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thedrifter
08-21-08, 01:20 PM
August 21, 2008
Memories of WWII

Upcoming Honor Air flight to D.C. highlights veterans’ stories

Leslie Boyd

Vernon “Dusty” Rhodes recalls June 6, 1944, the day of the Normandy Invasion, as clearly as any event in the past week.
“It stays fresh in my memory,” he said.

The sounds of the shelling, the sight of the transport boat behind his blowing up, the cries of the wounded — all replay clearly, even though it happened more than 60 years ago.

Rhodes, 83, is one 0f about 100 World War II veterans from Buncombe County who will travel to Washington next month to visit the World War II Memorial and other sites on a flight sponsored by the Rotary Club of Asheville.

This is the third Honor Air flight that has taken World War II veterans to Washington, and as many as a dozen spaces remain for veterans to join the group.

Rhodes hopes to find an old Navy buddy or two.
“I know there are still some around who I haven’t seen in years,” he said. “It would be great to see one or two of them.”

Florence “Dixie” Warren, 84, is also joining the expedition. Warren grew up in Washington, D.C., and after graduating from college, she had a choice of going to work in one of the defense plants or joining the Navy.

She decided to volunteer for Navy hospital work. “I was thinking of becoming a doctor, and I thought this would be a good way to find out if that’s what I really wanted to do,” she said.

Warren trained as a doctor’s assistant and worked at Bethesda Medical Center, treating wounded Marines and Navy personnel. She was transferred out to Washington state, and then back east to tend wounded German soldiers.

“They were terrified of me because I was coming in with a needle to take blood, and they had been told we would kill them, so they thought that’s what I was going to do,” she said. “Some of them had to be held down. We treated them well, though.”

Even though she had a college degree, Warren wasn’t a commissioned officer — women had to be 25 years old to be commissioned, and she was 19 when she enlisted.

Rhodes also was a noncommissioned officer. He was the pilot of a landing craft tank, which brought Marines up to the beach in Normandy. On the day of the landing, his craft dropped off Marines and picked up wounded Americans and Germans all day. He did the same thing for several weeks during daylight hours and then manned an antiaircraft gun at night.

“I’m a Christian,” he said. “I believe it was the hand of the Lord that got us through.”

The Rotary Club sent its first group of World War II vets to Washington in 2007; another group went in May. In addition to visiting the National World War II Memorial, the trip includes lunch and visits to Arlington Memorial Cemetery and other landmarks. The flight will leave in the morning and return in the evening.

Ellie