The Boothill Coffee Club Volume I

This book is a treasure of recorded memories and stories about many of the greatest heroes of our two great wars. Jesse Edmisten, at 109, was the oldest.  Cher Ami, a brave carrier pigeon was the tiniest.  Wilfred Billey left an Indian reservation to become a Navajo code talker.  Bob Kashiwagi, a Japanese-American, volunteered for suicide missions.  Bob Dole became one of our greatest senators.  These are but a few of the unique characters from the book.

A BRIEF LOOK AT SOME OF THE HEROES

WWI

Ch.1-Combat hero Jesse Edmisten turned 109 in January 2003.  He won the French Legion of Merit by wiping out a machine gun nest at Château Thierry in 1918 and diving on an exploding shell.  But that was only part of his bigger-than-life story.

Ch. 2-Cher Ami (my dear friend) a tiny carrier pigeon flew threw hell-fire with the message that saved Maj. Whittlesey and the Lost Battalion.

WWII

Ch. 5-Before the war, Gen. MacArthur ordered Air Force Dr. Bill Brenner to bring a tuxedo to Philippines.  Captured when war broke out, Brenner endured the living hell of the Bataan Death March and imprisonment.  He treated his fellow prisoners with what the Japanese provided: Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound!  He never got to wear his new tuxedo.

Ch. 6-Wilfred Billey, an American Indian, suffered the stigma of being a second-class citizen without the right to vote but became one of the legendary Navajo Code Talkers fighting in the Pacific.

Ch. 7-Robert Ichigi KashiwagiL an American citizen of Japanese ancestry (NISEI) was incarcerated in one of the great miscarriages of justice. Volunteering for front-line combat duty, the NISEI suffered horrendous casualties in Europe, including the bloodbath rescue of a group of doomed American soldiers known as The Lost Battalion (WWII).

Ch. 8-PFC Gene Stegman was a singing cowboy. He later fought at Iwo Jima.

Ch. 9-Platoon leader, Bob Dole, was ordered to lead his men into a valley of death in Italy.  He recovered from horrendous wounds to become a powerful force in the US Senate.

Ch. 10-Combat veteran Kent Ross thought he was going home after the war but found himself at the Nuremberg Trials guarding the top Nazi war criminals--including Hermann Goring.

Ch. 12-Sgt. Floyd Kirby was the nose gunner on a B-24 that flew out of Cherenola, Italy, repeatedly bombing the Axis' most important military facilities.  Miraculously, even though enemy flack and fire constantly hit the plane, he survived 50 combat missions.

Ch. 13-PFC Merl Beemer spent the war in Europe doing the miserable but very necessary task of gathering and identifying the remains of our soldiers that fell in many battles.

Ch. 14-Second Lt. Vernon Schraeder, a B-17 Bombardier, was on board when German fighter planes attacked, knocking out their #2 engine and killing the radioman.  The screaming was so loud that several crewmen bailed out, thinking they'd received orders to do so.

Ch. 16-Pvt. Gene Eastin, brand new to combat, was pinned down by machine gun fire.  He found himself staring down the long barrel of a German tank's cannon and became a POW.

Ch. 17-At night, Army Sgt. Willard Davis was terrorized by the clinking sounds of ocean crabs bumping against the rocks, heralding the landing of an infiltrating Japanese force.

Ch. 19-5gt. Ed Combs flew in 21 bombing raids over Japan, but was almost killed when the guns on his own plane misfired, blowing away an engine.

Ch. 20-Gabby Hartnett volunteered for paratroops and gliders to get the extra $50 a month.  He fought at Bastogne and came home with frozen feet and a bullet hole in his helmet.

Ch. 22-Sgt. Orville Brehm supplied the rations for General Patton's onrushing army.  He was aboard the Death Train at St. Valerie when it crashed, killing 147 and injuring another 400.

Ch. 28-Lt. M .J Combest was a Kriegie (a German prisoner of war) after his plane was shot down.  Now deceased, his story came from his diary.  It contains excerpts from letters that his fellow prisoners received from home.  Some of them were hilarious!

Ch. 29-George Quasenbarth overhauled tanks outdoors in freezing mud, snow and darkness, welding on duck bills and mounting tracks to keep Patton's army moving.

Ch. 30-Carl Kurt Zacharias was a member of Hitler's Youth and later a German soldier who fought in the brutal siege of Stalin grad.  To this day he thanks the Russian soldier that shot and wounded him, thus saving his life.