Malibu resident Marjorie Dukatz recalls her service with the Marines; Sharon Sawyer talks about her late husband’s, Dick Sawyer, time flying a B-17 Flying Fortress during World War II.
By Melonie Magruder / Special to The Malibu Times
While any people may value Memorial Day primarily as the culmination of a three-day holiday, there are plenty of war veterans around to remind U.S. citizens of the true significance of the national holiday and what the sacrifice of their military colleagues means to America today.
Marjorie Dukatz is a Malibu resident of close to 20 years, living on a two-acre horse ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains with her daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren. But on Dec. 7, 1941, she was just a teenager hoping to go to college and writing letters to her brother, who had just joined the Navy.
“He missed being in Pearl Harbor by just a couple of weeks,” Dukatz said in an interview with The Malibu Times during the weekend. “But after we entered the war, he was out at sea for three and a half years. Our whole family jumped in to help with the war effort.”
Dukatz’s father built Army barracks up and down the California coast. Her mother enlisted in the Army. Dukatz was too young to enlist, but she helped organize neighborhood scrap metal collections and sang for the troops with the United Service Organization (USO) at war bond rallies. “Just like the Andrews Sisters,” Dukatz said. “Then I got a job building airplanes for Northrop. I was another Rosie the Riveter.”
She also got engaged to Sammy Walker, a 24-year-old Marine who was part of the first contingent to land at the battle of Iwo Jima in February 1945.
“I was inspired by my fiancé to join the Marines as soon as I turned 20 years old,” Dukatz said. “Just after Sammy went to Iwo Jima, he got it the first day of the invasion. After his death, I joined up and ended up serving 14 months.”
Dukatz was in boot camp at the end of the war where enlisted personnel were not permitted to listen to the radio, and remembers the day in August when the troops gathered for a somber announcement. “They told us about dropping the bomb on Hiroshima,” she said.
Dukatz marched in the parade past the White House on V-J Day (Victory over Japan Day) on Aug. 14, 1945. “President Truman came out and waved at us,” Dukatz remembered.
Dukatz stayed on with the Marines as part of the “mopping-up troops.”
She then came home and went to college on the G.I. Bill, intending to go into the fashion business. But she met a “cute guy” who worked in naval intelligence and married him. He took her East and she ended up working at the Pentagon.
When asked what Memorial Day means to today’s generation compared to her own, Dukatz said with a laugh: “Well, I’m not sure about Memorial Day, but my generation is sure able to handle our current economic times better. We came out of the Depression and know how to be thrifty. This generation can’t handle it.”
A man who helped make this country ‘awesome’
Dick Sawyer lived in Malibu some 40 years. In December of 1944 he was a 19-year-old technical sergeant in the 568th Squadron of the 8th Air Force, flying bombing missions over Germany as a top turret gunner in a B-17 Flying Fortress, a four-engine heavy bomber aircraft developed for the United States Army Air Corps.
“Dick’s plane was named ‘Free Delivery’ by its crew,” Sawyer’s wife, Sharon, said in an interview with The Malibu Times. “On his 27th combat mission on Dec. 31, 1944, he was shot down near Hamburg. After he parachuted out, he saw his plane crash into eight houses.”
Sawyer was captured and made to march on a broken ankle to Stalag 13d in Nuremburg, where he was interrogated by German officers and imprisoned as a POW for the next nine months. After the camp (of which the conditions were deplorable) was liberated, Sawyer was awarded a Purple Heart.
“For a long time, Dick would never talk about his POW experience,” Sharon said. “I think the knowledge that a lot of civilians were killed when his plane crashed bothered him. But eventually, some of his squadron buddies formed a group and would get together and talk, and Dick opened up a little.”
After the war, Sawyer went to college to study geology and ended up working with petroleum companies. He became active in a veterans’ group and attended the opening of the 390th Memorial Museum in Tucson, Arizona that features a B-17 Flying Fortress wing, and the Royal Air Force Museum in England, where Sawyer’s squadron was based during the war.
Last summer, Sawyer had the opportunity to fly in a B-17 again when a squadron buddy’s son brought a refurbished bomber to Van Nuys Airport. As Sawyer’s neighbor, Dermot Stoker, said in an e-mail message to The Malibu Times, “Dick’s face, when he climbed back into his airplane, it was classic, like he was transported back in time.”
Dick Sawyer died last week on May 20.
Stoker said of his friend, “Most of all, [Dick] loved this country. So the next time you hear the National Anthem, think of all the men that helped make this country so awesome. He was one of them, for sure.”