Veterans Hunt for Their Heroes : History: D-day event planners have Churchill and Ike impersonators and are looking for a Patton and an F.D.R. But they decide they can do without a Hitler.

Eisenhower, Churchill and their troops pursued him 50 years ago. But they gave up the hunt for Hitler on Friday in South Gate.

Leaders of an 800-member veterans group planning to have a Hitler look-alike take a mock drubbing from Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Prime Minister Winston Churchill impersonators at a D-day anniversary celebration say the enemy is no longer invited.

“We couldn’t find a decent Hitler,” said Bob Stane, president of the B-17 Combat Crewmen & Wingmen’s Assn., which is co-sponsoring the June 6 event at the South Gate Post Office.

“But then, there never was a decent Hitler.”

The veterans said they plan now to hunt instead for Gen. George Patton and President Franklin D. Roosevelt look-alikes who can give the 11 a.m. event a more festive look.

The uninviting of the enemy is probably just as well, considering the dimensions the D-day gathering was taking Friday.

What began two months ago as an informal commemorative stamp-canceling ceremony for veterans at the post office has mushroomed into a celebration that is attracting local, state and federal officials, a marching band, a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps drill team and military color guards from the four branches of the armed services.

D-day veterans will display medals, memorabilia and wartime uniforms they no longer can fit into, and listen to a speech by Whittier banker David Hoffman. He was a Vietnam War combat pilot and spent 15 months as a prisoner of war.

“We’re honoring WWII veterans, so why not do something splashy?” said South Gate Postmaster Prescilla Buckley, who has ordered a tent and folding chairs for her parking lot at 10120 Wright Road and has persuaded the local Rotary Club to bring refreshments for hundreds.

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Veterans who actually hit the beaches during the invasion of Europe are being invited to autograph commemorative cachets postmarked with a special “D-day June 6 1944-1994 50th Anniversary” cancellation stamp and tell war stories, she said.

A hundred of the canceled envelopes autographed by a local celebrity--World War II bomber pilot turned car dealer Cal Worthington--will be sold for $10 each as a fund-raiser for the B-17 group.

The absence of a Hitler look-alike probably won’t bother the Sir Winston Churchill impersonator. That’s because he’s a scowling English bulldog that the veterans say may be kept busy licking stamps during the celebration.

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The dog’s owner, Diane Wuertemburg of Arleta, said her bulldog--whose real name is Archie--may show up wearing a miniature English bowler hat for the occasion.

But Eisenhower look-alike Robert Beer may be disappointed. He is a civil engineer from Glendale who tried to enlist during World War II but was assigned instead by the government to ride herd on the production of U.S. warplanes at Lockheed and Hughes aircraft plants.

Beer said he learned he was a dead ringer for Ike in 1943 when Eisenhower was named supreme commander of Allied troops fighting Hitler’s Nazi forces. “The day he was appointed I came to work and a newspaper with his picture in it was on my desk and I thought it was me,” Beer said.

During Eisenhower’s days in the White House, Beer was often mistaken for the President by people asking for autographs--and then asking where his Secret Service bodyguards were. More recently, he portrayed Ike in four movies. A World War II bomber pilot buddy got him to volunteer for the South Gate event.

B-17 combat group president Stane, an Altadena resident and former owner of Pasadena’s Ice House, said he’s happy to forget about Hitler.

“D-day proved that the Hitlers of the world aren’t wanted anymore,” he said.