He’s the face of Veterans Day past — a 96-year-old widower looking back nearly eight decades to his first day as a veteran — a kid just turning 19, asking his high school sweetheart to wait for him. He had to go fight a war.
Bert Gallagher didn’t wait to be drafted, he volunteered for the draft, like a lot of young men did in World War II. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps because he wanted to be “a hot shot pilot,” but he washed out of flight school and became a waist gunner on a B-24 Liberator instead. No big deal, Bert says today. A lot of good men washed out.
The bomber held a 10-man crew. The two waist gunners aboard stood the entire mission next to a small window with a .50-caliber machine gun attached at the bottom — ready to fire if the German Luftwaffe tried to shoot them down before they reached their targets in Germany.
Fifty-seven times they went out on missions, and 57 times they returned safe, thanks in large part to their bodyguards — an escort of Tuskegee airmen giving them cover. Other crews were not as fortunate.
“I spent three years watching our planes go down or being blown up in midair with guys falling out of them,” Bert says. “Those men had sweethearts or wives waiting for them, too, but they were gone in a second. They never had the chance I did to get married, have a family, and make a nice living.”
Her name was Josephine, but everybody called her Joy. She was the girl back home writing the letters and keeping the faith. Praying she wouldn’t get a call from Bert’s mother saying a telegram from the Army had just arrived and she was afraid to open it. Could she come over?
When he finally set foot back on American soil after three years Joy was there waiting. She gave him a big kiss and laid down the law. “I’ve waited long enough,” she told Bert. “We’ve got to get married. It’s now or never.”
Still in uniform, Bert chose now. They were married 69 years before Joy passed away in 2016. If ever a person fit their name, he says, it was his Joy.
They had five children — four girls and one boy. The kids talked about their father’s Greatest Generation with pride, as they should. It took a lot of guts and heartache for all those young men to leave their wives and sweethearts with no guarantee they’d ever return.
Sixteen million men served, 400,000 died, with another 79,000 unaccounted for. Heartache and guts.
“One of my daughters thinks young men today wouldn’t serve, but I disagree,” Bert says. “I think they would. They’re a lot more vocal than we were, but if this country were attacked they’d answer the call to duty, just like we did. I’m sure of it.”
The long retired Glendale Fire Department arson investigator is the last man left from his crew, and even all these years later, he can see their faces and remember their names.
“We were best friends, all of us close to the same age,” he says. “Our pilot was only 20. I was 19. Now, I’m 96, and my body feels every year of it, but my mind is still young.
“I can remember it all, what we did to help win that war, but I have to tell you this. I’m no hero. The guys who didn’t make it back were. Every combat veteran will tell you that. They gave the ultimate sacrifice.”
So, please, he asks, take a few minutes and remember them on Veterans Day this Wednesday. We honor our veterans with two national holidays a year. It’s not a lot to ask.
Dennis McCarthy’s column runs on Sunday. He can be reached at dmccarthynews@gmail.com.
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