A Rock Island Army veteran from World War II finally received the recognition he deserved on Saturday, when he was awarded the Army Air Corps Distinguished Flying Cross at a ceremony on Arsenal Island.
The 95-year-old veteran, Bernard "Barney" Young, flew C-109 tankers from India to China. The planes flew over the Himalayas, or the "The Hump," in World War II and carried thousands of gallons of aviation fuel to fighter pilots overseas.
According to Army records, the survival rate for planes that flew "The Hump" was about 48 percent.
"We'd lose an airplane a week. Mostly from airplanes getting lost, running out of fuel, there was no help," Young said. "You'd have the worst thunderstorms and everything, it would take these airplanes and kick them around just like they were a feather in a windstorm."
The flight path was so dangerous, that after the war, those who flew at east 500 miles of "The Hump," were awarded the Army Air Corps Distinguished Flying Cross.
"Most people had to do something heroic to get [the award], here it was heroic just to do the mission," said Brett Lohman, Young's friend.
However, Young never got that award because his flight records at Fort Leonard Wood had been lost in a fire years before.
"So I decided, the heck with you guys, I don't need a medal. I know what I did to help people so that's all I need to know," said Young.
Young's friends however, did not let him off the hook that easily.
After a journalist published a story about Young's life in the Army, Tim Goodbrake, a good friend of Young's, pushed Young to search through his memorabilia from the war, to see if he could find any copies of his flight records.
Indeed, Young did find those copies, and Goodbrake helped him cut through the red tape in Washington, until the Air Force finally awarded him the Distinguished Flying Cross.
"He said, you know Barn, you won," Young laughed. "They decided that you're going to get the [medal.] I said well, hallelujah!"
Young was presented the Army Air Corps Distinguished Flying Cross in a ceremony at the Rock Island Arsenal Golf Club on Saturday, January 24th.