Veteran awarded Legion of Honor

[darrels joy]

Veteran awarded Legion of Honor

MOOR OR LESS

By Bill Moor

Casimier (Cas) Sochocki of South Bend decided to pass on a Purple Heart medal during World War II.

He was a toggeleer on a B-26 and flak had blown part of the nose window into his face. “But my brother Walt had already received a Purple Heart while fighting in Africa and the notification home about his injuries had given our mom a stroke,” Cas says.

“I didn’t want that to happen to her again.”

But Cas, who joined the Army Air Corps in 1942 as an 18-year-old Central High School senior, received his share of medals during his more than three years of service. One of them was the Air Medal with five Oak Leaf Clusters for the 34 missions he flew.

And just recently at the age of 87, he received another medal — the Knight of the Legion of Honor medal from France. Created by Napoleon, this award honors those who have aided France, including those who fought to liberate the French people during World War II.

“I’m very honored,” says Cas who still lives in the same house on South Bend’s northwest side that he bought for his wife, Dorothy, and himself in 1946.

Cas had started out in ordnance for the Army Air Corps. But when there became a shortage of toggeleers — those who released the bombs — he volunteered for that more dangerous duty. “Our first mission was Christmas Eve 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge,” he says. “But it wasn’t until my ninth mission when I wondered why the heck I had volunteered.

“The flak was extremely heavy that day. It sounded like gravel hitting the side of our plane.”

He began enjoying his time on the ground a lot more. He remembers going to one party in between missions and a French girl of Polish descent came over and sat on his lap. “We were talking in Polish. But later on, some of my buddies asked me when I learned to speak French.”

Cas liked the French. He has even been back to visit six times — three of those trips as part of the 453rd Bomb Squadron, 323rd Bomb Group reunion association. In 1996, he took plaques to four of the French towns where his squadron had been stationed and presented them to each town’s mayor.

For many years, Cas wrote his association’s newsletter, served as secretary-treasurer and organized the reunions. “We’ve had 43 reunions but the last one was in 2003,” he says. “There are not a lot of us left now.”

After the war, Cas returned to South Bend, married, raised his two children, Curt and Carole, and worked for 34 years as a truck driver. He was married to Dorothy for 60 years, serving as her sole caregiver for several years until she died on Thanksgiving morning 2007.

He still sometimes thinks back to his days in the nose of his B-26 Martin Marauder looking out on Europe and the targets below. “It was the guys who didn’t come back who were the heroes,” Cas says. “I wasn’t one.”

The French apparently thought otherwise.

http://www.southbendtribune.com/arti...43/1051/News04