NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — A group of high school students got a rare chance Wednesday to hear about WWII history from someone who lived it. The perspective they heard was unforgettable.
A lot of schools do career days, but Father Ryan High junior Miller Lord knew his class was in for something better than that. Someone was at the school with a storytelling ability few have; 104-year-old World War II veteran Captain Jerry Neal.
"It's just crazy to think about what he's going through at my age," Lord said.
Lord's grandfather worked with Neal for years but said Neal rarely talked about his time in the war.
"I wasn't particularly interested in telling it," Neal said.
"What changed your mind?" I asked him.
"The opportunity to talk to young people about history."
Lord's family asked Neal to share a story with Father Ryan High.
Neal was drafted in 1942. In his life to that point, he had never actually seen an airplane.
"I just thought, 'why have I been selected to be a pilot?'" Neal remembered. "That was amazing to me since I knew nothing about it. After I got into training, I never worried about it because I liked to fly."
The most frightening day of his life came in June 1944. D-Day.
"7,000 ships going across the English Channel, it was mind boggling," said Neal.
It was over the English Channel, the engines on Neal's plane stopped.
"All of a sudden, I'm not flying," he remembered. "I'm diving just to keep some control over the plane, faster and faster and faster."
Some of the crew dived out. The plane hit rocks until nothing of it was left but the cockpit and a wing. Several of the crew drowned that day.
"They were good people," Neal said. "All of a sudden, they're gone. Where are they?"
Neal and two others were rescued by an English fisherman in a rowboat.
"All the crazy things he's gone through in the past, surviving so many close experiences to death, it just shows how his life is completely different from ours," Lord said.
Over the past ten years, Neal has found an importance to speaking about the war.
"I think that's the reason I'm here," he said. "104-years-old. I think God's given me a purpose. As soon as that ends, no reason to be here. That's the way I look at it."
"He's a good storyteller, I'll tell you that," Lord continued. "I'm pretty happy, not only I got to hear it, but everyone else at Father Ryan got to hear it too."
"They probably know more history about WWII than I do, but talking about and actually living it is different," Neal said.
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