Sunday, October 24, 2010

‘Dig Pink’ raises $6,316 for cancer research

Monitor Photo/Michael Hannigan Volleyball teams from Eustace and Malakoff high schools and middle schools did an amazing job raising funds and awareness for breast cancer research. Volleyball players from both school districts present a check for $6,125 to Malakoff ISD assistant superintendent and cancer survivor Sybil Norris (center left) Oct. 15. The final number on funds raised totaled $6,316.49. Eustace Coach Chuck Powers is seen in the background. Many thanks were expressed to the businesses and organizations who helped with the final “Dig Pink” event held at Malakoff High School.

Black Thursday recalled
Molen tours with snubbed vet group
By Pearl Cantrell
Monitor Staff Writer
SEVEN POINTS–The indignity of being turned away from a Dallas restaurant at the top of Reunion Tower cannot compare to suffering capture under the Germans during World War II, former POW and Henderson County resident Herman Molen told The Monitor Thursday.
Molen met with a few of the survivors of the second Schweinfurt bombing mission of Oct. 14, 1943, last week, as they do every year.
Known in history as “Black Thursday,” the mission ended in disaster for 60 of the 300 planes conducting a bombing run over Germany.
This was the first reunion of veterans of that infamous mission to be held in Dallas – thanks to the hospitality of Molen’s niece, Canton resident Betty Sweetman, who helped organize it.
As a hostess, Sweetman was embarrassed that the veterans were turned away.
A hostess for Wolfgang Puck’s Five Sixty restaurant (located 560 feet above the ground in the Reunion Tower) refused the men entrance, because their reunion-printed T-shirts and walking shorts did not conform to the restaurant’s dress code.
The group had been touring the city most the day, when they thought to get a bird’s-eye view of Dallas from the revolving restaurant atop the tower.
The restaurant manager tried to make amends with the group by sending a bottle of Scotch and a written invitation to return, but the men didn’t take him up on his offer.
“We were humiliated once, so I don’t think they have any interest in stepping back in there,” Sweetman told The Dallas Morning News.
In the aftermath, all involved in the restaurant agreed that the veterans should not have been turned away.
Molen, 88, wasn’t part of the tour that day, opting to remain at the hotel and reminisce with another member from their group who didn’t feel up to the tour.
“They didn’t know they had to be dressed up to get in, so they (the restaurant) threw their butts out,” Molen said.
The men were wearing caps that identified themselves as veterans, and only one was in walking shorts, he pointed out.
“It was a big mistake on the part of the restaurant,” he said.
Jay Coberly told the DMN that if he could spend two years in a POW camp, he could have handled sitting in a fancy restaurant for a few minutes.
“We weren’t dressed like hobos. We were just dressed comfortably,” the 93-year-old retired hospital administrator from Maryland told the newspaper.
“We’ve been all over the country, and we’ve never had this kind of problem. Dallas must be a first-class town,” Coberly added mockingly.
Even Dallas mayor Tom Leppert joined in trying to make amends, sending along gold-colored lapel pins bearing the city’s seal that the men could add to their hats.
In a letter to the group, Leppert said “Your sacrifice and commitment to our nation is what makes you an invaluable part of our city today ... We render homage to the selflessness, loyalty and heroism demonstrated by the 8th Army Air Force, also known as the Mighty 8th.”
Molen said his POW experience is chronicled through William Holden’s performance in the movie “Stalag 17.”
He escaped from the prison camp, located just outside Schweinfurt, Germany, three times and spent 21 days in solitary confinement each time.
“I was the bad boy. Nobody liked me – neither the Germans nor the Americans. They felt I was putting their lives in danger,” he said.
However, one of those escape attempts was successful, in that he was able to liberate “the Grey Ghost,” a saboteur the Germans greatly wanted to destroy.
The prison camp commander asked Molen to get him out, and he did, escaping to Graz, Austria (where the governor of California is from).
Molen was recaptured there and brought back. However, the Grey Ghost went undetected, and remained in Austria until the end of the war, he said.
Molen spent 19 months as a POW.
A part of the 305th Bombing Group, he and the flight crew had to parachute out after a rocket hit the plane, injuring him and the navigator.
He suffered starvation and solitary confinement three times – twice while sick with the mumps and pneumonia.
During a starvation march of 126 miles, he and the rest of the camp were liberated by the Panther 13th Armor Division.
“I was determined to survive,” he said. And he did.