George Grau was 25 years old when the war against Germany ended: Joachim Hoehne was 18.

  During the war, Grau flew 35 bombing missions against German industries and other facilities important to the Allied effort. Of course, Hoehne was a teenager during the full extent of the war, and had begun training in the ME 163 Komet (jet) just prior to the surrender of Germany. Earlier aviation had been glider training and earlier soldiering in light arms and FLAK  (an acronym for FLieger Abwehr Kanone “Airplane Defense Cannon”).

  Toward the inevitable end of the war, more and more demands were being put on the Hitler Youth for the defense of the Fatherland, and Hoehne found himself with artillery implacements and rifles near the front. After the daring Battle of the Bulge, Hitler was saving his elite warriors for the ultimate defense of Berlin.

  After the war, both Grau and Hoehne came to the United States, Grau by virtue of citizenship and Hoehne by a chain of culture and events. Grau returned soon after the conflict, and Hoehne as a construction engineer in 1956.

  Hoehne came to the Houston area and helped build airports, runways, roads and bridges. One of the bridges was to Pelican Island near Galveston. After many years of labor he bought 20 acres in Denham Springs, La., and lives there to this day.

  Galveston and the Houston area and surroundings already had thousands of German immigrants, and in 1956 most were by then second generation and citizens. “Little Germany” was easy to find.

Jehoakim’s father was an aviator during World War 1, and could never accept Germany’s defeat.

  The Treaty of Versailles prohibited the building of war machines so the WW1 flyers formed clubs for hobby flying, which like hobby flying in the U.S., became the backbone of the German Luftwaffe (airforce) when Hitler rose to power. Hitler ignored the rules of Versailles and Jehoakim’s father fell right into step (or flight pattern) with the new regime.

   Beginning as a social gathering in the Hoehne house, it branched out into the military buildup and the young Hoehne began to hear more and more about aviation. Young Hoehne’s ears detected the brewing buildup, especially observing a great amount of activity and uproar when Hitler took power in 1933. Hoehne was six years old at the time, and became “fabulously impressed with the celebrations in the street.”

  Like many aviators, the father did not desire that his youngster follow in such a dangerous occupation, so when Jehoakim was seven, took the little fellow for a ride in a tandem-seat Klemm 35, and after intentional stalls, fast descents, steep climbs and tight turns, felt that the boy had enough convincing.

  On the contrary, having survived all this, he decided to become a pilot.  

  Both in his book “Glory Refused” and in his speech to the South Alabama Wing of the Eighth Air Force Association, Hoehne demonstrated how we fight tyrants and not the people. Hitler not only suppressed the Jews and Gypsies, but was hostile  to practicing Catholics so that families kept allegiance “quietly.”

   When entering fully as a Hitler youth in the conflict and leaving his home in Fritzlar, Hoehne hid his crucifix and religious appurtenances in an ammo can, and fortunately after the War was able to retrieve them by requesting of the French then-owner of the house. He had learned to distinguish between propaganda and facts, and knew that the Luftwaffe was getting its tails singed and shot off everywhere, and eventually the name Patton began to have a frightening sound. He retreated from East Germany toward the West and the oncoming Americans (for fear of the Russians), and was happy to be captured by the Americans.

  One of the Americans was “a huge Mexican G.I. bellowing for a translator “ to deal with a large group. Hoehne volunteered and noted how comical the ensuing event became.

  “There we were in a horse stable in Western Germany, me speaking English in a thick Bavarian accent and my captor speaking English with a thick Spanish accent, surrounded by bewildered members of the Wehrmacht who had no idea what either of us was saying.” This good natured Mexican couldn’t handle the name “Jehoakim,” and at this moment Hoehne became “Joe” — then and forever.

  Hoehne wrote a book, but George Grau is a book. Few, if any, have done more to build a bridge between the new Germany and America. Several years ago his sons sponsored him a journey back to Germany, and the Germans, seeing that  his name was of German origin, asked “Have you been to Germany before now?”

  “Oh, yes,” Grau replied with a smile, “35 times at high altitude — and was shot down on the 30th run and ditched behind the American lines.”

 Grau continues to locate Europeans who remember the B-17 bombers and other nostalgia of the war. Those who were pre-teens during the war have a keen interest in the past, and George Grau is called upon often to supply information and anecdotes.

  He visits and talks in the public schools of South Alabama “lest we forget the past, which makes us who we are.”