ROCKWALL, TX – April 13, 2022 — In its regular meeting on April 12th, the Rockwall County Commissioners Court honored local WWII hero C.B. Perdue who recently passed away.
Cawthon Bailey Perdue, Jr. was drafted into the U.S. Army Air Corps after his graduation from high school in 1944. The farm boy from Arkansas was eventually assigned as a waist gunner on a B-17 in the 388th Bomb Group in the 3rd Air Division of the Mighty Eighth Air Force. On April 7, 1945, C.B.’s B-17 was rammed by a German ME-109 fighter. C.B. and his navigator escaped parachuted out of a small hatch in the plane as it went down. They landed in German territory and C.B. was taken to a prisoner of war camp on the Baltic Sea, where he spent several harrowing months until they were finally liberated. C.B. earned a Purple Heart for his tremendous bravery in escaping the plane, as he gravely injured his knee in the fall which was never the same since.
C.B. passed away on March 14, 2022, at the age of 97. He was the last remaining WWII P.O.W. in Rockwall County.
Rockwall County Judge David Sweet joined representatives from the American Legion Terry Fisher Post 117 along with C.B.’s daughter, Pamela Blacketer and her husband Allen, as Sweet read a resolution honoring C.B.’s life and military service. Pamela and Mark were also presented with a flag flown over the Capitol from State Representative Justin Holland’s Office.
“He was well-spoken, and he was my hero,” Pamela said. “His big thing was he wanted you to know that you have to fight for your freedoms and for the little guys. I think he would have been very, very proud of this.”
By Austin Wells, Blue Ribbon News.
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