At almost 100, World War II veteran remains active in gatherings at The War Memorial

It’s been 80 years since Larry Bennett was drafted into the Army.
 
All these years later, the World War II veteran still remembers, in great detail, stories from his time in the service.
 
The 99-year-old Bennett resides in Grosse Pointe Woods and has been part of the Grosse Pointe Veterans Club for approximately 20 years. The club, which meets at The War Memorial, works to support, educate, and advocate for local veterans. For nearly three decades, he has also been an active member of the Men’s Club of Grosse Pointe, which gathers here twice a month. 

Inducted into the Army in March 1943 shortly after his high school graduation, Bennett’s basic training was at Camp Robinson in North Little Rock, Arkansas. In October 1943, he and fellow members of the 3rd Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, departed for Italy. His first combat situation took place north of Naples, Italy as a rifleman. 

“I remember getting into position at night and early the next morning we would attack by going up a mountain to take a town,” he said. “Then it was hiding from the shells and bullets. The terrain we were in was mountainous, so it was treacherous going from one height to another. The Germans always controlled the high ground, so we were at a disadvantage.”   

As a rifleman, Bennett was equipped with materials like a bolt action rifle, an ammunition belt, entrenching tool, a blanket, jacket, combat boots, and a canteen.  

In January 1944, he took part in the amphibious landing of Anzio, Italy.   

“We didn’t have much opposition when we first landed, but as days went by, we had more opposition against us,” he said. “We were there for four months. We extended our lines as far as we could and couldn’t go any farther. Then the Germans regrouped and kept us in that position for four months. I spent that time in a fox hole.”   

His second amphibious landing came in August 1944, west of Marseille, France, while a short few months later, on Oct. 30, 1944, Bennett was wounded in action while in France.  

“We advanced and were at Saint Dyé in France. We were on a mountain, preparing to take this town,” he said. “The Germans threw some shells at us.”  

Bennett was struck in his left thigh from what he believes was a shell from an 88 mm German anti-tank artillery gun.   
“It was a sharp pain that felt like it was on fire and all of a sudden, I couldn’t walk,” he shared.
 
Bennett was sent to an evacuation hospital, was operated on, then transported on a hospital train. He spent four months hospitalized, recovering from his injuries. Upon discharge, Bennett returned to the 3rd Infantry Division. He crossed the Rhine River into Germany in March 1945.   

Bennett recalled the story from April 1945 when the division assembled in Zeppelinfeld when the American flag was raised over the Nazi swastika. Zeppelinfeld in Nuremberg, Germany, was one of several Nazi party rally grounds.   

“That represented that the Nazi’s had been defeated,” he said. “Audie Murphy got his Medal of Honor at that assembly. He was in the same division that I was in.”    

Murphy received every military combat award for valor available from the Army.   

Bennett remained in Europe through December 1945, and was discharged from the Army the day after Christmas as a staff sergeant. Some honors he received from his military service are the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, and the World War II Victory Medal.  
A regular attendee of The War Memorial’s Veterans Day Breakfast, Bennett has resided in Grosse Pointe Woods since 1951. His wife of 74 years, Betty Bennett, sadly passed away in 2021. He has two children, five grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.    

*This story originally was published in the January-February 2024 edition of Live Inspired Magazine, a War Memorial publication.

Grosse Pointe resident who served in the Air Force proud to work with veterans

Retired Air Force Col. Nancy Bozzer’s passion for military veterans is clear.  

Bozzer, of Grosse Pointe, is the former director of Gratiot County’s Department of Veterans Affairs, leaving that job earlier this year to become a Rating Service Veterans Representative with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in Detroit. She and her husband, Jim Thompson, attended this year’s 9/11 Service of Remembrance at The War Memorial.   

“I love being able to sit down and talk with veterans, to listen to their stories,” Bozzer said.  

In September 2023, Bozzer was the Detroit Lions Hometown Hero for the game at Ford Field against the Atlanta Falcons which the Lions won, 20-6.   

“It was amazing to be able to represent the military, and women in the military because it was all focused on women in football,” Bozzer commented about the Lions gameday experience. “It was quite an honor.”   

Bozzer spent over 25 years in the U.S. Air Force, retiring in 2016 with the rank of colonel. She has logged over 2,800 flying hours in the KC-135 Stratotanker and C-9A, accumulating more than 500 combat and combat-support hours.   

“I relate my last job of being a wing commander to the Super Bowl,” Bozzer said. “I was in charge of a lot of airmen that were carrying out missions across multiple continents.”   

While in the military, she served as an aviator, command pilot, and instructor among several other duties. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University and master’s degree from the University of Phoenix.   

 “I hope that I was a role model to women that you can have it all,” Bozzer said. “You can be a mother and have a career.”    

Born in Detroit, Bozzer earned her private pilot’s license when she was 16. She was commissioned as a second lieutenant, entering active duty in 1990. She commanded at all levels both in garrison and at deployed locations, ascending to the rank of colonel. Bozzer was promoted to colonel in April 2012. As a Senior Command Pilot, Bozzer instructed and evaluated aviators in the KC-135 air refueler and the C-9 Aeromedical aircraft. She commanded multiple missions in Southwest Asia in support of the Gulf War, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.   

“It was exhilarating,” Bozzer said. “Watching the tankers take off every 30 seconds, knowing we were up there doing the mission. We did special ops along with other operations. Knowing you were making a difference and in something bigger than yourself was great. Your job is to get fuel to the fighters so the fighters can protect people on the ground. You really felt you were doing something that was worthwhile.”  

She commented that support from her family enabled her to consistently perform in the Air Force for over two decades.   

“I can go off and do the mission, knowing that the home front is taken care of,” Bozzer said. “It takes a lot of determination and pulling yourself up after you failed at something. I like the word the Lions use right now, grit. It takes grit. There weren’t a lot of women in this male-dominated field. You couldn’t let every little thing hurt your feelings because you would never make it. What it boils down to is hard work and determination.”   

Upon retiring from the Air Force as the Commander of the 521st Air Mobility Operations Wing at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, Bozzer managed a small business in Newaygo County in Michigan, and worked for Hormel Foods Corporation. As commander, Bozzer oversaw two groups, 10 squadrons and eight operating locations spanning over 5,000 miles throughout Europe, Africa and Central Asia. In February, the Heroes Center in Gratiot County opened. It is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing veterans and their families with the necessary resources and services to help them heal, grow and succeed in civilian life. Bozzer spearheaded the founding of the center.  

“When I deployed shortly after my son was born, I relied heavily on my military family,” she said. “That’s how military families work. As a military member, we speak the same language.”  

Bozzer has been awarded The United States Legion of Merrit, Meritorious Service medal, air medal, and many others. Bozzer and her husband have been married for 31 years and have a son, Dillon, who is currently an officer in the Marines. 

*This story originally was published in the November-December 2023 edition of Live Inspired Magazine, a War Memorial publication.

Navy World War II veteran one of four honored at dedication ceremony

He was proudly acknowledged at a War Memorial ceremony in May for a sculpture dedication that directly represents where he served in World War II.  

In May, 98-year-old World War II veteran Clifford Alvira was one of four members of the Greatest Generation who attended the dedication ceremony for Les Braves II: At Water’s Edge, joining Robert Haffner, Jean Gilbert and George Gitari.   

The Royal Oak resident served in the Navy from 1943-1945. He still remembers the bombs, the bodies and all the men who didn’t make it. Alvira arrived on Omaha Beach, the most heavily defended beach by German forces, at 6:30 a.m. on June 6, 1944, forever known as D-Day. Les Braves II is the official world-wide twin of Les Braves in Normandy, France, originally created for the 60th anniversary of the D-Day invasion and sculpted by French artist Anilore Banon. It is a lasting tribute to the western Allies that landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day.  

“We were told there’s nothing you can do for the bodies; just go on with your own business,” he said. “It’s not a nice scene. You see an arm here, a leg here.” 

It’s estimated that more than 9,000 allied soldiers were killed or wounded on D-Day.  

Drafted into the Navy, Alvira, the oldest of 10 children to Mexican immigrants, served as a seaman 2nd class. He arrived on D-Day in landing craft tank 542 with 30 other men. His job that day, still a teenager, was to take over for the operator of another landing craft, in the event he was killed.  

“Our job was to land the guys on the beach,” Alvira said. “Once we hit the beach, then we heard all of the fireworks. Everything was timed. The planes came over first and bombed the beaches, then we arrived.” 

As he approached the beach, he remembers it being foggy and seeing bullet tracers, bombings and plenty of planes. He notes that what made Omaha Beach so dangerous was that once his unit arrived, the plan was for reimbursements of supplies to arrive, something that never happened.  

“We ended up with 100 tons of supplies, not 2,400,” he recalled.  

With nearly 80 years of perspective since that day, Alvira said the significance of D-Day was that Allied forces were the keys that opened up the passage for others to get to Germany. 

“If we would’ve lost at Normandy, we’d all be speaking German,” he noted.  

Altogether, Alvira was in Europe from January to June 1944.  

*This story originally was published in the September-October 2023 edition of Live Inspired Magazine, a War Memorial publication.

100-year-old veteran one of the last Montford Pointe Marines

What Lee Newby Jr. wants younger generations to know about World War II is that Americans were a fighting machine, a country that “really got it together after Pearl Harbor.”    

Born in 1923 in Tennessee, Newby is a World War II veteran who served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1942-1946.  

Newby, who now resides in Warren, graduated with honors from Merry High School in Jackson,  
Tennessee in 1941. He was drafted into the Marines at age 18 in 1942, part of the 42nd platoon. Newby was a Montford Pointe Marine- the first African Americans to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps after President Franklin Roosevelt issues an executive order establishing the Fair Employment Practices Commission in June 1941.     

The 20,000 recruits, like Newby, trained at Camp Montford Point in Jacksonville, North Carolina. He trained at Camp Montford Point for three months, then eventually was shipped off to the Pacific Theater of Operations.      

“I went to boot camp in North Carolina, to Camp Pendleton in California, to New Caledonia, to Solomon Islands,” he said, recalling the areas he was stationed at during the war.  

Newby explained that in his Marine unit as a corporal, he worked in a warehouse, where all kinds of weapons were kept.   

“With the guns, I would remove the wax off them, and if a gun broke down, I would call to get new parts and they would send me the parts for that weapon,” he said.   

It was at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands in 1944 where Newby was injured, an incident that left over 60% of his body burned.   

“There was airplane fuel and someone set it on fire and blew up,” he recalled. “It hit me in the chest and I started running and was told to hit the deck and roll over to put the flames out. The next thing I know, they bandaged me up like a mummy, and they took the dead skin off.”  

It wasn’t until after the war had ended when Newby recovered from his injuries. He was discharged from the Marines in January 1946.   

After the war, Newby for worked the state of Michigan for 12 years, then spent nearly 20 years at the city of Detroit as a janitorial supervisor, retiring in 1986. Newby has four children, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. His wife, Mary, passed away in 1992. The couple married in 1961.   

*This story originally was published in the July-August 2023 edition of Live Inspired Magazine, a War Memorial publication.