When the Allies declared victory over Germany on May 8, 1945, Si Crase missed the party. He was hiding in a haystack after bailing out of a burning bomber almost eight months earlier.
By the time the Kentucky native had discovered the war was over and caught a ship back to the States, the cheering had quieted and life had returned to normal.
On Tuesday evening, Crase, 84, will get his welcome home celebration. He and 99 other World War II veterans participating in the West Georgia Honor Flight will return to Columbus Metropolitan Airport after a day in Washington, touring the National World War II Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. The public is invited to the airport to welcome them home.
“When the war ended, a lot of these vets were still overseas and they did not get to come home until months — or even a year or two — until after the surrender,” said Royce Ard, chairman of West Georgia Honor Flight. “It’s real important for the community to come out and say, ‘Thank you,’ and welcome these guys home.”
Staff Sgt. Silas Crase was 19 years old and serving on a B-17 Flying Fortress as a ball turret gunner, a job that required him to travel in a small pod under the bomber. His nickname was “Shorty Crase.”
On Aug. 27, 1944, he and his crew had completed a successful bombing mission in southeast Germany when both engines caught fire. Crase tried to escape his pod, but it was stuck in a position that made it impossible for him to crawl up into the belly of the plane.
Above him, one of his buddies, John “Big Stoop” Parsons, was pushing and pounding on the ball turret as the plane began to burn.
Finally, the pod shifted, allowing Crase to scramble up into the bomber. The crew bailed at 25,000 feet, and they all pulled their chutes almost immediately.
All except Crase.
Crase allowed himself to free-fall several thousand feet before pulling the rip cord, a maneuver that enabled him to avoid enemy detection from the ground.
When he landed in the thick forest, he was alone.
For the next several weeks, Crase hid by day and crept toward Slovakia by night.
“During that time in Germany in the winter the days are fairly short,” Crase says, “so I knew what time it would get dark, what time the sun would come up, and it would come up a bit late.”
One night he was walking through the forest and felt the urge to stop and rest. “Ah, the heck with it,” he thought. “Let’s just call it a day.”
He climbed into a tree and slept hard. “The next morning,” he says, “about 50 feet in front of me was a huge cavern — an explosion where a bomb had blown up probably about 50 to 60 feet deep.”
To this day, when he tells the story, he must pull out his handkerchief.
“That was a direct line that I was walking,” he says. “So that makes you think sometimes … Why me instead of someone else?”
Crase reached Slovakia, where he met a member of the Slovak underground resistance who hid him through the winter.
Winter turned to spring, and the war ended. In June 1945, Crase felt safe enough to travel to France, where he caught a ship back to the United States.
He remembers the day he pulled into New York City harbor.
“By that time all the hullabaloo was over,” he says, “so when I got out of the ship I just went down and kissed the good ’ol earth and that was it.”
Tears well in his eyes.
“Sweetest tastin’ dirt I ever had,” he says.
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