May 9, 2012:  George Palmer was 20 years old when the B-24 bomber of which he was the navigator was shot down over German-occupied Hungary.  Now, nearly 70 years later, he will be the grand marshal in Bronxville's Memorial Day parade.

Second Lt. Palmer had flown seven missions before his plane was gunned down over its target, railroad marshalling yards.  Thirty bombers dropped 75 tons on the target, losing only one plane--Palmer's.  The plane began spiraling down at 18,000 feet from its bombing altitude of the low 20s.  Palmer had neglected to fasten his parachute, so he was the last of nine crew members out.  He was also sitting on his flak jacket instead of wearing it.  "I figured the flak was just as likely to come up from the bottom as any place else," he recalls.  Nor did he wear his leather jacket.  "I thought they were just for show."

After his capture, he was moved by train to Budapest.  He spent one day in solitary confinement and although one of the guards who interrogated him had a rubber truncheon, he didn't use it.

From Budapest he was moved to a prison camp in Poland where he spent five months with 10,000 other prisoners.  Red Cross parcels provided cigarettes, candy bars, and powdered milk.  One of the officers baked Palmer a 21st-birthday cake with ground up crackers, tooth powder as yeast, and melted chocolate bars for frosting.

The only prisoner with whom he has been in touch is a 91-year-old pilot who was shot down in the disastrous raid on the Schweinfurt ball-bearing works.

He was marched for five days to another camp because the Russians were advancing.  Then another train trip with 10,000 prisoners to Stalag Luft III, near Munich, which housed 100,000 Allied troops.  He lost 45 pounds during captivity.  Sleeping was three to a bunk in rotation, but because he supplied the blanket he had the choice of period and chose midnight to 8:00 am.

As the war drew to a halt, the Germans took the Red Cross packages.  The guards were mostly very old or very young men who would not have been useful in battle.

The camp was liberated by General Patton's army in April 1945.  Palmer returned to the United States on an overloaded former German ship that moved slowly.

Along with other liberated prisoners, he was transported to Miami Beach for a couple of weeks.  "There was nothing else to do but play volleyball on the beach, eat hot dogs, and drink beer," he recalls.  Returning home, he enrolled at the University of Minnesota, completing his degree in 1948.

He worked for a bank in Minneapolis but, because he was in the active Air Force Reserve, he was called into service during the Korean War.  He served for 21 months, most of which was spent ferrying B-26 bombers to Japan.

He then enrolled in the Harvard Business School and after ten years working for a Boston financial firm he moved to New York and worked for Lehman Brothers.  The Palmers have four sons, three of whom graduated from Bronxville High School.

He spends part of his retirement taking one course annually at Manhattanville College and is a contributing columnist on political and military affairs for MyhometownBronxville.

Palmer's life has been bridged by generations.  He was recently interviewed by Will Tarry, an Eagle Scout candidate.  Will's Eagle Scout service project consists of interviews with Bronxville veterans.  The collection will be deposited in the Library of Congress Veterans History Project.

He also has a blog on military history and geography from which he sends an email almost daily to several dozen friends.

The tradition of grand marshal for Bronxville's Memorial Day parade began in 1994.  The first grand marshal was Kathy Studwell, former director of the Bronxville Senior Citizens.  Others include three former mayors (Sheila Stein, William Murphy, and Nancy Hand) and figures associated with Bronxville history, Robert Riggs and Marilynn Wood Hill, Bronxville's centennial celebration co-chairs, and Mary Huber, village historian.

Pictured here:  WWII veteran and former POW George Palmer, the grand marshal for this year's Memorial Day parade.

Photo by N. Bower