Col. Sherwin George Desens
By Paola Elder and Dylan Fox
Col. Sherwin George Desens
June 25, 1921 – October 27, 2019
A portrait of Col. Sherwin Desens (courtesy of the Pontiac Daily Leader)
When the United States entered World War II, thousands of men put their lives on hold and instead risked them to serve their country. Sherwin George Desens was one of these men, and his decision to enlist began a decades-long career of service that took him from the skies above Normandy down to a prison camp in his grandfather’s homeland. While Desens’ family and friends knew him as “Butch,” his community knew him as a war hero.
On June 25, 1921, Sherwin was born to Edward and Alma Desens in Union Hill, Illinois and raised with three siblings: Arletta, Wilbur, and Althea.[1] He also had three other siblings, Carl, Caroline, and Elanor, who had left the house by the time he was born.[2] Desens’ grandparents immigrated to the US in 1866 from a small village in Prussia, a significant state in the German Confederation, which made Desens a third-generation German American.[3] In his teen years, Desens took up an interest in agriculture and farming and by the age of 18 he was working for a nearby farm.[4] When Desens enrolled in the University of Illinois in 1940, his interest seemed to shift to livestock and ranching as he was a member of the animal husbandry club Hoof and Horn.[5] Yet, after only one year of college, Desens’ education and interests were put on hold with the entry of the United States into World War II.
A P-47 Thunderbolt, the primary aircraft of Desens and the 362nd Fighter Group (Courtesy of thehistorynetwork.org)
Desens enlisted in the Army Air Corps as a fighter pilot on January 28, 1942.[6] He was assigned the England-based 362nd Fighter Group, nicknamed Mogin’s Maulers, and flew a new generation of fighter-bomber called the P-47 Thunderbolt.[7] Over the course of the war, Desens flew at least 70 sorties and was forced to bail out of his aircraft three times.[8] On May 14, 1944, during an air raid on German-occupied Dunkirk, Desens’ Thunderbolt was hit by flak and he was bailed out of his plane at 3,000 feet.[9] He landed in the English Channel three miles from the coast of France and waited in a dinghy for an hour and a half to be rescued. While adrift, Desens recalled still being able to hear air sirens, planes flying, and flak cannons while the raid on Dunkirk raged on.[10]
On July 6, 1944, Desens and the 362nd Fighter Group supported the D-Day landings at Normandy by flying escort for glider-towing transport planes; wooden military gliders were used to drop ground forces behind enemy lines. Desens recounted his service during D-Day, the importance of escorting the defenseless aircraft, and the peril faced by glider crews: “We were very concerned about the vulnerability of the C-47s and gliders as they would have been an easy target for German fighters. As we approached Omaha Beach the weather was still good and dusk was approaching. Many of the fields the gliders were to land in had been flooded, or had deadly poles installed to tear the gliders apart upon landing.”[11] As Allied forces pushed into Europe, Desens and the 362nd Fighter Group followed suit to support the liberation of France.
A portion of Stalag Luft I (Courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum).
While flying a mission near Vire, Desens’ right wing was hit by flak and almost separated from his plane; he bailed out of his plane for the final time and was captured by German forces shortly after landing.[12] Desens was taken to Limburg, Germany and first recorded in Stalag XII-A, a processing camp, on August 4, 1944.[13] Desens was transferred deeper into Germany until he ended up in Stalag Luft I, a camp built specifically for Allied airmen.[14] Prisoners kept in Stalags were often made to do forced labor, endured poor living conditions, and the threat of execution if they stepped out of line; winter weather was especially brutal in Stalag Luft I as it was near the freezing coast of the Baltic Sea. Desens was held captive for nearly nine months until the German abandoned Stalag Luft I to approaching Soviet forces on April 30, 1945. Desens remained in the liberated camp for two weeks until the remaining prisoners were evacuated and repatriated back to America.[15]
Desens returned to Illinois in July and married his high school sweetheart, Marilyn Walsh. The two lived in Wisconsin for a time and had two children, Nancy and Paul. In 1951, with the outbreak of the Korean War, Desens was recalled to serve in the Air Force and fly rescue missions. As Desens rose through the ranks to colonel, he first attended Air Command and Staff College in 1957 and then National War College in 1964. He was part of the joint strategic planning staff of Offut Air Force base near Omaha, Nebraska before he retired in 1973.[16] Desens’ long military career landed him several significant awards: The Silver Star, The Distinguished Service Medal, Distinguished Flying Cross, Air medal with 12 Oak leaf Clusters, and the Croix de Guerre from France.[17]
After retiring, Desens and his wife built a home in Perry Park, Colorado. His hobbies included golfing, skiing and attending Rockies games.[18] The couple moved into the Wind Crest retirement home in 2007 and there Desens met a neighbor named Robert McAdam, who had also served in the Army Air Corps during World War II.[19] As the two shared their war experiences, they realized they had been shot down around the same time and were both held at Stalag Luft I. While they were held at different areas of the camp and had never met during their time as POWs, the two became close friends when they realized how deep their camaraderie ran. When both Desens’ and McAdam’s wives passed away, the two supported each other and remained good friends during their final years.[20]
Desens died on October 27, 2019 and was buried in Fort Logan National Cemetery next to his wife Marilyn. His obituary states that, “He will be remembered for his love of family and country, kindness to others, humility, his great laugh, compassion, telling a good story, his courage, and sacrifice.”[21]
Footnotes ↓
[1] “1940 United States Federal Census,” ancestry.com, entry for Sherwin Desens.
[2] “1910 United States Federal Census,” ancestry.com, entry for Edward Desens.
[3] “1900 United States Federal Census,” ancestry.com, entry for Charles Dasen [sic];“Hamburg Passenger Lists, 1850-1934,” ancestry.com, database and images, Ancestry > Hamburg > 1866 > April, passenger list, Undine, Hamburg to New York departing 18 April 1966, entries for Martin and Carl Desens.
[4] “1940 United States Federal Census,” ancestry.com, entry for Sherwin Desens.
[5] University of Illinois, The Illio (Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area,1940), p. 532; "U.S. School Yearbooks, 1880-2012," ancestry.com, entry for Hoof and Horn club and Sherwin Desens.
[6] “U.S., World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946,” ancestry.com, entry for Sherwin Desens.
[7] “Sherwin ‘Butch’ Desens,” Pontiac Daily Leader, November 18, 2019, https://www.pontiacdailyleader.com/obituaries/20191118/sherwin-butch-desens.
[8] Ibid.
[9] “Dinghy Gives Flier A Ringside Seat For Dunkirk Raid,” The Stars and Stripes, vol. 4, no. 165 (15 May, 1944): 3, Stars and Stripes Newspaper, Europe, Mediterranean, and North Africa Editions, 1942-1964, ancestry.com.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Chris Bucholtz, Thunderbolts Triumphant: The 362nd Fighter Group vs Germany's Wehrmacht (Havertown, PA: Casemate Books, 2018). 40.
[12] Ibid, 79.
[13] “World War II American and Allied Prisoners of War, 1941-1946,” ancestry.com, entry for Sherwin G Desens.
[14] “Sherwin ‘Butch’ Desens,” Pontiac Daily Leader.
[15] Greg Hatton, “Stalag Luft I POW Camp - Barth, Germany,” 392nd Bomb Group Memorial Association, accessed September 28, 2021, https://www.b24.net/powStalag1.htm.
[16] “Military Aviation Hall of Fame of Illinois - Colonel Sherwin G. Desens USAF,” Chanute Air Museum, accessed September 29, 2021, https://www.aeromuseum.org/Exhibits/ILMilAviHallOfFame/desens.html.
[17] “Sherwin ‘Butch’ Desens,” Pontiac Daily Leader.
[18] Ibid.
[19] “WWII POWs Reconnect at Wind Crest on Veterans Day,” Erikson Senior Living, November 9, 2015, https://www.ericksonseniorliving.com/wind-crest/amenities/stories/wwii-pows-reconnect-wind-crest-veterans-day.
[20] Katie Eastman, “WWII Vets Held Captive in the Same POW Camp Now Living Just 25 Steps Apart,” 9News, June 7, 2018, https://www.9news.com/article/life/wwii-vets-held-captive-in-the-same-pow-camp-now-living-just-25-steps-away/73-562126233.
[21] “Sherwin ‘Butch’ Desens,” Pontiac Daily Leader.
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