My name is Jerome “Jerry” Yellin, and I am a World War II Veteran.
I served with the Army Air Corps from 1942 to 1945.
I enlisted after the attack on Pearl Harbor and was a Captain and fighter pilot. I flew P-51’s off of Iwo Jima with 19 flights over Japan. I flew the first mission escorting B-29’s with the last combat mission of WWII flown with my wing man, Phil Schlomberg from Brooklyn, New York, 19 years old was killed on that day, the last man killed in combat. My greatest fear was that I would not measure up. But I did!
The worst part of the war was losing 16 squadron members and dear friends, five in accidents and eleven in combat. Flying for your country and flying in combat against the enemy was the high point of our life, because we were young. The population of America served the nation as well. So everybody was at war. There was a purpose, which was to eliminate evil, and we did that, all of us. The highlight of my life was serving my country in a time of war. This is the 70th anniversary of that war.
The wartime experience changed me. The purpose of war is to kill your enemy. All soldiers of all nations learn how to do that. Many, and I am one of the many cannot undo whet they did in war when the war ends. There is no training or mental preparation to get over the killing. I suffered from what is known today as PTSD for over 30 years. Eleven of my cousins served in combat and over Europe and never spoke of their wartime experiences. We received unbelievable attention for a very short period of time after the war. But there was no preparation for what would follow after transitioning back to the civilian world.
I came in 2010 for the 65th Anniversary. But this is the first time in March 2015 and maybe the last time that I will be on Iwo Jima. It’s a long trip and I am 91 years old. It’s a day of great memories and sad memories. This is a healing trip for me. In 1988, my youngest son married the daughter of a Japanese Kamikaze pilot who took me from hatred to love of family and I now have three Japanese grandchildren. I would like their contemporaries to know that my grandchildren’s grandparent’s served their countries with honor and no matter what we learned about the Japanese or what they may have learned about us, that war is an atrocity and that evil has to be wiped out. We are not what we believe. We are all human beings, exactly the same.
Today, I am the National spokesman for ‘Spirit of 45’. There is evil in the world today, and we have to fight that evil to make sure that there is freedom for the free loving people in our world. The Marines, Navy, Air Force and Armed Forces are the ones with that responsibility now, and I know that they will fulfill it well.
~ Captain Jerry Yelling, WWII Veteran, lecturer and author of The Black Canteen, Of War & Weddings, The Resilient Warrior and The Letter
www.spiritof45.org/jerry_yellin.aspx
We are very grateful to Jerry Yellin of The Greatest Generation for sharing his story with Comes A Soldier’s Whisper, where we are all connected.
God Bless all who serve and keep us safe.
www.ComesASoldiersWhisper.com
about.me/jennylas51
