Memories remain powerful

Saturday, August 8, 2009

E.W. (Elbridge) Bartley Jr. is a resident of the Missouri Veterans Home in Cape Girardeau. He served more than 40 years as a United Methodist pastor. On Aug. 6, 1945, Rev. Bartley was Lt. Bartley on the island of Saipan in the South Pacific, far from home and attached to the Second Marine Division. The B-29s leaving the air base on nearby Tinian would fly over his encampment, causing the flaps on his chaplain's tent to rustle noisily. On that particular morning, however, the planes left so early Lt. Bartley didn't hear a thing. He didn't know until it was over the magnitude of what that air convoy had done.

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