By KERI CHAMPION

Staff Reporter

LAPLACE- The memories preserved by our ancestors can offer us a lot of insight on how our country came to be. This is especially true when veterans share their memories and tribulations with us.

WWII was the defining era that made our country what it is today, and when veterans talk about that time, they are speaking of a historic turning point for our nation and its role in the world.

Joseph LeBouef is one of those brave men who helped to change our nation’s history. As member of the Army Air Corps, Eighth Army Air Force-194, LeBouef served as an armory gunman as part of a crew of 10 soldiers on a Liberator B-24 fighter plane during the war. He was specialist and expert in aerial gunnery, and sat atop the body of a plane in a shielded bubble. At this station, he was often the first one to see enemy planes approaching.

During his service in World War II he was stationed at an air base in Addleborough, England, and flew 18 missions before being shot down by German forces on May 8, 1944. He completed his first mission on Feb 24, 1944 at 20 years of age.

&#8220It was difficult on to be shot down after having flown 18 missions. I only needed to complete 20 before I could have returned home,&#8220 LeBouef said.

g home, and even reaching home by mail communication would prove to be a problem for LeBouef in the coming year. LeBoeuf, along with his crewmembers, parachuted from the plane after being gunned down by the enemy and many of them were separated from their crewmates.

LeBouef parachuted into Stuttgrat, Germany, a small farm town. He evaded enemy capture for five days with a disguise provided to him by locals.

&#8220I was instructed to don peasant clothes and given a cow so I could pass for a local farmer. Some of the people of the town helped me and gave me supplies,” he said.

&#8220Eventually the Germans realized I was an American soldier and I was captured and sent to a prison camp in Grosschow, Germany,” LeBouef said.

On April 9, 2002 he was presented a POW plaque in St. James Parish from the Lutcher VFW from which he is a member. The date was nationally observed as a way to honor prisoners of war.

While prisoners of the Germans, the American POWs were carted from camp to camp in what survivors called a death march after their experience there.

&#8220We marched 10-12 hours a day and if a prisoner stopped and couldn’t go anymore, the Germans took their bayonets and killed him.

Many nights, I wanted to stop because I had gotten frostbite on my feet. The temperature got down to 20 below zero sometimes. The only thing that kept me going was the determination to help my widowed mother,” LeBouef said.

&#8220We marched a total of 605 miles from July 1944 to April 1945. Joe O’ Donnell, one of the prisoners, kept a diary of our travels and experience, and later published it in a series of books called Shoe Leather,” he said.

He has donated a copy of the diary to the Lutcher Veteran’s Museum, and is the only WWII veteran still living from the Lutcher area. At the World War II museum in New Orleans, a brick bears his name in honor of his service to his country.

&#8220The brick is near the elevator and dad says he is glad it’s not in the main walkway, because the writing won’t fade there,” said daughter Emelie LeBouef Larsen.

LeBoeuf keeps the diary as a reminder of his time in the war, and so others can know what the war was like for the soldiers who fought it.

The POWs referred to themselves as &#8220kreggies” which is short for Kreigsgefangenen, or Prisoners of War, in the German language.

&#8220We slept in barns and on the ground with very little to keep us warm. They fed us a can of soup a day and that was all. Sometimes we were lucky and would get care packages from the states. Many of us only survived because we rationed the few care packages that got to us for days. If we were caught trying to escape, we died,” LeBouef said.

&#8220I really missed the taste of chocolate, ice cream, apples and so many other things not available to me as a prisoner,” he said.

Care packages weren’t the only things that didn’t get through. LeBouef had met the woman who would become his future wife, Lillian Poche, on a blind date right before he shipped out. He wrote to her and his mother often, but did not receive his first letter from home until seven months after he was captured.

The lack of communication between Europe and America was a trying situation for his mother and family, who were unsure if LeBouef was alive or dead until three months after his plane was shot down.

When the 147th G.I. Timberwolves in Bitterfeld, Germany, liberated LeBouef and the other soldiers, he weighed only 96 pounds and was malnourished and dehydrated. He and the others were taken to Frankfurt, Germany to be evaluated. They were liberated on April 26, 1945.

&#8220After we got to Frankfurt, I just quit walking,” he said.

LeBouef went to several allied recuperation camps before he was able to come home because he was too weak from his time in captivity to travel long distances.

When he did get home to Lions, he began seeing his future bride on a regular basis and proposed to her two years after returning to the states. They then made their home in Lutcher. LeBouef and his wife Lillian were married 58 years. They wed in 1947 and were together until her death in May 2005. They have two children, Larsen, and a son, Chris LeBouef. Shortly after her death, he moved to the Maison Oaks assisted living center in LaPlace.

LeBouef has four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

&#8220I have so much admiration for my father. He is such a strong man. Over the last year and a half he has had to undergo kidney dialysis and lost my mother, and he has never once complained. He is a good model for a father because he is such a peaceful and loving man. Everything he has endured has made me appreciate him more,” Larsen said.

&#8220I am happy to know he fought for us and helped us remain free. There should be more people like him,” she said.

LeBouef served as a protector on the civilian front too. He was a Deputy Sheriff for St. James Parish for six years.

He received three Oak Leaf Clusters for good conduct during his tour of duty and two air medals. He was honorably discharged as staff sergeant.

His ties to service are still unbroken. He is still in contact with his navigator, Abe Wilen, the only other surviving crewman on their plane. They call each other every year to check in with one another.

While a prisoner of war, he and others in the squad befriended a young boy from England. That same boy still visits the states to participate in WWII reunions for the POWs and recently gave LeBouef a new ball cap from the reunion.

On one visit to the states, relatives of the boy visited LeBouef to thank him for his service during the war.

LeBouef’s one regret is that he never received the Purple Heart. On one mission, he was injured and was knocked unconscious. However, his partner on the mission never reported it for fear of endangering the mission.