Margery Warder

Bio & Contact Info Blog Current Projects Favorite Photos Feeding Body & Soul In Print Elsewhere Prayer Chamber Study Q&A Notes	Petersons 65th Wedding Anniversary December 17 By Marge Warder, Christian Writers Guild Member (Article first appeared in Villisca Review/Stanton Viking, December 2007) For the Petersons, seventeen is the number to remember. World War II Veteran Carol and wife, Mary Peterson of the Stanton-Villisca area, will be celebrating their 65th wedding anniversary on December 17th, 2007. Throughout their marriage, December 17th has marked several important life events. They married on December 17, 1942, partly because Carol’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. L. C. (Luther) Peterson, members of Mamrelund Lutheran Church, Stanton, had married on that date in 1903. On Carol and Mary’s first anniversary, December 17, 1943, B-26 Bombardier/Navigator Peterson left Willington, Delaware on a British troop transport (Empress of Scotland) to take part in driving Hitler’s German Army out of Italy. A year later on December 17, 1944, Peterson was one among the thousand soldiers gratefully viewing New York Harbor while aboard a French ship “whose cooks could have made even Spam taste good” as it brought America’s warriors home.
Peterson is also pleased that December 17th marks the anniversary of the Wright brothers’ first airplane flight. Airplanes are a part of his story, too. Carol Peterson grew up in the Stanton-Villisca area but he’d moved to Los Angeles, California, to find work during the Great Depression, a time when unemployment hit about 20%. An optimist, Peterson believes one positive of WWII was the ending of the Great Depression. Allied nations geared up to manufacture defense supplies to those opposing Hitler’s plan to rule the world and eradicate all that didn’t fit Hitler’s profile for the superior race. By 1940, President Roosevelt and Congress saw the necessity of federalizing National Guard units across this nation, with talk of all serving one year. Peterson remembers that employers were unlikely to hire anyone who’d not fulfilled their year of military duty. Peterson decided to get that year out of the way. He signed up with California’s 160th Infantry. He got home for Christmas, 1940, before his unit would be mobilized in February 1941. That Christmas trip home required some effort and figuring because of tight finances, but, as Peterson says, “It’s strange and amazing how God puts people together. Truth is stranger than fiction.” Young, single Carol Peterson was determined to get home for Christmas if he could. “A train from Los Angeles to Omaha would cost about $40, a bus about $25-30, but a ‘share a ride’ with someone headed to Omaha with space left in the car would cost only $15, so I chose that way home.” After spending Christmas with his family here, he used ‘share a ride’ for his return to California. The dispatcher in Omaha let him know he had a ride. As the Lord would have it, his future wife’s father, Peter S. Peterson, had recently traded cars and knew he’d get a better price on the West Coast for his old car. Peter Peterson’s friend was the Omaha dispatcher coordinating rides to California. Mary’s father decided he’d have two relatives accompany his daughter to California to sell the car. They sought a rider to help cover expenses. Totally unacquainted with each other before that 2000 mile trek to California, the dispatcher assigned the young soldier to their car. “It was a good trip,” Carol smiles. The couple got acquainted and Mary worked a month in LA before returning to Omaha. They continued and developed their relationship by mail until their December 1942 wedding. Congress had extended Carol’s duty with the military to eighteen months. It would continue to expand. Three months after Congress extended Peterson’s enlistment, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, destroying the US Naval Fleet assigned to prevent Japan from coming to our West Coast. Peterson recalls what his infantry unit faced December 7, 1941. Peterson recalls they’d frequently been confined to camp because of growing concern about Japan’s flights in the Pacific and the potential threat to our West Coast. December 6th, they were once again confined to base, but most men had family nearby so it didn’t seem a hardship to them. December 7th they learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor. “The West Coast was unguarded,” Peterson says. “The Japanese were flying over the Pacific and our fleet was in the bottom of Pearl Harbor.” How did bases on the West Coast react? With chaos. “It was pathetic,” Peterson recalls. “We were unprepared.” The men were lined up for inspections throughout the day and told they’d be moving out at midnight. They received mess gear. About midnight they were lined up again and issued M1 Rifles. “Each rifleman got eight bullets! That’s all they could gather for us and we were told we’d be heading off to war. They tried to load us onto trucks, but they didn’t have enough trucks, so they rounded up Greyhound buses for us. We were being sent off to war on a borrowed bus with one clip and an empty cartridge belt.” By morning he was in San Diego where he began guard duty. During this time even second generation Japanese American citizens, known as Nisei, were confined, partly for their own protection because of the almost irrational fear somewhat likely after a nation’s attacked by members of another country. “If the Army hadn’t helped confine the Japanese people, they’d have been in more danger because of the animosity towards Japan after Pearl Harbor.” Peterson’s own unit had seven or eight Japanese American draftees. All agreed a rifle-carrying Japanese man would be in danger on the West Coast. The Japanese American citizens were no doubt loyal to this country. However, fear sometimes overrules reason. “Japanese Americans who were in the military formed a separate regiment and did a good job fighting against Hitler’s army in Italy,” Peterson remembers. In fact, in Europe, some became known as “The Purple Heart Battalion.” In the Pacific, their intelligence assistance is credited with shortening the war by two years. After guarding the West Coast for a few months, Peterson was sent to Ft. Lewis, Washington for further training. There a notice prompted him to apply for flight training school. He passed the test and became part of the Army’s Air Corp, forerunner of the Air Force, by September 1942, and would take more training in Santa Anna, California, where he’d be classified as a bombardier. Peterson recalls that one hundred pound stove pipes were used as bombs during training. Because the twin engine B25s and B26s, which incidentally were made at Glen Martin’s Plant in Omaha (now Offutt Air Force Base), were medium range bombers, there was no room for a navigator. Peterson therefore trained and qualified to be a combination bombardier/navigator in New Mexico before being sent to Barksdale Field (Louisiana) for combat crew training. A six man combat crew consisted of three gunners who kept the enemy away so the pilot, co-pilot, bombardier could primarily identify and eliminate the enemy and the enemy’s supply sources at railroads, seaports, bridges, and munitions depots. Peterson became part of the 17th Bomb Crew in Italy. Their mission was to stop Hitler’s progress in Italy and southern France. The five hundred mile range B26’s bomb rack would carry 4000 lbs. That meant they could disrupt the enemy’s plans and activities with the options of two 2000 lb bombs, four 1000 lb bombs, or eight 500 lb bombs which they continued to do during the August invasion of Southern France. When Peterson had begun flying with the 17th Bomb Crew over Italy in December 1943, his crew was told that if they survived forty bombing raids, they could go home. On January 20th, the Anzio Battle started. “We were to be in Rome by February 1st. We got there the 4th of June. During that battle we got an order from 12th Air Force. It said, ‘Replacements are not keeping up with casualties. The 40 mission rotation policy is hereby cancelled. All combat crews will fly as long as they are fit.” Peterson’s crew flew seventy-eight missions before heading home. He recalls how difficult it was to liberate Rome. “On every corner they had some statue or some building we were not to hit, and of course we didn’t want to touch the Vatican. If we’d not done things right in Rome, people in America would probably have not wanted us to come home. In Rome we just hit railroads that would supply the Nazis.” Crews stayed together but flew any B26 ready to fly. Crews became like family. Of course they took flak from antiaircraft fire. Ground launched 88mm shells were set to explode at altitudes near allied planes with the intention of sending destructive pieces of metal into the planes. Several planes in which Peterson flew were hit, but none of his crew members were ever injured. Peterson does have an unusual photo, however, of another plane in their squadron that took a hit which caused one engine to separate from the doomed plane. In the photo, the plane-less propeller faithfully turns as it plummets downward. Only two crew members parachuted to safety. Air crews don’t hear the grateful shouts of citizenry liberated from tyrants. But Peterson’s pleased he could lend support for liberty from his B26 flights. Does he regret the time spent in WWII? No. In fact, Peterson says, “It was a great time to be alive and be part of the struggle before us. The country was unified. Everyone saw the necessity of the war we were fighting. Hitler had to be stopped.” A lot of men wanted to stay in the war and be in Europe when it was over. That’s not how it was for Peterson. After his seventy-eighth mission, Peterson says, “If I could have, I would have packed in five minutes and would have been glad to get home. I’d seen enough flak. I’d lost buddies, too. And I was eager to see my family.” Every time a soldier was transferred, he waited for his ‘shot records’ to catch up. While waiting, soldiers were often re-vaccinated. Peterson jokes that the extra serum may be what’s giving him his long life. After the records arrived, he was transferred ‘home.’ Peterson had shipped out when his oldest son, Carl, was just six weeks old. Mary and Carl lived with both her parents in Underwood, Iowa, and Carol’s parents who farmed south of Stanton. That December 17, 1944, after landing in NY Harbor, Peterson took a train to Omaha’s Union Station where he was met by Mary and Carl and Mary’s mother and brother, Albert. The next day Peterson’s dad and a neighbor, Cal Veseen, came and took them to his parents’ home before their transfer to Santa Monica, California. Peterson’s time at home was tempered by the fact that his brother, Harlan, a B25 pilot in over Rabaul, New Guinea, had been declared missing since October 1943. Ironically, Peterson’s parents had received the news of Carol and Mary’s first son the day before they received the MIA telegram regarding Harlan. It’d take until January 1946 for military records to confirm Harlan had been shot down over water at Rabaul. During WWII, their father, Luther Peterson, did his patriotic duty by serving on the Selective Service Board for Montgomery County. Peterson and other military members didn’t know why they were given the opportunity to tally up a point system and apply for discharge. The atom bomb was a well kept secret that would bring the war to a close about the time Carol and Mary were back on the family farm in Iowa. That bomb made the bombs he’d carried seem like mere toys. Peterson and the rest of the allied world were relieved the war had come to an end without this nation being invaded. The cost had been great on all sides, including to those in Montgomery County who lost loved ones, including the Peterson family. Carol recalls that the National Guard Units from Red Oak’s Company M and Villisca’s Company F, serving in the same regiment in North Africa, had minimal experience when they were surrounded by Germany’s best, Rommel, who had three years experience and was intent on fulfilling Hitler’s evil plans. Many suffered loss of life and captivity and our corner of Iowa respectfully remembers those men and that time. Peterson recites General Patton’s comment like this: Rather than mourn these men who died, thank God that they were alive when we needed them.” How grateful we can be that we do not live under tyrants. This past Veterans’ Day, Carol and Mary ate out in Red Oak, hoping to take in Memorial events there. Carol had been honored along with other Veterans at the Stanton gathering that morning, and he’d worn his WWII uniform. When Carol went to pay for his lunch, he found that someone had paid his bill. That’s a good reminder to us all that it’s never too late to show our gratitude to veterans. Now as Carol and Mary prepare to celebrate their sixty-five years together, WWII is just one part of their memories. They’ve farmed east of Stanton since 1955. They raised four sons, including Mike whose love of farming had him partnering with his parents on the family farm for a number of years until that didn’t work out and he went into OTR truck driving. Their oldest, Dr. Carl Peterson, retired after being a surgeon at Des Moines’ Veteran’s Hospital. Their other two, Drs. Darwin and Phillip Peterson, work as a surgeon in Iowa City and a family physician in Bluefield, WV. Just guess how many grandchildren this couple has. Seventeen! Two grandchildren are currently Marines; one has served three tours in Iraq and the other is a new recruit. Right now they’re also blessed with thirteen great-grandchildren. The Petersons would testify that there’s more to life than that which passes away. Their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is an important part of this life, and equally important for the next. They enjoy Bible teaching and are active members in Grace Baptist Church in Red Oak, Iowa. In behalf of those who know the Petersons, and others who enjoy freedoms partly because of their willingness to sacrifice, we offer our congratulations on their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary. May the Lord bless them. They have certainly blessed others.

Petersons 65th Wedding Anniversary December 17

By Marge Warder, Christian Writers Guild Member

(Article first appeared in Villisca Review/Stanton Viking, December 2007)

For the Petersons, seventeen is the number to remember. World War II Veteran Carol and wife, Mary Peterson of the Stanton-Villisca area, will be celebrating their 65th wedding anniversary on December 17th, 2007. Throughout their marriage, December 17th has marked several important life events. They married on December 17, 1942, partly because Carol’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. L. C. (Luther) Peterson, members of Mamrelund Lutheran Church, Stanton, had married on that date in 1903. On Carol and Mary’s first anniversary, December 17, 1943, B-26 Bombardier/Navigator Peterson left Willington, Delaware on a British troop transport (Empress of Scotland) to take part in driving Hitler’s German Army out of Italy. A year later on December 17, 1944, Peterson was one among the thousand soldiers gratefully viewing New York Harbor while aboard a French ship “whose cooks could have made even Spam taste good” as it brought America’s warriors home.

Peterson is also pleased that December 17th marks the anniversary of the Wright brothers’ first airplane flight. Airplanes are a part of his story, too.

Carol Peterson grew up in the Stanton-Villisca area but he’d moved to Los Angeles, California, to find work during the Great Depression, a time when unemployment hit about 20%. An optimist, Peterson believes one positive of WWII was the ending of the Great Depression. Allied nations geared up to manufacture defense supplies to those opposing Hitler’s plan to rule the world and eradicate all that didn’t fit Hitler’s profile for the superior race.

By 1940, President Roosevelt and Congress saw the necessity of federalizing National Guard units across this nation, with talk of all serving one year. Peterson remembers that employers were unlikely to hire anyone who’d not fulfilled their year of military duty. Peterson decided to get that year out of the way. He signed up with California’s 160th Infantry. He got home for Christmas, 1940, before his unit would be mobilized in February 1941. That Christmas trip home required some effort and figuring because of tight finances, but, as Peterson says, “It’s strange and amazing how God puts people together. Truth is stranger than fiction.”

Young, single Carol Peterson was determined to get home for Christmas if he could. “A train from Los Angeles to Omaha would cost about $40, a bus about $25-30, but a ‘share a ride’ with someone headed to Omaha with space left in the car would cost only $15, so I chose that way home.” After spending Christmas with his family here, he used ‘share a ride’ for his return to California. The dispatcher in Omaha let him know he had a ride. As the Lord would have it, his future wife’s father, Peter S. Peterson, had recently traded cars and knew he’d get a better price on the West Coast for his old car. Peter Peterson’s friend was the Omaha dispatcher coordinating rides to California. Mary’s father decided he’d have two relatives accompany his daughter to California to sell the car. They sought a rider to help cover expenses. Totally unacquainted with each other before that 2000 mile trek to California, the dispatcher assigned the young soldier to their car. “It was a good trip,” Carol smiles. The couple got acquainted and Mary worked a month in LA before returning to Omaha. They continued and developed their relationship by mail until their December 1942 wedding. Congress had extended Carol’s duty with the military to eighteen months. It would continue to expand.

Three months after Congress extended Peterson’s enlistment, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, destroying the US Naval Fleet assigned to prevent Japan from coming to our West Coast. Peterson recalls what his infantry unit faced December 7, 1941. Peterson recalls they’d frequently been confined to camp because of growing concern about Japan’s flights in the Pacific and the potential threat to our West Coast. December 6th, they were once again confined to base, but most men had family nearby so it didn’t seem a hardship to them. December 7th they learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

“The West Coast was unguarded,” Peterson says. “The Japanese were flying over the Pacific and our fleet was in the bottom of Pearl Harbor.”

How did bases on the West Coast react? With chaos. “It was pathetic,” Peterson recalls. “We were unprepared.” The men were lined up for inspections throughout the day and told they’d be moving out at midnight. They received mess gear. About midnight they were lined up again and issued M1 Rifles. “Each rifleman got eight bullets! That’s all they could gather for us and we were told we’d be heading off to war. They tried to load us onto trucks, but they didn’t have enough trucks, so they rounded up Greyhound buses for us. We were being sent off to war on a borrowed bus with one clip and an empty cartridge belt.”

By morning he was in San Diego where he began guard duty. During this time even second generation Japanese American citizens, known as Nisei, were confined, partly for their own protection because of the almost irrational fear somewhat likely after a nation’s attacked by members of another country. “If the Army hadn’t helped confine the Japanese people, they’d have been in more danger because of the animosity towards Japan after Pearl Harbor.” Peterson’s own unit had seven or eight Japanese American draftees. All agreed a rifle-carrying Japanese man would be in danger on the West Coast. The Japanese American citizens were no doubt loyal to this country. However, fear sometimes overrules reason. “Japanese Americans who were in the military formed a separate regiment and did a good job fighting against Hitler’s army in Italy,” Peterson remembers. In fact, in Europe, some became known as “The Purple Heart Battalion.” In the Pacific, their intelligence assistance is credited with shortening the war by two years.

After guarding the West Coast for a few months, Peterson was sent to Ft. Lewis, Washington for further training. There a notice prompted him to apply for flight training school. He passed the test and became part of the Army’s Air Corp, forerunner of the Air Force, by September 1942, and would take more training in Santa Anna, California, where he’d be classified as a bombardier. Peterson recalls that one hundred pound stove pipes were used as bombs during training.

Because the twin engine B25s and B26s, which incidentally were made at Glen Martin’s Plant in Omaha (now Offutt Air Force Base), were medium range bombers, there was no room for a navigator. Peterson therefore trained and qualified to be a combination bombardier/navigator in New Mexico before being sent to Barksdale Field (Louisiana) for combat crew training. A six man combat crew consisted of three gunners who kept the enemy away so the pilot, co-pilot, bombardier could primarily identify and eliminate the enemy and the enemy’s supply sources at railroads, seaports, bridges, and munitions depots. Peterson became part of the 17th Bomb Crew in Italy. Their mission was to stop Hitler’s progress in Italy and southern France. The five hundred mile range B26’s bomb rack would carry 4000 lbs. That meant they could disrupt the enemy’s plans and activities with the options of two 2000 lb bombs, four 1000 lb bombs, or eight 500 lb bombs which they continued to do during the August invasion of Southern France.

When Peterson had begun flying with the 17th Bomb Crew over Italy in December 1943, his crew was told that if they survived forty bombing raids, they could go home.

On January 20th, the Anzio Battle started. “We were to be in Rome by February 1st. We got there the 4th of June. During that battle we got an order from 12th Air Force. It said, ‘Replacements are not keeping up with casualties. The 40 mission rotation policy is hereby cancelled. All combat crews will fly as long as they are fit.”

Peterson’s crew flew seventy-eight missions before heading home. He recalls how difficult it was to liberate Rome. “On every corner they had some statue or some building we were not to hit, and of course we didn’t want to touch the Vatican. If we’d not done things right in Rome, people in America would probably have not wanted us to come home. In Rome we just hit railroads that would supply the Nazis.”

Crews stayed together but flew any B26 ready to fly. Crews became like family. Of course they took flak from antiaircraft fire. Ground launched 88mm shells were set to explode at altitudes near allied planes with the intention of sending destructive pieces of metal into the planes. Several planes in which Peterson flew were hit, but none of his crew members were ever injured.

Peterson does have an unusual photo, however, of another plane in their squadron that took a hit which caused one engine to separate from the doomed plane. In the photo, the plane-less propeller faithfully turns as it plummets downward. Only two crew members parachuted to safety.

Air crews don’t hear the grateful shouts of citizenry liberated from tyrants. But Peterson’s pleased he could lend support for liberty from his B26 flights.

Does he regret the time spent in WWII? No. In fact, Peterson says, “It was a great time to be alive and be part of the struggle before us. The country was unified. Everyone saw the necessity of the war we were fighting. Hitler had to be stopped.”

A lot of men wanted to stay in the war and be in Europe when it was over. That’s not how it was for Peterson. After his seventy-eighth mission, Peterson says, “If I could have, I would have packed in five minutes and would have been glad to get home. I’d seen enough flak. I’d lost buddies, too. And I was eager to see my family.”

Every time a soldier was transferred, he waited for his ‘shot records’ to catch up. While waiting, soldiers were often re-vaccinated. Peterson jokes that the extra serum may be what’s giving him his long life. After the records arrived, he was transferred ‘home.’ Peterson had shipped out when his oldest son, Carl, was just six weeks old. Mary and Carl lived with both her parents in Underwood, Iowa, and Carol’s parents who farmed south of Stanton. That December 17, 1944, after landing in NY Harbor, Peterson took a train to Omaha’s Union Station where he was met by Mary and Carl and Mary’s mother and brother, Albert. The next day Peterson’s dad and a neighbor, Cal Veseen, came and took them to his parents’ home before their transfer to Santa Monica, California.

Peterson’s time at home was tempered by the fact that his brother, Harlan, a B25 pilot in over Rabaul, New Guinea, had been declared missing since October 1943. Ironically, Peterson’s parents had received the news of Carol and Mary’s first son the day before they received the MIA telegram regarding Harlan. It’d take until January 1946 for military records to confirm Harlan had been shot down over water at Rabaul. During WWII, their father, Luther Peterson, did his patriotic duty by serving on the Selective Service Board for Montgomery County.

Peterson and other military members didn’t know why they were given the opportunity to tally up a point system and apply for discharge. The atom bomb was a well kept secret that would bring the war to a close about the time Carol and Mary were back on the family farm in Iowa. That bomb made the bombs he’d carried seem like mere toys. Peterson and the rest of the allied world were relieved the war had come to an end without this nation being invaded. The cost had been great on all sides, including to those in Montgomery County who lost loved ones, including the Peterson family. Carol recalls that the National Guard Units from Red Oak’s Company M and Villisca’s Company F, serving in the same regiment in North Africa, had minimal experience when they were surrounded by Germany’s best, Rommel, who had three years experience and was intent on fulfilling Hitler’s evil plans. Many suffered loss of life and captivity and our corner of Iowa respectfully remembers those men and that time.

Peterson recites General Patton’s comment like this: Rather than mourn these men who died, thank God that they were alive when we needed them.” How grateful we can be that we do not live under tyrants.

This past Veterans’ Day, Carol and Mary ate out in Red Oak, hoping to take in Memorial events there. Carol had been honored along with other Veterans at the Stanton gathering that morning, and he’d worn his WWII uniform. When Carol went to pay for his lunch, he found that someone had paid his bill. That’s a good reminder to us all that it’s never too late to show our gratitude to veterans.

Now as Carol and Mary prepare to celebrate their sixty-five years together, WWII is just one part of their memories. They’ve farmed east of Stanton since 1955. They raised four sons, including Mike whose love of farming had him partnering with his parents on the family farm for a number of years until that didn’t work out and he went into OTR truck driving. Their oldest, Dr. Carl Peterson, retired after being a surgeon at Des Moines’ Veteran’s Hospital. Their other two, Drs. Darwin and Phillip Peterson, work as a surgeon in Iowa City and a family physician in Bluefield, WV. Just guess how many grandchildren this couple has. Seventeen! Two grandchildren are currently Marines; one has served three tours in Iraq and the other is a new recruit. Right now they’re also blessed with thirteen great-grandchildren.

The Petersons would testify that there’s more to life than that which passes away. Their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is an important part of this life, and equally important for the next. They enjoy Bible teaching and are active members in Grace Baptist Church in Red Oak, Iowa.

In behalf of those who know the Petersons, and others who enjoy freedoms partly because of their willingness to sacrifice, we offer our congratulations on their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary. May the Lord bless them. They have certainly blessed others.