JACKSON VETERANS SPEAK AT MIDDLE SCHOOL

History came alive for Paul Hancock's social studies students at Jackson Middle School Monday. Three local veterans visited the class and discussed their World War II and Korean War experiences.

The class had been studying the time period and asked the veterans numerous questions after their presentations.

E.P. "Pug" Kurre, Carlton "Cotton" Meyer and John Sullivan each spoke. Kurre and Meyer fought with the Army Air Corps in World War II. Sullivan, meanwhile, saw duty during the Korean conflict.

"The military is like insurance," Kurre said. "It's best if it's never needed."

"Looking back, I'm glad I did it," Meyer said. "I wouldn't want to do it again, though. I came back, which was more than a lot of people did. I know the good Lord was with me."

Both Kurre and Meyer were involved with bombers. Kurre loaded bombs while Meyer was a radio man and a gunner in B-17s and other bombers.

Meyer flew in 50 missions, serving three months in England and nine months in North Africa, in a B-17 called the "Screaming Eagle." After 50 missions, the crew was sent to Las Vegas and trained to teach recruits. At first, Meyer taught gunnery and then requested to teach radio.

"I wouldn't take a million dollars for my experience," he said, "but I wouldn't do it again for a million dollars."

Korean experience

Sullivan was assigned to long-range radar repair duty in Japan in late 1952. The Korean War was still going on, and tensions were thick.

Russian fighters would frequently cross over into air space controlled by the United States. The radar crew would then "scramble" up a squadron of U.S. fighters.

"Of course, the Russians could see the American planes coming on their radar, too, and they'd turn around and go back over the line," he said. Occasionally the pilots would give the radar crew a free air show.

"After we'd scramble some fighters, if they had spare fuel, they'd come over and buzz the radar site," Sullivan recalled. "We'd all go outside and watch. They'd be about 200 to 300 feet off the ground."

Kurre was assigned to work on a bomb demolition squad after Germany surrendered. That duty never materialized. After he returned home on the Queen Elizabeth II, for a 30-day leave, a new policy discharged all veterans with 85 battle points. Kurre qualified and was discharged.

Meyer returned to the shoe factory where he had worked before the war -- but not for long.

"Once you had been out and seen the world, it seemed like sort of a drab life," Meyer said. He wound up taking advantage of the GI Bill and learned to be a butcher.

"I found my experience quite helpful," Sullivan echoed. "I wound up in electronics the rest of my life."

Students asked a number of questions, touching on the veterans' perceptions of Adolf Hitler and the Axis leaders, personal time in the service, changes in technology and more.

Sullivan said changes in technology between World War II and the Korean War were significant and that since that time "you can't even fathom it."

Asked to put the war into perspective and whether it was worth the heavy price paid on all sides, Kurre reflected on the postwar world.

"We've had peace ever since at least compared to World War II," he said. "It worked out well for the enemy as well as us. It wasn't a matter of hating the enemy. We were fighting for the freedom of both us and them. You do what you have to do to make it come about."

Asked about free time, Kurre remembers lots of pingpong being played while Meyer recalled hitting nightspots in London during the dusk-to-dawn blackouts and seeing Bob Hope perform twice in North Africa. He noted, though, that recreation time was rare, with some bombing missions taking up to 12 hours.

Kurre, meanwhile, displayed a cigarette lighter made by Italian prisoners of war in England. He said he hasn't used it in 40 years.

Meyer also noted that a visit to Germany in 1984-85 allowed him to see a couple of bombed-out ruins, preserved as a war memorial. This was his only direct contact with the bombs his plane dropped.

"We were 25,000 to 30,000 feet in the air," he said. "We never saw the people where the bombs hit. We saw them explode and knew people were down there, but there was never a direct connection with it."

He noted that the only German soldiers he saw were the pilots of German fighters, attacking the Flying Fortress.