February 2012 Gem Lake Newsletter

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Gem Lake News Page 5 of 6 Gem Lake Says Good-bye to Lloyd LaBore--(continued from pg. 3) During this time, the airstrip was home base for a fleet of B-29 bombers, the new and revolutionary plane that had just been put in action by the Army Air Force. The B-29 represented the very latest in American engineering and brought new advances in speed, range and bomb load. The fleet of planes performed regular bombing raids on long-range targets in the Pacific and returned to base for refueling and repair. They regularly came back full of bullet holes. Lloyd once witnessed a spectacular and successful belly landing of a damaged B-29. He remembers one particular plane being equipped there that was brand new and very shiny. It was called the ‘Enola Gay.’ Although he did not know it at the time, the Enola Gay was in the process of being fitted on Lloyd’s island with the world’s first atomic bomb, which would be dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. For months and months, Lloyd received no mail from home. Then one day he received a stack of letters. He arranged them in date order so he could savor them chronologically. In the first letters, his father Duesty LaBore, wrote that he was thinking of selling his farm in Gem Lake. By the last letter, Duesty had sold the farm and was living in California. Life was hectic on Tinian Island, due to constant battle support activities that were going on. Many civilians lived there and some of them sought out medical services from the American soldiers, including one woman whose baby Lloyd delivered. After his time on Tinian, Lloyd was assigned to the hospital ship Repose. The ship moved eastward delivering medical services throughout the Pacific. Lloyd had one nine day leave during his three years of war-time service. It took three of those nine precious days just to get home. When he got here, gas was strictly rationed. He showed up in uniform at the fire station in downtown White Bear and was given one precious stamp for five gallons of gas. When he asked for one more, the elderly woman running the coupon desk said “Sonny, there’s a war on!” Enough time has now passed for Lloyd to confess that Henry Hoffman, who ran a gas station at Hoffman’s Corners, also slipped him a coupon or two. During the most harrowing times of the war, Lloyd promised himself that if he survived and was able to come home, he would really have fun. At first, he had a bit too much fun, crashing his car back in Minnesota shortly after he was discharged from the service in 1947. While in the hospital, he was visited by a friend who brought his future wife Madonna along. The first time the couple met, Lloyd was covered with bandages. They went on to marry in 1948. Lloyd trained as an airplane mechanic, but spent most of his post war career as a masonry contractor. He and Madonna have had nine children and “a lot of fun.” Our deepest sympathies from the Gem Lake City Council to the family of Lloyd LaBore--a real gem and a great citizen of our city. Photo above: a B-29 bomber named the Enola Gay on Tinian Island in 1945.