Host a catastrophe of almost unimaginable scale, world war ii left more than 60 million human beings dead, or three of every 100 people on earth. It was an event that stamped the lives of every american, especially the lives of young men and women who served in the u. S. Armed forces. World war ii called for sacrifice from every social stratum and every walk of life. An entire generation answered the call bravely, even eagerly. They understood that cherished ideals of Human Dignity and individual freedom were literally at stake. Easily more than 500,000 missouri and kansas citizens served during the war, from rural teenagers who had not finished high school to omar bradley of missouri and Dwight Eisenhower of kansas. Three of those individuals are with us tonight to share and reflect on their experiences in this terrible yet galvanizing war that ended 70 years ago this year during the presidency of harry s truman. These men need no introduction to a kansas city audience, as your welcome indicated. But they are so humble, i do want to talk a little bit about each of the men you will hear from. Henry bloch was a student at the university of michigan when the u. S. Entered the war. Having learned in school the horrors of trench warfare in what was then known as the great war, world war i, he resolved to do his service above ground and enlisted in the Army Air Corps. Trained as a navigator, he was assigned to the 95th bomb group. As it turned out, he had chosen the most perilous service of world war ii. The rough equivalent of serving as an infantryman in a world war i trench. The eminent historian of world war ii, rick atkinson, has written of the very period henry was flying. the losses were dreadful. Only one in four air force bomber crews could expect to complete the minimum quota of 25 missions. henry bloch completed 31 missions, including a raid on berlin for which the 95th was awarded a third president ial unit citation, making it the only unit of the air force to win three during the war. Restored to civilian life, mr. Bloch joined with his brother richard to build one of kansas citys great entrepreneurial triumphs, h r block. With his late wife marion, he forged a philanthropic career that will benefit kansas city for many generations to come. From the henry bloch school of management at umkc, to the architecturally acclaimed bloch building of the Nelson Atkins museum of art, to the priceless collection of paintings he and his wife donated to the museum to the marion bloch neuroscience institute, to the marion and Henry Bloch Family Foundation in kansas city, it can literally be said of this man, as was once said of christopher wren, if you seek his monument, look around you. The same could be said of bill dunn, who built this building we are sitting in. [laughter] host he was a student at Notre Dame University when he was not working at his fathers Construction Company as a laborer paid a dollar a day. He followed his older brother, ernie junior, into the service enlisting in the u. S. Navy as an aviator. In those days before satellite reconnaissance, mr. Dunn was trained to fly what very likely were suicide missions, lowaltitude scouting flights in slow, lightly armored, singleengine seaplanes. He was preparing to take part in the invasion of the japanese home islands when president trumans decision to deploy the atomic bomb brought an end to the war. Back home, mr. Dunn built his fathers firm into one of the largest and most admired contractors in the United States. Its crews can be seen on state of the art projects from coasttocoast and, as henry pointed out, right across the street. He has imbued his family and his colleagues at the company with a passion for giving and philanthropic leadership. A contribution of mr. Dunn that continues to this day, every year, more than 10 of pretax earnings from his company goes to charity. Edward matheny was captain of the Basketball Team of the university of missouri when the war found him. Graduating on an accelerated schedule, mr. Matheny entered the u. S. Navy, where his talents were spotted, and he was assigned to the staff of admiral chester nimitz. It fell to him and his colleagues to track the movement of every vessel in the ocean. On flights to pearl harbor and guam, mr. Matheny was among those that entered japan after the occupation. After the war, he attended Harvard Law School and joined the firm of caldwell downing. After 10 decades of growth as managing partner, that little outfit has become Husch Blackwell upstairs, employing more than 500 attorneys in 16 offices. In his retirement, mr. Matheny has become an important historian of kansas city. His seven books tell the story of his law firm, the hospitals in the west, and kansas citys experience in world war ii. These three men have been friends and partners for many years. And yet, characteristically of that generation that has justly been called the greatest, they never discussed there war experiences until ed began asking as research for his book, called the pursuit of a ruptured duck when kansas citians went to war. they are learning new details from one another. We are fortunate to learn some of them in their presence tonight. I will start with you, mr. Bloch. Tell us how you wound up in 1944 at the airfield in england and what that first raid on berlin was like. Mr. Bloch when dday not dday pearl harbor happened i was playing in a bridge tournament in michigan. Then we declared war on japan. Everybody wanted to help out. I knew i wanted to do something, enlist and so on. All i could think about was world war i and People Living in trenches. That was the last thing i wanted to do. So i saw an ad in a magazine that said if you enlist in the air force and are going to college, we will let you finish your education in college before we call you. I said, that sounds excellent. So i enlisted. Lo and behold, that was my junior year, my senior year, they called me into active duty. They went back on their word. [laughter] mr. Bloch when uncle sam says we want you, you go. So i went down to union station, got on the train, went to texas to san antonio aviation. I told my mother i would probably be a navigator. Her health was not too good. They did not complain about that. So you take a physical test. I took the test and ranked very high. They called me in and said, you have your choice. You can either be a pilot, copilot, navigator, bombardier. Are you sure you want to be a navigator . I said, i guess i will change and be a pilot. So i called home. I was pretty excited. I told my mother i had changed from navigator to being a pilot. And she said, if you do, your father is going to go to washington and get you out of service. [laughter] mr. Bloch as if he could. So i said, ok, mom. I will go back to being a navigator. What she was trying to say is, i do not have a lot of confidence in you. [laughter] mr. Bloch sit in the plane and do not fly it. So i took my navigation training, aerial gunnery near mexico. I got an expert medal in flying in an open cockpit plane and shooting. Went all through my training and then went to england. We lived in a long, oval hut. They said, that is your bed up there. They were double beds. I was taking everything and throwing it in a bag. They said, what are you doing . I thought i was going to sleep there. They said, yeah, but the guy who had it got shot down today. That was my welcome. The 95th was a great group. It was the first one over berlin. My First Mission was over berlin, as you mentioned. What you do, you fly to an ip, initial point, generally 10 minutes from the target. You have an escort of fighter planes to keep the german planes away from you. P51s, p47s, p38s, they do a wonderful job. They were slow, and we needed Fighter Pilots to keep the germans away from us. Once you go to the initial point, your people do not go with you because of the danger. When we got to over berlin to drop our bombs, and we are not allowed to take evasive action either, we see a lot of bombs exploding, we have to keep flying from the initial point to the center of the target. We got all shot up. We lost three engines. Fuel was leaking. So we could not stay with our group. We had to keep coming down. We were very lucky we did not see any german fighter planes as we headed back to england. When we landed in england, we were out of gas. So that was my welcome. Host and they made you do it 30 more times. [laughter] tell us your story. Mr. Matheny my naval career got started in midshipman school. I was a 90 day wonder. When i graduated, i was fortunate enough to be sent to the commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet in pearl harbor. On my way west, i stopped at graduated, i was fortunate enough to be sent to the commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet in pearl harbor. On my way west, i stopped at union station. My mother and father came down and told me goodbye. Then i rode the santa fe chief to san francisco, spent a couple of days there. So i wanted to go to the top of the mark hopkins hotel, which i did, but was not old enough to get in. [laughter] mr. Matheny that changed a couple days later when i caught an lst for pearl harbor. That was a 10 day trip. Those lsts were not real fast. Those initials stood for landing ship tank. more appropriately dubbed large, slow target. [laughter] mr. Matheny when we arrived at pearl, that happened to be the same day president roosevelt arrived on a cruiser. And he was meeting with General Macarthur and admiral nimitz who helped solve the problem of whether they were going to attack the philippines or formosa. We sat in our humble manofwar while the president went ashore. Of course, he was greeted by a lot of gold braid. Quite a line of admirals lined up to meet him. The chief of staff for admiral nimitz ordered them eyes right and two of them turned left. I did not see them, but that was the story. It was apparently a delightful thing for sailors. It confirmed a lot of privately held views. I was assigned to flag plot, a large fortress kind of building at pearl. And that is where i spent a lot of my time before i went with the admiral to guam. Mr. Dunn i had a similar situation in university. We were all shocked by pearl harbor. It was kind of amazing. I think it had been anticipated. The media painted it as a shock. My father was a small contractor at that time. And probably within a month or a two after pearl harbor, they took bids on a quartermaster depot in kansas city. Everything was competitively bid. It started seeming like they only had 120 working days to turn it over. My brother, who was four years older, he was a superintendent on the program. I probably started to work after i finished my sophomore year at Rutgers College before going to notre dame. But i was a laborer. And i vividly remember working 77 straight days, 10 hours a day, and making up my mind i would never see another construction job as long as i lived. [laughter] mr. Dunn my father always insisted his children and my mother stay very busy when they were not in school. So i was handed the assignment a year before that there was a threestory School Building the company was building. And i got a laborers card. Before the war they talk about a recession now, but it was depression. I had to transfer twice on a bus. They said, we cannot pay you laborers wages, you are listed as a water boy. I said, tell me what does a water boy get . That was a dollar a day. I did not make any money that summer, but i did play football for Rockhurst College when they had a Football Team. I was in pretty good shape. Today, they would not have let me be the water boy for a Football Team because i weighed 155 pounds. It is a wonder i did not get killed. I had already enrolled and been accepted after my sophomore year to the university of notre dame. My father wanted me to get a degree in engineering because there were few people that had college degrees. The movement that the government had about anyone that had been in the military would be able to get tuition for free when they came back, if they came back. I was in the same program that ed was. They called us 90 day wonders. I went down during the christmas vacation to see my brother get his wings at pensacola, florida. I immediately thought to myself, i do not want to be sitting around one more year when i could switch. Well, they insisted i go into chicago. I took a lot of tests. A lot of subjects dealing with math and physics and issues like that. After these tests, they agreed you can go to the air corps. I was really kind of surprised though, when i finally got called, that they had lengthened the program. My brother went right to primary. That is where they flew the yellow perils. They were biplanes. While i was waiting around, i finished my junior year at notre dame. While i was waiting around, my dad said, you are going to have to stay busy. I was working as a laborer. They were putting another floor on a facility for handicapped young people. While i was waiting, i got a call from the math teacher, who was very bright. Had written several books at Rockhurst College. It he said, i need some help. I said, what do you mean . He said, we have the Army Air Corps boys and they have a threemonth Training Program. He said, i want you to teach celestial navigation to the Army Air Force cadets. I said, i never had science before. He said, i will teach you a week ahead of the students. [laughter] mr. Dunn ironically, he did keep me ahead. They probably thought i was a slacker. I told them, i appreciate working with you Army Air Corps cadets. Maybe we will cross places somewhere. Because im going into the navy air corps. As i left the room, i got a loud boo. They had lengthened the program by almost 10 months before i got the primary. Ironically, they sent me to Cornell College in mount vernon, iowa. I discovered that many of us had been juniors and seniors in college. We came to the end of the Training Program before our next assignment. They said, in my particular platoon, they said, we will give you a special course called celestial navigation. [laughter] mr. Dunn we will also give you a very tough test at the end of the course to see how you absorbed what was going on. We took the test. I was called into the main office. They said, cadet, we have a problem. Where did you find the answers . If you cheated, you are out of here. You are going to be a seaman. I explained i had taught the course for about two months. So they forgave me. And i went on to Flight School where we flew light planes. As i remember, they were taylor crafts. They would stay afloat if the wind was more than 50 miles per hour, the plane was flying backwards. [laughter] mr. Dunn that was three months. The next step was iowa preflight. When i went to iowa preflight, my last flight when i was in the taylor craft, it all of a sudden felt like there was a knife in my stomach. I told them, i cannot get out of the plane. They ran me over to the university of iowa hospital. They took a bunch of tests and said, you have an appendix about to burst. I said, do what you have to do. I have had a lot of things happen. I think i lost several weeks but i finally went to iowa preflight. That was all halfday physicals, handtohand, judo. The other half was school work. It was a threemonth program. The commander of the base played for notre dame but had been the football coach at saint benedicts. He knew i was there. But the day our group was supposed to move on, he called me. I had never met him. I met him when he was the coach at saint benedicts. But he had me over for sunday dinner. I got a lot of razzing from other cadets. They had a meeting and said, we have bad news for you people. We have discovered only half the pilots are getting killed that we thought were going to get killed. So they washed out half hour people and sent them to great lakes. You can either go home or be called again for stay in the navy as a seaman. I was pretty good in athletics. One battalion had to play another battalion. They did not have the big 12 but the other battalion had an big six from iowa state. The man that drove me crazy, because most of our battalion had played college football, and i did most of the tackling, he came straight from the chicago bears. He was a starting fullback. [laughter] my lieutenant said, im going to give you a 4. 0 on all my reports. I said, where are you going to send the body . [laughter] i have never taken such a beating all my life. I was one of the ones that was fortunate enough to stay. But then they announced, we do not have room for you people. You are going to have to wait a while to go into primary Flight Training. That is where my brother first started. So they sent us up to minneapolis, where we worked on the flight line for about two months. Finally, we got the call to go to primary Flight Training. It was a facility outside of memphis, tennessee. And it was quite a surprise to me, because when we came in there i heard all these boos. I thought i looked around and thought what is going on . I heard them saying here come the damn yankees. We never talked about the civil war when i was growing up. In any event, we went through primary Flight Training and then had the opportunity to go to pensacola. But that was another situation that was unknown to me. When you got to your final squadron i enjoyed flying a lot when you got to final squadron, they made the decision whether you were navy, a marine, or coast guard. Of course, we all thought we are going to be hot Fighter Pilots. Instead, they let us know the military had planned on a long war. And that the battleships and the cruisers, they usually shot their shells from four or five miles away from wherever they were tying trying to take an island. They said, you will be trained to be the single engine seaplane people. The only exciting thing abo