Charles Louis James of Independence Township turned 92 this month, so his neighbors threw him a birthday party.
“He is such a personable guy to everybody,” said neighbor Sheilah Denne. “He has been walking all over the neighborhood for years. Everyone knows him, so we decided to have a block party.”
The local Kroger’s store on Sashabaw donated flowers, and about 35 people attended the World War II veteran’s party, July 12, including 5-6 fellow vets.
“We had a nice party, a really nice thing,” James said. “They’re very good friends ? there were so many friends there I forgot I had.”
“It turned out really good,” Denne said.
James has lived in Independence Township for more than 60 years, raising his family on Oak Park Drive off Maybee Road.
Born in Lawrenceville, Illinois, he was too young to be drafted when the United States entered World War II in 1941, so he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps and worked at camps around Lake Superior.
A couple years later at the age of 19, he was drafted into the U.S. Army and sent for training at Army Air Corps bases in Mississippi, North Carolina, and Colorado.
He was a left gunner on a B-29 Superfortress bomber, called “City of Omaha.”
“The B-29 was the largest bomber in the world at the time,” he said.
“Its original name was ‘Yankee Doll’ah’ ? they changed all the names to towns.”
He was based in Guam, and flew in about 20 bombing missions over Japan, dropping 500-pound bombs on ammunition and airplane factories and other targets.
“The pilot came in one evening and said, ‘they dropped an atomic bomb.’ I said, ‘What’s an atomic bomb?’ We didn’t know what it was,” James said. “He said, ‘I don’t really know what it is.’ The second bomb, everybody knew. That one clinched it.”
Japan surrendered on Sept. 2, 1945, after specially modified B-29s dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. James was there, flying in City of Omaha over the USS Missouri, where the surrender signing took place.
“We were one of the ones who did a flyover,” he said. “They told us, don’t try anything funny.”
They were sent home after three months.
“We had to clean the island up,” he said. “When we reached the Golden Gate Bridge, we were tickled to death. We knew we were back in the states. When I reached St. Louis, I knew I was home.”
He earned several medals for his service, including two Bronze Stars, but what was important to him was coming home to his wife, Imogene, to whom he was wed just before shipping out.
With an aunt living in Michigan, they moved to Clarkston in 1950. They were on Dixie Highway looking at properties when Imogene noticed the Ottawa Cemetery at Maybee Road.
“She said, ‘turn in here, let’s see what things look like,?” James said.
All empty lots and dirt roads at the time, they bought two-and-a-half acres, built a house, and raised their daughter, Susan K. James.
“We had nothing going for us. We took whatever jobs we could get,” said James, who now has two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren
James owned and operated Pontiac Overhead Door Company and his wife had an antique business.
Imogene passed away 15 years ago.
“She kept me alive during the war. She was my true love. I loved her so much,” Charles said. “I walked to Maybee Road to the cemetery everyday for 12 years, usually crying all the way.”
He stopped the walks after a fall a few years ago, breaking both shoulders.
“I can’t walk very far now ? I’m not looking for sympathy,” he said.
He still has her red Pontiac Bonneville, which he bought for his wife in 1971.
“It has a bench seat so Susan could ride up front,” Charles said. “I’ve had it now all these years.”