Long ago and far away: World War II vets remember the war

Friday, May 28th 2004, 6:02 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Here are remembrances from among thousands of World War II veterans who visited Washington on Saturday for the dedication of a memorial to those who served in the war:

It was November 1944, and Don LaFond was 21 years old and battling Japanese on the Western Pacific island of Saipan with the 2nd Marine Division.

``We had just come out of a jungle area to a clearing, and that's when the Japanese were waiting for us,'' he remembers. ``They opened fire on us. They threw everything at us but the kitchen sink.''

His buddy to the right took a bullet to the mouth, so LaFond picked him up and tried to carry him to a boulder nearby. As he carried his friend, more gunfire rained in. Bullets hit his knapsack and punctured his canteen inside. He felt something running down his leg and thought it was blood. Turned out it was water from the canteen, he said.

The incoming fire continued, and shrapnel slashed into LaFond's stomach. ``It was just like I had been hit by a ton of bricks,'' he said. Medics patched him up.

But his friend, James Garner, didn't make it. So many years later, LaFond, who lives in Marina del Rey, Calif., looks at the new World War II Memorial and tears well up. He says he can't help but think of James.

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Wilbert Huebner, 84, said he enlisted in the Coast Guard when he was 22 years old because ``the draft board was breathing down my neck, and my brother in the Army infantry wrote me letters and warned me not to be drafted. ``

``My brother said, `pick your choice of service, so you don't have to sleep with the mice and rats,''' said Huebner, of Readlyn, Iowa. He took his brother's advice, but there was no getting away from the war.

Huebner said he spent two years on the destroyer USS Lansing, first off North Africa and then on to Europe.

``The most terrifying thing was all the time being rooted out for general quarters calls whenever they had spotted a submarine,'' which would happen at any hour, day or night, he recalled.

``We'd need to, all the time, carry our life preserver. You never took that off except when you went to sleep.''

Sixty years later, only one-fourth of the crew Huebner served with are still alive. Huebner and his surviving shipmates had their final reunion last year. ``So many are gone,'' he said; ``and for those of us who are still alive, some can no longer travel because they have medical problems.''

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George Dolezal was a teenager in Kansas when World War II was raging. He knew what he had to do.

``I just felt I ought to go and serve,'' Dolezal recalls. He was only 17, so his parents had to sign for him so he could enlist in the Navy and become a Seabee.

Dolezal got in near the end of the war and served with Construction Battalion 91 in the Marshall Islands for about a year.

His trip to Washington for the memorial dedication was a day he's looked toward for years. ``I had my mind made up a long time ago that I was gonna be here come hell or high water,'' Dolezal said. ``I wouldn't have missed it for anything.''

Young people have been coming up to him in Washington and thanking him for serving, he said, and ``that really made me feel good.''

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Anthony Palazzo always knew he wanted to fly.

``I remember I used to go to Newark Airport when I was about five years old and to see those old Flying Jennys take off, I knew I wanted to fly,'' he said. So, Palazzo enlisted in the military when he was 18, and flew 28 combat missions over Germany, France and Norway while with the 384th Bomber Group of the 8th Army Air Force.

``I have some wonderful memories and also some terrible memories. The terrible ones are all the good friends I lost.'' said Palazzo, 82, from Fairfax, Va.

His B-17 took many hits. ``One time we came home with an airplane that had 150 holes in it, and two engines were out. God was with us,'' he said

Palazzo was the war memorial dedication with his son, Pasquale, who said of his dad: ``He's a real hero.''

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Air Force veteran Clarence Larson spent three and a half years as a prisoner of war. He was taken captive by the Japanese in the Philippines and forced to take part in the infamous Bataan Death March.

``It was the hardest part of my entire life,'' said Larson. ``We ran out of food and we had no replacements and everyone was sick. We had to surrender on April 9, 1942.''

His best memory: The day he was freed from a POW camp in Japan in August 1945. The Japanese camp commander came out and said, ``The American forces have defeated Japan. There will be no work today,'' Larson recalled.

``We didn't dare holler or scream or nothing else because they might have shot us,'' he said.

Larson, 83, traveled with his daughter from Fergus Falls, Minn., for the dedication ceremony. ``I thank the good Lord that I made it and that I'm here today,'' he said.

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Jane Elkins, 54, of Jacksonville, Fla., spent two years planning the trip to Washington for her World War II veteran father so he could attend memorial ceremony. She surprised her parents last Christmas with the trip laid out for them.

``It's an honor. I'm very proud of my dad,'' she said, choking back tears after the ceremony.

Her father, Paul Mercer, fought throughout Europe with the Army. ``I am here for one reason. To honor those who gave up all their tomorrows, so we could have ours ... A lot of them were my friends,'' said Mercer, 78.

He was with the 80th Infantry Division, 318th Infantry, B Company. Mercer said he recently attended a funeral of one of his best friends from the war. He said he and his friend, Joseph Slowinski, had talked of coming to the ceremony. ``He couldn't come here so I went to see him,'' said Mercer.