One day when Dennis Robinson was 7 years old, he found something interesting.
‘In a bog, a swamp, I found an incendiary bomb,? said Robinson.
‘I tried to be helpful. I pulled it out, tied a clothesline through the fins and tied it to the handlebars of my bike, and I drove it to the police station in the center of town. People actually ran away. Police officers ran away. That surprised me.?
The bomb, dropped by the Germans on his town in England during World War II, didn’t go off, but his parents did when they learned of what he did, he said to Clarkston Junior High School students, May 14.
He joined fellow veterans and witnesses Jean Ketter, nurse in France during combat; Leigh Bonner, pilot; Catherine Reeve, witness to the Battle of Britain; Frank Willard, Army Air Force transport pilot in the Pacific Theater; George Thompson, infantryman in the Philippines; Axel Girschner, 15-year-old soldier in Germany’s army; and John Thomas, U.S. Navy, Atlantic, in sharing their experiences of the war with students.
‘We try to make learning about World War II interesting instead of just out of a textbook,? said Clarkston Junior High School teacher Brian Zezula, who organized the panel discussion with the Independence Township Senior Center.
‘I think kids need to know what went on,? said Reeve, who spoke to students about her experiences in World-War II England as an 11-year-old.
‘It went very well,? Willard said. ‘There’s not a lot of information out there about World War II in the school books.?
He talked about what bombing raids were like in the Pacific Theater.
‘There’d be 800 to 1,000 B-29 bombers in a raid,? he said. ‘They would cover the skies.?
Thompson talked about jungle warfare, as a Browning Automatic Rifle gunner.
‘I wasn’t scared. I was petrified,? he said. ‘War is a terrible thing. Over half my company was killed. It was terrible to see all my friends not make it ? you folks are the future of the country. Take care of it. Don’t give up.?
Robinson described other memories as a child in England during the Battle of Britain.
“The fun thing, gas masks. Who gets to play Halloween all year,” he asked.
“We played soccer ? our row won. We played cricket ? like baseball only slower. We played marbles, climbed a lot of trees. There were a lot of broken arms. There were a lot of swimming pools in our town ? bomb craters. We’d swim in the bomb craters. It was safe. They posted a sign if there was a bomb in it. We thought it was great. Our parents hated it.?
He and his friends would collect metal bomb fragments off the streets, he said.
“That’s the sort of thing that happened,” he said.
The all-day seminar ended with a USO-themed party in the school gym, Zezula said.