During a Veterans Day ceremony on Nov. 11 at the Crystal City VFW Post 3777, 13 veterans who were at least 90 years old received special recognition.
However, two World War II veterans became the centers of attention: Obie Young, 106, of Hematite and Larson Wile, soon to be 106, of Festus.
Young served in the Army Air Forces, the predecessor to the U.S. Air Force, under Gen. George Patton, and Wile served in the Navy, mainly in the Pacific.
Young
Young, born Sept. 15, 1918, lives with one of his daughters, Barb Young, in Hematite.
Barb said her father suffered a stroke on Sept. 10, so she helped during his interview for this story.
A picture of Young taken in the 1940s.
Young was drafted into the Army Air Forces during World War II. He reenlisted after his initial hitch and was a staff sergeant when discharged.
“He grew up in Arcadia, Mo., and lived there until he was drafted,” Barb said. “When he left Arcadia, he entered the service at Jefferson Barracks. He went to Camp Maxey in Texas for infantry training in the Army Air Forces.
“From Camp Maxey, he went overseas in 1944 to be in the infantry. That got changed when he got to Germany.”
Young ended up serving in a tank.
“He replaced an injured soldier in a tank,” Barb said. “He was in a 42-ton Sherman tank as a gunner and assistant driver.”
Young said it was not difficult to learn to drive a tank.
“It’s like driving a truck or a car,” he said.
As for his duties as a gunner, he aimed at the skies.
“He shot at planes,” Barb said. “He had a 150-caliber machine gun. He said he never knew if he hit anything and he doesn’t want to know.”
Young served in the 3rd Armored Division “spearheaded by Gen. Maurice Rose,” but the more famous Gen. George Patton was in charge of the entire 3rd Army, Barb said.
“I never met Patton,” Young said. “I was never near him.”
Young said he was never wounded during his time in the military, but he was in the heart of the fighting.
“His group was supposed to go to the Battle of the Bulge, but they got deployed in another direction,” Barb said. “He said it was just horrible, the noise from everything.”
She said her father also saw where the Germans buried many Holocaust victims.
Barb said her father and mother, Verma Parton, knew each other from Missouri, but they were married on Feb. 22, 1947, in Denver, Colo. He was stationed in Wyoming at the time.
The couple was married for 58 years, until Verma died in 2005.
They had two daughters. The other daughter, Nancy Rudolph, lives in the Festus area.
“He worked for Mallinckrodt Chemical Works in Hematite,” Barb said. “Up there he did everything. He worked with 93-percent uranium. He came up with high radiation, and they terminated his job.
“Then he worked for Sears and Roebuck in De Soto as a salesman. He came back to the Hematite plant when it was Combustion Engineering as a security guard and retired in 1986.”
Barb said her father was diagnosed with prostate cancer more than 20 years ago.
“He had prostate cancer and they said he was too old for an operation,” Barb said. “He took (medication). He’s been in remission ever since.”
Young attributes his long life to his faith in God.
“I trust in the Lord,” he said.
Wile
Wile, born Dec. 6, 1918, turns 106 in a couple of weeks. He served in the Navy on a fleet tender, mostly in the Pacific, during the war and was a petty officer, first class when he was discharged.
He lives at Senior Care Solutions, a senior living establishment in Festus.
“I spent about three years in the service,” he said. “I was drafted.”
Wile said he did not get to choose which military branch he served with.
“They go down the line, ‘You’re Army.’ ‘You’re Navy.’ ‘You’re Coast Guard,’” he said. “You don’t have a choice.”
A picture taken during Wile's service days.
Originally from Pennsylvania, Wile earned a bachelor’s degree in metallurgy from the Missouri School of Mines, later named the University of Missouri-Rolla and today called Missouri University of Science & Technology. His training played a part in the job he was given in the Navy.
“Then, they learned my background and knew I was in industry and put me where they needed me,” he said. “We repaired ships. I did some time in the Atlantic and in the Pacific. We were out in the ocean and went wherever we were needed. I went as far away as Hong Kong. We did not have a base – no home port. We just wandered around.”
Wile said he was never wounded during the war, but he remembers dangerous times while aboard ship.
“The last ship I was on was the U.S.S. Prometheus,” he said. “The (tender) boats moved in a zigzag motion. That was to avoid (torpedoes) from the Japanese submarines. It’s harder to hit a moving target.”
Wile said the incident he remembers most from the war was the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis in July 1945. The Indianapolis left Guam on July 28 and was sunk a couple of days later in the Pacific, with only 316 of 900 surviving, according to the Smithsonian Magazine website.
“The Prometheus was in the area, but they chose to attack the bigger ship,” he said. “The sinking of the cruiser Indianapolis was the Navy’s biggest at-sea disaster.”
Wile married twice, outliving both wives.
“My first marriage, to Arlene, was for 49 years,” he said. “My second marriage, to Margueritte, was 22 years.
“I have two children with Arlene: Brenda Wile and Marilyn Moore.”
He said Brenda lives in Bonne Terre and Marilyn lives in Virginia.
Wile said he lived most of his adult life in Virginia, where he worked for the Lynchburg Foundry Co., but he has lived in Jefferson County the past two years.
A sports fan, he said he was well aware of another guy from Pennsylvania who became an icon in St. Louis, Stan Musial.
“I remember ‘Stan the Man,’” Wile said. “I never met him. I did eat at his restaurant (Stan Musial & Biggie’s).”
Musial was born two years after Wile, in 1920.
Wile attributes his long life to good genes.
“I always get that question,” he said. “I had the proper genes. All my family lived to the upper 80s, lower 90s.”
Read about the local VFW that honored Young, Wile and 11 other veterans:
Crystal City VFW Post 3777 holds a Veterans Day ceremony every year, but this year’s was extraordinary.