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With
the Legion of Honor medal in front of him, Robert Schlotterbeck,
recalled
not only his wartime experiences but also the recent trip he
made to France.
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The French
Legion of Honor for an American flyer
By Bob Robinson
GREENVILLE – Was our plane ever hit? Oh, yes. Many times…
“Three days before my 19th birthday, Aug. 9, 1944 – it was only my
fourth mission – our plane was hit over Brest, France,” said Robert
Schlotterbeck. The pilot was Bob Beeson from Richmond, Ind.
Schlotterbeck added the Germans had the city surrounded and control was
shifting all the time.
“Some controls had been shot away. We started a rollover spin and two
of the crew bailed out.” Schlotterbeck looked as if he was reliving the
memory as he spoke of it. “Bob figured out – using different controls –
he could stabilize the plane.”
Then Beeson sent Schlotterbeck back to the “waist” where the controls
were splintered and had him splice the cables back together.
“It was the most exciting day I can imagine,” the WWII veteran said.
They made contact with a P-40 fighter plane; the pilot escorted them
back to his temporary fighter strip on the coast of France, near the
invasion beaches.
“That plane never flew again.”
Schlotterbeck was a nose gunner/togglier on a B-26 Medium Bomber, the
Martin Marauder. He explained a togglier did not have a specified bomb
site. The planes flew in formations of six. The leader plane dropped
the first set of bombs; the others (toggliers) followed suit.
Then on Christmas Day 1944…
“We were flying in support of the ground troops. It was the Battle of
the Bulge. We got shot up enough we had to take the bombs to the
English Channel and ditch them. Couldn’t get the wheels down or the
bombays closed,” he said.
When they arrived at the base, Schlotterbeck and his Army friend bailed
out (both were in the Army Air Corps). The pilot and the others crash
landed the plane.
“No one was injured in the crash,” he said. “The plane was hauled off
to the salvage yard.”
From 1944 until his honorable discharge on July 16, 1945, Schlotterbeck
flew 53 missions; most of them from Beauvais-Tille in France. He
received the Distinguished Flying Cross on July 23, 1945, for
“extraordinary achievement in aerial flight against the enemy target in
support of the Rhine crossings on 23 March 1945.”
There is more to the story… but the World War II veteran didn’t realize
it until later.
MAY, 2013
“We left here on May 7,” Schlotterbeck said, “and arrived on VE Day
(Victory over Europe) May 8. No one knew us in Paris. I wanted to see
the Eiffel Tower again. Then we took a fast train to Brest.”
Schlotterbeck and his family were met by a French gentleman named Gilda
Saouzanet. They had been corresponding for years. It was the first time
he had set foot on French soil since 1945. They were there 17 days.
“The mayor of the town where crew members bailed out (Guipavas, near
Brest) greeted us. There were the families of those who hid the
Americans. Because the lines were shifting back and forth, they had to
hide them until they could get them back to safety.”
Just outside Guipavas, the family who hid one of the flyers was still
there…
“They rolled out the red carpet,” Schlotterbeck said. “There aren’t as
many tears in my eye now as there was then,” he added.
Sauzenet took them on a tour all over the countryside. He was the one
who set up the ceremony… “he took us to a German bunker.
“He figured there were 400 German bunker complexes… high Naval
importance because of the harbor.”
While he felt honored, Schlotterbeck had to ask why he was doing all
this for them.
“Because we are free,” the Frenchman answered.
A second ceremony took place in the town, Beauvais, from which
Schlotterbeck had flown so many missions. There was a 1944 American
Jeep and a Peugeot parked in front. He displayed the photo taken in
1944 of the family with the flyer they rescued. Forty or 50 people
turned out for the ceremony.
“They used those little stemmed glasses, and the mayor presented me
with a town medal.”
They were given a journal written by a Brest resident who chronicled
the bailout and rescue of the flyers in August 1944. It was written in
French but the universal language of drawings was also used. Included
was a sketch of the crippled B-26, surrounded by flak. In the distance
two formations of bombers were flying overhead, and a lone American
parachute was dropping down into their village. Sketches also included
the American dropping to the ground, being transported to a safe place
by horse-drawn cart and the home where he was hidden.
The home was later burned down by the Germans.
They returned to the United States by the end of May. It was a great
trip; a great memory. Unknown to Schlotterbeck there was still more to
come.
OCT. 20, 2013
“I walked into that party room – I saw the French flag – here was this
room full of people… my great grandson Leo was the first to hug me at
the knees.
“Thank goodness he did. I was wobbly… so many people there.”
From the Consulat General de France a Chicago…
“It is a great honor and privilege to present you with the Knight of
the Legion of Honor medal…”
Schlotterbeck’s daughter Crystal Brooks said the idea came about when
her step-brother Eric Brand discovered that U.S. veterans might be
eligible for the Legion of Honor.
“In a small number of cases each year, the French award this
distinction to living American veterans who risked their lives during
World War II to fight on French soil,” she said. Brooks added they were
told the chances were slim. Her husband, Richard, composed the letter
to French Consulat. In it, he noted the following…
“Robert Schlotterbeck would be the first to tell you that he played a
very small part in a very big war, which is true. But I believe it took
courage to climb fifty times into the nose position of a bomber,
knowing that you are going into harm’s way, so that you can help in
some small way to liberate France. This is courage of a kind that most
people can only imagine.”
The letter was sent prior to their trip to France in May. On Sept. 23,
2013, the French Consulat General wrote…
“To show our eternal gratitude, the government of the French Republic
has decided to award you the Legion of Honor. Created by Napoleon, it
is the highest honor that France can bestow upon those who have
achieved remarkable deeds for France.”
“Since the French government did not have a representative in this part
of the country,” Brooks said, “it encouraged us to present the Legion
of Honor to Bob in a fitting manner.”
On Oct. 20 at JT’s in Greenville, with family and friends from as far
away as Arizona, Bob’s stepson, Lt. Col. Matthew Mitchell, Ret.,
presented the Knight of the Legion of Honor on behalf of the Republic
of France.
Published courtesy
of The Early Bird
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Schlotterbeck’s
daughter, Crystal Brooks, looks over the presentation speech she made
in honor of her father on Oct. 20.
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Bob
Schlotterbeck’s prized possessions: the Legion of Honor, a “little
stemmed glass” that was part of a ceremony in
France, and a 1944 photo
of the family who rescued one of the American flyers after parachuting
out of his injured plane.
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