The Y ‘keeps me going,’ says birthday boy, 91

Published 12:03 am Saturday, December 3, 2011

World War II veteran Charles Gastrell celebrated his 91st birthday Friday at his favorite eating place with a little help from the friends he says keep him young.

Gastrell and his wife, Kitty, 86, were treated to lunch at the Rainbow Casino by a group that included Dan Fordice, who has recorded Gastrell’s wartime memories of “flying the hump” over the China-India-Burma theater; retiring Y director Herb Wilkinson, newly-named Y director Casey Custer and members of the Y’s Men from the Purks Y, where Gastrell exercises almost daily; and former square dance partners Rhada and Theresa Hopkins.

“If you get to be 91 years old and have friends around you like all of you, you will think you have been given everything in life that you need,” Gastrell told them. “Life is wonderful when you are doing good things.”

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Gastrell was born in Texas, and his family moved to Vicksburg when he was about 5, he said. He was among a group of about 20 men from the city who enlisted before the start of the war in the 106th Engineer Battalion’s Company B.

Gastrell left the company in 1942 to join the Army Air Corps, where he was trained to pilot bombers like the B-24, which he later flew in 65 round-trip missions over the Himalayas, being awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for those 650 combat flying hours, he said.

Most of the men he served with, who used to get together monthly, have died, he said, with just Brooks Bogan and Grover Sanders left from the company. It makes friendships like those with Fordice, Wilkinson and the Y’s Men all the more treasured, Gastrell said.

“If I didn’t have the Y, and these people to talk to — this is what keeps me going,” he said. “I can’t say enough about the Y. It’s irreplaceable.”

Gastrell said he loves the Rainbow’s buffet, and he and Kitty eat there every day — and he’s got the credit card receipts to prove it, he said with a laugh.

“He’s a giver, and he has a heart of gold,” said Frances Nielsen, the hostess who seats them and helps Kitty with her wheelchair.

Gastrell also helps care for Kitty — the two of have been married 65 years, and she points out that they went together for five years before that — calling himself “a full-time male nurse.”

He goes to the Y most every day. He had to quit swimming a few years ago because of shortness of breath, he said, but has a series of exercises he does to keep his back strong and ache-free.

“I’ve got arthritis,” he said, “but this takes care of that if I don’t overdo it.”

Friday, after lunch and birthday cake, Fordice told a number of stories about Gastrell’s war service, a 24-year-old piloting four-engine bombers converted to cargo planes over the Himalaya Mountains in “the world’s worst weather.”

Pilots didn’t have an option to be grounded. They had to fly — no matter what.

“Our mission was to keep the Chinese supplied while they were fighting (the Japanese),” he said. U.S. bombers flying missions around Japan also would refuel and get supplies from bases on the mainland, he said.

Before going overseas, Gastrell was a test pilot in Savannah, Ga., making sure planes just coming from the factory were not defective before they were flown across the Atlantic into combat in Europe and North Africa.

He was also the youngest Eagle Scout ever in Warren County, earning the honor in 1933 when he was just 13.

Fordice said he began interviewing World War II pilots, members of “the greatest generation,” about 10 years ago and Gastrell was one of the first.

“You look at all the things those guys went through in the last 90 years, and it’s just incredible,” Fordice said. “We’ll never see that again.”