Roy Stubbendick
The Exeter American Legion held their annual Legion Birthday
party on Monday, March 13. The Exeter Legion Post was originally
chartered in 1926 and the current legion building was purchased in 1954.
During the party, former Exeter resident Roy Stubbendick was
honored with his 70 year membership pin with the Legion. Stubbendick was
a C-47 pilot during World War II.
“The C-47 was a flying truck. It held everything for
the ground troops. There were many places we delivered the necessities of
life,” explained Stubbendick.
Stubbendick flew supplies on the India-Burma-China route for
a little over a year before the war was over. Often there were no landing
strips or airports, “You must missed the trees and pushed things out the door.”
“Sometimes it was a little more than exciting because you
never knew who was out there.”
Stubbendick, who will turn 96 next month recalled flying
over Egypt and seeing the pyramids and also flying over the Amazon river “which
seems like we flew over for half a day.”
In India, the men in his unit stayed four to a tent.
Stubbendick recalled waking up in the night and hearing something moving in the
tent. As he pulled his .45 out from under his pillow to be ready to shoot
the intruder he realized it was a cow. Thankfully, he didn’t pull the
trigger as cows are sacred in India.
After spending so many hours flying, he was instructed to
park his plane on a mountain in Calcutta at the end of the war, “and as far as
I know they are still there.”
Riding on a boat home was a long trip to a pilot and
Stubbendick remembers vividly their arrival home indicated by passing under the
Golden Gate bridge, “That was a thrill.”
Stubbendick worked and resided in Exeter nearly 50 years
before his retirement.
No comments:
Post a Comment