Lynn WWII soldier finally gets his due

LYNN – Unconscious aboard a wounded B-24 bomber, Mitchell Ramonas was seconds away from death when a fellow crew member tugged him out of a cramped gun turret, slapped a parachute on him and shoved Ramonas out of the plane after pulling the chute?s ripcord.Ramonas regained consciousness with the German countryside floating under his feet. What happened to him in the next several hours, days and months are memories as clearly etched into his mind as if they had occurred in the recent past – not 70 years ago.?I landed right in a farm. The German civilians were ready to kill me. They took me to a jail in the town hall and, as I walked, they threw stones at me,” he recalled.The role Ramonas played in helping to pummel Nazi Germany into submission and the more than a year he spent as a prisoner of war earned him six medals presented to the 90-year-old West Lynn resident on Monday by U.S. Rep. John Tierney, as Ramonas? family looked on.?Thank you for your service,” Tierney told Ramonas as he presented him with a presentation case containing a Purple Heart, Prisoner of War medal, Good Conduct medal, American Campaign medal, World War II Victory medal and the European, African, Middle Eastern Campaign medal.Ramonas? relatives said he rarely discussed his military service – much less sought recognition for it – in the decades since World War II ended in 1945.?We knew he was shot down and we knew he was a prisoner of war,” said Ramonas? son, Richard.With the help of an aged military document and city Veterans Department executive assistant Mary Cronin, Ramonas submitted a request earlier this year to Tierney?s office for any medals or other honors he might be eligible to receive.A month-long congressional review aided, in part, by Tierney?s constituent caseworker David Coleman, found that Ramonas, who was 18 when he entered the Army Air Corps, was overdue to receive recognition. On Monday, he said the medals are for his family, not him.?It?s something they will have after I die,” he said.Ramonas joined the Army Air Corps at the age of 18 and was taking part in his seventh bombing mission on March 23, 1944 when enemy fire brought down the B-24 nicknamed the Maid of New Orleans by its crew.Ramonas? captors took him to a holding camp and finally to a prison camp on the Baltic Sea where Red Cross food packages supplemented a meager diet and where a volunteer doctor and a priest parachuted in to aid the prisoners.Russian invaders liberated the camp weeks after Germany?s surrender. Ramonas stationed himself at the camp?s gate to keep fellow prisoners from wandering into the still-dangerous countryside and a Russian soldier on a horse leveled a machine gun at Ramonas before realizing he was an American prisoner, not a German guard.He returned to Lynn after the war but memories of imprisonment followed him home.?He would wake up talking to himself. We called it night terrors,” Richard Ramonas said.Romanas? children and younger family members, including great-grandson Craig Wilkins Jr. watched Monday as Tierney, Ward 6 City Councilor Peter Capano and Councilor at large Brendan Crighton praised his service.?I appreciate everything everybody does for me – it?s an honor,” he said.