This Military Service Page was created/owned by
Geraldine Reardon, HM3
to remember
Crawford, John, AOC USN(Ret).
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Contact Info
Last Address TACOMA,WA
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Last Known Activity:
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Serving country never gets old for these retired vets
By MIKE BARBER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
TACOMA -- Like a lot of the 21st century Navy's reserve sailors drilling here last weekend, Chief Petty Officer John Crawford was wearing a uniform that blended in, except for one small detail:
The thin line of World War II ribbons across his chest.
John Crawford, 81, of Tacoma is serving in the Naval Reserve under special permission without pay or benefits.
Even before the parents of many sailors around him were born, Crawford had survived being shot down in a Canadian Royal Air Force Lancaster bomber over France; escaping a date with a Gestapo firing squad after his French resistance rescuers were betrayed; and being locked up at Buchenwald concentration camp and Stalag 3 prisoner-of-war camp before the Red Army troops liberated.
The whole article:
him.http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/160016_oldnavy10.html
Other Comments:
Someone is selling a chunk of Chief Crawford's legacy on eBay:
I'm just trying to piece together his service record. Apparently, he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force, trained at the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan School #3 Bombing & Gunnery School at MacDonald, Manitoba, Canada. He was sent to England to serve with the Royal Air Force. He flew bomber missions as a Chief Aviation Ordnanceman & Air Gunner over Germany and France. His Lancaster bomberwas shot down over northern France a few weeks after D-Day, on July 7, 1944. He parachuted to safety, evaded capture for a while, spent about six months at Buchenwald, then was imprisoned at Stalag Luft III.
http://www.lostbombers.co.uk/bomber.php?id=10070
After the War, he came to the U.S., married local, and enlisted in the Naval Reserves. He served in Korea and supposedly retired in 1982.
It's quite a history and shouldn't be lost.
1950-1950, AO-0000, Naval Air Station (NAS) San Diego, CA
