Comrades in arms reunite
USS Wasp crew to gather family' in city.

It's been more than 40 years since W.E. "Bill Russell cut ties with the military, but he hasn't lost touch with many of the men he served with during World War II.

"These people are like my family, Russell said recently after recounting some of his exploits as a member of Air Group 86.

About 60 members of Russell's "family are due in Oklahoma City today for a three-day reunion.

He said the group includes pilots and crewmen who served on the aircraft carrier USS Wasp.

The reunion has been seven months in the making for Russell, a former fighter and bomber pilot who is retired after 27 years as a geologist.

"It's just been seven months of worry and anxiety and sleeplessness, he said.

But now the stage is set for this weekend's reunion, with visits to the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum and Sam Noble Oklahoma Natural History Museum.

During the war, Air Group 86 consisted of about 300 pilots, crewmen and mechanics.

Russell said he does his best to stay in touch with those who are left.

E-mail is a great help in keeping contact, he said. He also keeps a birthday list so he can send cards.

His connection to those men is obvious as he flips through a "cruise book from their time in the Pacific.

Even 60 years later, he can identify the other men in the tiny black-and-white pictures.

Seeing one man's picture reminded Russell that his friend who now lives in Utah has been battling health problems. "I need to call him, he said.

Russell said that kind of fellowship is the reason for reunions like the one this weekend.

Gatherings such as this started as early as 1955, when a few of the Wasp's officers got together for dinner in New York.

Russell said he didn't make it to a reunion until 1987, when Wasp personnel gathered in Alabama.

He said reunions were planned about every 18 months after that, eventually becoming more frequent as the group's members got older.

Russell's wife, Jean, said the gatherings now are also an opportunity for subsequent generations to learn about what "grandpa did during the war as much as a chance for old friends to reunite.

"They all became a big family, she said.

Archive ID: 2482388