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DEL.ICIO.USPaying tribute to the man, not the marker
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Susan Gast/AJC and family photo
Lt. Clifford Eugene Wages, whose monument is near Winder, always dreamed of being a pilot.
For a decade, all we knew was the marker.
We came across it during a family blackberry-picking outing, an annual ritual that took us along rural roads. Our children were young then, and we stopped in Barrow County to use a church picnic table for lunch. Afterward, we wandered through the adjoining cemetery.
The marker — actually, it’s more of a monument — captured our attention. Standing 7 feet tall, with its carved image of a B-24 bomber backed by billowing clouds, it draws the eye.
LIEUT. CLIFFORD EUGENE WAGES
NO. 0-685220
PILOT OF B-24 BOMBER BORN JUNE 23, 1923 WENT DOWN IN THE ADRIATIC SEA WITH HIS PLANE 15 MILES FROM BARI, ITALY MAY 4, 1944
HE GAVE HIS LIFE THAT WE MIGHT LIVE
It was a sobering moment. I remember thinking about the 20-year-old man. Who was he? What were his dreams? How young an age to carry such responsibility!
I also thought about my father, who served in World War II with the B-29s out of Guam. It could have happened to him, I thought. And I wouldn’t be here.
Almost every year since, on Memorial Day, we’ve returned to that cemetery at Carter Hill Christian Church just south of Winder off Ga. 81. We’ve erected miniature U.S. flags at the base of the marker, sometimes adding a note, flowers or red, white and blue ribbons.
Our pilgrimage was to pay homage on the holiday and to teach our children about the sacrifices too often required.
But we stopped short. We never pushed past the marker and our musings. We never learned about the life that was lost.
Until now.
A series of phone calls recently led me to Martha Whitehead, a niece of the fallen airman. Martha lives in the 175-year-old house across from the church — it’s an old family place — though she will be moving next month.
“It’s all going commercial,” she said.
Martha was born after Wages’ death, but knows him through the memories of her mother, the late Lucile Wages Giles, who was his older sister.
Gene — as Martha calls him — was the youngest of six children — five boys and a girl. The Wages were part of a long-standing family in the community near Fort Yargo State Park; Carter Hill Church is named after Martha’s great-great grandfather.
Martha’s mother, Lucile, was 11 years older than Gene and “to her, he was always her baby.” Martha said.
Lucile liked to tell Martha all about Gene - how he would climb a steep flight of stairs to meet her on Saturdays when she was working in Winder as a hairdresser. She would give him 25 cents, and they would go to the movies and eat popcorn.
She told Martha that Gene was so handsome, fun-loving and somewhat of a clown. One time, After joining the military, he grew a mustache “just to aggravate them,” Martha said.
Before he went to war, Gene dated a young woman named Hilda Long from Monroe. He probably would have married her if he had returned home, Martha said.
But he didn’t come back.
Martha said Gene always dreamed of being a pilot.
“He trained and trained and trained.”
While flying near Bari, Italy, his B-24 bomber went down. Some of the crew survived, but Gene was never found, Martha said. She said that flight was “his first maneuver.”
Several Internet sites, including one for Wages’ 456th Bomb Group, as well as a forum at www.ArmyAirForces.com, say Wages’ plane, named “Calamity Jane,” was lost during a practice mission. They cited the cause as a “runaway prop,” a propeller malfunction that leads to an overspeeding engine.
Mary Wages, who was Gene’s mother and Martha’s grandmother, “never got over it,” Martha said. She and Martha’s mother met with a surviving crew member to talk to him about Gene and the plane crash. The two women were the ones who bought the marker, Martha said.
“They talked about him a lot,” Martha told me as we stood in the cemetery Tuesday, watching that night’s storm approach. “They talked about him like he was here.”
I’m glad they did. I’m thankful they passed along tales of the young airman and the portraits that Martha has kept safe in the old family home.
The keeping of the memories has allowed my family to know more than the marker. It’s given us a glimpse of the man.
We’ll drop by the cemetery Monday. But this Memorial Day, we’ll finally have a connection between the striking monument, the young pilot who gave everything for his country and the family who missed him dearly.
Who will you remember this Memorial Day?
Permalink | Comments (10) | Post your comment | Categories: Susan Gast
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Comments
By Phil Dolan
May 22, 2008 3:07 PM | Link to this
That was a nice article, Susan Gast.
Except that you didn’t tell us anything about the guy really, I mean, if you want to remember a specific hero, then the article should have been focused on him.
But it was a nice article, Susan Gast. Did you know you look a little like Tatum Oneal?
By Maureen
May 22, 2008 9:14 PM | Link to this
Hi Susan,
Your readers may want to know that the genealogical website Ancestry.com is offering free access to military records to commemorate Memorial Day—from May 20-31. I looked up Mr. Wages and saw an extraction of his enlistment records, a casualty listing, and a listing of his internment at sea. Interesting stuff!
http://blogs.ancestry.com/circle/?p=2531
www.ancestry.com/military
By Steve
May 22, 2008 9:53 PM | Link to this
Where is this monument you speak of?
By MOT
May 23, 2008 9:27 AM | Link to this
Thank you for that!!!! I am actually listening to the book Wild Blue Yonder, and I never knew that so many of our young men were lost on training missions, 1,000’s were. It is amazing to listen/read about all the training they had to go through and yet even at that they were rushed due to the need in the war. Everyone should have to read or listen to all aspects of WWII, it is simply amazing how many things had to come together in order for good to prevail.
This Memorial day, I pay tribute to my father still living for his service in Korea and Viet Nam. I pay tribute to his father buried in Arlington who was a naval doctor based at Pearl Harbor. The day the Japanese flew over, my dad, a 5 year old was out playing in the yard and remembers seeing the funny looking planes fly over and then pandamonium broke loose his mom grabbed him from the yard, they grabbed suitcases and had to leave. My grandfather served on the Hospital Ship The Respite, I think it was. He died after the war.
I pay tribute to several Uncles and cousins who served well and honorably in WWII as well.
How grateful we are for all the selfless acts of service and sacrifice from the service men and their families!!!!
By cy
May 23, 2008 9:54 AM | Link to this
Great article!
I think so many of use have forgotten what this holiday is about. You would think that it would be revived in light of what is going on.
For me, I silent moment for those who have given up their dreams for ours. I wonder what they might have done, or if they think their efforts were worth it.
I will also go and have an adult beverage with a close family friend who served in vietnam.
By susan gast
May 23, 2008 10:33 AM | Link to this
Steve, The marker is in the church cemetery of Carter Hill Christian Church, which backs up to Ga. 81 (Loganville Highway) just north of Ga. 316. You can see the cemetery and the back of the church from Ga. 81. If you are facing the front of the church, the monument is to the left.
By Cant stop lovin' U
May 23, 2008 5:02 PM | Link to this
My dad flew P-47 Thunderbolts over Germany and France and Belgium in WW2. During the Battle of the Bulge, he had to quickly bug out of his airbase in Belgium because of onrushing Panzer tanks.
In Korea he flew the new jets, the F-86. He almost bagged a mig, but the damn thing slipped away after both went into a steep climb straight up with my dad right behind the mig. My dad thought he noticed the mig slowing down in order to trick my dad into going past him, so my dad backed off, and that’s when the mig took off. My dad chased that mig for twenty minutes, ran out of fuel and had to go home. (Years later, the children of that mig’s pilot were out playing in their back yard, and I snuck up on them and called out, when they looked up from what they were doing, I mooned them and warped their psycho sexual development so badly that they can only get aroused now by reading suma wrestling magazines. You people do know that They never declared an armistice after Korea, so the war is still on, and I do what I gotta do to win the war, all I’m saying).
All fair in love and war, (and blogging).
By fk
May 28, 2008 12:12 PM | Link to this
We enjoyed a nice family visit along the FL coast, then, on Monday, headed west to the National Cemetery in Bushnell. My husband’s father is buried there. He served during Korea. A visit to a national cemetery is quite an experience, to see the thousands upon thousands of markers for those who served our country, especially on Memorial Day.
My dad, who will turn 89 in a few weeks, is a WWII veteran (tank commander in Italy and Germany). He was recalled & served during Korea, too. I have a brother who was a Marine during Vietnam, and a nephew who just returned from Afghanistan. I have another nephew, who is a 2007 grad of West Point, who will be headed to Iraq soon. Every time I put my flag out, which is almost every morning, weather permitting, I think of all of the men and women serving our country, and their families at home and abroad.
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