Page 5 - ATD04JUL2016

U.S. NEWS A5
Monday 4 July 2016

WWII air gunner from Vermont gets France’s top honorÂ

The job of ball turret gun- Springfield, Facos worked
ner was not for the faint of as a bookkeeper for a time
heart. The ball turret hung after the war and later got
from the B-17’s s underbel- a bachelor’s and master’s
ly, without enough room in degree. He taught English
the spinning, tilting sphere for decades at Vermont
for a parachute. If the College in Montpelier,
plane were shot down, the which has been absorbed
gunner had to try to scram- into Norwich University in
ble out of the turret to get a nearby Northfield. He’s a
parachute. published novelist, play-
“I never wore a ‘chute dur- wright and poet.
ing combat, so that made His son, Montpelier Police
it more interesting,” he said, Chief Tony Facos, said in
adding that trips to the an interview that his father
bathroom during a nine- or didn’t talk much about the
10-hour flight over the con- war during the time the fu-
tinent and back to England ture chief and his two sisters
wasn’t possible. were growing up in Mont-
“You went before you got pelier.
in (the turret) and then, “I had to pry stuff out of
that was it,” Facos said. him. He didn’t want to talk
Born in Lawrence, Massa- about it. He wasn’t even a
chusetts, in 1924 to a Greek big fan of me playing with
immigrant father and guns or toy soldiers,” said
Irish mother and raised in the chief, now 51. q

James Facos holds a medal in Montpelier, Vt., that he received
as part of his induction into the French Legion of Honor for his
service defending that country in World War II. The French have
been bestowing their highest honor on U.S. veterans who were
distinguished in their efforts to defeat the Nazis. Facos flew 30
missions with the Eighth Air Force over France in Germany in
1944 as a ball turret gunner on a B-17 bomber.

(AP Photo/Dave Gram)

DAVE GRAM “Startled... I know the value
Associated Press of the medal. It’s one of the
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — highest honors France has
When James Facos was to offer.”
squeezed into the ball tur- The Army Air Corps had
ret of a B-17 Flying Fortress, awarded him the Distin-
using the two 50-caliber guished Flying Cross at 19,
machine guns on either but as for this new honor,
side of him to soften up “I was caught by it,” Facos
German air defenses to let said. “To be a chevalier —
his plane drop its payload a chevalier you know is a
of bombs, he wasn’t look- knight. So I’m recognized
ing to get into the good as a knight,” he said, a bit
graces of the French. of wonder in his voice.
He and the nine other The award was first given
members of his bomber by Napoleon Bonaparte in
crew, based in England, 1802. But since 2004, which
were just trying to get was the 60th anniversary
through another of what of D-Day, the French have
would end up being 30 mis- awarded it to U.S. veterans
sions — the last on June 5, who gave distinguished
1944, against German posi- service defending France
tions in occupied Norman- against Nazi Germany in
dy, paving the way for the World War II.
Allied invasion that would In a letter notifying Facos
begin the next day. that he had been select-
But when he opened his ed for the honor, Valery
mail at his Montpelier, Ver- Freland, France’s consul
mont, home one day last general in Boston, wrote
week, the now 91-year-old that the award “is a sign
Facos found a certificate of France’s infinite grati-
showing that French Presi- tude and appreciation for
dent Francois Hollande your personal and precious
had installed him as a che- contribution to the United
valier — a knight — in that States’ decisive role in the
country’s Legion of Honor. liberation of our country in
His reaction to the news? World War II.”