‘Greatest Generation' talks to youth

Asbury residents tell of WWII experiences

Friday, Nov. 13, 2009

Instead, however, of coming from a text book or the mouth of a teacher it came from people who experienced one of the most tumultuous times in history — World War II — and lived to tell their story.

Patuxent High School senior Seana Keen is an employee of Asbury-Solomons and said that speaking to several of the retirement community's residents gave her the idea to have them speak to her peers.

"They're always telling me stories and so happy to have people listen," said Keen, who continued that the stories from residents who lived through World War II were the ones that touched her the most.

"I'm almost 17 and when they were 17 they were worried about going off to war, and what am I worried about?" she said, adding that actually knowing World War II veterans makes the wars going on today in Iraq and Afghanistan seem all the more real "because there are people out here fighting for our country and they die every day."

The Asbury-Solomons residents who spoke at Patuxent High School — Vernon Garner, Scott O'Neal, Donald Songer and Diana Whitman — however, were survivors in every sense of the word.

Whitman, a native of England, spoke of living through the "London Blitz" which she said started in 1940, when she was 15 years old.

"We could hear waves of the German bombers coming over … and it would run all night," she said, continuing that she remembered praying all night "that the Lord would keep us safe until the morning."

Whitman said that throughout all of the horror that came with the war, her native country kept its morale.

"The spirit was remarkable; nobody ever thought about giving up," she said, telling her audience, "I have memories of war and I hope you don't … I hope you do your best to keep your country free and safe."

Fellow Asbury resident Donald Songer spoke of flying rescue missions in the Second World War and explained to the audience the difficulty of spotting shot-down planes.

"When you look at [a military plane] as opposed to the ocean, it's just a little spot in the water," said Songer, who spoke of rescuing a colleague.

Songer, however, did not speak for too long and told the students he had some nerves about speaking in front of a large crowd.

"Thank you guys very much, but you guys scare me," he chuckled.

Vernon Garner, a retired B-29 Superfortress Pilot, also spoke about flying rescue and combat missions in World War II, on which he gave the audience members a handout.

Garner explained that after being born and raised on a tobacco farm in Calvert County he worked in Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., but joined the U.S. Army Air Corps after Pearl Harbor was bombed by Japan in 1941.

Garner spoke of one particular task in which he had a 16-hour mission to Japan and used Iwo Jima as a secure emergency landing base.

"I was shot at a couple times — you'd come back with a few holes in the aircraft — but we made it safely," he said, finishing with a poem he wrote about is own life and experiences in World War II.

The most emotional speaker was Scott O'Neal, a former prisoner of war, who was at first too choked up to speak and only could after applause from the audience and some encouragement from Garner.

O'Neal spoke of surviving the Bataan Death March in World War II by swimming to Corregidor, which he explained he thought would stand.

"We had bombing continuously during the day and shelling at night," said O'Neal, who was held at Camp O'Donnell in the Philippines.

"When you'd wake up, you'd see three or four people next to you who were gone," he said.

O'Neal spoke while wearing a several medals including a purple heart; a POW metal; and a Silver and Bronze star. He closed to a standing ovation.

lbuck@somdnews.com