Squadron's aging veterans say reunion is probably their last

<br>OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Veterans of a World War II torpedo squad say their latest reunion is probably their last after old age has claimed many members and kept others from traveling to the meetings.

Monday, September 9th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Veterans of a World War II torpedo squad say their latest reunion is probably their last after old age has claimed many members and kept others from traveling to the meetings.

``We're getting smaller in number,'' said Gail Young whose hometown of Oklahoma City hosted the get-together. ``Look at our age.''

Young and other men who served in a torpedo bomber squadron aboard the aircraft carrier USS Wasp have been meeting since 1956. Now, Young said, the survivors will vote on whether the gatherings should continue.

Thoughts at the squadron's meeting turned to a national monument for World War II veterans. Its completion is not scheduled until 2004 and many who served in the 1940s will not be around to see it.

Squadron veteran Eric Bagerow of Tulsa said a monument is not as important to World War II's soldiers, sailors and fliers as it has been to those who fought in later wars.

``We came home as heroes,'' Bagerow said. ``The Vietnam people didn't come home as heroes.''

What worries him more, he said, is the possibility that the war in Europe and the Pacific will be forgotten by new generations with no memory of it. Bagerow said he has been encouraged by a recent surge in interest.

``We give a lot of credit to (NBC News anchor) Tom Brokaw's book, 'The Greatest Generation,' for revitalizing interest in World War II,'' Bagerow said.

Bagerow also recalled how U.S. prisoners of war suffered and remembered what it was like to drop supplies to them the day after the war ended.

``They didn't even know the war was over until we flew in and dropped the supplies,'' Bagerow said. ``The next day we went back, they had gotten up on the roof of the barracks and here is what they wrote, 'The men of Bataan and Corregidor thank the Wasp.'''