Story recalls boy's view of McCook air base years

Friday, January 13, 2006
The old McCook Army Air Base as it appears from the air today. (Bruce Crosby/McCook Daily Gazette)

NORFOLK -- The January-February edition of "Nebraska Life" includes a story by former McCook resident Dick Budig, who remembers growing up in a neighborhood lost at times in an eery darkness and patrolled by frightful air raid wardens.

Budig, who was a young boy during World War II, eight years old in the winter of 1943/1944, reminisced about air raid drills in McCook. "All I know is that a couple times a month, mom would announce that tonight was blackout night," Budig writes.

Budig remembers grabbing a pillow from the sofa, hiding under a blanket and listening to the radio as bombers from the Army Air Base northwest of McCook made low-flying practice runs over homes whose residents had been ordered to turn off every light.

"My guess, these long years later, is that my little town was a mock target for the young airmen who, in a matter of weeks, would find themselves flying at night over towns in Europe that appeared to be in total eclipse," Budig writes.

Light leaking from the Budig home during one blackout brought a swift reprimand from the block's air raid warden, Budig recalls. The rap at the door -- in the complete darkness of a blackout and of a deep winter night -- was ominous. "My heart stopped. I couldn't move. My joints locked. My eyeballs would not swivel in their sockets," he remembers.

The incident meant that the Budig family's name would go on a list, Dick remembers, but it also meant, he said, that the family would never again turn on even a small light or use a candle to get around the house during a blackout.

Respond to this story

Posting a comment requires free registration: