News-Info-Alerts

Re: An Extraordinary Life

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: March 21, 2002

"'An Extraordinary Life' by Ed Lowe
March 20, 2002

An obituary appeared earlier this month under the byline of veteran Newsday writer Bill Kaufman. It began: "Gene C. Browne, a retired aerospace engineer for Grumman and a Tuskegee Airman during World War II who was a POW in Germany after his P-51 Mustang was shot down in combat, died Feb. 22 at Good Samaritan Hospital in West Islip. He was 77.”

The story went on to say how the longtime Amityville resident was a teenage pilot who graduated with honors, ranking third in his class of aviation officer candidates in Tuskegee, Ala., in the now-famous all-African-American unit of aviators who never lost to enemy aircraft a bomber that they escorted.

Suffolk County Police Officer Brian Lowery read the story at home in Oakdale. Scheduled for surgery on his arm that morning, he typed a note to Kaufman -- and made a copy for me -- about having crossed paths with Browne 12 or 13 years ago, just about the time Browne was retiring from Grumman. His note opened with an expression of deep regret on Browne's passing and went on to tell of the brief encounter, "which allowed me a short glimpse,” Lowery wrote, "into an extraordinary life.”

At the time, Lowery, now a 23-year veteran who works in plain clothes in a Crime Control Unit, was a uniformed officer in a Community Oriented Police Enforcement unit. "I was driving one of the sector cars in the North Amityville area, and I see this older gentleman driving a sporty, new American Motors car that had just come out, the Eagle Talon. It was a little like the Mitsubishi Eclipse. It has a real sporty look to it. This one was white with a black top. It passes me, and I see the license plate frame says, ‘P-51 Pilot."'

A Navy veteran who spent a short tour of duty on an aircraft carrier, Lowery knew immediately that he was in the presence of a character out of American history. He grinned at the idea that this older man, who had piloted one of the sleekest, most beautiful planes of its time, was now driving a hot little sporty-looking automobile.

"It was one of the most beautiful planes out there,” Lowery said yesterday. "It was like a Jaguar. It had that long nose, and it was the dominant fighter plane in the latter part of the war. It got a lot of press and play in all the aviation magazines. It didn't matter that I was in the Navy. No matter what service you were in, you always knew to catch a little of the best of all the services. Something else I knew immediately: The P-51s were in the Army Air Corps. So, if you were black, and you flew a P-51, you had to be a Tuskegee Airman.”

The Eagle Talon turned the corner off Albany Avenue, and Lowery followed. "He pulled into the driveway,” Lowery said, "and I pulled up to the apron. He got out. He was short. I rolled down the window and yelled out, ‘I like your car, but I love your license plate frame.'

"Without a word, he waved me into the house, as if he were saying, ‘C'mon, I'll show you something.' The first thing he showed me was a picture of himself standing in front of the P-51. He was so young. I mean, he even looked young in life, standing in his living room, but the photo, if you had put a bicycle in front of him, you would have taken him for a paperboy, never the pilot. I'm doing the math in my head. It's, like, 1989 or 1990. This picture has to be, what, 1944? He must have been 19. I look around at 19-year-olds today, and I can't imagine them flying an aircraft like this.

"We talked more. I kidded him about his car. I said, ‘If it had wings, it would fly. It's like you never gave up the P-51.' He showed me his Purple Heart. He was unbelievably modest. I don't remember the details of the injury, but he crash-landed in Germany and spent some time in German POW camps, until the war ended. He comes out of the service and spends the rest of his career working for Grumman.

"Then, I think I put my foot in my mouth,” Lowery said. "I'm looking at him, I'm looking at the plane, and I'm thinking what a great career this man could have had, or should have had, in aviation, and I ask him, ‘Did you ever fly again?' He said, ‘No.' And I realized the environment he was in, and the times, and the opportunities he wouldn't have had, and I thought about him not getting to live up to his potential, and I just said, ‘What a shame.' And he said, ‘What a shame it would have been if I had never flown at all.'”

Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc. "