DUMMERSTON — As the ranks of those who fought in World War II keep thinning, every public appearance by a veteran of those who served seven decades ago becomes all the more treasured.
Richard H. Hamilton of Marlboro is a familiar sight at veterans events and tributes around the area. On Friday night, he was the honored guest of Dummerston at its annual Memorial Day service, held on the traditional date of May 30, at Evening Star Grange.
Hamilton, 91, of Marlboro, served in the 91st Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force as a radio operator. On his ninth mission on July 20, 1944, his B-17 bomber was badly shot up by German fighter planes.
With most of the crew killed and the bomber aflame, Hamilton and another crewman bailed out 18,000 feet above Germany.
Hamilton was captured and held in German prison camps for the remainder of the war until he and fellow prisoners were liberated by Russian soldiers on April 24, 1945.
After returning to Marlboro, he went on to open and run the Skyline Restaurant on Hogback Mountain with his wife, Joyce, for 48 years until he retired in 1994.
On Friday night, he read “The Sky Was Never Still,” a poem written by the late Roger Freeman, an Englishman and historian of the Eighth Air Force. The poem, told from the point of view of someone who remembers when the English countryside was filled with air bases and planes roaring off on bombings, spoke to how those memories can never truly be understood by those who weren't there:
The old man sat in the English pub,
As he had for many a year,
And listened to the stranger's talk,
As he sipped a temperate beer.
A stranger asked how long he'd lived
ln the village here about?
“Why all my days,” the old man said, “An age, without a doubt.”
“l envy you” the stranger sighed
“Your tranquil village life.
The gentle fields, the muted sky, Devoid of urban strife.”
The old man smiled a wistful smile,
“That's just a townie's dream.
For I have seen the sky aflame
And heard the meadows scream.”
“l've known a thunder at each dawn
That shook the very ground,
As warplanes sought to gain the clouds
From airfields all around.”
“They called some 'Forts' and others 'Libs,'
And there were fighters too.
l've counted hundreds at a time, Yes, what I tell is true.”
“They'd climb and soar like flocks of rooks,
And round and round they'd mill.
From north and south, from east and west,
The sky was never still.”
“Sometimes there'd be a wondrous sight,
A sight beyond compare.
The bombers going out to war,
Forging the frigid air."
“Four miles above, just silver specks,
Like sunshine on the dew.
And trailing lines of cloud-like white,
Across the cosmic blue.”
“They set the heavens all a-throb,
That did not fade away.
For others rose to meet the night,
Invisible to stay.”
“And when was this?” the stranger asked.
“And who were those you saw?”
The old man drank and then replied,
“lt happened in the war.”
“They were but boys and many died.
Some lost without a trace.
For them the sky in foreign parts,
Could be a violent place.”
“Yes, they were boys and me a child,
but I remember well.
And if you have the time to spare,
There's more that I can tell.”
The stranger said that: “he must go,
Perhaps, another day?”
Indifferent to the old man's tale,
He quickly slipped away.
The old man turned to inward thought,
His memories to tend.
He knew that those who were not there,
Could never comprehend.
Those who'd not known the crowded sky,
The sounds that drenched the land.
Or stood in awe and wonderment,
Would never understand.
The old man left the English pub,
And stood awhile outside.
The evening vault was milky blue,
Cloud-free and stretching wide.
He raised his head and scanned the sky,
That held so still and clear.
And in his mind, a memory,
And in his eye a tear.
Hamilton received a long and loving ovation after he was finished.
The service was a bit different this year. Longtime chair and lead organizer Margaret Evans stepped down this year, passing the baton to Evening Star Grange Master Larry Lynch Jr.
Former Town Moderator Charles Fish was the master of ceremonies, and the Brattleboro American Legion Band played a brief concert before the service, and contributed music during the service. VFW Post 1034 of Brattleboro provided the color guard.
Other music was provided by flutist Phil Thomas, pianist Luella Frechette, and the acoustic duo of Paul and Carol Adkins.