A Tribute to a Veteran

My dad Claude Hansen was 35 and single when WWII started, (they were drafting men to age 36), he had been to a CMTC camp and he said about all they did was march, so when Pearl Harbor was attacked he went to Geiger Air Force Base and enlisted in the Army Air Corps hoping he could fly and not have to march a lot. He never once flew anywhere during the war. He was part of the 354th Service Squadron, they serviced and fueled the B-17s and B-24s. The Squadron went to England, and spent most of the war in Africa and towards the end they were in Italy. My dad had been a truck driver and a mechanic before the war started so he ran the motor pool, to keep the jeeps, trucks, wrecker and tankers running. He was overseas for 39 months, and got rotated home early because of his age, so he was back in Spokane on VJ day. The Squadron had packed up after VE day and was heading for Japan. They were in the Panama Canal when the A-Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and they sent them to San Francisco to await orders, but Japan had surrendered before they got there, so most everyone was mustered out of the Army.

I don't ever remember seeing this photo when he was alive, but found it in his old photos.