High above the war

Oren Paulson often says that he’s no hero.

Perhaps now.

After all, he says, “I didn’t fight any battles.”

Yet today, 60-plus years after his enlistment, Paulson looks like he could be a hero. He stands militarily straight. His eyes are clear and bright.

He will be 89 years old in December.

Paulson was born in Fremont, graduated from Fremont High School, attended Midland Lutheran College until he enlisted and returned to get a business degree after the war. He went to work for the George A. Hormel Co., and worked there until he retired.

“I had the Spam department,” he said.

And, he flew a troop transport plane during World War II. He had requested, after graduating from Stockton Advanced Flying School, to fly a B-17. The military, however, was “in desperate need of pilots to fly transport planes so my entire class was assigned to transports and sent to Indianapolis to learn how to fly the C-47.”

This turned out to be an auspicious assignment for Paulson for it was in Indianapolis, only eight days into the assignment, when he met Mary and “we instantly fell in love. It was one of those things when two people look at each other and fall in love.”

Two months later, they were married in a military wedding at Fort Bragg, N.C.

A few months later he and his buddy, Bill Baker, picked up two new C-47s and flew them to Africa by way of South America. Their destination was Cairo, Egypt. Over Kenya they flew into a sandstorm going across the breadth of Central Africa.

“When I got to Kenya, the field was virtually shut down because of the sandstorm. I had no choice but to try to get into the field somehow because my fuel was running low and there was no alternative. They did have a radio beacon there so I knew when I went over Kenya by the radio beacon. We then turned south and flew about 15 minutes and then turned back north again. As we turned back, I told the crew that we would gradually let down and I wanted them to watch for the ground. When we saw the ground, I leveled it off and flew on to Kenya by the radio beacon. We were able to make out the field. We made a real tight circle around the field because of the visibility and landed the plane OK.”

Paulson was stationed at Cairo where his orders called for him to fly across the North African desert. He still is amazed at what he saw on the desert below.

“The whole desert area there was covered with the rubble of war on the ground,” he said.

He saw every type of military equipment, remnants of the North African campaign that pitted the forces of the German army under Gen. Erwin Rommel and Gen. Bernard Montgomery.

One time he was ordered to deliver two Jeeps to the government of Turkey, occupied by the Germans at that time. He and his crew were ordered to remove all their insignias and paint over the insignias on the plane.

Often, he was requested to fly dignitaries. Paulson remembers flying the Supreme Court justice of the United States, Judge Frederick Landis, from Cairo to Tehran, Iran.

“On flights where there were dignitaries, I generally had to fly the commanding officer of my unit, Major Davis, who listed himself as pilot and me as co-pilot. The flight from Cairo to Tehran was uneventful. Tehran sits up on the mountains of Iran. On the way back, there were clouds all over the mountains. Major Davis was flying. He didn’t know how to fly on instruments, so we kept climbing and climbing to get above the clouds. We ended up at an altitude between 15,000 and 16,000 feet. We never carried any oxygen on board any flight I ever made.

“Major Davis was still trying to get above the clouds instead of going through the pass �” that was the way I knew to go.

“The crew chief came into the cockpit and said that Judge Landis had passed out back in the cabin. Of course, it was from the high altitude, so Major Davis turned the plane over to me and told me to take the plane down and get it through the pass since I knew the way using instruments.”

Landis revived as soon as they got down to a lower altitude.

“For a week after we got back to Cairo, I blew blood out of my head because of flying at that high altitude with no oxygen,” Paulson said. “That was one of the bummer flights, you might say.”

At the urging of his children, Paulson has written down his memoirs of his military service. His granddaughter has gathered the stories into a document which is quoted here.

Also from these memoirs is the story of his meeting Gen. George S. Patton. The situation happened around the time that Patton slapped a battle fatigued soldier.

“I told the CO I didn’t really care to fly General Patton himself, but I would fly the rest of his party up to the Holy Land, which I did,” he said. “When we landed in the Holy Land, I had my crew line up outside the plane. When Gen. Patton appeared in the doorway of the other plane, we all stood at attention and saluted him.

“General Patton was the most impressive military man I’d ever seen in my life. He was standing in the door of the other plane with his chrome-plated helmet on, battle dress jacket, pinks (light-colored trousers formerly worn by officers) riding breeches and leather boots. The boots were so shiny you could see yourself in them. He stood there, just ramrod straight.”

Other flights, other dignitaries led him to fly to Ceylon (now Sir Lanka), India, Saudi Arabia and Cyprus. Besides dignitaries he flew gazelles (a gift from King Ibn Saud to King Faruk of Egypt), planes (a P40 they had barely maneuvered into the cabin of the C-47) and the remains of another pilot.

After 17 months in Africa, Paulson and his crew flew into Miami.

“One of the most beautiful sights ... was to see Miami all lit up from a distance,” he said. “Every place that I’d flown in and out of while overseas was all blacked out, so it was a very pretty sight. After we landed in Miami, I called Mary. She got on a train and came down to Miami and was able to find a room right across from the hospital where I was located. It was one of the most happy times of my life when I was reunited with Mary after being gone for 17 months. We enjoyed our time in Miami �” very much.”

Paulson finished out the remainder of his military service doing the thing that he is most proud of doing �” flying wounded soldiers to hospitals close to their hometowns.

Paulson returned to his hometown where he and his Mary would build a house and raise a their three children. One of his grandchildren is a recent graduate from West Point Military Academy. She has been assigned to receive further training at intelligence school.

Because Paulson fought no military battles, he makes no claim for heroism.

Yet one might argue that all the young men who left home, careers, dreams and family behind to fight against tyranny and evil, when the extent of that sacrifice is examined, by dictionary definition become heroes �” or those who show great courage.