War Stories III (43 page)

CHRISTINE “CHRISSY” QUINN
survived the Blitz and the long-distance correspondence with her fiancé, a British soldier. When he finally returned to England in 1946, the two were married.

RON DICK
was so influenced by the bravery and resolve of his countrymen during World War II that he joined the Royal Air Force in 1950. He served as a squadron officer, flight instructor, USAF exchange officer, and eventually as the commander of a Royal Air Force squadron in Cyprus. Today he is a writer-lecturer and European-tour leader for the Smithsonian Institution.

CHARLES LEAH
served throughout the war for the Air Raid Precautions organization, rescuing his fellow Britons. He subsequently joined the British army as a Royal Engineer, where his duties included defusing bombs—as he had done during World War II.

GUNTHER RAAL
, the Luftwaffe ace, returned to the German air force after WWII, rising to the rank of general and chief of air staff. He also served as the German military representative in Brussels on the Military Committee of NATO.

BILLY DRAKE
was awarded a Distinguished Service Order and Distinguished Flying Cross for heroic service in WWII. He earned a bar for the DFC from the United States, and spent a career in the Royal Air Force, with service as group captain commanding RAF Chivenor, Devon, until his retirement in 1963. He then lived for more than twenty years in Portugal.

 

PETER BROTHERS
, a RAF fighter ace with sixteen kills, flew during the Battle for France and the Battle of Britain with No. 242 Squadron and later No. 457 Squadron. His decorations include the CB Distinguished Service Order and Distinguished Flying Cross with bar.

BETTY SHEA BOYD
married a fellow ferry pilot whom she had met at 10,000 feet above Madison, Wisconsin. He stayed in the Air Force and served two tours in Korea. The couple has remained close to their many friends from both wars.

MARIA FASTOVA
volunteered when the Red Army asked for thirty girls from her town to become communicators. She was trained to defend herself with a rifle and served in the 199th Division of the 38th Field Army. Wounded in the Battle of Stalingrad, she recovered in time to celebrate the Russian victory.

KEN CROSBY
left the FBI after the war and joined the financial firm Merrill Lynch, where he worked for twenty-five years. Today he works with the Center for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, running courses for government agencies and private groups on terrorism, counter-terrorism, espionage, and counter-espionage.

CHARLES CALHOUN
served in the South Pacific against the Japanese after his experiences in the Atlantic and the European theater. He retired as a captain in the U.S. Navy in 1967. Since then he has written three books on his wartime experiences.

CHARLES HANGSTERFER
was with the 3rd Battalion, 16th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division, when they breached the Siegfried Line—among the first U.S. troops into Germany. In the Hürtgen Forest a reoccurrence of malaria hospitalized him in England. After the war he returned to the U.S., where he married Geneva, a fellow veteran, on 31 October 1945.

PEARL MCKEOUGH
met and married her husband Michael (“Mickey”) while he was the orderly for General Eisenhower. They continued to serve Ike throughout the war and remained close to Eisenhower after he became president.