Treasure of WWII mementoes needs a home
By Denise Crosby dcrosby@stmedianetwork.com December 4, 2011 7:40PM
Air Force vet Amos Nicholson at his Aurora home on Tuesday, November 29, 2011. Nicholson was a aircraft machanic, but also found himself painting murals on a lot of the B-24's he worked on.| Brian Powers~Sun-Times Media
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Updated: January 6, 2012 8:16AM
Amos Nicholson is 95 years old, and he knows he doesn’t have a lot of time left on this Earth. His sons — one lives in Batavia, the other in Las Vegas — have been pressuring their widowed dad for some time now to move to a retirement home, especially after he suffered a minor “pre-stroke” that sometimes leaves him struggling to speak the words that still form easily in his brain.
Like most fiercely independent seniors, Nicholson does not want to move — for many reasons. Among them is the treasure trove of memorabilia from his years as a master mechanic working — and painting nose art — on B-24 bombers during World War II.
“All this stuff,” he laments, pointing to the photos and news articles displayed proudly in his tidy, ranch-style home in Aurora, “it’s all going to go in the garbage when I leave this house . . . no one else wants it.”
Nicholson doesn’t blame his children. They are wonderful sons: Lynn is a professional trumpet player who lives in Las Vegas; Kent, a talented drummer and retired air traffic controller, is in Batavia. But they have their own lives, their own interests. His eldest, Kent, says he’s been talking to his dad about finding a place for all of his war mementoes — the Air Classics Museum in Sugar Grove would seem to be a perfect fit. The elder Nicholson already has given two footlockers of stuff to the museum. But there’s still so much in his possession.
Amos Nicholson certainly deserves his spot in history. The 1936 East Aurora High School grad won a scholarship to the Art Institute of Chicago, but had to quit after a year because his parents could not afford the bus fare to and from the city. But that creative talent was put to use with the 343rd Bomb Squadron stationed in North Africa.
One day, while working on one of the plane’s engines, line chief Jack Piper approached his mechanic. “Nick,” he told the master sergeant, “I’ve got a job for you.” Turned out the boss wanted him to paint the noses of the squadron’s B-24s, which all had been given the names of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs when they were at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. And so, working with camel hair brushes and quick-drying paint that gave him little room for error, the would-be artist transformed these bombers — starting with Dopey — into a Disney parade of colorful characters.
Amos Nicholson is like many World War II veterans whose characters were shaped by their experiences but didn’t let the war define their lives. He joined the Air Force in 1941 — right before Pearl Harbor was attacked.
He points to a photo that reminds him of the low-level raid on Ploesti, Romania. Nicholson was asked by the pilot if he would take the place of a sick engineer on the secret raid to bomb Hitler’s oil fields. Officials would not approve the request, however, because Nicholson was considered “indispensable” as a crew chief.
That B-24 crashed in Yugoslavia, killing eight on board and wounding two.
“Each one of those pictures has a story,” says Nicholson, pointing to the vast collage that is spread across multiple poster boards.
And so, the stories remain. In Amos Nicholson’s mind.
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