FOUR CORNERS STUDENT NEWS

James Lee Hutchinson:  A Retired 101-Year-Old Gunner in WWII

by: Aria Miller

Have you ever met a WWII veteran who is 101 years old? And is able to tell the tale about his experiences in war and what life was like when he was a kid?  Not many people probably have. This is why when Mr. James Lee Hutchinson came to our 4 Corners co-op, we were very impressed and excited.

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James Lee Hutchinson lived through the Great Depression and grew up in Oolitic, Indiana on Leatherwood Creek as a little boy and young man. One of the things he became through his life was an author. He thought it was important to teach the younger generation on what life was like when he was boy and his adventures and experiences. “Would $2 be a bunch of money back then?” We asked him. “ Oh yeah. For $5, my dad would go to the grocery store and buy two or three sacks of groceries. But they weren't canned groceries, they weren't frozen groceries. They were dry beans, (more dried stuff), dry rice, (and) peanut butter. If you wanted peanut butter, it wasn't in a jar. They had a little tray, (and) a great big bucket of peanut butter. They dipped it out and strewed it up (on) that tray. I have pictures of all these grocery stores. They were all very small. They were all full of cans and boxes and stuff. But we didn't have canned goods. We canned our own food at home.”

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He was also a drafted gunner for the Air Force during WWII. He fought from 1944-1945. We asked him how he handled knowing that he could die the very next day, by going up into his plane. He said, “Well, you pray a little bit. And leave it up to God. You know, you had nothing to do with it. We had 10 men on that plane and everybody had a job to do. But we never had anybody who would drink. We never had a drunk on our crew. Some guys did. Our crew was very smart. Our pilot was a lawyer. The co-pilot was a doctor. Navigator was an architect. We had a very good gunner.” James Lee Hutchinson was that gunner.

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Mr. Hutchinson went up in his plane twenty-two times! He also worked jobs as a school teacher, and a farmer. “Did you ever go hunting?” We asked him.  “All the time. I forgot to mention the fact that I hunted squirrels for a living. When I started teaching, I hunted squirrels for food (also). When I started teaching, I was still going out in the morning hunting squirrels. Yeah, I liked hunting squirrels. We put them in the ice box”.

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Mr. Hutchinson says that a lot of people saw The Creator on a daily basis through prayer, and seeing the people you knew and cared about being taken care of, having food and clothing, and that they survived WWII. They saw that as an answer to prayer.

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Mr. Hutchinson had many interesting and educational things to talk about and share with us, and we were very grateful to have been able to listen and learn from the things he had to say.