 men in his company, he was one of three or four who survived - all others were killed. The casualties incurred by the F Company were the severest of the entire campaign.

This picture was chosen by the USMC as one of the 5 photographs to go into history books about the Third Marine Division to depict the Battle of Iwo Jima. Keifer remembered the photographer asking them their name and serial number after the picture was taken. But, as the photographer ran away, a shell exploded where he was and both men thought the photographer had been killed.  Both Keifer and Griffin (the other man in the foxhole) thought the other had been killed in action. They did not know each other -- had only jumped into the same foxhole during the battle and neither had seen each other or the picture until the Marine Corps invited them to Washington on the 25th Anniversary of the battle.

Caption: Defense Dept Photo (Marine Corps)
3/45  Photog: Sgt Bob Cooke
STEAM HEATED FOX HOLE IN A PACIFIC HOT SPOT-Two Marines in a hole hastily dug from smoking sulphur rook (note mine and refinery in background) stand ready to repel Japanese snipers, many of them in Marine uniform. Left to right: Pvt Robert K. Marshall, 991007, and Cpl Allen L. Griffin, 462189.

Meet Radioman 2nd Class Melvin McClendon

Honor Flight Fort Worth will be taking 2 flights in October to Washington, DC to visit the WWII Memorial. The flights will be on October 10 and October 16 on American Airlines out of DFW International Airport. Each flight will have 26-27 WWII veterans and their guardians. We still need donations for our October 16 flight!

Meet Radioman 2nd Class Melvin McClendon

In October 1942, Melvin McClendon enlisted in the Navy straight off the farm and was sent to the Naval Station Great Lakes for boot camp. He went to radio school where he was in the top 20 of that class. There he learned the German and Japanese radio codes. He served in the Atlantic and the Pacific theater intercepting German and Japanese code using D/F (Direction Finding) equipment to locate the enemy submarines. Once the locations were called in, the subs were usually bombed within a short period of time. Towards the end of the war, he was shipped back to Seattle to learn the Russian codes and then shipped to China as the war ended.

RM 2C McClendon met his wife Louise during boot camp through her brother. Louise would send her brother cookies and Melvin would eat them. In 1946, he got permission to write her and later they were married. Those must have been great cookies!

Meet Lt Col Walter "Gene" Rainwater

Honor Flight Fort Worth will be taking 2 flights in October to Washington, DC to visit the WWII Memorial. The flights will be on October 10 and October 16 on American Airlines out of DFW International Airport. Each flight will have 26-27 WWII veterans and their guardians. We still need donations for our October 16 flight!

Meet Lt Col Walter "Gene" Rainwater

Lt Col Gene Rainwater served in the Army Air Corps during WWII. He was a navigator and instructor during the war. Lt Col Rainwater will be going on our October 10 flight. He is our oldest veteran at 97 years young!

Meet CPO Herb Watts

Honor Flight Fort Worth will be taking 2 flights in October to Washington, DC to visit the WWII Memorial. The flights will be on October 10 and October 16 on American Airlines out of DFW International Airport. Each flight will have 26-27 WWII veterans and their guardians. We still need donations for our October 16 flight!

Meet Chief Petty Officer Herb Watts

CPO Herb Watts was 19 years old when he survived the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was a crew member aboard the USS Tangier.  CPO Watts will be going on our October 10 flight.

From Wikipedia about the USS Tangier's role at Pearl Harbor:
"At 07:55 on the morning of 7 December 1941, the first of two waves of Japanese carrier-based planes swooped in on the Pacific Fleet, moored at Pearl Harbor. Tangier—still abaft Utah and commanded by future Vice Admiral Clifton Sprague—was in the fight from the beginning. Her klaxon sounded general quarters three minutes later, and by 08:00 her anti-aircraft batteries opened up on the swarm of "meatball"-emblazoned planes. During the ensuing melee, Tangier′s gunners claimed three enemy planes and hits on a midget submarine which had penetrated the harbor's defenses. She and another seaplane tender—Curtiss—shelled the submarine, but the destroyer Monaghan finished it off with a two-pronged attack, subjecting it to a ramming and following up with a cascade of depth charges. By 09:20, the skies were clear of planes, and only the smoke from the burning ships and shore installations remained. Tangier began rescuing survivors from the capsized Utah."

Meet 1st Lt Valleau Wilkie, Jr

Honor Flight Fort Worth will be taking 2 flights in October to Washington, DC to visit the WWII Memorial. The flights will be on October 10 and October 16 on American Airlines out of DFW International Airport. Each flight will have 26-27 WWII veterans and their guardians.

Meet 1st Lt Valleau Wilkie, Jr.
 
Former Executive Director of the Sid Richardson Foundation, and WWII veteran Valleau Wilkie, Jr will be going with us on the October 16 flight. 1st Lt Wilkie was in the AAC flying B-17 over Germany when he was shot down. He spent a few months trying to get back to England through the Dutch and Belgium Underground but ultimately ended up in the hands of the German Gestapo. He was a POW until April of 1945 when he was liberated from Stalag Luft 7A by the Allied Forces.

Never Forget

I remember exactly where I was on 9-11-2001. I was in class teaching at Southlake Carroll Senior High school. We turned on the TV and watched in shock as the events unfolded. Some of my students had parents who were flight attendants and pilots for American Airlines but fortunately none were on those fateful flights.

In the years since, let's not forget the men and women who have given their lives serving our country in the military.  God Bless the USA!

Meet Corporal Roland Brucks

Honor Flight Fort Worth will be taking 2 flights to Washington, DC in October to see the WWII Memorial. Marine Corporal Roland Brucks will be on the October 16 flight.

Marine Corporal Roland Brucks fought at in the battle at Iwo Jima.

A vet returns home after the war with a new realization . . .

As I listened to some of the WWII vets who had gone on the May 2012 flight with Honor Flight Fort Worth, I was touched by this observation from one of the vets about mutual sacrifice: "“I remember when I came home from the war, my aunt who had reared me as her own was there to meet me.  The first thing she said was, ‘Oh, both arms and both legs!’ It was only then that I realized the great sacrifice on the part of those who could not go.  I kept that in mind as I began to rebuild a civilian life. God bless all American Patriots!”

Sandra Shelton, HFFW volunteer

Meet LT JG Ed Carr, Jr

Honor Flight Fort Worth will be taking 2 flights to Washington, DC in October. Our first flight will be October 10. Meet one of our veterans on that flight!

LT JG Ed Carr, Jr  USN

He served in the PTO in the Navy aboard the USS Auburn AGC10 as Fighter Direction Officer, CVE66 White Plane. He fought at Iwo Jima and Okinawa.