Kenneth McNatt opened the mailbox in front of his Wheaton home last week and took out a package from Washington, D.C., that was about four decades late.
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Inside were two bits of metal dangling from ribbons-things somehow meant to symbolize his heroism during the dozens of bombing and strafing missions he flew as a Navy pilot in the Pacific during World War II.
They were a much belated recognition of a flier who, as the co-pilot on one of those missions, grabbed the controls of a plane he had never soloed in before when the pilot was killed by groundfire. Although wounded himself, McNatt landed the plane, saving his own life and those of four other crew members.
McNatt was given a Purple Heart for the wounds, but it was 46 years after the war before he stood at his kitchen table, looking at the other two medals he had earned-a newly minted Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal.
”Now that I have the stuff, it doesn`t seem that important,” said McNatt, who has been pretty modest about the whole deal all along.
When he was first nominated for the medals by his commanding officer in 1948, paperwork was misrouted and some important documentation was
accidentally returned to McNatt.
He threw the envelope in a drawer, and that`s where it stayed for many years.
But a renewed interest in the medals was pushed by his two daughters after they saw him looking through his wartime memorabilia before a reunion of his squadron last year.
”They said, `Hey, you were supposed to get medals,` ” he said. ”My kids kept pushing me, for the grandkids. They think somebody might have an interest in this some day.”
Fortunately, he still had the documentation for his acts of bravery, still in the envelope he had thrown in a drawer in 1948. Since the information originally had been submitted within three years of the end of the war, as required by military guidelines, the medals were awarded, Navy officials said. ”In the 24 years I`ve been here, we`ve had less than 20 cases like this,” said Shelby J. Kirk, head of the Navy`s Awards and Special Projects branch. ”We get requests, thousands of requests, but rarely do they have the documentation.”
Navy officials said that when such medals are awarded, the recipient often asks for a small ceremony.
McNatt, a retired Exxon employee and Milton Township trustee, asked that his medals be dropped in the mail.
And then his buddies had to talk him into letting them see them.
”Here, he`s been a friend of mine for 26 years,” said neighbor Robert Duke, ”and I didn`t know anything about this.”
”I didn`t want to be a braggart,” McNatt said.