The November program meeting for the Bridgeville Area Historical Society was an outstanding presentation by Georgeanne Abood Henson about three very special members of the Greatest Generation – her grandfather, George Abood; his cousin, George Shady; and their boyhood friend and neighbor, Peter Calabro. These three young men grew up together in the Baldwin Street neighborhood, served as Army Air Force crewmen in World War II, were shot down, and ended up in the same Prisoner of War Camp.
The speaker began her talk with George Shady. He found himself at Hethel Air Base, near Norwich, England, in the summer of 1943, when the 389th Bombardment Group arrived from Lowry Air Force Base in Colorado. He was assigned to the 565th Heavy Bombardment Squadron of that Group. Sergeant Shady was a radio operator and ball turret gunner on a B-24 Liberator, the “Swamp Angel”. On their eighteenth mission, on February 22, 1944, their plane was heavily damaged by four Luftwaffe fighters over Brunswick, Germany. With the Swamp Angel on fire, the crew bailed out.
The official Air Force Missing Air Crew Report listed Sergeant Shady as “badly burned”. He ended up in enemy hands and moved to Stalag IX-C, near Leipzig. Six months and three camps later he was at Stalag Luft IV, in Gross Tychow, Pomerania (now Tychowo, Poland) with eight thousand other Allied airmen. The speaker displayed a number of his censored letters home.
His cousin, Sergeant George Abood, also was a crewman (left waist gunner) on a B-24, the “Yankee Rebel”. His unit, the 567th Heavy Bombardment Squadron, was part of the 389th Bombardment Group, also based at Hethel Air Base. Ms. Henson displayed several photographs of Abood and Peter Calabro, who had been together in a training camp in Florida before being shipped overseas. Sergeant Abood’s combat record included eight missions before the Yankee Rebel was shot down over St. Lo, France on July 25, 1944. Two of those were missions on other B-24s, The “Flying Greenhouse” and “Heavy Date”.
When his plane was hit and caught fire, Sergeant Abood was the first crewman to bail out. The second one got his parachute tangled in the plane’s tail assembly and perished when it caught fire. By coincidence correspondent Ernie Pyle witnessed this incident from the ground and reported it in his weekly column and later in his best seller, “Brave Men”. After being captured, Abood was sent to Stalag VI in what is now Lithuania. Eventually he was transferred to Stalag Luft IV. One of Sergeant Shady’s letters home includes a statement that he was “taking good care of Boots” (George Abood’s nickname).
Unlike the two cousins Peter Calabro was a crewman on a B-17, “Phyllis”. He was assigned to the 340th Heavy Bombardment Squadron of the 97th Bombardment Group of the Twelfth Air Force, flying out of the Amendola Air Base, which was part of the massive Foggia complex in southeastern Italy. Sergeant Calabro was a waist/top turret gunner. On his thirtieth mission, on September 20, 1944, his plane was severely damaged in a raid over Budapest. They dove to 5000 feet to extinguish its fires and permit the crew to bail out, over Banjaluka, Yugoslavia.
According to the Missing Air Crew Report none of the crewmen survived. The speaker showed the actual telegram the Calabro family received from the War Department advising them that their son had been killed. This was even reported in our high school paper, the Bridger. Fortunately a few months later the family received another telegram reporting that he was still alive, a prisoner of war.
Calabro was passed from one prisoner-of-war camp to another for several months, finally ending up at Stalag Luft IV in mid-November, where he was reunited with Abood and Shady. This huge camp was subdivided into smaller units; Calabro and Shady were together; Abood was in a different one. Somehow Calabro managed to switch with Abood so the cousins could be together.
Early in 1945, with the Russian army approaching from the east, the Germans began to move the prisoners west. Sergeant Calabro was part of a group that spent eight days on a train being relocated to a camp at Moosburg, near Nurnberg, in central Germany. The cousins were not so fortunate; they were forced to participate in the “Black March”.
This was an ordeal covering five hundred miles on foot lasting two months, often in blizzard conditions, eventually ending at Stalag XI-B at Fallingsbostel, in north central Germany. By now the prisoners were in bad shape; most of them had already lost a third of their normal weight. Many of them failed to survive the horrible ordeal. About halfway through the march, Shady became deathly ill. He credits Abood with carrying him the rest of the way.
Eventually all three were repatriated by the Allies, nursed back to health, and returned to their homes. The really good news is the fact that all three men returned to civilian life, reared families, and became role model citizens. Despite the horrors they experienced each of them was able to conquer his personal traumas. George Abood had a long career with Universal Cyclops, including a leadership role with the United Steelworkers. George Shady operated Shady’s Bar and Grill on Washington Avenue in downtown Bridgeville. Peter Calabro built his boyhood tire-recapping business into what is today the area’s most successful automobile service facility.
Occurring two days before Thanksgiving Ms. Henson’s presentation was a vivid reminder to folks of my generation how much we owe to the generation that preceded us. In addition to saving the world for democracy, they spent the rest of their lives serving as positive role models for the following generations.
Many thanks to Georgeanne Henson for reminding us of their contributions. A brochure based on her comments and artifacts would be a fine project for the Historical Society.
There will be no Historical Society presentation in December; instead you are invited to visit the History Center and purchase your copy of the 2020 calendar. Once again Karen Godwin and Ryan Thomazin have combined to produce a calendar full of relevant local history and photographs.
After the holidays the Society will revert to its winter schedule. On Sunday, January 20, 2020, Dana Del Bianco will discuss “Roza Shanina, a Soviet Sniper in WW II”, in the Chartiers Room, Bridgeville Volunteer Fire Department.