Allies of WWII Veteran Help Him Secure 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 that Crowley had never received a Prisoner of War medal.

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

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 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.”