On 10 July 1944, Lt. Jim Flowers led a platoon of four Sherman tanks to the aid of a battalion of infantry that was surrounded by elite German paratroopers on the summit of Hill 122 in one of the fiercest battles of the Normandy campaign. His tanks succeeded in breaking the Nazi defenses and leading a company off the hill, with the rest of the battalion to follow. Soon, however, all four tanks were knocked out, with three of them going up in flames. For Flowers, the ordeal was just beginning. Nine of the 20 crew members were killed, several wounded and two were both wounded and captured. For...

Bob "Big Andy" Anderson, a farmboy from Prophetstown, Illinois, was drafted into the horse cavalry in 1941. In 1943 the 11th Cavalry was mechanized as part of the fledgling 10th Armored Division. The independent 712th Tank Battalion was broken out of the 10th and spent most of the war in Europe attached to the 90th "Texas-Oklahoma" Division. A tank driver, Big Andy spent 11 months in combat from Normandy, through the Battle of the Bulge, the Siegfried Line, across Germany and into Czechoslovakia. He earned three Bronze Stars and had 162 points, and thought it was a joke when an officer asked...

The Kassel Mission bombing raid of Sept. 27, 1944, was one of World War II's most spectacular air battles. Thirty-five B-24s of the 445th Bomb Group flew off course, lost their fighter protection, and were ambushed by as many as 150 German fighter planes. Jim Baynham was a 19-year-old pilot from Texarkana, Texas. John Ray Lemons of Dallas was a waist gunner in his crew. Their Liberator was among the first ones hit. The two men bailed out, Baynham becoming a prisoner of war in Stalag Luft I and Lemons in Stalag Luft IV. The 445th Bomb Group lost 25 planes in the furious battle. Many German...

"I had two kills and one probable. ... The second one, we always flew in different boxes. You'd have a high box, a middle box and a lower box. The lower box was kind of a Purple Heart box. The second one, we were in the low box, and the fighter] kind of circled. I lost track of it, and it came up from underneath and made a 90-degree turn and started firing. Of course my rapid fire I think got him, but he just, just a flash of light, that's all, I couldn't tell, I blew it up. But ... after that happened, I said a little prayer, God bless the guy, he was in the war just like I was, fighting...

Gene Crandall was a propeller specialist and all-around mechanical troubleshooter in the 445th Bomb Group in World War II. Floyd Ogilvy was a waist gunner who flew 30 missions on a B-24. In 1999, while researching the ill-fated Kassel Mission of Sept. 27, 1944, author Aaron Elson met Crandall and Ogilvy at a Cracker Barrel in Battle Creek, Mich., and the three talked well into the night. Although Crandall was on the ground and Ogilvy completed his missions before the ill-fated Kassel Mission, on which 35 Liberators of the 445th flew off course and were ambushed by approximately 120 German...

During the epic breakout from the Chosin Reservoir, Marine Sgt. Mathew Caruso, assigned as a chaplain's assistant, heroically saved the life of Chaplain Cornelius "Connie" Griffin at the cost of his own life. on December 6, 1950. Six days later, in New England, Mathew's son was born. Fourteen months after that, his father's Silver Star was presented to little Danny Caruso in a ceremony that made national headlines. In 1953 the Caruso Memorial Chapel was dedicated at Camp Pendleton. Two years after that, Mathew's remains were repatriated and his brother John, himself a Marine, served as his...