• Delayed by war, Class of 1943 finally holds senior prom

    NBC News

    Grace Duffy dances with her stand-in date Dave Lenahan at the Hillhouse High School class of 1943 reunion and prom.


     

    Rehema Ellis and Andrew Rafferty, NBC News writes

    It took seven decades, but the Hillhouse High School Class of 1943 finally had its senior prom.

    Prom for the members of the Greatest Generation was cancelled 70 years ago when the young men in the Connecticut school — and across the country — were called on to go defend the United States during World War II. But as of last Sunday, the high school rite of passage was no longer something these former high schoolers had to live without.

    But when it's a senior prom for senior citizens, the rules are different. First of all, the event started at noon, everyone could drink alcohol, and the dress code was, well, comfortable.

    NBC News

    Honey Pegnataro, right, shares a toast with some of her classmates at the Hillhouse High School class of 1943 reunion and prom.

    Many were dropped off not by their parents, but by their children.

    And with attendees now in their late 80s, dancing was left to only the most adventurous souls.

    Members of the Class of '43 say they did not feel cheated when school administrators told them to stop planning their prom so many years ago. Rather, they felt it was they were fulfilling their responsibility as Americans.

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    Marilyn Unger pins on her corsage at the Hillhouse High School class of 1943 reunion and prom.

    "Our country had been attacked, and we felt very strongly that whatever we did to support our country, we would do," said 87-year-old Marilyn White Unger. "So we didn't feel any sense of personal loss, because the boys were fighting."

    Unger helped plan the reunion/prom, along with Anthony Pegnataro, 87, then class president who served in Guam and Okinawa during the war. Some of their classmates never came back from the war, and even more have perished in the years since.

    "I open the paper every morning, I look at the obituary page and I see two or three more classmates that have gone up to their maker," said Pegnataro.

    The "senior" prom means a lot more to 88-year-old Tony Pegnataro than most.  Pegnataro and his classmates explain they did whatever necessary to support the war during the 1940s, which meant forgoing their high school prom. But better late than never – they finally formed a committee and organized a classmate reunion all these years later.

    He estimates that of the 1,250 members of their graduating class, prom organizers have only been able to get ahold of about 10 percent of them. The group has been getting together every five years since 1946.

    And like nearly everything else about this prom, he did it the old fashioned way -- no Facebook, just phone calls.

    Just as if the prom had been held during the 1940s, on Sunday the group danced to the likes of the Glen Miller band. Though the music may have been the same, but the moves were different -- with some prom goers in wheelchairs.

    "Time's running out on all of us. Ya know, how many more years do we have?" said Pegnataro. "And we want to enjoy every year we got."

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    Honey and Tony Pegnataro

  • 'We saved the ship': WWII vets gather, likely for last time

    Terry Pickard / NBC News

    Surviving sailors from the USS Franklin hold a reunion at Patriots Point in Charleston on Friday.

    Terry Pickard and Carlo Dellaverson, NBC News writes

    MT. PLEASANT, S.C. -- Two dozen surviving veterans from the World War II aircraft carrier USS Franklin gathered on Friday, probably for the last time, to honor and remember one of the most remarkable naval episodes of the war.

    It was before dawn on a late winter morning in 1945 when a Japanese dive bomber dropped two 500 pound bombs on the Franklin. The year-old carrier nicknamed “Big Ben” was serving in the Pacific theater and, at that moment, had maneuvered closer to Japan than any other U.S.-flagged carrier during the war.

    More than 800 sailors died in the catastrophic 1945 attack on the USS Franklin, leaving the ship listing in the water. The survivors kept the ship afloat, and made it back to port. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

    Sam ‘Dusty’ Rhodes was asleep in the ship’s bunk area when the bombs hit. Rhodes was a water tender 3rd class and was responsible for operating the ship’s massive boilers – and with debris from the massive explosions raining down on him, that is just what he did.

    Rhodes said he and other crew members ran to the one of the unaffected firerooms and attempted to raise enough steam to light the remaining boiler. When the flame caught from Rhodes’ Zippo lighter, “that’s when the ship’s heart started to beat again,” he recalled.

    Above on the flight deck, the scene was nothing short of catastrophic. The Franklin was dead in the water, listing to one side and cut off from communications as fires burned everywhere. More than 800 sailors died in the attack, with hundreds more wounded.

    Terry Pickard / NBC News

    Flags line the walkway to the USS Yorktown, where a '13' was painted to honor the number of the USS Franklin.

    But the Franklin didn’t sink, and that is the legacy crew members like Rhodes like to remember. The Franklin would become the most heavily damaged aircraft carrier of the war to make it back to port.

    “We saved the ship,” Rhodes said. “In the Navy, you save the ship. It’s your home.”

    William Schauer was a Naval electrician and fireman 1st class, just out of high school when he reported for duty on the deck of the Franklin, three months before the attack. Looking back on that day 68 years later, he said he was certain he was going to go down with the ship that morning, and “that was the end.”

    “But we were there for a purpose,” and despite suffering such heavy losses, Schauer says he still considers their mission – keeping the ship afloat – accomplished.

    At the reunion on Friday, Medal of Honor recipient and retired Gen. James Livingston saluted the assembled veterans. He said their “refusal to allow her to sink” allowed the Franklin to limp back to port instead of ending up buried forever on the ocean floor. “That’s a testimony to what you are as men,” he said.

    Terry Pickard / NBC News

    The tattered battle flag from the USS Franklin hangs on display at the USS Yorktown.

    In the belly of the USS Yorktown, another decommissioned carrier that saw battle in the Pacific and now survives as the centerpiece of the Patriots Point Naval Museum in this bucolic Charleston suburb, a tattered and smoke-tinged flag is mounted overhead. It was the original battle flag that flew on the mast of the Franklin’s flight deck the day of the attack -- the same flag that Rhodes remembers looking up and noticing through the haze of black smoke after the bombs hit. Seeing it meant they still had a chance, he remembered, “because we would strike the colors before abandoning ship.”   

    “Big Ben” made it all the way back to New York for repairs, where it sat on V-J Day when the war finally ended. It never saw action again, and was sold for scrap in the 1960s. The flag, along with the bell and a gun turret also on display at the Yorktown, are all that remain of one of the most momentous spectacles of heroism and fortitude of World War II. And with what could be the final gathering of the men who saved the ship, it is up to a new generation to remember the Franklin.

  • Boy Scout's goal: Interview 1,000 World War II vets

    Rehema Ellis, NBC NEws writes

    Kyle Miller hasn’t been around long enough to have much of his own history, but at 16, he’s deeply involved in the military history that others created.

    When he was 12, Kyle, a Boy Scout, joined a group for World War II veterans. He was so fascinated by their stories that he became their archivist. Now he’s taken on an even bigger task to make certain their stories are around forever.

    Three WWII veterans tell how they fulfilled their duty to country.

    “At the beginning it would seem kind of strange to befriend somebody who’s three-quarters of a century older than me. But, when you really start talking to them, you realize they’re no different than you are,” he said.

    Kyle’s great-grandfather fought in the Battle of the Bulge, a major German offensive in France, Luxembourg and Belgium during the winter of 1944-45. He died when Kyle was 4-years-old. Being around veterans, Kyle said, he gets to experience what his great-grandfather might have shared with him.

    “I realized what heroes they truly are, how much they sacrificed for their families, their country and for people like me,” he said.

    To honor them, this young man from Pickerington, Ohio got the idea to collect the stories of 1,000 veterans of World War II and post them on a website he designed with his father, who is also his Scout leader.

    The project is called Voices from the Front. The project will also help him the attain the highest Boy Scout rank, Eagle Scout, which requires he demonstrate leadership while carrying out a community service project. He will also earn academic credit from his mother, who homeschools Kyle and his four siblings.

    “There are a lot of books out there that have captured a lot of stories but there’s a lot we don’t have, so this project is to get and capture more of the stories before the veterans die,” Kyle said. “There are always stories out there that we’re missing.”

    Among them, he said, stories about what was going on at home while the men were in battle.

    “You can always read about the battle strategy, but you don’t get the real personal aspect of it,” he said. “From the wives and people at home, all the way to the support units, and then onto the combat units. We want to capture all those stories to hear all those perspectives.

    With the help of volunteers, Kyle hopes to reach his goal of 1,000 voices by next fall. Meanwhile, Kyle has a new goal: To finish a book about veterans of the Battle of the Bulge.