Ken Norwood celebrated his 80th Birthday by jumping out of a
plane at Adventure Center Skydiving Thursday. It was his second
time jumping from a plane, but the first time he could remember
it.
Ken Norwood celebrated his 80th Birthday by jumping out of a plane at Adventure Center Skydiving Thursday. It was his second time jumping from a plane, but the first time he could remember it.
“Anticipating this jump was very similar to the anticipation I felt when I got into the bomber in England and headed out for a mission,” said the Berkeley resident.
Along with celebrating his birthday, Norwood wanted to honor the soldiers who fought along side him during World War II, but lost their lives in the battle.
Norwood was an aerial gunner for the Air Force. During a routine bombing mission over Belgium on May 9, 1944, which was occupied by the Germans, his B-24 bomber was shot down. As the plane came crashing to the ground, Norwood jumped with parachute but blacked out.
On May 12, 1994, three days after the crash, Norwood woke up in a German military hospital in occupied Brussels.
He was a prisoner of war.
He remembered nothing.
“I remember waking up not having a clue where I was,” he said.
For the next year, Norwood and others were moved from different Nazi POW camps as the Russians and allied forces continued to move in. There were times Norwood thought he would never make it back to the United States again.
“We had food shortages,” he said. “At one point I weighed only 119 pounds.”
Norwood and his fellow POW’s were scared of the “mean and authoritative” Nazis, but the scariest thing was worrying about being hit by their fellow troops during bombing raids. The POWs were kept close to the Nazi troops, so Norwood said they could hear the U.S. bombers flying over their heads.
“I remember one time we were in a box car and directly above us we could see the B-17 bombers starting to drop the bombs,” he said.
A year after his forgotten jump in Belgium, Norwood was released and returned to the states. Since leaving the war and military service, he became an architect, anti-war activist and author. But for the past 60 years, Norwood has carried a sense of guilt. Six of Norwood’s crewmates were killed when his plane went down. Although he can’t remember his jump, he has a feeling one of his crewmates sacrificed his life to help him get his parachute on.
“It’s hard for me because I have no memory of it, and we lost a lot of our crew that day,” he said. “I just have this feeling the other gunner who died helped me. This jump is for all of those who lost their lives that day.”
Norwood’s birthday jump brings closure to an unfinished chapter in his life, and also an unfinished chapter in his new book.
A memoir of his experiences during war time, “Aerial Cannon Fodder: An Anti-war War Story,” will be complete when he adds in the thrill of his jump experience.
“This is great for him,” his son Kim Norwood said. “I mean he didn’t remember pulling the rip cord or even jumping during the way, so he finally got to experience the thrill.”
This isn’t the first time someone in their 80s has skydived for their birthday in Hollister.
Aviva Maidman, who works for Adventure Center Skydiving, said jumping out of a plane is the thing to do to celebrate the occasion.
“We get people calling everyday wanting to come for their birthdays,” she said. “I think our oldest jumper was 88.”
