By: Helen Mooradkanian – October, 2013 TEWKSBURY – Nineteen-year old George A. Flibotte, U.S. Army Air Corps, now of Tewksbury, was with the Ninth Air Force stationed across the English Channel from Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944. As part of the 1925th Ordnance Ammunition Company, he was loading bombs onto convoys of trucks […]
By: Helen Mooradkanian – May 2013 In this Memorial Day issue, we honor a local WWII veteran who survived the brutality of the Japanese POW camps and the “Hell Ships.” Although he passed away February 3, 2013, shortly before his 93rd birthday, his story of courage and endurance lives on. *** Sergeant Victor Cote, […]
Tech Sgt. James Moore, USAF It is now possible for us to remember a true patriot. Sworn to silence for a period of time, even to his own family, John Katsaros can finally reveal his story of perseverance, courage, and heroism to us. We hear stories about freedom fighters. However, an airman of this […]
By: Ted Tripp – September, 2006 LAWRENCE – In early 1945, Pvt. Eldon Berthiaume of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division was captured by the Germans in the small village of Utweiler, Germany. He and other Americans taken prisoner were force-marched deeper into Germany and, after a temporary stay at a transitional POW camp, ended up […]
By: Dr. Charles Ormsby – November, 2005 Harvey Gibeau was born in Lawrence in 1923 and after high school he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps in the late 1930s. He vividly remembers the ever-present sense of patriotism that prevailed. Patriotism was a common household word and was an expected personal trait in his family. In […]
By Dr. Charles Ormsby – August, 2005 Bound, blindfolded and badly injured, Captain Jim Mulligan was led through the angry crowd of Vietnamese peasants. They screamed in Vietnamese while striking him with sticks and pelting him with stones. He was then placed on a mound of freshly dug earth while a man made a loud and […]