World War II veterans share their stories with students

Several veterans who fought in World War II as well as the Korean and Vietnam wars visited Wilson Middle School Tuesday to tell their stories to the students, in a years-long Veterans Day tradition that the campus began hosting after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Lt. Col. Elmo E. Maiden, 96, known to some as “Lucky Elmo,” piloted 35 combat missions in a B-24 bomber plane as part of the U.S. 8th Air Force during World War II.

He recalled one winter day — Dec. 27, 1944, when three of his plane’s engines began to cut out at 30,000 feet in the air.

“I had no choice but to drop out of formation. We dropped our bombs on an open field,” he said.

With only one operating engine, Maiden told his crew they could bail when the plane reached 9,000 feet.

“They said, ‘What are you going to do?’ I said, ‘I think I’m going to try to land the airplane,’” he recalled.

He successfully landed the plane in a field outside of Paris. The aircraft couldn’t be salvaged, but none of his crew were injured.

“I was lucky,” he said of their survival. “A British soldier was the only guy who watched this from the ground. He was on a motorcycle. He came up and he said, ‘Do you know you killed a rabbit?’ That’s the first thing he said. I said, ‘Yeah, I chased him clear across France.’”

The British soldier took a photo of Maiden and the nine men in his crew, a photograph that Maiden has copied hundreds of times to share with others over the years.

Capt. Art Sherman, 94, a former bombardier, was wounded on his 13th mission while flying over Austria as part of the U.S. 15th Air Force during World War II.

The injury spurred Sherman’s reassignment to military intelligence.

“I couldn’t fly anymore and became an intelligence officer ... in Italy. I was privileged to some unusual events that happened, not in combat, but a situation that developed because Germany needed oil to run their tanks, their planes, their vehicles. Without oil, the modern army is kaput, as they say. And my story is about Ploesti,” he said.

In 1943, U.S. forces attempted to bomb and cripple the oil refineries in Ploesti, Romania, which provided fuel to the German forces. Many Americans were held as prisoners of war after their planes were downed during the raid.

The next year, Sherman witnessed the release of many POWs, some who had been held for as long as a year and a half.

“They flew in 12 C-47 transport planes and 30 B-17 airplanes and lifted 1,300 POWs, American prisoners of war, and brought them back to Italy,” he said.

Sherman’s job was to debrief them.

“When I debriefed them, they couldn’t quit thanking me, which I had nothing to do with bringing them back,” Sherman said.

“That’s a story you can tell your folks because a lot isn’t known about it. If it wasn’t for the POWs and the people that were killed, we wouldn’t be free today. Freedom is not free,” he told the students.

“It takes the people that are in cemeteries and us who are passing away to pass the torch of liberty to you students,” he added.

Both Sherman and Maiden live in the San Fernando Valley and belong to a group of war veterans who meet from 9 to 10:30 a.m. every Monday at the Wendy’s restaurant on Platt Avenue in West Hills.

For any veterans in Glendale or La Crescenta who are interested in joining the group, contact Sherman at (818) 996-3626 or email him at shermie2@aol.com.

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Kelly Corrigan, kelly.corrigan@latimes.com

Twitter: @kellymcorrigan