From left, veterans Jim Stokes Jr., Dick Schiefelbusch, Al Gallup, Grover Sanders and Norman Wycoff, spent a recent Thursday afternoon at Presbyterian Manor telling stories about World War II.

From left, veterans Jim Stokes Jr., Dick Schiefelbusch, Al Gallup, Grover Sanders and Norman Wycoff, spent a recent Thursday afternoon at Presbyterian Manor telling stories about World War II.

Once a month, a group of Presbyterian Manor residents gathers at the Lawrence retirement community to swap stories of serving in World War II, when they were dodging kamikaze pilots and being held as prisoners of war.

The men, all in their 80s and 90s, started gathering in the spring in order to keep their memories alive, at a time when an estimated 555 World War II veterans die every day. During a recent meeting, the stories ranged from surviving a plane crash caused by a terrible storm to contracting scarlet fever during boot camp.

Jim Stokes Jr., a North Carolina native, recalled how he was stationed on a Navy destroyer during the Okinawa campaign in the mid-1940s.

“I had a good time, enjoyed my duty,” said Stokes, 91. “One thing I didn’t like is I never got used to people shooting at me. But would I do it again? I probably would.”

Out at sea, Stokes saw his sister ship get bombed by a Japanese kamikaze pilot, causing about 100 casualties. “It was horrible to see that big hole in the ship,” he said. “You could imagine how many people were killed or injured.”

Grover Sanders, 93, also recalled being bombarded with kamikaze pilots when he was serving in a destroyer near Okinawa. The U.S. troops were able to shoot down some of them. But not all. Many American lives were lost.

“That was pretty rough duty there when suicide planes are looking for you day and night,” he said. “But we’re here and we’re fortunate.”

John Diehl remembered his time serving as a cargo pilot over the South Pacific, where he sometimes hauled Japanese prisoners of war. “When we took an island, we would go in under fighter escort and take out the wounded,” he said.

Diehl, 96, served alongside a young Richard Nixon. “He was very aloof,” Diehl recalled. “I didn’t get to know him well.”

Dick Schiefelbusch, 96, talked about his two years as a prisoner of war, after his plane was shot down over the Baltic Sea. He chooses to look at the bright side of things.

“The odds were about 12-1 that you would be killed or made a prisoner of war,” he said. “The guys who survived to go back were about zilch. I suppose in that perspective I was a lucky camper. I made it all the way through. I’m very grateful.”