Our heritage

I’d like to think I’m a pretty brave guy, but when I read stories from World War II, I wonder if there will ever be men as valorous as guys like 19-year-old Louis Stamatakos over Kassel, Germany on February 28, 1945;

“Someone called out, ‘Get Stamatakos, he went to armament school.’ ”

Stamatakos took off his parachute, for better leverage, and lowered himself cautiously into the bomb bay. He straddled the bay, which was open, the two bombs at his feet. He had a hatchet handle in one hand and was clinging to a leather grip with the other.

“I looked down and knew that if the bombs were accidentally struck or detonated in any way it would most likely take out our plane right there.”

He said some of the crew members were praying. “I was so cold and the blast was coming in on us. As I looked down all I could see were two big old bombs and 20,000 feet of German sky.”

He continued, “It was intimidating, but at times like that you don’t think about what to do. You just do it.”

He used the hatchet handle and nudged the first live bomb from its shackle. He swung at the shackle trying to free the swinging bomb, which had been defused by rushing air spinning a propeller on the bomb’s nose that armed the device.

At the age of 84, Stamatakos finally got his Silver Star for hanging underneath a rickety old bomber that none of us would fly in conditions other than war and prying loose two live 250 pound bombs with a hatchet handle. Without a parachute. Read the whole story.

Category: Military issues