Love, war and endurance for Valley WWII veteran

Apart from his wife for the first time in 67 years, a vet turns his D.C. visit into a love letter to her

The wall of stars sat at the edge of the ring of pillars, in the middle of the Capitol Mall, in the heart of Washington, D.C. Frank was more than 2,000 miles from his Arizona home.

It was a trip he almost hadn't made.

For 67 years — since he came home from war — he'd never left his wife, Scotty. But the chance came to go to Washington, to see the memorial built for those who'd served. She urged him to go. So he went.

As Frank traveled, he carried their love story with him. He told it to his companions again and again: The wartime assignment that had brought them together for just 10 days. The long-distance proposal. The engagement ring his mother delivered. And memories of the stacks and stacks of letters he'd sent.

He also carried the little recorder. If they were to be apart again, he would compose one more love letter to her.

Frank turned to look across the memorial and spoke into the recorder once more.

"I think the bagpipes are going to play again. I'm listening."

PHOENIX SKY HARBOR INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. OCTOBER 15. 0930.

Passengers thumbed through magazines and fiddled with their iPhones in the Barrio Cafe at Sky Harbor International Airport as a woman's voice came over the loudspeaker.

"We'd like everyone to stand — give a round of applause and stand — and honor our World War II veterans."
Travelers put down their tablets and coffee to turn toward the entourage — 28 World War II veterans in matching yellow T-shirts making their way down the D concourse, some with canes, others in wheelchairs.

The voice continued.

"Once again, we have our World War II veterans coming down."

Passengers looked up. Travelers stood. Parents turned their children's attention to the men.
"They are on their way to Washington, D.C., to the memorial," the announcer said.

Timid clapping turned to whistles and cheers as more passengers — business travelers in suits and vacationers in souvenir T-shirts — joined the revelry.

"(These are) heroes who fought for the freedom that we all enjoy today," they heard over the loudspeaker.
At each gate, the announcement continued — New Orleans, Orlando, Chicago, Newark — as the men passed by.

Wearing Navy hats and Veterans of Foreign Wars garrison caps, all were in their 80s and 90s. One wiped tears with a handkerchief. Another looked at his son in astonishment. Men who had not been to war in almost 70 years had never received that kind of reception.

"I've never been cheered before," one said. Another: "Unbelievable."

This would be the 28th trip for Honor Flight Arizona, a non-profit organization that has been raising money for the past five years to send aging World War II veterans to see their memorial. Sun City Elks Lodge 2559 sponsored several of its members and sent others, known as guardians, to push wheelchairs and help with organization. Many were veterans themselves who fought in Vietnam and Korea.

"It's beautiful ... just listening to them," said Gary Drumheller, veterans chairman at the Elks Lodge. "World War II broke out, we were struck, and they volunteered. They lied about their age to even get in the military. They did whatever they could to go serve."

The group passed through the gate and down the jetway to board Southwest Flight 1640.
Frank lifted his recorder.

"This is October the 15th. This is Frank Stanley Hobbs. I'm on the Honor Flight going to Washington, D.C. We're now on the airplane … We've got about 30 or 40 of us. We'll get some names later."

One by one, the veterans took their seats.

Will Blessing, 90, who earned his wings as a Navy pilot in 1943 and was on the flight crew of a C-54 in a transport and evacuation squadron in the South Pacific.

Agnes Frost, 88, who enlisted in the Navy at 19 because she didn't want to sit at home waiting for her husband, who was fighting in France.

Harvey Hawthorne, 86, who was on a destroyer in 1945 when his ship got caught in a typhoon.
P.V. Hoovler, 86, who was on a troop ship on the way to the Philippines when the Americans dropped the atomic bomb.

And Frank Hobbs, 88, who was on a 10-day leave in Norfolk, Va., waiting for his ship to leave for Europe. The first night, he went to a USO dance, looking for a girl who knew how to jitterbug. He saw a young woman dancing with another sailor. Frank tapped his shoulder and said, "Hey, buddy. You've got what I want." Her nickname was Scotty. They danced all night long.

Frank held up the recorder again.

"I had a lot of pictures taken. … But we're on the airplane now getting ready to take off. Talk to you later."

OUTSIDE BALTIMORE. OCTOBER 16. 0800.

With the veterans full of the hotel's buffet breakfast the next morning, they made their way onto the tour bus, single file. Again in matching yellow T-shirts. Tony Martinez, a trip organizer, stood next to the driver's seat, giving orders. His voice boomed into the microphone as guardians helped load wheelchairs into the undercarriage.

"Brought all your extra gear?" he asked.

The onetime soldiers and sailors looked in their pockets for extra camera batteries, checked their pill bottles and adjusted their hearings aids. All veterans present and accounted for.

George Egna, 89, who was drafted into the Army Air Corps in 1943 and inspected locomotives in India.

John Franks, 87, a Navy man who was knocked out of bed when a buzz bomb went off near his London hotel.

Les Ellis, 87, who enlisted in the U.S. Maritime Service in 1943. His ship delivered supplies to Guam; picked up empty oil drums in the South Pacific; and got a load of copper in Chile.

Jay Barnes, 85, who enlisted in the Navy at 16. They caught him at his swearing-in but didn't send him home. For the next year, he pulled chocks from landing gear for Navy pilots.

And Frank Hobbs, who sat at a teletype machine writing letters to Scotty — double-spaced and sometimes 3 feet long — when he wasn't sitting for hours at a stretch listening for code.

As the bus rolled toward Mount Vernon, home of President George Washington, the TV screens overhead glowed with a documentary about the construction of the World War II memorial. It required more than 17,000 pieces of precisely cut granite, the narrator said. And when construction workers drove its piles into the ground, it sounded as if a Howitzer were going off.

Ernie Brothers, 89, held the ornamental handle of his cane with one hand and a camera in the other. Black-and-white newsreels of allied planes in the air and GIs in uniform filled the screen above his seat. Ernie was a front-line Army medic whose job was to patch chest and belly wounds — and amputate limbs — as the Americans fought their way across France into Germany. He worked for 262 straight days with the 59th Field Hospital.

Stark images of flesh-and-bone bodies piled up at concentration camps flashed across the screen.
"That's how it was," he said simply.

His medic unit was supporting an armored division when they came across the Mauthausen concentration camp. The showers that were gas chambers. The gaunt bodies of the living. The piles of the dead. He remembered a 12-year-old boy whose head was a mass of scars where the Germans had burned him with gas-soaked rags. The boy had seen his mother and father killed.

"What I remember is the bodies stacked up like cordwood," Brothers said.

"It was out of my mind, but when you see things like that, it reminds you of it." He looked at his cane."You're back into it."

MOUNT VERNON. OCTOBER 16. 0900.

Even late in the fall, the trees at Mount Vernon were green. Actors in period clothes spoke to visitors as if they'd suddenly stepped back in time. Junior-high and high-school students with name tags milled about the grounds.

Over the din of schoolchildren, Frank pressed record.

"Well, the journey starts. We just arrived here at Mount Vernon. … Probably 1,000 people lined up outside, left, right and in the middle. Schoolkids, veterans … It's overcast, but it looks like the weather's gonna be all right."

On their way to tour the mansion, veterans from the Arizona group stopped to hear a presentation about the Purple Heart — America's oldest military award, established by Washington. Four recipients of the award from the Arizona group posed for photos in front of a marker — three who fought in World War II and one in Korea.

Bill Mundt, 88, pushed an empty wheelchair on a brick path near a working blacksmith shop. He was one of the four.

Drafted into the Navy two months after his 18th birthday, Mundt was assigned to a destroyer called the USS Pringle in April 1945. He was manning a 5-inch-gun mount when three Japanese kamikaze planes came in — high, medium and low. One veered away. The Americans shot the second down. The third slammed into the ship.

"We had to jump off the bow, and I had to jump off forward, because the ship was going up like the Titanic," he said. "Then it sank in about three minutes. I turned around and looked back after I'd jumped, and there was no ship."

A raft had broken loose, and the men who could hang on treaded water in the ocean for three or four hours. They followed planes overhead, fretting that enemy pilots would strafe them, until American reinforcements flew in. Finally, a destroyer minesweeper came close. As the ship neared, sailors on deck began firing into the water. Mundt was confused — why were they shooting at the water when the threat was in the air? Then he realized why. Sharks were circling.

The veterans continued to the iconic vista overlooking the Potomac and on to the museum.
Frank picked up his recorder again.

"We've got schoolkids here probably from every state in the union … in bus groups touring the monuments. … That's the future of the country."

By then, the legs of those who'd walked the tour were worn out. They sat and swapped stories outside the gift shop.

David Herring, 90, obliged when asked to tell how he earned his Purple Heart. It's the war story everyone wants to hear: He drove himself back to the aid station with a hole in his leg from a machine gun. "It was only a flesh wound," he said.

But the war story that moves him most is about a young woman who stood at one end of the train station waiting for him in Indiana — dark hair under a big hat and legs in silk stockings. "I almost fainted," he said, choking up. "It was something else. She was so beautiful to me, and I missed her so much." He married her eight years later.

As they boarded the bus once more, the familiar tinny sound of 1940s big-band music came over the speakers. "GI Jive." "When the Lights Go on Again All Over the World." "Hot Time in the Town of Berlin." Some wondered what memories the memorial might conjure.

Richard Nagel, 86, who was on his way to the South Pacific on an aircraft carrier when the United States dropped the atomic bomb. "They ended it because they knew I was coming," he likes to say.
George Ruck, 89, who was 19 when he heard on the radio that the military needed airplane mechanics. He turned in his deferment and enlisted. But he never served as a mechanic. The Army Air Corps made him a bomb loader.

Earl Schneider, 87, who couldn't wait to get out of Nebraska to see the world when he joined the Navy. He was a quartermaster in charge of navigation and signaling on a repair ship.

Charles Weigand, 87, who joined the Army Air Corps at 17. His mother had to pick up his diploma at graduation because he was already in training. He flew B-29s over Japan in 23 missions.

And Frank Hobbs, who wrote to Scotty about the moon between the mountains in North Africa. About the way the men in Sicily held hands as they walked the streets. About sprigs of jasmine and the color of the sea. He sent photos of himself in uniform. And sent her a pair of stockings made of silk.

As the tour bus ambled toward the stop they'd all been waiting for, a big-band-era singer crooned: "Coming in on a wing and a prayer ... Coming in on a wing and a prayer … Though there's one motor gone we can still carry on … Coming in on a wing and a prayer …"

WORLD WAR II MEMORIAL. OCTOBER. 16. 1245.

The veterans peered out the windows as the tour bus rolled to a stop. Workers from the Department of Veterans Affairs, furloughed amid the government shutdown, held welcome signs and stretched out hands for shakes and fist bumps.

"God bless ya'," one veteran in a wheelchair said as he got a peck on the cheek from a young woman. "There's a smart one."

Frank grabbed his recorder.

"We've got a reception outside of the bus here with signs. Arizona veterans are the best. Thanks, vets. We love our heroes. We salute you. Thank you for our freedom. Thank you. Welcome, veterans. Bunch of signs. Bunch of people. Really nice."

"About face!" yelled Tony Martinez, a former platoon sergeant in the Army National Guard. Wheelchairs swiveled and canes pivoted toward the imposing pavilion, and the veterans made their advance.
Norman Stanford, 86, who was in the Army of occupation in Germany for three years. His first job was to oversee prisoners of war.

Al Vaught, 86, who wanted to go overseas. But the Navy sent him through aviation-mechanics training, radio school, radar operations and gunnery school. And by then, the war was over.

Howard Troupa, 86, who enlisted in the Navy, hoping he'd see the world on a big ship. But he was stationed in a California hospital as a corpsman. He took care of wounded troops who called him "Doc."
And Frank Hobbs, who proposed to Scotty in a letter from overseas. He sent money home to his mother so she could buy — and deliver — a diamond ring.

The veterans scattered across the monument looking for the inscriptions of battles. Pearl Harbor. The Battle of Midway. Normandy. And the Battle of the Bulge. They were hunting for state names, too. Arizona, Pennsylvania, Illinois.

Several men lingered at the wall of gold stars, each star representing 100 lives lost. Engraved below them read: "Here we mark the price of freedom." Frank lamented the absence of names. He was thinking of his cousin, Clark, a radio operator shot down over the Atlantic, probably by a submarine. They never found his body or the plane.

The long sleeves of Frank's American flag shirt poked out beneath his yellow Honor Flight T-shirt.
"It's breaking my heart," he said.

From his wheelchair, Ernie Brothers read the inscription: "Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy … No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory."

Brothers couldn't get his buddies out of his mind.

"We were side by side, all the way through the war," he said. "...You just think how many boys give up their life for freedom. It's gotta be overwhelming to anybody that went through it. I'm glad they built this in memory of us."

Yellow T-shirts passed navy blue and red ones, Honor Flight groups from Texas and upstate New York.

Frank let his recorder run.

"I had it so easy. So many died."

ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY. OCTOBER 16. 1700.

As the afternoon waned, the veterans took in more sites.

They stared into the eyes of the stainless-steel statues arranged among patches of juniper bushes at the Korean War Memorial. The statues' ponchos looked as if they were blowing as the men crossed Korea's rice paddies.

They watched reflections in the black granite of the Vietnam Memorial as visitors pointed out mementos left below the names of the fallen. A dollar bill. A letter. A coin. A wreath.

They circled the massive Iwo Jima memorial aboard the bus before stepping off to take a closer look.
Frank scanned the horizon as he dictated.

"Conrad and I are standing here at the Iwo Jima monument. … You can see the White House and most of Washington laying at our feet."

Finally, they arrived at Arlington National Cemetery: row upon row of matching marble headstones. Rolling hills of elms, pin oaks and black cherry trees — some older than the cemetery itself.

They would be there in plenty of time for the 5 o'clock changing of the guard.

Frank found his recorder as the bus driver spoke.

"He just told us there's 25 to 30 burials here a day."

A crowd gathered at the Tomb of the Unknowns. A sentinel marched 21 steps down a black mat behind the tomb, paused for 21 seconds, clicked his heels on the turn and marched back 21 more — one step for each crack of a rifle in the salute.

As they waited for the changing of the guard, the veterans sat in wheelchairs or on the marble steps or inside the bus.

Cliff Ridgway, 93, who worked at Aberdeen, Md., Proving Ground on innovation and weapons testing. After 32 years and three wars, he retired as a colonel.

Jack Sajkoski, 87, who was drafted. When he passed the physical, they thought he'd make a good candidate for the Marines. But once they found out he'd studied aviation in high school, they told him he was going in the Navy.

Jerry Miller, 90, who was on the bridge of a destroyer when a Japanese plane dropped a 500-pound bomb that hit the ship. Fourteen men died in the explosion, which knocked him into a steel wall. It loosened his teeth and blackened both eyes. His vision was never the same.

Judd Lotts, 88, who left college to enlist in the Navy. He spent two years as a machinist's mate on a convoy escort that tracked and sank submarines from Key West to New York.

Bill McAlpine, 88, who tried to enlist. Neither the Marines nor the Navy would take him, because he'd lost his left eye in a childhood accident. When the Army started the limited- service program, he was drafted and served as a company clerk.

And Frank Hobbs, who sent a Western Union telegram, saying he was coming home. "Scotty, darling," he wrote. "Expect to be home about the 15th to the 20th. Try to be in Philadelphia to meet me. Leaving the 26th of this month. All my love. Frank."

That night, the veterans set out on an evening tour of the city to see the monuments lit up. Before Frank turned in, he pulled out the recorder one more time.

"We went to dinner tonight at the Army base … It was really tasty. … A lot of camaraderie. … I'm bushed ... So I'm gonna turn in early. Some of the guys went down to the bar, have a drink. … I'll have a drink with my wife tomorrow night. Signing off."

ABOARD SOUTHWEST FLIGHT 349. OCTOBER 17. 1250.

The pilot had reached a steady cruising altitude out of Baltimore when Tony Martinez spoke into the flight attendant's intercom to announce something most soldiers probably hadn't thought about in years.
"We're gonna have mail call right now," he said.

An Honor Flight guardian shouted the names of veterans as he shimmied past flight attendants to deliver the brown manila envelopes. "Whose idea was this?" one veteran said. Another needed a moment to compose himself.

The letters were personal. "Hello, Dad. … You were quite the dapper young man, weren't you? No wonder Mom was so smitten with you." And reverent. "Dear Dad, Have I ever told you how proud and honored I am to be your daughter?" They kept coming — Dear Papa. Dear Uncle George. Dear Veteran.

Each veteran tore into letters from grandchildren and friends and strangers.

Marty Kaggen, 88, who shot a poisonous snake that slithered through his Army mosquito net in New Guinea.
Ben Kaufman, 89, who was a paratrooper in an Army airborne artillery batallion. He jumped with 75mm pack howitzers broken into bundles. Once the men were on the ground, they had to find the pieces to put the weapons back together.

Don Loomis, 89, who fought in five campaigns from Normandy to Berlin, including the Battle of the Bulge. He was standing guard in Baesweiler, Germany, when an explosion sent him flying. He earned a Purple Heart.
Joe Kremer, 90, who laid telephone lines in an Italian pasture to connect battalion to rifle company so commanders could pass on their orders. He took cover as mortars fell.

And Frank Hobbs, who was drafted into the Navy and trained to be a radio operator.

He worked in a converted schoolhouse in Africa for a few months, monitoring the British channel. He copied code — letters in groups of five on a line — and sent it to be decoded. He was sent to Sicily, monitored new frequencies, and delivered classified messages by motorcycle.

But none of that mattered by the time he got home.

Scotty's family had moved to California. Frank's mother sent her a telegram, saying he was back in the States. So she boarded a coal-fired troop train — the first time she'd ever been away from home — and told her father she was leaving to marry Frank. As Scotty likes to say, "He had to go to war so he could meet me."

As mail call reached Frank's seat, he clasped the manila envelope of letters. The emotions were too much. He'd wait to read them when he got home — home with Scotty.

Southwest Flight 349 arrived late in Phoenix. Family members and veterans of other wars were waiting just beyond the security gate.

Frank was recording it all.

"I don't know what to say. I want to get a picture."

Scotty found Frank in the crowd as the recorder rolled, though neither realized it.

"Was he a good boy?" Scotty asked one of the guardians.

"That's more reception than I got when I came home," Frank said of the cheers and whistles.
"Isn't it nice?" Scotty said. "I missed you."

Frank told a man in the receiving line about seeing the gold stars on the wall. His voice cracked.
"Don't cry," Scotty told him. "You're home."

The afternoon rushed past, with more fanfare near baggage claim, friends to see and send home.
Finally, back in Sun City, pork ribs and sauerkraut were waiting. Scotty and Frank were together. On the living-room couch, she leaned her head in close to his.

Frank lifted the small white recorder again. Scotty grabbed his hand as she waited for him to press play.

Originally published in the Arizona Republic