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14 | June 6, 2019 | The Northbrook tower news northbrooktower.com 75 years after D-Day, local WWII vets discuss military service Alan P. Henry Freelance Reporter Seventy five years ago this week, on June 6, 1944, more than 160,000 Allied troops took part in history’s largest amphibious invasion, landing along a 50-mile stretch of heavily fortified coastline in Normandy, France to press the fight against Nazi Germany. More than 5,000 ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion, and by day’s end the launch of “Operation Overlord” had secured a foothold in Europe. More than 4,000 Allied soldiers were killed or wounded on that day alone, but their sacrifice made possible the inexorable advance of Allied forces across Europe to crush the German army. The American fighting forces that defeated tyranny across the globe during WWII are now at least in their 90s. According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, roughly 400 veterans will die each day this year, and of the 16 million Americans who fought in World War II, an estimated 390,000 are still alive today. Three of those war and life-hardened veterans, all now living at Covenant Village in Northbrook, gathered recently with The Northbrook Tower to talk about their service to the nation. As an aviation ordnanceman (AO) in the Navy, Ken Johnson was skilled in the high-risk job of handling and servicing weapons and ammunition carried on Navy aircraft. Following training, he was sent to the Naval air station in Beaufort, South Carolina, home to two squadrons of Lockheed PV-2 bombers that were used to patrol the Atlantic for German submarines. There, he was part of a five-man team that trained new crew members. As with many who served in World War II, life had not been easy during the Depression but they’d made the best of it. “It was hard to get work, but all our neighbors were like that, too. It was not an affluent time to live. We were poor but we didn’t know it,” said Johnson, 95, who went on to become a tool engineer for a toy company. It was also a generation that had an abiding love of country and great sense of patriotism. “In school the teachers read the Bible, we would salute the flag, we sang patriotic songs,” Johnson said. “My father was in World War I, so he used to talk about it and he would be in parades so we thought a lot about our country. We were taught to appreciate the country that we lived in and be thankful for that.” As news of the D-Day invasion spread, there was a renewed wave of optimism among the troops, Johnson recalled. “We knew that maybe the war could be brought to an end and we could be going home and being with our families.” Victor Osborn served in 1945 aboard a Navy cargo ship in the South Pacific that delivered supplies to the Philippines. “I really enjoyed it,” Osborn recalled. “I liked the neatness and the cleanliness and the orderliness. There were white walls every place on the ship, and guys walking around with a can of cleanser and when Northbrook World War II veterans (left to right) Victor Osborn, Ken Johnson and Aleck Johnsen pose for a photo after discussing their service time with The Tower, 75 years after D-Day. Alan P. Henry/22nd Century Media they saw fingerprints they took them off the walls. The one unpleasant thing about it was the bell went off so early in the morning. About half a hour before the sun was supposed to come up we had to go get on the guns.” In hindsight, Johnson also came to understand “why I was so anxious to get out. I realized that you didn’t have any freedom to go wherever you wanted to go.” Was the 92-year-old longtime Northbrook resident and Commonwealth Edison lineman ever scared? “No,” he laughed. “I was only 18 years old and 18 year olds don’t have a brain in their head.” Like most World War II veterans, Osborn was caught up in the patriotism of it all, too. “Everybody wanted to go into the service and serve,” he said. I didn’t know one guy I went to school with who wasn’t looking forward to the day that it would be time for him to go. We were all really into it. We had some really terrible foes.” In turn, it was also a time when the civilian population returned that service with respect and admiration, Osborn said. “I remember when I was discharged and I was riding the train home on the electric North Shore line, people wanted to get up and give me their seat,” he said. “It was nothing like the poor guys who came home from Vietnam. It was terrible the way they were treated when they came come. It wasn’t their idea to be there but they did the job that had to be done. There wasn’t that kind of reception for the guys who fought in Korea either. My next younger brother, he went through hell in Korea.” Aleck Johnsen was expecting a grand adventure when he signed up for the Air Corps in 1943. “I never thought of any danger,” he said. “I was going to be a pilot and go over to Germany and drop bombs. And I was never going to get shot down.” Over many months of training, the 94-yearold Rockford native and retired grocery chain office manager shuttled around between Missouri, Texas, Illinois, Arizona and California. “It was always delay, delay, delay. We were all eager to advance, but we never got advanced training,” he said. “Then they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and they discharged me.” For his brother-in-law, 96-year-old Bill Heer, it was a different story. Heer fought door to door in the Battle of Bulge, and had gruesome tales to tell when it was all over, Johnsen said. “War is so sad,” Johnsen said. “They are young, and they are shooting at us, and we are young and we shoot them. It is so stupid.”
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