Veterans' voices

If you go
Veterans Day Parade and Recognition Program
When: 4:30 p.m. Nov. 11
Where: Bay Isles Road; program follows at Temple Beth Israel, 567 Bay Isles Road

Marvin Black
Marvin Black, 89, served as an Army radioman in World War II from 1943 to 1946. He was part of the invasion of Okinawa on April 1, 1945 and stayed there for four months.

“It was eight miles of ships. I looked to my left, to my right, and it was all ships,” Black said. “Battleships, destroyers, cruisers, every kind of ship were all bombing this little island.”

Black stayed on ship, taking the Marines to land.

“It was a fierce battle, and a lot of those men I dropped off didn’t come back,” he said. “It was ferocious.”
At night, Black couldn’t turn on any lights because the Japanese were bombing Allied ships.

“You heard them coming down, and you just prayed that you weren’t going to get hit,” he said. “One time, a kamikaze plane was so close to hitting our ship, I could see the pilot’s head. He hit the water, and pieces of his flesh flew all over our ship.”

After the war, the ships encountered 200 mph typhoon winds as they returned through the Pacific Ocean.

“Because we had a little ship, we could go into a harbor,” he said. “We were safe, but the big ships could not go in there. The next morning, I saw ships blown over on their side. It was unbelievable. We were lucky.”

Black returned to the U.S. safely.

“My ship was LCT-875,” he said. “Eight, seven and five are my lucky numbers. No one in our crew was ever hurt.”

Aaron Cushman
Aaron Cushman, 90, served as an aircraft commander in both World War II and the Korean War, starting when he was 18.

On a mission during World War II, Cushman helped free French prisoners of war in Linz, Austria.

“We picked up guys who had been there for five years and we were to fly them home back to France,” he said. “These French soldiers came marching up the road and you never saw a dirtier, filthier group of guys. When we crossed the border flying back into France, these guys began to cry. It was a very emotional moment.”

After the war, Cushman returned to Chicago and established one of the biggest public relations firms in the country, Cushman and Associates. His firm’s clients included presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Harry Truman, the Mexican and Canadian governments and corporations such as Maytag Marriott Hotels, Keebler Cookie Co. and 7-UP.

Cushman was recalled into the military in 1950, when the Korean War began, and became a base public information officer in El Paso, Texas. When Gen. Curtis LeMay ordered the base to raise $50,000 for the Air Force Aid Society, Cushman used his Hollywood connections to throw a benefit with 36 well-known Hollywood actors, including the Three Stooges and Eddie Bracken.

“I was the lowest ranking guy,” he said. “I was just a first lieutenant, and I said I could get the money. People didn’t think I could do that, but I did. My ranking went up then, of course.”

Lee Auslander
Lee Auslander, 100, was on a day pass to London when Axis troops began dropping flying V-1 bombs over the city. He survived by hiding in the subway system.

“We were training in England, and suddenly, in the middle of the night, we got a call to pack up, saying we’re leaving,” said Auslander, who was drafted into the Army at age 28 during World War II. “We left so fast it was unbelievable. Every available soldier from all over was moved to the Bulge in Belgium.”

Auslander trained as a radar repairman but also learned Morse code and German and eventually became a translator.

“Every time we went to a new town, I would set up an office and talk to the Germans to make sure they weren’t the bad guys,” he said.

Auslander also helped liberate a slave labor camp in Paderborn, Germany and the Dachau Concentration Camp, in Dachau, Germany.

“There was one fellow in Paderborn who was from Holland and he followed me around Germany,” he said. “He did a lot of things for me. He was so thankful for having been liberated by me personally that he attached himself to me.”

In combat, Auslander pursued his love of photography. His photos and a booklet about his experiences are now in the Library of Congress.

“I took a camera with me because I figured this is a war people are going to want to see,” he said. “I took lots of pictures.”

Jim Curtis
Jim Curtis, 67, served temporary duty in the Army as an engineer in a mobile surgical unit during his three years of service in the Vietnam War.

“These guys were just young kids, and I would see a lot of wounded people, some even with their brains hanging out,” said Curtis. “I have a deep, deep appreciation for those who put their life on the line and go out on the field and face death.”

He worked from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. and spent his days sleeping in the morgue.

“If they made it to the surgical unit, we were usually able to save them,” Curtis said. “However, I will never forget when I woke up one time, and they were packing a guy to send him back to the United States, and he was dead. I woke up right there. I’ll never forget that.”

Curtis has lived in Sarasota, Bradenton and Longboat Key for 60 years.

“My proudest moment was being able to help injured soldiers, supplying them with the facility and being able to keep the hospital going,” he said.

Warren Cotty
Of Warren Cotty’s 32 missions over Japan, his most memorable was a blitz on Tokyo.

“We had a lot of trouble,” Cotty said. “We lost an engine, and we didn’t know how much gas we had left. We had four gunners on board, and three of them got wounded. I was the only one who didn’t.”

Cotty, 88, served from 1943 to 1945 in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II, enlisting when he was 18, and became a tailgunner on a B-29 airplane that helped bomb Japan.

During the Tokyo blitz, his crew jumped out of the plane as it crashed into the ocean.

Cotty’s 11-member crew kept in touch after the war and held reunions throughout the country.

“I’ve known these guys for 70 years, and we kept in touch for a long time,” Cotty said. “We had a lot of fun together too, and we stayed together. You remember all the good times and forget all the bad times.”

Al Grossman
Al Grossman, 92, began his service in the Air Force as a bombardier in 1942 at age 18.

“I went to Big Springs, Texas, for advanced bombardiering, and I got injured,” he said. “I had to have an operation, and I was put back five classes. All of my friends who were in my original class went over to England, and they all got killed.”

In 1946, Grossman chose to join the Air Force Reserve and was fully discharged in 1972. While in the reserve, Grossman worked for the Office of Special Investigations.

In 1962, Bobby Kennedy, who was then attorney general, asked Grossman to accept an appointment to become U.S. marshal of Western New York. When Kennedy was assassinated, Grossman protected his children at the funeral.

Grossman’s service didn’t end there:

In the late 1960s, Grossman captured a robber and learned the Mafia offered a $100,000 bounty for his murder. Grossman hid the man’s wife and four children, taking them to Maine and changing their names and identities. His idea led to the birth of the Federal Witness Protection Program.