A place to post notifications of aviation related people... pilots, pioneers, etc...
Wed May 27, 2009 2:05 am
Jack Curtis of Battle Creek, MI passed away Sunday. He was 85. Lt. Curtis was a B-24 navigator with the 15th AF, and was shot down over Austria on his 31st mission in 1944. Only four of the eleven men on board surivived. Lt. Curtis spent the rest of the war in POW camps, most of that time in a full-body cast. He then spent a couple of years recuperating at Percy Jones Army Hospital in his native Battle Creek, before getting a job at Kellogg company.
I never got a chance to meet Mr. Curtis, but my wife helped care for him in the nursing home where she works for his last few months (he was moved to hospice care last week.) I have met his good friend and high school classmate Larry Jenkins, a B-17 pilot who was also shot down and wounded over Austria. The two were reunited at a hospital in France prior to returning to the U.S. and rehab at Percy Jones, and remained good freinds for the rest of their lives. Mr. Jenkins was just interviewed on the local news yesterday while attending Memorial Day services at Fort Custer National Cemetary.
Both Curtis' and Jenkins' wartime and postwar experiences are chronicled in the book "Eagles' Wings," by Andrew Layton. I just finished reading it a couple weeks ago, and stand in awe of these men, and all who have served, and continue to do so.
Blue Skies, Mr. Curtis!
Steve