This is heartwarming story of Captain William “Bill” Crenshaw and his bride to be, Allison Marie Burns.
The story is familiar to many. Bill and Allison grew up in the small California town of Anaheim. Of course, they were childhood sweethearts, inseparable throughout grade and high school.
Bill had worked with his dad who owned AAA Shoe & Luggage Repair repairing the towns shoes and leather goods and Allison was a clerk in the brand-new F. W. Woolworth Variety Store.
Bill took flying lessons in high school. When World War Two broke out, he naturally joined the Army Air Corps. Luckily for Bill and Allison the Army Air Corps training base was nearby on the Santa Ana Army Air Base. In a few short months Bill was sitting behind the controls of a B17 bomber.
The happy couple knew some day they would “tie the knot.” But they also knew Bill was going overseas to fly and fight. So, a week before Bill shipped out for a base in France, he proposed. Bill got down on one knee and with his grandmother’s engagement ring, and asked Allison to marry him. Allison responded quickly with a big “YES!” Although many couples married before shipping out, Bill and Allison decided to wait for him to return. “The war will be over soon,” Bill told her “We can have the big wedding you always planned.” Allison promised to wait.
On June 22nd 1943, Captain Crenshaw boarded a troop ship in San Diego, California, bound for an air base in England. Allison joined her family and Bills to see him off. Allison stayed on the pier until the ship was out of sight.
Bill never told Allison that a B17 crew had a one in four chance of being shot down and if you were shot down. Nor did he bother to mention that if you were shot down, you had a 50% chance of being killed. And if you survived the crash, you had an 8% change of becoming a prisoner of War if they survived. A B17 crew had to complete 25 missions before getting leave to come home.
Bill was shot down on his 17th. While flying over German occupied France, Bill and two other members of the crew – the navigator and the tail gunner – managed to bail out of the crippled B17. No one is sure what happened to the four other crew members aboard. The entire left wing was torn off.
When the three men hit the ground on August 10, 1943. They we captured and carried off to a POW camp, deep inside Germany. The US military knew the plane went down in France and nothing else about the fate of the crew. After a year, the Army declared that Bill him and his crew were presumed to be KIA “killed in action.” But back in Anaheim, Allison refused to believe Bill was gone. He had promised he would come back, and there was no real proof Bill was dead.
The war with Germany ended On May 2nd 1945. US and Allied troops liberated the POW camps throughout Europe. It took a month for Allison to receive the news that Bill was alive and safe. On June 22 1945, two years to the day Bill left for Europe, Allison and Bill had the big wedding they had wanted. Most of the citizens of Anaheim attended the event.
The happy couple had four children. Two sons and two daughters. They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1995. Allison passed away New Year’s Day 2000. Allison left her wedding band and engagement ring to her oldest daughter Madison. What exactly happened to it remains a bit of a mystery, but it appears very likely Madison simply traded it in for a different set. No sentimental feelings, I guess.
So now you know the history of your engagement ring and wedding band. Wear it in good health, long life, and happiness.
Gramps 2019