![]() ![]() You would take pictures of the stars and use a sextant – took readings and used a book that would tell you where you were.” For navigator training we had to know the stars, what they were and where. It trained you to be conscious of a lack of oxygen and to use your mask. One side of the room had to untie and take off their boots and put them back on without oxygen. “You had to know how much pressure your bodies could stand and so they put us in a room and reduced the pressure. “We practiced bombing at low altitude to 10,000 feet,” Sowers said. The training in Georgia took several months during which time they had to learn to fly the plane for the bombing run and learn about the conditions in the aircraft. I chose to go to bombardier school – the bombardier gets to fly the plane for a few minutes leading into a bomb run,” he explained. “We wanted to be pilots, me and a couple of my friends, but they had too many pilots – they weren’t taking any more. These gentle nudges maneuver him from basic training to bombardier training. They have books of photos, and old uniforms, and shadow boxes that display their fathers’ WWII Victory Ribbon, and American Theater Ribbon. When Sowers stops, one of his daughters provides a prompt that gets him moving again, like a parent pushing a bicycle for a child learning to ride. His stories are often disjointed, stopping and restarting in different places, but his two daughters, Rhonda Sowers, who is also his live-in caregiver, and Wilkins who lives nearby, help fill in the details. Today, in a quiet voice, Sowers’ face lights up when he talks about his military experience. While in basic training, he read an article in a magazine that the Army Air Corps was looking for recruits to be bombardiers and navigators he applied and was transferred to the USAAC. So it was that on March 29, 1943, Sowers found himself in the Army. It was there he was drafted into the Army.Īmong the millions of men and women who served during the war, not all saw combat – tens of thousands were in training, keeping a full pipeline of trained soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines ready to be deployed to Europe or the Pacific. ![]() After completing high school and two years of night school he moved to Baltimore to take a job making war plane parts at the Glenn L. ![]() Sowers was born in Riner, Virginia in 1922 and his first year of school was in a one-room schoolhouse before his family moved to the relative metropolis of Roanoke. “He taught his grandsons to hunt, and if he’s strong enough he attends the Veterans’ meetings at the local YMCA each month, and church on Sundays and Wednesdays.” “Every year we take him to Floyd County where he was born and where he spent summers helping his grandparents on the farm and hunting squirrel, rabbits, turkeys and deer when he could,” said Melissa Wilkins, one of Sowers’ two daughters. But he also makes it a point to exercise regularly and get outside. He enjoys Chik-fil-A, especially the milkshakes, and he spends some time watching Virginia Tech football and Duke basketball between World War II movies, old westerns and the world news. Today, Sowers spends his time with family, friends and neighbors who drop by. But in this case, the owner is Woody Sowers, a World War II Veteran who will celebrate his 100th birthday Dec. Flags are common enough where it could be a schoolteacher, community organizer, or civil servant. The American flag outside a modest ranch house in Staunton, Virginia doesn’t give away too much about the owner. ![]()
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