{"id":870,"date":"2022-12-31T07:29:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-31T07:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/?p=870"},"modified":"2023-01-08T02:24:36","modified_gmt":"2023-01-08T02:24:36","slug":"100-year-old-veteran-returns-to-skies-in-wwii-plane-thanks-to-grounded-no-more-nonprofit-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/100-year-old-veteran-returns-to-skies-in-wwii-plane-thanks-to-grounded-no-more-nonprofit-group\/","title":{"rendered":"100-year-old WWii veteran returns to the skies in historic plane in volunteer group’s 500th flight"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(quote)

\n\nTed Giannone is 100 years old, and a World War II veteran<\/a>, so he\u2019s seen some things. But he said he\u2019d never really seen the Superstition Mountains until Tony Anger showed them to him. From above, in a historic plane.

\n\nHis experience was the work of Grounded No More, a nonprofit group founded by Anger that takes veterans on flights in historic planes. Giannone\u2019s flight was the organization\u2019s 500th in a World War II-era aircraft.

\n\nBut if you ask Giannone what it was like to be recognized for his service \u2014 to be greeted at his Grounded No More flight with American flags and video cameras, members of the press and an admiring crowd \u2014 he\u2019ll say it was too much. More than he deserved. \u201cWhy me?\u201d he asked. \u201cI didn\u2019t win any Medal of Honor. I didn\u2019t fly a bomber or a fighter. I was just a sailor doing his job.\u201d

\n\nGiannone, who worked as a Navy airplane mechanic on board a carrier ship and flew missions as a gunner in the war, has plenty of stories to tell beyond his time as a sailor. But his sentiment, that he is no different than any other veteran, aligns with the goals of Grounded No More, which seeks to acknowledge the courage and commitment of every military service member, no matter where or when they served.

\n\nIn recognizing their experiences and sometimes their trauma, and by providing a supportive environment, Anger hopes his organization will leave veterans with a sense of care and acknowledgment that they may never have had before. That, he hopes, will combat the mental toll some veterans suffer in silence, and call attention to it.

\n\nFor a century now, Giannone has lived by values similar to Anger\u2019s: a love for God, country and family that has shaped his life and his service.

\n\nGiannone was born in 1922 in Manhattan and raised in Brooklyn, one of six siblings, three boys and three girls. As a kid, he said, he would help his dad deliver produce from wholesale to retail markets. He drove the truck, even though he was underage, with a little help from a driver\u2019s license belonging to Joe, an older friend.

\n\nIn the summer of 1940, at the age of 17, he signed up for the Navy. During the war, Giannone was an aviation machinist\u2019s mate first class, working as a repair mechanic for the planes on the USS Kitkun Bay, a CVE-71 carrier ship. The ship island hopped and stopped at Pearl Harbor (well after the 1941 attack), but Giannone\u2019s most intense wartime experience was at Leyte Gulf. There, the U.S. lost several ships, including multiple carriers, and a lot of men.

\n\nOne of Giannone\u2019s most vivid memories of that day involved his shipmate and good friend, Bobby. They were both just teenagers, and when they saw Japanese planes fire at the vessel, they made a break for the \u201cisland,\u201d the command center of the aircraft carrier. He realized later that the island is the worst place to be during an attack, because it\u2019s an important target for the enemy.

\n\nHe and Bobby hardly knew that at the time. \u201cWhen you\u2019re young you do stupid things,\u201d he said, laughing. Luckily, he said, great leaders took care of him and his crew. Captain John Whitney, he said, brought them back, steering the carrier through enemy fire like it was a rowboat. Debris from nearby kamikaze attacks damaged the carrier, but the attackers didn\u2019t hit the ship directly. One man died on Giannone\u2019s ship and several others were wounded.

\n\nGiannone credits his survival to the men on the other ships and planes who lost their lives that day. \u201cThey were heroic,\u201d he said. \u201cThey laid a huge wall to protect us, the carriers\u2026they went right straight into the Japanese fleet and each one of them was blown up.\u201d

\n\n(unquote)

\n\nImage courtesy Mark Henle \/ The Republic<\/a>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(quote) Ted Giannone is 100 years old, and a World War II veteran, so he\u2019s seen some things. But he said he\u2019d never really seen the Superstition Mountains until Tony Anger showed them to him. From above, in a historic plane. His experience was the work of Grounded No More,Read More →<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8,12],"tags":[25,18,86,52,41,85,87],"class_list":["entry","author-wcp-story-teller","post-870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-figures-and-facts","category-life-nature-society","category-us-and-world","tag-history","tag-life","tag-military","tag-people","tag-society","tag-world-war-ii","tag-wwii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}