Lifelong friends, WWII vets, take honor flight to D.C.
Berl Tiskus
World War II veterans and lifelong friends Bill Hocker and Phil Maxwell recently joined fellow vets on an honor flight to Washington DC. to see the World War II Memorial.l
courtesy photo
After graduating from Ronan High School in 1949, Phil Maxwell and Bill Hocker joined the U.S. Army and were sent to Europe.
Berl Tiskus
Military records from World War II send lifelong friends and fellow veterans down memory lane.
Berl Tiskus
Bill Hocker and Phil Maxwell look over old pictures as they reminisce about enlistment during World War II.
Berl Tiskus
Phil Maxwell, left and Bill Hocker recently returned from an Honor Flight to Washington D.C.
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Two Ronan World War II veterans flew on an honor flight winging it’s way to Washington, D.C., on Sept. 8. The charter flight left from Billings carrying WWII vets to see the World War II Memorial.
The two men have known each other most of their lives.
“It was just about this time of year in 1930 when we started the first grade,” Phil Maxwell said, answering when he and Bill Hocker became friends. They hung out together at recess, on weekends and “palled around,” through grade school and high school.
Hocker and Maxwell “started and finished in Ronan” with their class of “30 something.”
They graduated in 1942, “right after Pearl Harbor,” Hocker said.
“We were the right age group for leaving here,” he said.
Since they were farm kids, they were deferred for a year or two as farm labor.
“We even started college in Bozeman and quit together,” Maxwell said.
But then Harris and Hocker joined the Armed Forces together.
“We volunteered,” Harris said, drawing out the ees and rolling his eyes.
Hocker explained, “We did that so we could get into (any part of the service) we wanted.”
The two Ronan boys thought they volunteered for the U.S. Navy and ended up in the U.S. Army.
The first step in their military career — after volunteering — was a trip to Butte for a physical.
“If you could walk, you passed the physical,” Harris said.
Hocker agreed. “They weren’t too particular,” he said.
The pair went directly to Camp Walters in Texas for infantry training.
“There we volunteered again,” Maxell said with another eye roll.
“For the 10th Mountain Division,” Hocker finished the sentence, although they never were officially in that division.
Harris and Hocker were in the 5th Army, attached to the 10th Mountain Division. The 10th was ski troops merged with the mountain troops, and the two Ronanites could ski, although Hocker said he wasn’t that much of a skier. The two flew down the slope at Big Mountain, and they had a little ski run up on the east shore, “just a little rope tow,” Harris said.
The Army sent 998 recruits from Camp Walters to the Pacific and “us to Europe.”
They went overseas in a troop ship with 9,000 men, but no convoy, which was dangerous in those times.
“We had a lot of company that we didn’t know,” Hocker explained with a laugh.
“We zigzagged all the way across (the Atlantic),” Maxwell said.
Arriving in Naples, Italy, Hocker and Maxwell, who went in as riflemen, trained and worked with the 10th Mountain, traveling to Marina de Pisa and going north almost to the Po River.
Although the 10th Mountain “was on the top of the list for casualties,” Hocker said, neither of the men was wounded.
In the Italian countryside, they trained with 10th Mountain officers — mule packing, cliff climbing and drilling but were never sent to the front lines.
“Stubborn as a government mule” didn’t apply to those mules, Maxwell said.
“(Army mules) were the best mules, all about 15 or 16 hands high,” he explained. “You could do anything with them.”
Since Hocker and Maxwell weren’t officially in the 10th Mountain, they didn’t receive the special boots and sleeping bags destined for the skiers, instead they made do with a single Army blanket and a “shelter half.” Then a soldier had to find another soldier who had the other half so they could construct their shelter for the night.
On truck convoys through the Italian countryside, Hocker said they would see towns where there wasn’t a complete building standing, everything had been bombed to rubble.
Most of the animals were gone after German and American troops had gone through the area.
“It was a helluva mess,” Hocker said.
The Italian people “treated us royally,” Maxwell said.
On c-rations, usually a can of soup to warm up, some spam, and a few cigarettes, the troops were glad for some pasta or “anything we could find.”
Hocker mustered out of the army on Jan. 14, 1946 while Maxwell finished his longer Army career in May of 1946.
“We were a damn lucky pair, that is for sure,” Hocker said.
The two men returned to Ronan and married — Hocker to his wife Phyllis and Maxwell to his wife Jean.
The Maxwells had three daughters and ranched/farmed on Round Butte, raising registered Herefords.
Living in North Crow, the Hockers were blessed with seven children and have spent almost 50 years raising certified seed potatoes.
Maxwell has retired, “something he never learned to do,” he said, gesturing towards Hocker. He and Jean winter in Yuma, Ariz. Hocker said he and Phyllis winter around Ronan. He still helps out with the farming, but “tractors aren’t like they used to be, that isn’t work,” Hocker said, referring to radios, cabs and air conditioning in modern tractor.
Hocker’s daughter Susan, who served in the U.S. Army for over 20 years, made her dad and Maxwell fill out the paperwork for an honor flight to visit the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Although Susan told the men it might never happen, soon they were notified of a flight from Billings. The whole charter will be WWII vets and includes military personnel to smooth their path. All at no cost to the vets.
They were in D.C. for the better part of two days.
“It’s a pretty heavy schedule,” Hocker said.
“It was just great, well done.”
There was a welcoming line on both ends of the flight, Maxwell said. A line of people a quarter mile long waited to shake our hands, Maxwell said. On the return trip, three bands, balloons, flags, “a real royal welcome,” greeted the veterans.
“It made you feel humble,” Maxwell said.
The greatest thing was the World War II Memorial, according to Hocker.
Maxwell, Hocker and the other veterans visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, Marine Corps War Memorial and the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial as well as Arlington National Cemetery for the changing of the guard.
“The politicians were all out shaking our hands, of course,” Maxwell said.
With about a third of the guys in wheelchairs, it took quite a while to unload the buses. Hocker said he was a lot better off than some of the other veterans. After full days in Washington, D.C., the veterans got a police escort to the airport, Hocker said, which some of the guys thought was a lot of fun — no sitting in buses, stuck in traffic.
Of course, Maxwell and Hocker sat together on the plane and roomed together. Why change a friendship that’s worked for 89 years?
