451st BG veteran to be honoured at reunion

Antipodean Andy · Oct 7, 2008

World War II veteran to receive honor - The Saginaw News Online - Michigan Newspaper - MLive.com

MOUNT PLEASANT -- J. Dean Eckersley doesn't think of himself as anything special.
But apparently members of his World War II military unit do.

The 451st Bomb Group is to honor Eckersley, 89, of Mount Pleasant during its national reunion Thursday to Saturday, Oct. 16-18, in Chicago.

The reunion marks the final time the group's survivors will formerly gather.
"We have been holding the reunion bi-annually, but we are all getting older," Eckersley said. "I have lost track of all my crew members. There's probably only two or three of us left, but I don't even know that for sure."

The 451st Bomb Group was one of the most decorated flying units in WW II earning three Presidential Unit Citations.

Eckersley, who grew up on a farm near Lapeer, started his career as a military policeman after the March 1941 draft. The Army Air Force eventually commissioned him as an officer, and he earned his pilot's wings in 1944.

He flew a B-24 Liberator out of southern Italy as part of the 15th Army Air Force.
"I enjoyed it up to a point," Eckersley said. "But missions usually lasted seven or eight hours. Pretty soon it got to be like driving a big truck.

"I'm glad for the experience, but I wouldn't want to go through it again."

The Bomb Group flew some of the most dangerous missions of the war over heavily defended enemy targets throughout Europe.

"It wasn't exactly pleasant," Eckersley said. "It was not like going on a picnic."

On Dec. 2, 1944, during his fourth mission to bomb an oil refinery in Bleckhammer, Germany, enemy fire hit Eckersley's plane, and he ordered his 10-man crew to bailout. Two members were killed.

Eckersley survived, but enemy troops captured him and sent him to Stalag Luft I, a German prison war camp.

"We weren't treated miserably really," he said. "The worst part was the boredom of just sitting around. We received Red Cross care parcels until February, but then they stopped. After that all we ate was black bread and rutabaga stew.

"I've never liked vegetables since then," Eckersley said.

The Russian Army liberated the prisoners in May 1945 and the U.S. Army discharged Eckersley in October.

He moved to Mount Pleasant in 1946 to work for an accounting firm. Eckersley later got a job with an oil drilling company but when that dissolved in 1959 he and Rollie Denison started Lease Management Inc.

In 1979, Eckersley sold his portion of the business and retired before opening an investment firm, Eckersley Enterprises, which he still owns.

Eckersley and his wife, Betty, plan to attend his unit's final survivors reunion but he isn't sure why he's receiving an honor.

"It's news to me," he said. "This will be the first reunion I've attended."

Like most WW II veterans, however, Eckersley is modest and really doesn't like recalling the war.

"I don't talk about it much," he said. "I have a couple of grandsons who ask me about it quite often, but I try to put it in the back of my mind."
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