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‘Great Escape’ veteran dies
• Henry Webber’s World War II story was a familiar one to local children.
For more than 50 years, Henry Webber would talk to only his closest relatives about his experiences as a World War II prisoner of war.
Even so, hundreds of Tucson students heard his stories.
Webber’s sister, Charlotte, and her husband, Elmer Hubbard, have served as messengers of his memories.
During the past three years, the couple visited several schools – including Secrist, Doolen and Booth-Fickett Middle Schools and Sahuaro High School.
On Dec. 28, Webber died of heart failure at his home in Banning, Calif.
He was 78.
For the hundreds of Tucson students who heard about him, he will endure as a 21-year-old airman caught in the war.
Secrist Middle School teacher Jenna Marvin said the couple’s account in her class made a big impact.
The couple visited her eighth-grade history class last spring. The two also visited some of Marvin’s previous classes.
”When they can hear the personal story, (students) start to sit on the edge of their seats,” Marvin said.
The Hubbards began visiting the school, 3400 S. Houghton Road, when Elmer – a substitute at the time – told Marvin he was interested in speaking to students.
Hubbard said he is glad other teachers agreed to let them visit their classrooms.
”These kids don’t know firsthand history. They look at books and say, ‘Why should I know that?’ ” he said in a telephone interview.
Hubbard and his wife were in California making funeral plans for Webber, who was flown to Michigan for services.
”Man, you can hear a pin drop in those classrooms,” Hubbard added.
The students learn that on the day Pearl Harbor was bombed – Dec. 7, 1941 – Webber, then 21, enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps, which later became the U.S. Air Force.
He was living in Flagstaff and trained at Mather Field, Calif., to become a flier.
Webber’s plane was shot down by the Germans during a bombing raid over France in 1942. He was a second lieutenant and the navigator of a B-17. He was also the only survivor of the crash.
He and other Allied airmen were held in a camp in Poland for nearly three years. About 10,000 prisoners were held there. Webber helped dig a tunnel in hopes of escaping and getting back to England.
He was transferred along with other American soldiers to another camp two weeks before the ”Great Escape” on March 24 and 25, 1945.
About 70 Allied soldiers escaped from the first camp, but 50 were caught and shot by the Germans. Webber was transferred back to the first camp to help bury the men he had worked alongside while digging the tunnel.
He was later transferred to another camp, where he was liberated by Gen. George Patton’s troops. Webber and other Americans then hitchhiked to Lyon, France, where they took a ship back to the United States.
Marvin said television and movies have desensitized her students to war.
Overcome with emotion, Charlotte Hubbard often cries during the lectures.
Marvin said her tears made a huge impact on her students.
”We see a lot of things and it doesn’t touch us, until we actually see someone’s pain,” she said.
Besides the Hubbards, Marvin invites Holocaust survivors to share their experiences with her classes. The Hubbards also share their own experiences as teen-agers living in the United States during the war.
Unlike textbooks, their history has been splattered by tears, photos and vivid personal descriptions. They bring in ration books and tell students they had to drive a maximum of 35 mph to conserve gas.
Marvin said students gasp when they find out that teen-agers during the war could own only one pair of shoes.
”The kids are captivated when they see the objects and hear the real stories,” she explained.
The Hubbards – and Webber – have become a sort of adopted grandparent for many of the children.
The students’ own grandparents are either too young to remember the war or are not around.
A part of history would be lost without the story telling.
(Dated Jan 08, 1999)
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Ross Stefan took impressionistic view of Southwest
Funeral services for prominent Western artist Ross Stefan are set for 3 p.m. today at St. Odilia Church, 7570 N. Paseo del Norte.
Mr. Stefan, whose impressionistic oils of the Southwest gained national acclaim and were included in the first cultural exchange of art with China in 1977, died Sunday of cancer. He was 64.
Mr. Stefan created thousands of works with Southwestern themes, ranging from scenes of horses and cowboys to images of Hopi and Navajo Indians, said Judith Williams, owner of Rosequist Galleries, which represented Mr. Stefan for 40 years.
He was a self-taught painter and was doing impressionistic interpretations of the Southwest long before most other contemporary Western artists, she said, noting that Western painting has generally been more realistic.
Mr. Stefan’s style also was characterized by his use of ”whiteness and light,” she said.
Actor Raymond Burr bought one of his works and kept it in his collection for many years, Williams said. It was part of Burr’s estate when he died.
Another fan of Mr. Stefan’s work is Margaret Hunt Hill, one of the wealthy Hunt sisters of Texas. She owns at least 30 paintings, Williams said.
Many of them are displayed at the Garden of the Gods club, a resort Hill owns in Colorado Springs, Colo., Williams said.
While Mr. Stefan sold his oils for $50 each when he was starting out in Tubac in the 1950s, today they fetch between $3,000 and $40,000.
Mr. Stefan was born in Milwaukee on June 13, 1934. His first published work came at age 8, when his sketch of a horse appeared in The Milwaukee Journal, Williams said.
His family moved to Tucson when Mr. Stefan was about 14. He graduated from Tucson High School. He had his first showing while still a high school student.
Mr. Stefan attended the University of Arizona, where he met his wife-to-be, Anne Silverson. She died six years ago.
The couple had two sons, Jon and Gary, who said Mr. Stefan will be remembered as a good father as well as a good artist. He was creative and spiritual and encouraged his children, Gary Stefan said.
Gary Stefan said his father never complained about any of his adventures, including the time Gary placed a towering CB antenna on top of the family home and the time Gary started a farm in the back yard.
”One special time in our lives? I cannot find one. It was a lifetime with my father that was special,” Gary said. ”He, with my mother, made life special for us through the good times and the bad.”
Mr. Stefan is survived by his sons, both of Tucson; his mother, Ivah of Glendale; brother Glen of Glendale; daughter-in-law Melinda of Tucson; and grandchildren Andrew and Cole, both of Tucson.
The family asks that memorial donations be made to Friends of Western Art, P.O. Box 64730, Tucson 85728.
(Dated Jan 13, 1999)
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McClure one of Doolittle’s Raiders
When the surviving members of Doolittle’s Raiders gather for their annual reunion at the Air Force Museum at Dayton, Ohio, in April, Charles Lee ”Mac” McClure’s ceremonial silver goblet will be turned upside down.
Mr. McClure, a Tucsonan who took part in the bombing raid over Tokyo led by Jimmy Doolittle on April 18, 1942, died here Tuesday. He was 82. A cause of death was not given .
His death leaves only 30 survivors in the group of famous World War II raiders.
He was navigator on ”Ruptured Duck,” a B-25 Mitchell bomber made famous in the book and 1944 movie ”Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo,” written by the pilot, Ted Lawson.
Mr. McClure’s goblet is one of 80 produced at the suggestion of Tucsonan Chuck Arnold, director of the Tucson Sunshine Climate Club, when the Doolittle group held its reunion here in 1959. They are accompanied by an 1896-vintage bottle of brandy – never opened.
Those members who have died have their goblets turned upside down; survivors toast their memory. The last two survivors will open the century-old brandy in final tribute to their comrades.
The goblets, brandy and custom wooden case are displayed at the U.S. Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, Colo., and are flown to the reunion each year, accompanied by two cadets.
David Thatcher of Missoula, Mont., the crew’s engineer/gunner, said he last saw his former crew member in the fall, when Mr. McClure went to visit him in Montana.
”He was easy to get along with, on the crew,” he said. ”He and the other three members were pretty badly injured in the crash. I was the only one able to walk the next day.”
The other surviving crew member, copilot Dean Davenport, lives in Panama City, Fla.
Thatcher said, ”I had hoped to see him (Mr. McClure) at the reunion this year.”
Edith McClure said, ”My husband went to those reunions every year.”
”Ruptured Duck” was one of 16 bombers, each with a five-man crew, that staged the surprise retaliatory raid over Tokyo after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese.
The bombers took off from the deck of the USS Hornet, a Navy carrier, and were to fly at low altitude to targets in Tokyo, then fly to landing fields in China.
Unable to locate the designated landing strip in the dark, Lawson decided to land on a beach, stay overnight, then proceed to the landing strip during daylight.
That plan was thwarted when the landing gear apparently struck a wave, causing the bomber to crash at water’s edge.
Mr. McClure, who was crouched behind the pilot’s and copilot’s seats for the emergency landing, was thrown forward on impact, and he and Lawson and copilot Dean Davenport were hurled through the plane’s windshield.
Crew members all survived the crash, though some were severely injured. The pilot eventually had to have his leg amputated, and Mr. McClure suffered broken clavicles and dislocated shoulders.
He spent several months in a hospital, was released for duty as a navigator instructor, then was hospitalized again for complications from his injuries. He was given a disability discharge.
Mr. McClure was born Oct. 4, 1916, at St. Louis. He graduated from University City High School and attended the University of Missouri at Columbia.
He enlisted as a flying cadet on Oct. 12, 1940, at Jefferson Barracks, Mo., graduating from navigator training and receiving his commission as second lieutenant Dec. 5, 1941, two days before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
He volunteered for a secret mission shortly thereafter – Doolittle’s attack on Tokyo.
He was awarded several decorations, including the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Purple Heart and the Chinese Army, Navy and Air Corps Medal.
After leaving the military, Mr. McClure spent three decades as an executive with Appleton Wire Works in Appleton, Wis.
His first wife, Betty Buchanan McClure, died in the 1970s. Mr. McClure later remarried, and after his retirement, the couple moved to Tucson in 1987.
No services are planned, according to Edith McClure.
Survivors include his wife; two daughters, Wendy McCalvy and Mimi Salber; three sons, Sandy McClure, Mike McClure and Cory McClure; a brother, Robert D. McClure; eight grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.
(Dated Jan 25, 1999)
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