There are those people in life that are born unto their
destiny, that come into life to be something special. They choose not their path, nor do they
accept it willingly, it just is for them, despite their not even seeking
it. You cannot create these people; you
cannot groom them for their destiny is contained within every cell of their
being. They cannot be drawn into a comic
book or cast into a made for TV movie and yet they have little glory in their
lives, for they choose not to seek out the glory and the recognition for they
are not Super Heroes, they are true life heroes and what they accomplish in
life as they walk along their path they do quietly with dignity and honor.
One such man has always been a hero to me, long before I
realized his contributions to this country during World War II. That man, amazingly good looking, with a
smile that lit up every room he walked into, and every heart he touched, is my
uncle, Curtis Diles; “Uncle Bud”, as I knew him growing up. As a child I admired him, his laugh and the
depth of love he showed his children and his family. My mother’s brother was the man that I wanted
as a father; he was a gentle giant in my mind.
Always there to ask how things were, to inquire about how things were at
home. I still feel his hand on my
shoulder, that gentle reassuring little squeeze that let me know he was
there. But behind all of that there was
something more to this man, something that I would not discover until many
years later as I embarked on my journey to obtain a college degree.
As a History Minor I had a set course of studies, which
included a semester or two studying the events of World War II. It was through these semesters, a trip to the
library and a grab for books that would support my thesis statement that I
discovered something about my Uncle Bud; something that would confirm that the
man I saw as a hero when I was little was in fact the truest form of the
word. For this man, this unassuming,
gentle soul was in fact a hero. He was
the kind of hero that didn’t make broad statements, proclaim his victories or
fly over tall buildings in a single leap, though he was a flyer of sorts it was
a subtle flight and it was a dramatic decent that led him to heroism.
You see, my Uncle Bud was a member of the U.S. Army Air Corps
after having been drafted in September 1943 at the age of eighteen, an age that
we would now consider to be just a baby.
But in 1943 times were different, males became “men” earlier in life and
they went off to war, they defended this country and their comrades. They were fighters and they were patriots,
but not all of them were heroes and though some gave their lives to defend our
country, earning the status of “hero” in the process, others came home to teach
us by example. My Uncle Bud was one of
those, an example and a boy that became a man, a hero and a father in very
short order as a Nose Gunner in a B-24 Liberator.
It was on a mission out of his home base in Southern Italy to
bomb German Oil Fields, his 17th of 35 total missions, which his
B-24 would take a direct hit from the German Anti-Aircraft artillery, forcing its
crew to parachute to safety. The safety
of terra firma, not the safety of families or even other U. S. troops, for they
were escaping a plane that was surely going to crash, all for the uncertainty
of what awaited them on the ground that they would eventually rest their
weathered jump boots. They had been
warned about hostile forces in the area, and more particularly those that may
be collaborating with the Germans. With
a plane that was doomed to crash there was little choice in the matter for the
men aboard that plane, face certain death or hope to elude those that wished to
place them into Prisoner of War Camps.
So it was on September 8, 1943 my Uncle Bud was listed as “Missing
In Action” by the military. Days later my grandparents would receive that
dreaded Western Union telegram which read,
“The
Secretary of War desires me to express his deep regret that your son Sergeant
Curtis Diles Jr., has been reported missing in action since Eight September over
Yugoslavia. If further details or other information are received you will be
promptly notified.”
With this, my grandparents and his brothers and sisters and
other family members waited for news, news that he was alive and safe. The
oldest son, my grandfather’s namesake was missing and that was all there was to
know for times were different then, not everyone had phones, there were not
televisions in every home broadcasting the details of the war that raged in
Europe, news came slowly in those days the heartache felt by the families as
they waited was tantamount to having dental surgery without Novocain. And while
his family waited for some encouraging news, to hear their son and brother was
alive, this nineteen year-old kid had been rescued by an unlikely group of
people.
It was the people that my Uncle Bud had been warned about,
the “Serbs”, working under Gen. Draza Mihailovich and The Resistance that would
rescue him and keep him from being captured by the Germans. For nearly ten days he would be hidden and
protected by this group of Resistance Fighters, they would feed him and provide
him with a safe harbor to rest his head and sleep. It would not be long before the unlikely
rescuers would contact the United States and arrange for the extraction of the
Americans, and that rescue will not include just my Uncle Bud, but hundreds of
other Americans that they had saved.
The rescue would not be without risks however, for it
required the Airmen that had been shot down to take a dangerous trek through a
region that was rife with the enemy forces.
There would be no trains, plans or cars to provide these men with
transportation to their rendezvous with extraction. They would walk, not a mile or two, but
nearly two-hundred treacherous miles, over mountains and through densely wooded
areas in frigid temperatures; often times hiding from the enemy and sleeping in
barn lofts along the way. The thought of
rescue and the hope of their being reunited with their families and other
service members far outweighing the ever daunting risk of capture that they
faced along the way. Food would be
scarce along the way and yet my Uncle Bud and the other Airmen maintained their
strength to complete the journey to their rendezvous point.
It would be the Office of Strategic Services, (OSS), having
been established just one year prior to my Uncle having been drafted and the
precursor to the CIA; that would ultimately lift my Uncle Bud and others to
safety. Operation Halyard as it would be
known, would ultimately result in the rescue of many Airmen, but it would not
have happened had the Serbs and the OSS not worked together to build an airstrip
for planes to land on and carry the men back to their base in Italy. It would not have happened had the Resistance
Fighters not drawn German Troops away from the American’s hiding places with
their own gunfire. Many things came into
play to save my Uncle Bud, the help of the Resistance Forces, the charity of
Serbian Families and his own tenacity and determination.
Ultimately, Uncle Bud would not go home to The States and
spend time with his family like so many others that had been shot down and
rescued before and after him. He would receive
The Purple Heart and he would continue to fly, as a nose gunner, on many more
missions. More importantly he would
continue to live out his destiny of being a true American Hero and he would do
it with grace, for this was not a choice he made, but what he was born to do,
who he was destined to be.
His status as a Hero in my eyes was not based upon his
military service, for that knowledge would come much later in my life. He became a Hero to me as I watched him,
sitting at my Grandmother’s kitchen table, drinking coffee and watching his
wife with eyes that only twinkled with the ultimate “true love”. He was a hero as I watched him with his
children, the gentle but loving hand he had with them, the love that he had for
his brothers and sisters. It may have
been that somewhere, deep inside of him, that there was a sense of gratitude
that he was alive; that he survived not only being shot out of the air, but celebrated
his rescue by a generous group of people; which in turn fostered his desire to
show compassion to others as it was shown to him. Regardless, he could jump tall buildings in a
single bound in my eyes; rescue a little girl that was frightened of her own
father and show her that there were good men in the world.
He became a Hero to many, including myself, after those days
as a member of the Army Air Corps. He was
a Hero to my Grandmother that often called him to fix something after my
Grandfather had passed away, to his wife, my Aunt Inez, which he gave a
wonderful life and together raised amazing children. To his Grandchildren who carry his genetic
traits, the embodiments of his life and spirit and to my own Grandson that met
him recently for the first time. For it
is that sometimes, when you want it the least, when you have no desire to seek
it out, your soul and your spirit, your manifest destiny finds you and it
guides you to do and be something very special.
Uncle Bud is one of those people an American Hero, a Legacy of Honor and
Integrity to all those that know him and he will always have that place, that
little corner in my heart where I can feel his hand on my shoulder, that gentle
little squeeze that tells me he is there and I am safe.
