Bob Collins
With the 75th anniversary of D-Day coming, dozens of C-47s — the military version of the DC-3 — are on their way to the coast of France. And this derelict is getting some well-deserved attention. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Tag: World War II
Lt. Col. Richard Cole was 103 when he died Monday morning in San Antonio.
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Walt Straka, 98, is the only surviving member of the 194th Tank Battalion in Brainerd, who were ordered to the Philippines in September 1941, a few months before Pearl Harbor. They were the first tank unit in the Far East. Read more →
LeRoy Luitjens and Helmer Haakenson had a bittersweet sip or two as the last two members of Luverne’s Last Man Club opened a ceremonial bottle of bourbon.
Mr. Luitjens died on Sunday. Read more →
Marvin Strombo is 93 now. It’s been 73 years since he took a Japanese flag from a dead soldier on Saipan. On Friday, Marvin landed in Tokyo, the first step to bring the flag home. There are, apparently, a lot of old men still out there having second thoughts about their souvenirs of war.
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David Thatcher has died. He was an engineer and tail gunner on the seventh B-25 in the group. His son posted on Facebook that his father suffered a stroke on Sunday afternoon and died this morning. Read more →
Melvin Rector, 94, spent considerable time in his post World War II years regretting that he never returned to England, where he was a radioman on several B-17s and a gunner on another — Memphis Belle, perhaps the most famous B-17 in the war.
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If not for this picture, Pvt. John P. Sersha’s gravesite in Europe would only carry the name ‘X7429’ and his family in Eveleth would never know what happened to him.
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Frank Levingston, the nation’s oldest living World War II veteran has died. He’d held the distinction for only two weeks. Read more →
The Telegraph newspaper is recreating the battle with a “live” blog as the battle raged.
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Nicolas Winton has died, and if you don’t recognize the name, you might recognize this unbelievable moment from a video that raced around the Internet a few years ago. Read more →
Another reminder of how the Internet connects us in more ways than we can imagine. Read more →
We bid farewell today to Bernard Jordan who has died at age 90. You may recall him from his escapade last year when he went AWOL from his senior citizens home in England and showed up in France to commemorate D-Day. Read more →
A ‘last man standing’ club in Lake Elmo has dissolved. The ravages of time have not allowed the World War II vets to wait until there was only one left to toast the others. Read more →
It’s been a little more than 70 years Major Don Beerbower, an ace pilot, was shot down and died in Saint-Thierry. But today, the town will dedicate a monument to the 22-year-old from Hill City, MN., who might’ve had a big career in buttermaking (he was studying it in Iowa State) had the war not broken out when it did. Read more →