Friendship thicker than politics for Dole and McGovern
A free lunch was all it took to convince George McGovern to be an Army pilot in World War II.
Given an option between Army and Navy, the South Dakota college freshman picked Army because a recruiter was handing out meal tickets to interested young men. It was probably worth $1.
“That’s the cheapest I’ve ever sold out,” McGovern joked during a talk Tuesday before dedication of the Dole Institute of Politics at Kansas University.
McGovern said he considered Dole a friend, despite McGovern being a Democrat and Dole a Republican. They were stationed in Italy at the same time, but were had opposing positions on the Vietnam War.
“We didn’t always agree, as you know,” he said. “We came out of the Senate as life-long friends.”
McGovern, who served 22 years in the U.S. House and Senate and was the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee, said he was drawn to the air by fascination and fear. As a boy, he admired Charles Lindbergh’s solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. And, as a teenager, McGovern was stung by a gym coach’s criticism of him as a “physical coward.”
He decided that being a bomber pilot in a world war might show folks how tough he could be.
In 1943, McGovern began rigorous physical and mental training as a B-24 pilot.
“I needed every bit of training,” McGovern said.
Sent to Europe, he learned the meaning of combat from the cockpit of the 60,000 pound, four-engine Dakota Queen. It sunk in during the sixth of his 35 missions when a shell fragment rocketed through the windshield and lodged in metal framing next to his head.
Former Sen. George McGovern recalls some memories of World War II in his remarks at the Lied Center.
“That’s when I knew I was in war,” he said. “The German anti-aircraft gunners were very proficient.”
Another close call occurred when two engines failed and a third faltered, forcing an emergency landing on a tiny runway on the Isle of Vis. With the airfield littered by carcasses of planes that didn’t survive the landing, McGovern put the crippled plane safely on the ground.
McGovern, who earned the Distinguished Flying Cross on that day, said it was the only time he recalled his nine-person crew jumping out and kissing the ground.
The next bomber to try the same landing plowed into a hillside on the island.
6News video: McGovern offers WWII memories
More about McGovernOnly one of McGovern’s men was killed during the war, a remarkable achievement given the high attrition rate of bomber crews.
In 1985, he was interviewed on Austrian television about World War II. He was asked if he regretted dropping bombs on the beautiful cities of Innsbruck and Vienna.
McGovern replied that he had no choice, given the Nazis’ quest for world domination.
“I thought Adolf Hitler was a mad man,” he said.
McGovern did tell the interviewer his greatest regret of the war was dropping a bomb on a farm in Austria. Live ordnance had accidentally lodged in the bay and had to be knocked loose before the B-24 could land back in Italy. A crew member finally got it to break free, but it fell next to a farmhouse.
“I felt bad,” he said. “Bothered me for a long time.”
An elderly man called the TV station that night to say it was his farm that McGovern hit and that he also hated Hitler. If sacrificing his home helped speed Germany’s decline, he said, so be it.
“After 40 years, I get redemption,” McGovern said.
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