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95-year-old Marvin Belcher of Bakersfield, CA appears on episode #649 of Hometown Heroes, airing October 10-12, 2020. A native of Shawnee, OK, Belcher completed 26 missions as a B-17 ball turret gunner with the 384th Bomb Group during World War II.

The oldest of eight children, he was born 28 hours before his twin brother, Mel, and they were just the first of three sets of male twins in his home.

“We were Okies, and we survived the Dust Bowl days and the Great Depression of the ’30’s,” you’ll hear him explain. “We eked out a living on a sharecropper farm owned by a retired schoolteacher who was blind.”

You’ll hear Belcher explain why having that retired teacher, “Miss Emma,” living on the farm with them was good for him, and also recount the childhood event that catalyzed his appetite for aviation. It was a 90-minute walk to school, as to well as to church, which was as big a part of Marvin’s life then as it is now for the 95-year-old Sunday School teacher. In 1941, his father decided to move the family to California in search of a better paying job. The family of ten piled into a 1936 Chevrolet pickup and headed west.

“Like the old pictures of the covered wagons,” Belcher describes. “The back of the pickup was like that with the mattresses on the bottom and underneath that, our canned goods.”

Empire, CA, outside of Modesto in Stanislaus County was their destination, with peach orchards providing employment opportunities for Marvin and other members of the family. He enrolled at Modesto High School, where his junior year where was interrupted by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December, 1941. His twin brother was accepted into the V-12 Navy College Training Program, but Marvin flunked the physical because of high blood pressure resulting from his excitement about the opportunity. Later efforts to enter flight training programs with the Army and Navy were denied, but after being drafted in the Army in 1943, he finally found his way into a pilot training program.

“I remember the last thing he said to me as I boarded the bus there in Modesto,” you’ll hear an emotional Belcher say of his father, who had served in the Army in World War I. “Let me tell you something. Be the best soldier in the Army.”

That exhortation carried great significance for Marvin, especially in light of the internal conflict he experienced as a result of the pacifist stance espoused by his denomination, the Church of the Brethren. After basic training in Denver, CO, he advanced to Minter Field in Shafter, CA, where the need for aerial gunners pulled him away from the cockpit and into much more cramped quarters. Flexible gunnery school at Kingman Army Airfield in Arizona prepared him to crawl into ball turrets in the bellies of B-17 Flying Fortresses.

Click here for an interactive list of his 26 missions with the 544th Squadron of the 384th Bomb Group, complete with dates, targets, and even some aircraft photos, and listen to Hometown Heroes for Marvin’s memories of life in the ball turret.

“We cranked the guns down, ninety degrees down, that we could open the hatch then and crawl in,” you’ll hear him relate. “I was only 139 pounds, so I could go in okay.”

He was aware of the potential dangers posed by anti-aircraft fire and enemy fighter planes, and he was prepared enough for a potential bail out that he was able to squeeze a parachute into the turret with him, with one arm hooked into a parachute strap.

While he only encountered one enemy fighter plane during those 26 missions from Grafton Underwood, England to targets in Germany, anti-aircraft fire was an ever-present threat. You’ll hear Belcher say he often prayed when entering fields of flak, and that he was very aware that friends and family back in Empire, CA were praying too.

“Their prayers were intense on our behalf,” Belcher remembers. “Our entire crew came back unscratched.”

He remembers one mission that left more than 100 shrapnel holes in their bomber, but yet again, no one was injured. After V-E Day, their B-17 was delpoyed as a troop carrier, ferrying troops from France to Casablanca to prepare for their journey home. Belcher was prepared to fly further missions in the Pacific Theater, but while he was on leave back home in Empire, Japan’s unconditional surrender eliminated that need. Discharged November 1, 1945, he took advantage of the G.I. Bill to attend La Verne College, now known as the University of La Verne. He played running back on the Leopards football team under legendary coach Roland Ortmayer, and met his wife of 72 years, Virginia.

“There goes the girl with the most beautiful hair of any girl on campus,” his friend said one day, and Marvin was taken. “We began dating, and I would pump her on my bicycle to the dance over in San Dimas and we had a great time together.”

They married in 1948, and two years later, moved to Bakersfield, where Belcher launched his career in education. He spent 23 years as a principal in elementary and middle schools, then served as a negotiator between school districts and the teacher’s union. In retirement, he has earned a reputation as a champion camellia grower. Listen to Hometown Heroes for his keys to a marriage that has lasted 72 years, as well as why his reluctant agreement to visit the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. with Honor Flight Kern County turned into an unforgettable experience.

“I could not believe the emotional impact that had, I was so tied up I could hardly talk,” you’ll hear him say. “I’m a supporter of Honor Flight, because I know what it did for me.”

You’ll hear Mr. Belcher share his gratitude that his life is not one of the 406,000 reflected on the WWII Memorial’s “Freedom Wall” of gold stars, but he carries moving memories of friends and relatives who are represented there. Three of his friends from Oklahoma died while fighting in the war, as well his “favorite cousin” Robert Brumbeloe, a Marine killed in the Battle of Iwo Jima.

One of the ways Marvin honors their memory is by continue to live what he a calls “a life of service.”

“I’m getting near the end of the rope,” you’ll hear the 95-year-old say. “But God is good, and if he has work for me to do, so be it.”

—Paul Loeffler

Check out the video below from September, 2020, when Honor Flight Kern County organized a 95th birthday parade for Mr. Belcher: