As a young man, John Fraiser of Starkville got to visit Romania, albeit not in the way you might expect.
Fraiser was a turret gunner on a B-24 Liberator bomber, and his plane made an unscheduled stop at a rough Romanian landing strip after being shot over Linz, Austria.
“(Partisans) had a little space where an aircraft in bad shape could land,” Fraiser said.
“We crash-landed there, and fortunately they had a radio there.”
Fraiser said the crew spent an anxious day waiting for rescue before an American C-47 cargo plane could come get them.
“They told us to put torches out to light the strip, and they would land at 10 o’clock sharp,” Fraiser said. “Sure enough, at 10 we heard it coming in. I could have gotten up to the cockpit, I would have kissed the pilot, probably.”
Fraiser, now 98 years old, is sharp as a tack and full of stories about his wartime experiences, some of which he shared Saturday afternoon at the Oktibbeha County Heritage Museum.
Fraiser is also the only member of his aircrew who is still alive, as well as being one of a dwindling number of World War II veterans still living.
Gordon Welch, 18, is doing what he can to preserve Fraiser’s memories. For his Eagle Scout project, Welch decided to immortalize the service records of Fraiser and fellow Starkville soldier George Bryan via a website and display at the museum.
Welch, who graduated this year from the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science, said he became interested in WWII after taking a class about it. Part of the class required him to build a website chronicling the life of a soldier from either his family or his hometown, and he featured his great-great-uncle.
The idea stuck, though, and Welch decided for his Eagle Scout project to do something similar for Fraiser and Bryan, the latter of whom died during the war.
“When I found out there was still a WWII veteran in the area, I was shocked,” Welch said. “One of my scoutmasters actually went to church with him, so I was able to get his phone number. It was an opportunity I couldn’t turn down.”
Welch said he spent about a year piecing together the story of Fraiser’s and Bryan’s service. He interviewed Fraiser several times, did some internet sleuthing via Ancestry.com and findagrave.com, and visited memorabilia connected to the men at the Mitchell Memorial Library at Mississippi State University.
Welch’s project is online at fraiserww2.weebly.com, and can also be viewed via an iPad installed in a display at the heritage museum.
“History can have a way of repeating itself, and I want people to see the terrible things that happened and how people overcame those problems,” Welch said. “(Fraiser and Bryan) were both kids who went to the war. Fraiser came back, and on the other hand Bryan died.”
Fraiser was appreciative of Welch’s work.
“This young man here is an Eagle Scout, and that’s really something,” Fraiser said. “… Look at his character. He wants to work, he wants to produce and he wants to leave something out there for others who come along.”
Brian Jones is the local government reporter for Columbus and Lowndes County.
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