Howard Haas, 90, of Glencoe, says that one of his bombing missions took him directly over Auschwitz, but at the time he didn't know about the extent of the atrocities taking place below him. "We flew over Auschwitz, but we didn't know Auschwitz was a death camp. We just thought it was a concentration camp." Mr. Haas is the former president and CEO of Sealy Mattress Company.
Even had they had the knowledge, they still wouldn't have attacked, "We couldn't have bombed Auschwitz from 22,000 feet. We would have killed more Jews than the Germans did."
Courtney Shanken, 89, of Highland Park was also at the University of Chicago and enlisted in the Army Air Corps with his twin brother Earl. He became a navigator and had 50 combat missions over Europe and was part of the Normandy diversionary force.
The Shankens bombed airplane factories, railroads and oil fields. Whenever the mission took them over German, Shanken removed his dog tags that identified him as a Jew, knowing that the Nazis would probably give him major mistreatment.
More to Come. --Cooter
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