News

JROTC captain stitches quilt for WWII hero

JROTC Capt. Caitlyn Ward and WWII Army Air Corps gunner Duke Brown hold quilt.

By Bill Moss, Published: November 11, 2015

Dudley Brown was cruising toward high school graduation in New Jersey in the winter of 1941. “There were three of us,” he said. “After Japan hit Pearl Harbor we said we’ve got to do something about this.”

After they checked with their school to make sure they had enough credits to graduate, he and his buddies joined the Army.
“They let us stay though the holidays,” he said. “I guess they figured it might be our last Christmas.”
Although he had plenty of close shaves in 33 bombing missions as a top turret gunner aboard a B-17, Brown, known as Duke, made it through the all Christmases of World War II and the next 70 holiday seasons after that. This week Brown was scheduled to drive with another World War II veteran to Charlotte to receive the French Legion of Honor on Veterans Day in gratitude for his part in liberating France.
Katelyn Ward, a captain in the U.S. Army Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps at West Henderson High School, had never met Duke Brown until Monday. For her senior project, she decided to stitch a quilt with a patriotic theme. Although she had never sewn a stitch herself, Ward got help from her cousin, Valerie Harrison, who is an accomplished quilter. Katelyn WardOnce she finished the quilt, one part of the assignment remained: present it to a veteran as a thank you. She chose Duke Brown.
“I wanted to do something with the military,” she said, “because my paper was on women in direct combat and I wanted to do an American-themed quilt.”
She plans to join the Navy after she graduates in May and has plans after serving six years to attend dental school.
Brown recalled taking off from British air station 468 on the morning of June 6, 1944, D-Day.
“It was really foggy but there were openings,” he said. “All you saw was ships and you knew a lot of them were not coming back.” By the time the B-17 flew close enough to shore to bomb Germany positions, the air defense was blasting back from the ground. “By then they knew what we were up to,” he said.
Duke Brown and Katelyn Ward pose with a photo of Brown during WWII.On Veterans Day, he thinks of those who never made it home.
“You’d see some of your friends and the next day you’d come home and there’s an empty bunk,” he said. “They’d come and take all their stuff away.”
Brown and his crew flew the same bomber through all 33 missions, even though it got shot up once over Berlin.
“If a plane brought you back every time it was a good plane,” he said.
He got out his brown bomber jacket to pose with Caitlyn and his new quilt. It still fit.