War taught valley vets to savor freedom

Today in recognition of Veterans Day, two World War II veterans and a Vietnam War vet share their combat experiences and offer their thoughts on what the national holiday means to them.

In interviews this month, all three said their service to the nation raised their appreciation of freedom to a higher level, especially after they found themselves in the cross hairs of the enemy. As one of them, 84-year-old John Carducci, put it:

"Freedom means a lot. You practically want to cry because of all the stuff we went through."

Name: William Dean Whitaker

Rank: Second lieutenant

Service: Army Eighth Air Force/398th Bomb Group

Location: Moosburg, Germany

Year: 1944-1945

Tears well up in William Dean Whitaker's eyes when he talks about seeing Old Glory waving outside the prisoner-of-war camp at Moosburg, Germany.

It was April 30, 1945. Gen. George S. Patton's tanks had just blasted their way through the last pockets of Nazi resistance, 40 miles behind enemy lines. With a deafening boom, one shell exploded, knocking out a guard tower.

Whitaker, a bombardier-navigator, had been captured seven months earlier. He had bailed out of a crippled B-17 bomber and survived, but landed in the hands of Nazi soldiers.

After spending a stint at Stalag Luft 3, of "Great Escape" fame, he was sent by train to be among the starving 30,000 American prisoners behind the barbed-wire of Moosburg's Stalag 7-A.

German soldiers who had retreated to the safety of the prison camp were being shot at by their own SS troops from the tower of a nearby cheese factory. With bullets whizzing by, Whitaker took cover in a trench the POWs had dug to hide in in case of an air raid.

"I will never forget the bullet that missed me by inches, before hitting the reed-lined side of the trench," he recalled. "Some of the POWs were hit, including Patton's son-in-law," who later was carried away on a stretcher with a flesh wound.

Then the sight occurred that to this day makes Whitaker choke with emotion.

"The American flag -- when it went up the tower we knew we were free," Whitaker, 86, said, fighting back tears. "The American flag was quite a symbol."

The next afternoon, Whitaker witnessed a bit of World War II history inside the camp's sick bay where he was being treated for dysentery.

Patton's jeep arrived to bring the general to see his wounded son-in-law, John K. Waters, who had been captured in Tunisia in 1943. Patton walked toward the barracks wearing highly polished boots, a freshly pressed uniform, a black belt with silver buckle and his trademark ivory-handled revolvers poking from holsters.

"I was standing at the front door and he walks up to me. He's all shined up," Whitaker said. "He says, 'How you doing, son?' I said, 'Great, now that you're here general.' "

Then, according to several eyewitness accounts, Patton, with a scowl of disgust scanned the scrawny ex-POWs, who had survived on soup made from sawdust, and said, "I'm going to kill these sons of bitches for this."

Whitaker reflected on the experience during a Nov. 2 interview at his Las Vegas home, exactly 67 years after his B-17 was shot down while bombing a synthetic coal-oil refinery at Merseburg, Germany, that was vital to Nazi tank operations.

Whitaker had already experienced a close call in the forward turret during a mission over Saint Lo, France, on Aug. 8, 1944. That's when bullets ripped through the bomber's fuselage, injuring his eyes with bits of Plexiglas, wounds for which he would receive a Purple Heart medal 60 years later.

Then, on Nov. 2, 1944, during the ill-fated flight over Merseburg, the "Stormy Weather" B-17 was attacked by German fighter planes.

"Every time we got hit you could smell it," Whitaker said about the acrid scent of burning Plexiglas and melted metal.

The tail gunner had been killed, and the plane was out of control. Finally, the pilot gave orders to bail out.

"I said, 'Man. I've got to get out of here. The plane is burning.' "

Unable to get his parachute fastened on both sides, he jumped out at 28,000 feet.

To his surprise when he pulled the rip cord, the chute opened and he drifted out of the clouds toward ground, only to be welcomed by a barrage of gunfire. "Then all of a sudden I hear cheering. I thought it was pretty strange."

The cheers were from British prisoners of war. He landed about 50 feet from a German prison camp.

Angry German civilians were about to shoot him when a Nazi corporal, Herman Bohn, known as the guard with a limp and a warm smile, ordered them not to fire. He was saved but the pilot and three crew members were clubbed and shot to death by German civilians.

Today, Whitaker said he will be thinking about how lucky he was "and my crew members who didn't make it."

Name: John G. Carducci

Rank: Private first class

Service: Army/6698th Military Police Company

Location: Bari, Italy

Year: 1945

John Carducci saw prisoner-of-war camps from the other side of the fence. He is living proof that hostilities continued more than six months after Allied Forces declared Victory in Europe Day on May 8, 1945.

He has scars to prove it.

Eager to join the Army, he had to wait until he graduated from high school in Steubenville, Ohio. His brothers, Dominic and Frank, were already serving in the Army. Frank was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge.

On June 14, 1945, John Carducci enlisted and was sent to Fort McClellan, Ala., for training before being shipped overseas in September 1945.

While stationed at an enemy prison camp on the eastern coast of Italy, soldiers in Carducci's 6698th Military Police Company occasionally would experience sniper fire from militants intent on harassing those guarding thousands of German and Italian fascist soldiers held at the camp.

Sometimes their white MP helmets with a red stripe made for easy targets. But not this time.

"We were in tents. It was raining. I couldn't see where it came from but something hit me," Carducci, 84, said, flipping through black-and-white photos and military separation papers at his Henderson home.

A bullet had struck his upper left arm. His buddy helped him stop the bleeding by wrapping the wound with cloth. Then they scrambled out of their tent to determine where in the forest they should return fire.

They were unable to pinpoint the sniper's location, "but somebody did. I heard a dozen shots after that," he said.

Carducci said he didn't want to leave his MP company because of the wound. "So I doctored it up myself with my T-shirt."

Later though, when he returned to Fort Dix, N.J., to be discharged, doctors examined his wound and suggested he stay in a post hospital for a while. He refused. "I wanted to go home, but when I got there my father gave me hell for not going to the hospital."

As Veterans Day approached, Carducci reflected on freedom and fallen comrades. "We lost soldiers in our camp."

Name: Joe F. Tasby

Rank: Corporal

Service: Marine Corps/1st Battalion 9th Marines

Location: Khe Sanh, Vietnam

Year: 1968-1969

Joe Tasby tried to join the Marines at 17 but had to wait until after his 18th birthday to enlist.

He had something to prove to the folks in his hometown of Monroe, La.

"A lot of people didn't think I'd make it because I only weighed 98 pounds," Tasby said, sitting with his daughter, Tiffini, at their Las Vegas home.

"I was getting ready to finish high school, and rather than wait until I was drafted, I wanted to be able to go to where I wanted to go," he said, noting he was "very happy when I went to Marine boot camp in San Diego."

What Tasby soon learned is that the military experience had drawbacks.

"I thought I was prepared," he said. "But the smells, the sounds, the looks on people's eyes when you got in combat, it changes you."

The Marines who were in the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines served at Vietnam's Khe Sanh combat base, south of the Demilitarized Zone.

During the Vietnam War, the unit became known as "The Walking Dead" because it racked up the highest killed-in-action rate in Marine Corps history during more than 47 months of combat from 1965 to 1969.

"I saw a lot of people hurt and a lot of people die, and that's not something you want to see over and over," said Tasby, 61, who began losing his sight in 2000 from cone-rod dystrophy, a progressive affliction.

Tasby, who was a squad leader with Company D, doesn't speak much about his battlefield experiences. He lets his award citations do the talking for him.

"I look at these things only on Veterans Day," he said. "It took me a long time to come to grips with it.

"When troops come home today, there are parades. I'm happy for them. When we came back we were spit on."

In a two-year span, he was promoted from private to sergeant. His Navy Commendation medal and accompanying gold stars were awarded for heroic achievement as a corporal and squad leader. He earned the medal for superb leadership, courage and composure under fire from April 30, 1968, to Feb. 28, 1969, while fighting in operations Lancaster II, Scotland II and Scotland II/Trousdale.

One gold star was for his action on Dec. 16, 1968, on Hill 821 when his squad came under intense small arms fire.

"Corporal Tasby soon realized there was a pocket of hostile soldiers directly below his position that his men could not reach with their rifle fire," the citation reads. "Fearlessly exposing himself to enemy fire, he moved among his men and accurately directed them as they threw grenades upon the hostile soldiers' positions."

Another gold star was awarded for an encounter on Feb. 12, 1969, at Fire Support Base Erskine when he rescued wounded Marines by "fearlessly crawling across the fire-swept terrain ... and returned to the perimeter with the wounded."

A third gold star came for actions that left him wounded a couple weeks later, on Feb. 26, 1969, when his platoon assaulted a bunker in A Shau Valley. He was shot in his stomach, arm and leg.

"Although seriously wounded during the initial moments of the firefight, Corporal Tasby ignored his painful injuries and continued to direct the efforts of his men. Disregarding his own safety, he resolutely maneuvered across the fire-swept terrain to a vantage point, and boldly shouting words of encouragement to his Marines, directed their fire against the enemy," reads the citation signed by Lt. Gen. H.W. Buse.

Tasby's outlet for his combat experiences is helping other veterans. He is commander of American Legion Post 14, a member of the Blinded Veterans Association, Nevada Council of Blind Lions and Easter Seals Nevada.

"There's nothing good about a war except the end of it," he said. "Volunteering makes me see Veterans Day in a different way."

Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308.