Stories by author "Crawford Hicks": 10
Stories
Homecoming
“I got into Louisville middle of the afternoon, I left my bags at the bus station, just had a little overnight bag with me, so I took a taxi to Rene’s house which was at 18 Algonquin Parkway in Louisville. Rene was outside her house, this was in…
Joy, Joy, Joy
“V-E Day was the day that Germany signed the armistice. I was in Reims, France. Reims, France was right next door to Lucky Strike and I was in Reims that day, that night when the armistice was signed and bedlam, bedlam. Edna was in London when the…
Close Call
“We were flying toward a target and I was leading the top element. Remember that’s three airplanes and I wasn’t being real close to the formation because we were not close to the target yet. And all of a sudden we heard the radio band it’s twelve…
Liberation
“We heard small arm fire over the hill and then a little bit later the tanks came across. This was the 29th of April and this was Patton and he came in and he was about the second tank. Fortunately, they came in and broke the gates down and put the…
Ball and Chain
“We were grounded flyers and we had our wings, but we came up with, somebody in the camp came up with a symbol for us which was our wings with a chain and a ball attached to it. So we used our dog tag chains and the cans of food we got from red…
A Familiar Accent
“We left off there at Stalag III. This was about the 7th or the 8th of June. We went down the 30th of May. This is the 7th or 8th of June and we were standing there by the loading platform and this real mean looking German guard came out hands on…
Shot Down
“So everybody got out and then I got out. This was my first parachute jump. I went out through the navigator’s hatch below and I said ‘Lord, help me get through this.’ I knew I only had two things. One was to get killed or do it. There was no…
First Mission
“I was happy as I could be or dumb and happy shall we say until I saw the first flight coming up. Our mission was to hit the V-1 bombs. They looked like ski jumps, so we called them ski jumps. They were on the coast of France... So our first mission…
Getting His Wings
“I felt absolutely ecstatic. I’ll try not to be self-appreciating, but I have one of the sexiest pictures of me you ever saw in your life of me in a helmet and goggles. It was absolutely fabulous. I love it. It is a beauty, it really is. I mean…
Waiting to Fly
“It was on Sunday morning and I was getting ready to go to church and we heard on the radio that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. Now I was 20 years old at that point in time and I knew that I was going to go into the military because I knew…