SUNDAY STORY:

Though Walker “Bud” Mahurin will commemorate Memorial Day in Washington, D.C., leading the Korean War contingent of the National Memorial Day Parade, he recognizes the somber holiday is not really about parades or barbecues or sales.

During his 15 years of active duty as a pilot in the U.S. Air Force, Mahurin, a Newport Island resident, witnessed the passing of countless soldiers, and after bailing out three times and crashing once, the retired colonel barely escaped a similar fate.

“Memorial Day is about bringing back our universal memories of the sacrifices that our young men have made over the years to defend this country,” he said. “I think as a nation we kind of let this day droop a little bit, but we are starting to bring it back.”

Mahurin, 88, was an obvious choice to serve as one of the parade’s grand marshals as he is the leading Air Force ace and most highly-decorated World War II veteran alive, a fact that he admits rather nonchalantly.

He became a flying ace in 1943, the same year he was deployed to England with the 56th Fighter Group. Ever since Charles Lindbergh made his initial attempts to cross the Atlantic, Mahurin knew he wanted to be a pilot.

“Most kids my age were interested in becoming firemen or police officers, and very few of us knew much about flying,” he said. “As a high school kid, it appeared to me the war was coming on, which meant I was going to flight school.”

Less than a year after he started flying missions, Mahurin was forced to bail out after his P-47 Thunderbolt was heavily damaged by German aircraft.

“When it hit the ground, all I could think of was, ‘There goes 110,000 bucks,” he said.

Mahurin landed safely, aided by a parachute, and ran in the direction of Paris, hiding overnight in a pile of logs. In the morning, he approached a young farmer —and member of the French Underground — who provided shelter and food for close to two months.

“When I got back to England, they wouldn’t let me fight against the Germans out of fear that if I got shot down, I could be accused of being a spy,” he said. “They sent me back to the U.S. and said I could apply to go to the Pacific, which, of course, I did.”

He remained in the Philippines until the end of the war, returning home to work at the Pentagon developing new fighter planes. But Mahurin was not the type to remain behind a desk very long, and when the Korean War began five years later, he asked for a 90-day tour.

But what he got was much more than a month and a half.

After he had destroyed 3 ½ MIG-15s — one-half referring to a kill made with the help of another pilot — Mahurin and his F-86 were shot down in May of 1952, and this time, a North Korean and Chinese soldier were waiting for him on the ground.

With a broken arm, Mahurin was sent to a prisoner of war camp, where he remained in solitary confinement for 16 months, enduring harsh treatment and numerous threats of execution, which led to a suicide attempt.

“It’s all a terrible nightmare, but if there isn’t anything else to think about, that’s what you think of,” he said.

Months after the war ended, Mahurin was released on the final day of the prisoner of war exchange and returned to his job at the Pentagon. During his career, he collected almost 30 medals of valor — including the Distinguished Service Cross and the Royal Air Force’s Distinguished Flying Cross — and is credited with the destruction of 25 ½ enemy aircraft.

Since retiring, he spends his days at home or on the water with his wife Joan in their 18-foot, wooden runabout and remains a member of the American Fighter Aces Assn. He has also penned two books, “Honest John” and “Hitler’s Fall Guys.”

Sitting comfortably on his couch with an ocean view to his side and a display cabinet heaving with war paraphernalia behind him, Mahurin said he’d rather be shipping out to the Middle East than taking a trip to the East coast.

“What I’d really like to do is get sent over to Iraq so I could visit the combat units,” he said. “I want to tell them that I think they’re doing an amazing thing for the country, and that their families and everybody at home admire them and know what a great job they are doing.”

Click here to see more photos of Walker “Bud” Mahurin.