MICHAEL J. LACIVITA An unexpected meeting of veterans
Every so often, life takes a happy, unexpected turn -- you could call it serendipity. Here's one such story, which is quite appropriate for Memorial Day weekend.
On April 19, the World War II Heritage Group met for its regular monthly dinner meeting at the A La Cart Catering in Canfield. I recently joined the group because they generally feature an "I was there" veteran as a speaker. The speakers come from different branches of the service.
In January, my good friend Ed Enterude of Boardman made an interesting presentation on U.S. Navy PT boats of World War II. He was captain of PT 64 in the Asiatic-Pacific theater of operations. The speaker for April was Robert Withee of Canton, who was a lieutenant and P-51 Mustang fighter pilot in Word War II, also in the Asiatic-Pacific theater of operations.
This plane was one of the greatest fighter planes of World War II and escorted our B-29 Super Fortresses during their bombing runs over Japan. I decided to invite my son-in-law, Greg Krieger, to this meeting, because his father, Bill Krieger, was also a lieutenant and P-51 Mustang fighter pilot in the Pacific during World War II.
'Musketeers'
Greg brought his father's flight jacket to the meeting. His father passed away several years ago. I had seen the jacket before and remembered a painting on it, called "Musketeers." I mentioned this to Withee before his talk, and he couldn't believe it. He said, "That is my group." He showed us a picture of his P-51 with "Musketeers" painted on the fuselage. He then pulled out a copy of a 60-year old shipping order with 18 names on it. Incredibly, there was William Krieger on it, along with Withee. They were in a group of nine out of the 18 that went to the Philippines in January 1945 to fly reconnaissance missions. They had both lived in the Cleveland area and had not seen nor heard of each other since the end of World War II in 1945. We were all speechless.
Another P-51 Mustang fighter pilot, Ed Smith of Barberton, who flew in the Korean War, also as a lieutenant, was in attendance.
To cap the night off, Greg won a model P-51 plane as a first prize at a raffle. He took it home with its wings signed by Withee and Ed Smith.
XMichael Lacivita is a Youngstown retiree and an inductee into the Ohio Senior Citizens Hall of Fall.