Ep. 24: WWII Vet, 99 Years Old! Great Stories, Great Human

What a great blessing to be introduced to Fred Van Laningham. We took the show on the road to interview him at his assisted living facility. Caution, he is a little hard to follow and understand at times and we did our ABSOLUTE BEST to edit the sound and quality. My goal in bringing him on is to shine a light on such an interesting time in our nation's history: World War II. Fred does such a terrific job sharing stories of his life and what it was like in those days. Thanks, Fred. (Fred passed away just weeks after this episode was produced, our hearts are saddened and we are tremendously grateful for this opportunity to share his story and ensure his legacy lives on forever.)

Fred VanLaningham, a 99-year-old World War II veteran, opens up about his extraordinary life, sharing not only the harrowing tales of wartime but also heartwarming stories of love and resilience. From the chilling moment he lost his hearing on a B-17 bomber to his six-decade-long quest for justice, Fred's journey is a testament to the sacrifices made by veterans. With a sharp memory and a gentle spirit, Fred recounts the legacy of military service woven through his family and how it shaped his own path. His narrative doesn't just dwell on the past but offers profound reflections on the freedoms secured by his generation.

The episode takes you on an emotional rollercoaster, exploring the youthful excitement of enlisting, the camaraderie of military life, and touching homecomings. You'll hear about the thrill of flying fighter planes and torpedo bombers off jeep carriers, and the poignant moment Fred proposed to his wife by mail during the war. We celebrate the adventurous spirit and unwavering duty that defined a generation, inviting listeners to appreciate the emotional depth and personal connections within these historical experiences. This is more than a recounting of events; it's a heartfelt tribute to the courage and endurance of veterans like Fred, whose stories continue to inspire.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Hey folks, Jeff Hopek here. Just a note on today's show, I have Fred Leningham. He's 99 years old. A lot of his thoughts and communications are going to be a little bit slower than what you're used to here on the show. This is a little bit different of an episode for us, but I personally thought it was just way too important to bring on a World War II vet, because as we know there's not many of them around. So Fred's going to tell some incredible stories. Again, bear with us. We did our best to edit it. He's going to be a little bit more methodical in his thinking, a little bit slower, a little bit softer at times. But he tells one of the most incredible stories that I've heard about persistence. He's been fighting the federal government for 60 years, 6-0, because he had lost his hearing. He's an engineer on the, I think it was the B-17 bomber, and an inspector came and pressed a button while Fred had his head literally in sandwich, working on a plane for two um two missiles engaged under indoors right past both of the sides of its head, and never had its hearing right since then and has lost a significant amount of it. So communication's a little bit different during this episode. Again, just please bear with us. Um and and on one of the other things is can't wait to hear the story about how he met his wife, how he engaged how he um proposed to his wife. I mean, it's fascinating. There's some great stories here. So hope you enjoy it. Again, thank you for your patience with it and enjoy the episode. What made you want to fight for our country?

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Oh, I don't know. I guess my but my uh my brothers were in first. They were in a little bit before I was. He was in the pilot training on this point when my older brother was killed.

SPEAKER_04 2:01

Do you think a lot now about the war every day?

SPEAKER_00 2:06

I have to.

SPEAKER_03 2:09

You're listening to the Jeff Hope Show, Conversations with Interesting Humans.

SPEAKER_04 2:17

Folks, uh, welcome back to another episode here. Um, the Jeff Hope Show, conversations with interesting humans. And today I've I've got an incredible, just an incredible story for you. Um, so many different emotions here. Uh, I want to introduce you to Fred Lanningham, Fred's 99 and a World War II vet. So we're gonna talk about everything today from what was the price of a cheeseburger when you uh went to the war, was there a draft for this war? But you're gonna hear some incredible stories when he uh when he got on the ground there. And uh Fred, thank you for being here. Thank you so much. Um I just want to take an opportunity to say one thing before we get started. Every single day, every day here in this great country, uh, we are under attack. They want our freedom, they uh they they want our constitution. The evil one wants the very freedoms that we have, and I know I'm guilty myself of taking those freedoms for granted. And I thank God every day for men and women like Fred here that wake up, they suit up, and they show up and they say to the evil one, not on my watch. And uh with that, Fred, I I so sincerely want to say thank you for your service. Okay, folks, we're gonna get into the interview, and I um it'll be a little bit different uh this time, as you'll notice. We're gonna go a little bit slower, a little bit louder, um, so you can adjust any settings that you have to make an adjustment to now. Um, but I'm you're in for such a just such a great story. So, Fred, tell us what it felt like the day that you landed in your first assignment.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Oh it was uh after we got to uh how to uh Hawaii and Cateoe, we we uh were still doing a lot of uh uh f uh flights away from there and still making a lot of carrier landings. We won't we always flew off a Jeep carrier and the reason uh well we were called a composite squadron and composite meant that we were a small squadron made up of sixteen f fighter planes, twelve torpedo bombers, and that was what well the Jeep carriers could carry. We could not fly those TBMs off of a c a jeep carrier. We had to be shot off on a catapult.

unknown 5:40

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Well, we had been used to being shot off on a catalog because uh we had done that in the US from the naval air stations where we were close enough to be uh where we could be on a navy ship. And uh that first flight off a carrier deck and the landing back on the carrier deck was a little exciting.

SPEAKER_04 6:13

Wow, I'll bet. Was there a draft for World War II?

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Yes, there was.

SPEAKER_04 6:22

There was a draft.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 6:24

Were you old enough to go fight?

SPEAKER_01 6:26

No, I wasn't old enough to know to uh uh be drafted, so that's why I enlisted.

SPEAKER_04 6:34

Okay. What did your what did your parents say when you said you were gonna do that?

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Well, that you could they was I they would not sign for me unless I was gonna be graduated from high school. Wow. So I went to see the principal in high school, and well, my grades and everything were all high enough that I was gonna be graduated whether I was there or not. Right. And they had a chair for me at the graduation.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Kind of a favorite story is a girl that I met had been in uh I was now a uh aviation machines made second class and also uh uh combat air crewman sent from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to uh Seattle, Washington with uh a stop uh uh thirty days on the way to Seattle in Seattle and when he got to Seattle a squadron would be commissioned and then we would be assigned from there. Well the first assignment after Seattle, then what we uh next had was a squadron that was really too big for a Jeep carrier. So being a composite squadron, they had to drift tape to a lot of people out. Well, they did a lot of that, but I was still assigned to that uh and our first assignment after leaving Seattle was a place called North Bend, Oregon. North Bend was a little uh a little town uh south of Portland. And that was where I met a a girl. I thought, I'm gonna marry that girl. That's wow. And uh I did actually, it turns out the story is very long. I'll try I'll try to give it to you as best I can.

SPEAKER_04 9:08

Yeah, great.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

But her name, uh she was in Portland or in Northland at the time. And it turned out that all her family had all been moved from Iowa to Portland, and all the uh adults were uh working at shipyards. And she was just in high school there. So I made up my mind I'm gonna marry that girl.

SPEAKER_04 9:49

Wow. What year was that about?

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Uh we'll see that was in uh forty forty-six uh uh it was close uh forty-five.

SPEAKER_04 10:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

About that.

SPEAKER_04 10:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

I asked her to marry my map by uh mail.

unknown 10:16

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 10:17

By mail.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

That's so cool. So she she accepted, and I sent her the money for the wedding ring. Wow. And that's uh uh of course I was still in the and uh of course the the war ended when I was on Guam.

SPEAKER_04 10:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

And that was where it ended. And I got on the uh on the uh what they call the magic carpet fleet and uh which was another Jeep carrier that they had modified to take a bunch of people on. Took that back into Harbor Island shipyard in Seattle. But this was the war was over. And me and another guy got pretty much together quite a bit. And we got back to Seattle, got off of that ship at Harbor Island, and there must have been I don't know how many thousands of sailors, marines, army, God, it was the place was covered with them. There was you couldn't buy a take it home.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

And so I figured I gotta get home some way.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

And finally, after several days of trying to figure out a way to get home, I had saved up quite a bit of money in the Navy and folks and back home saving it for me. So I had to get some of it. And I finally uh messed around and looking for a car and a car dealer had just got a car because a guy bought a new one. It was a thirty-three Old Mobile 8.

SPEAKER_04 12:51

Ooh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

I bought that car with buddy my dad sent me. And they said, Well, you gotta uh you can't get out of here without chains. So I had to get chains on the back wheel so I could supposedly make it over Snowquagleby Pass. Well, me and my buddy both started out in that car. We went over Snowquagleby Pass without stopping. We never didn't have to put the chains on. We went through the stove went right up over the pass. And they had high school kids put chains on cars that were waiting to go.

SPEAKER_02 13:46

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Anyhow, I drove that car all the way to Mattoon, Illinois. The two of us.

SPEAKER_02 13:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

But well, he lived in Nebraska, so had to go by Nebraska to drop him off. The car was a gas and oil drinker, drank almost as much oil as he did. You did gas.

SPEAKER_04 14:10

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

And we drove down to Pendleton, Oregon, across to uh Moscow, Idaho, and there we were changing flat tires on the way. And then on the uh Utah, and up then up the Woodlevel Slide to Wyoming. Started across Wyoming and one tire after another. Right. Trouble all the way.

SPEAKER_04 14:48

What a story. Wow. Today's episode is brought to you by Killer Shark Marketing. I started the company in 2007, being completely exhausted and tired of the marketing runaround. And folks, if you own a business, you probably know what I'm referring to. Well, welcome home. Marketing is most effective when we can meet face-to-face quarterly. So if that's the kind of relationship you're looking for, like I said, welcome home because we will be the last stop for you. Head over to our website, killersharkmarketing.com, and you'll see exactly why we're different. So go look, let's go all the way back then to when you were 17. Why, what made you want to fight for our country?

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Oh, I don't know. I guess my uh my brothers were in first, they were in little bit before I was. My middle brother was in the uh the Navy Air Corps thing with in the pilot training. Okay, but uh uh he was in the pilot training when this when my older brother was killed. At the same time that I did get to see him when it went back, but just for a short time.

SPEAKER_04 16:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

And uh uh I just wanted to be part of it.

SPEAKER_04 16:15

Wow. So three b three brothers?

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Well, all three of us were in.

SPEAKER_04 16:20

Older than you, then younger.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Yes. Older. I was the youngest of the three.

SPEAKER_04 16:26

Oh, two older. Okay, two older. All Navy?

SPEAKER_01 16:30

Oh, no. Two Navy, one army. Oh the oldest one was in the army.

SPEAKER_04 16:37

How did the oldest one have did he get killed in action?

SPEAKER_01 16:42

No, he was killed. Yes, he was killed by the action bomb. The action bomb went off as he jumped from one foxhole to another and he was killed. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 16:57

You have World War II and then Vietnam. When the people came back, when the troops came back, they were booed. Vietnam.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

Vietnam.

SPEAKER_04 17:10

But not for World War II. Why?

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Why do you think I don't know? Uh I uh I felt bad about that. Uh a nephew was there. My older brother had a uh uh uh he had several boys, and uh his oldest boy was uh uh in Vietnam. And uh his young one of his uh younger sons uh was living in Peoria and he had uh two three boys. So the uh he had a whole lot of boys. I had two girls.

SPEAKER_04 17:56

Yeah. Well what was the country like? Tell us a little bit about what the country was like back then. What was going on in America back when you entered into when you first entered uh everybody was rooting for us.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

When you were on a train, the train went through a town and they were handing out stuff to us on the trains all the time. As we would stop and it would head uh through Nebraska, or uh not Nebraska, South Dakota, we got uh pheasant sandwiches. They had but just bundles of sandwiches. Wow, pheasant sandwiches in San in South Dakota.

SPEAKER_04 18:47

And you were in were you in uniform? Huh? Were you in uniform and when they saw you they would give you that?

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Or how did Oh they would come to a train, the train would stop, and they would they ran up there and hand about as fast as they could.

SPEAKER_04 19:04

Because they knew you were in the it was a troop train. Oh, troop train. Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

They ran troop trains back and forth. It was going constantly. I know. Uh we had I'm glad we had those railroads at the time.

SPEAKER_04 19:25

Right, right. Do you tell do you remember a story or a couple stories when you when you when you felt afraid?

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I had guys when we had a few guys sneaking in. Uh we had uh like one we didn't know that uh an airplane we were gonna be working on. Uh we got back to uh Rodie Point. That was the naval air station there on Guam. The one there was a big um uh repair uh AROU, AVIC repair. Uh that was a big one. We were smaller on uh what was uh left of us uh at the uh Rodi Point Station. We were repairing uh uh aircraft that had been shot up some that they could could repair. And uh we had a test pilot when we would test the plane out. Our test pilot was a enlisted man, just like the rest of us. But he was also a pilot. He was a Mustang.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

Mustang.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

That's what they called him. Uh enlisted man who was a pilot. He took the plane off, made one circle and dropped it back right on the in the Penn runway. Whoa. Caught fire too.

SPEAKER_04 21:00

Were you there?

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Yeah. But uh he got out in time. Yeah, he got out and he was went away and his uh the cord from his earphones hung up and jerked him back, but he still got loose and got out of it. Wow. Yeah. Oh sort of worried about that.

SPEAKER_04 21:28

Oh, for sure. Do you do you think a lot now about the war every day?

SPEAKER_00 21:36

I have to.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

I I I dream about it.

SPEAKER_04 21:43

Good and bad, mostly good.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

But mostly good. Some bad.

SPEAKER_04 21:48

Yeah. Wow. What was your position? What was your job in during World War II? Were you an officer?

SPEAKER_01 22:00

It was a uh a a turn gunner and a torpedo bomber.

SPEAKER_04 22:07

Okay. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

And uh I had been working on the New York Central Railroad after I got out of the Navy. That's the job I had. New York Central and then uh from there I had uh gone took the leave of absence and the doctor at the hospital or at the uh school university there. He said you got a a really bad infection and real loss of hearing. I never tested my ears. The only test I had for ears was was on the day that I was discharged. They stood a bunch of us up. Oh, face one way. Can you hear what I'm saying? That kind of a test. Turned around, said that was my ear hearing test when I got out. They had a Russian woman as a physician. She asked me if if I scratched my ear. I said yes, after it started to run and stink. And anyway, I filled out all the application, everything for uh some compensation.

SPEAKER_02 23:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

It turned me down. She said I uh apparently it was that Russian doctor. He said I scratched the dead of myself. So when I give uh made the application, I gave the name of two of the guys that were there that knew that what had happened. And I saw them both later. They said the only information they had received was a question about my medical, my uh uh mental uh condition. That was a question that was sent back to the guys that were with me at the time. I fought them for over sixty years.

SPEAKER_04 24:45

Did you ever win?

SPEAKER_01 24:47

Yes. You did? I good. But it took 60 years before they admitted that it was service connected.

SPEAKER_04 24:55

How long? How long were you away from home?

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Uh four years. Well, four years.

SPEAKER_04 25:04

Okay, four years.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:06

How how did you speak to loved ones back home back then? Letters?

SPEAKER_01 25:13

That's all.

SPEAKER_04 25:14

Anytime you can you write a letter anytime you wanted?

SPEAKER_01 25:17

Yeah, you could write them, but they always censored them. They were censored.

SPEAKER_04 25:22

They did. Did you did you write a lot?

SPEAKER_01 25:24

Yeah, tried to.

SPEAKER_04 25:25

Who who did you write to?

SPEAKER_01 25:29

I proposed to. Right.

SPEAKER_04 25:31

Anybody else?

SPEAKER_01 25:33

Oh, mom and dad.

SPEAKER_04 25:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

My brothers. Yeah. But uh, well, I of course Don was the oldest when he was already gone, by the time it was overseas.

SPEAKER_04 25:45

Right. Wow. What what did you do then? So you came back after the war, and then what what did life look like for you?

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Well, when I got back, uh I uh I had to uh finish my uh service uh uh uh uh enlistment. I still had a ways to go.

unknown 26:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

If I'd have drafted, I'd have been out. But uh I I had to wait till the service till my uh uh enlistment was up, and then transferred me uh as an instructor back to the the uh gunnery school where it was uh trained aerial gunnery.

SPEAKER_04 26:39

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

And then I got out.

SPEAKER_04 26:41

And then you got out, and then then what did you then what did you do?

SPEAKER_01 26:45

Then I uh I went first uh to the North Central Railroad, New York Central. Okay. And I told them uh that uh hey I uh I got a problem. Don't worry about it. And I was with them for uh uh uh I think uh uh several years and then uh the railroads were starting to slack off because of uh we were getting rammed by uh uh smoke problems, uh smoke emittance, that sort. They knew we were gonna be shut down. Newark Central was a big railroad.

SPEAKER_04 27:46

Two more questions. Do you have any friends now from back in the your your days in the military?

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Uh yeah, well, I had a lot of friends from that too, but I it's been so long since I've been back there. I've kind of missed list of uh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:07

Do anybody that you talk to like today that you stay in touch with?

SPEAKER_00 28:11

No really friends?

SPEAKER_04 28:13

No, not not really. Okay. So I wanna um I wanna end on um I I want to end on this. Do you think our country's in a in a good place?

SPEAKER_00 28:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

I I don't think it's as good as it you it it could be.

SPEAKER_02 28:35

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

I I'd like to see us build a lot more of that stuff than we built before.

SPEAKER_04 28:44

So man manufacturing. Yes. Here instead of abroad. Huh.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:54

Are there are there any stories that you wanna that you want to tell or talk about? I you've had such an incredible life and you've got so many stories. It I I missed a lot, I'm sure. Does anything come to mind that you'd like to say before we close up?

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Well, with Unicarbide, uh course that was all uh they sent me all over the world. They hadn't they sent me back to Japan and I I made some friends in Japan and some very good friends. Uh lived there a little while. And then uh we were building polyethylene plants all over the world. We uh uh we had we put in two new high-pressure recipt compressors uh to pump make polyethylene. And uh Belgium had trouble. I had to go over there to live there a while. I took my wife there. Wow. And uh we lived in Belgium a while. They lived in with Puerto Rico for uh three years at Mexico. I had been one of the steel mills of the Mexico.

SPEAKER_04 30:31

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

And I've uh I've had a lot of a lot of experiences like that, and uh they were almost all good. Almost.

SPEAKER_02 30:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:51

It was uh it was pretty good.

SPEAKER_04 30:54

Yeah, special. Well, as far as today, we're gonna we're gonna wrap up. I know I've probably have 800 more questions. Okay. So uh we'll do another interview with you, but for sake of today, folks, okay, um, yeah, we're gonna wrap up. That was just so remarkable. Thank you again for your your great service to uh to our country. Uh man, a lot of emotions today. Um, again, World War II vet here, 99 years old. I hope I'm one one hundredth that sharp. Um I I do got to say when when when Fred said there were three things, and I started writing down one, two, three, I'm I'm not good at all at coming back to the three. I'll say number one, but then I'll forget the other two. And he just rattled them off. So what an incredible memory. Thank you for sharing these stories with us. Um, we're just grateful for it. So, folks, we encourage you as always um write into us, share any feedback you have. If you have questions, um put them below in the comments. Follow us here on YouTube and um subscribe to our show. Thank you for watching. And Fred, thank you again for your time.

SPEAKER_03 32:11

Thanks for watching the Jeff Obec Show. Be sure to subscribe and follow us on all socials.