A time for remembrance
overseas and was the father of a daughter he never met. Sgt. Rexford Rhodes, a waist gunner, was flying his last required mission before returning home.
The other men who died aboard Miss Fortune on Feb. 22, 1944, were Lt. Haig Kandarian; Lt. Joseph Altemus; Lt. Charles Spickard; Sgt. Oscar Houser; Sgt. Wayneworth Nelson; Sgt. Harold Carter; Sgt. Roy Hughes; and Sgt. John Goldbach. Each has a story with a premature ending.
My father paid dearly for his narrow escape. He endured dozens of surgeries as doctors painstakingly rebuilt his shin. He walked out of the hospital in late 1945 with two legs, one shorter than the other; the affection of a nurse named Peggy Lesko, who became his wife and my mother; and a lifetime of challenges ahead of him.
As a child, I thought my father was a hero because he had long scars on his leg and a Purple Heart in his sock drawer. I still do.
Only now — 70 years after my father’s last mission and 25 years after his death — am I beginning to grasp the enormity of this crew’s bravery and sacrifice. Only now am I beginning to understand the debt.
On this and future Memorial Days, I will think about the crew that flew on Snow White and Miss Fortune. I will think about my father and Sgt. Noury, who came home. I will think about the crew members who did not. Boyce is a justice on the Texas 14th Court of Appeals, based in Houston.