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Monday, January 2, 2006
603 Greatest Generation
Our town said good-bye to legitimate war hero recently.
He was a member of that group that included many of our fathers, which Tom Brokaw dubbed The Greatest Generation.
But this man moved anonymously in our community. Few people really knew about his incredible life until we read it in his obituary.
And that is too bad. We need to reach out to our World War Two heroes and thank them for their sacrifices before it is too late. From Cheyenne to Jackson Hole and from Gillette to Evanston, our state is full of these heroes and they are leaving us quickly.
Samuel Blatchford lived a life of sacrifice and irony and Lander free-lance writer Brodie Farquhar did a fine job of profiling him. Sam died from complications of surgery at the age of 81.
I would see Sam and his wife Cecilia at our church services. They were an elderly couple that were obviously very fond of each other. Sam was proud of being Native American and wore turquoise earrings that dangled from both ears and always wore a cowboy hat.
His military history was incredible but so was his and Cecilia’s remarkable life story, as chronicled by Mr. Farquhar.
To say that he qualified as a military hero is an understatement. He was awarded 28 medals, including the Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross with one oak leaf cluster, four Purple Hearts, six Air Medals and the Prisoner of War Medal. Some of his exploits included:
• Scouting for the 7th Cavalry before it switched from horses to tanks plus serving as a radio operator and gunner on a B17 Flying Fortress and getting shot down four times.
• Working with the French Resistance until his capture by the Gestapo .plus numerous escape attempts from Stalag 17-B.
• Combat flying missions in Korea. and as a ground forward air controller in Vietnam.
Yet Sam Blatchford’s story was more than military service. He lived a love story in which he waited 56 years to wed his first sweetheart.
“We both were working for the Civilian Conservation Corps,” Cecelia Blatchford said. “I worked in the office, and he drove a truck before the war.” The two fell in love and were engaged in 1941 before he enlisted.
Mr. Blatchford served in the Army Air Corps, where he served as a radio operator and gunner for a B17. A standard tour of duty was 25 missions, and Mr. Blatchford’s crew was assigned a “milk run” for its 25th mission over submarine pens, on the coast of France.
T heir B17 was shot down, and Mr. Blatchford was the last one out. “He couldn’t get out, trapped by centrifugal force as the plane spiraled down. He was thrown free when it blew up,” Cecelia Blatchford said.
He managed to pull his ripcord before he blacked out. Because no one saw their parachutes, the entire crew was presumed dead.
Mr. Blatchford was found by a French farmer, who hid the badly wounded airman from German patrols. The French Resistance smuggled him to where a butcher used a carving knife to remove the shrapnel.
Cecelia waited and hoped, but with no news of Sam, came to accept that he was dead. She married in 1945 about the same time Mr. Blatchford was working his many escape attempts from Stalag 17-B. He was a prisoner until he was liberated by Patton’s 14th Armored Division..
Returning home, Mr. Blatchford went to find Cecelia, only to discover she’d thought him dead, had married and was pregnant.
Mr. Blatchford re-enlisted in 1952, after earning his civil engineering degree. He served as a radio operator, flying combat missions between Japan and Korea before being wounded again. After recovery, Mr. Blatchford was one of the first Air Force people trained in computers.
Shortly after the Gulf of Tonkin incident, Blatchford was shipped to Bien Hoa as a computer operator. With his radio background, he was reassigned as a ground forward air controller, calling in air strikes on enemy positions. While he was riding with his captain in a jeep, a land mine blew up, killing the captain and sending Mr. Blatchford to the hospital for his fourth Purple Heart.
Sam had married, raised a daughter and a son, and retired in Illinois.
Cecelia was widowed after 33 years of marriage and retired in Albuquerque, N.M.
When Mr. Blatchford’s wife died, he decided he needed to find Cecelia. Their ensuing courtship led to a wedding atop Snow King Mountain in Jackson seven years ago.
This member of our Greatest Generation was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. His military story is nothing short of remarkable, but his personal life was every bit as amazing.
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