THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 10, 1994 TAG: 9406090166
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY GARY EDWARDS, CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: 940610 LENGTH: Medium
``I don't remember exactly where we were. Borneo, maybe Taiwan. We didn't hear about the D-Day invasion until later,'' said Wood. ``It (the news media) wasn't like today.''
{REST} Talbott Dickson agreed. He was 26, a first lieutenant in the Army Air Corps, flying B-17 bombers on the day of the Allied assault on the beaches in France.
``I had been flying out of Italy, but we were in Russia, had just been sent there. I don't remember the exact time I heard about Normandy,'' said Dickson.
The two World War II veterans, now 84 and 76 respectively, are roommates at Windermere Nursing Facility on Old Donation Parkway.
Wood and Dickson were the only two males among the 25 Windermere residents who made a D-Day remembrance march Monday. The march proceeded from the home down Old Donation Parkway toward Virginia Beach General Hospital. The senior citizen marchers waved American flags proudly and sang the national anthem as employees pushed them in wheelchairs. On their return to Windermere, they joined administrator Sidney J. Ellis in the pledge of allegiance. Ellis, a Vietnam veteran and retired lieutenant colonel from the Army Reserves, wore his dress uniform for the event.
Wood, who retired in 1959 after 34 years in the Navy, has been a Windermere resident for 1 1/2 years.
``You must forgive me. I speak haltingly. I had this brain surgery about two years ago,'' said Wood who calls himself a ``tombstone admiral.''
``I retired with captain's benefits. I get to put rear admiral on my tombstone up at Annapolis,'' he said. His wife of 55 years, Muriel Fox Wood, died six years ago and is buried in the Naval Academy Cemetery. Wood graduated from the Academy in 1931.
``I will be alongside my Muriel when I go,'' he said.
Dickson spent a total of 28 years in the Army Air Corps, Navy and the Air Force Reserves. He retired as a major in 1966.
``I worked some odd jobs as a civilian after I left active duty,'' said Dickson. ``My wife and I had a real estate business.''
Dickson has lived at Windermere six months. He has a son who lives in North Carolina and a daughter in Arkansas, and his sister, Ann Jordan, lives in the area and visits him frequently. Dickson was married twice and is a widower.
Both the veterans were modest about their wartime feats.
``Normandy was really the Army's war. They did the fighting. Now, the Pacific was the Navy's war, and the Marines','' said Wood.
His daughter and son-in-law, Linda and Allen Higginbotham, added that Wood has a plaque in Darwin, Australia, commemorating his heroic actions.
Her father was the executive officer on the William B. Preston when it was attacked in the port of Darwin in what was called ``the second Pearl Harbor.'' Wood steered the ship out to sea and safety after it was hit by a bomb. For this action, he received a Silver Star and the plaque, Linda Higginbotham said.
The admiral also remembered ``kamikaze pilots, one who missed our destroyer by about six feet once. We put up enough anti-aircraft fire to bring another down.''
Dickson recalled covering the Anzio landing in Italy.
``We provided bombing support for the mission,'' he said. ``It was a long time ago really. You don't have time to think about it when you're in the middle of it.''
by CNB