Resident Awarded Overdue War Medal

Friends of Dick Crowley seldom heard him talk about his war service, flying missions with the Army Air Corps as a gunner and radio operator during World War II.

Crowley, 73, talked less still about the three months he spent in Nazi prison camps. That was understandable--he was beaten in camp when he would tell his captors nothing, and beaten when he told them lies.

He was so quiet about his ordeal that until his wife told a few of their friends--including City Council members--they did not know Crowley had never received the Prisoner of War medal he deserved, probably because of a clerical error.

After more than two years of behind-the-scenes work by his friends, the error was finally corrected Monday night when Rep-elect Brad Sherman pinned the POW medal on Crowley at a city meeting.

Crowley expressed no bitterness. Indeed, he said he was glad to receive the medal now, rather than soon after the war.

“The fact that it was awarded in what is now my hometown and it came from people who are my neighbors makes this special,” he said.

His friends had worked with Air Force officials to secure the medal.

“Here was a person who didn’t ask anything for himself and yet had made a great sacrifice,” said Councilman Ed Corridori, Crowley’s neighbor. “It may be old-fashioned--a sense of duty, honor, country--but I thought we needed to celebrate that, we needed to recognize that.”

Crowley served 30 months in the military, flying 23 missions in Europe. On a mission in February 1945, his plane developed mechanical problems and he was forced to bail out over an Austrian village.

Captured by the Germans, Crowley was moved from camp to camp as the Allies moved in. He was liberated in May 1945 from a camp in Mooseburg, Germany, by troops led by Gen. George S. Patton.

“I feel very lucky,” he said. “I got out of this thing unscathed, except for a few nightmares. I’ve enjoyed good health all my life. And there are many thousands of war veterans who weren’t as lucky as I was.”