They crossed the Rhine early on the morning of March 24, 1945. The US Army Air Corps designated them C-47s. US fliers called the reliable, twin-engine plane the "Gooney Bird". To the British, they were the "Dakota."

Until fitted with a murderous, rapid-fire cannon in Viet Nam, the Gooney throughout its career flew unarmed.

On that particular March morning, the slow, but steady Gooneys flew into such deadly flak that it looked like black thunderclouds. They were to land Allied soldiers by parachute and glider in the German Motherland. In all, 1,500 C-47s and 1,300 gliders flew the mission.

For Al Brigham's squadron, the 315th Troop Carrying Group, based at Spanhoe, England, it was their darkest hour. Of their 72 Gooneys, 55 were casualties. Nineteen were shot down. The others limped home.

The commanding officer, Col. Howard Lyon, and his crew were shot down and taken prisoner after they successfully crash-landed their Gooney. Five days later men of the 6th Airborne Division set them free.

ONE TOO MANY

It was to be the last combat mission for the 315th Group, but for Al Brigham, radio operator, it was one too many. They had successfully dropped their paratroops and were turning for home,

when the German 20 millimeter shell ripped through the decking of the compartment behind him and exploded.

Today Brigham lives in retirement in Coila, Cambridge, New York. But one word out of his mouth and you know he grew up in "Down East". It is pronounced "Bahhhston", not "Baawwwston".

Like all of our veterans of World War II, he is pushing 70, with more of life behind him than ahead.

Over the years, Old Cambridge has come to take for granted the sacrifices men like Al Brigham make so that their countrymen may live assured of Freedom and comfortable under the snug blanket of the beloved Bill of Rights.

However, a dedicated group of men and women are determined to change that. They want to erect a permanent honor roll of names of veterans of World War II and more recent wars and conflicts in which US citizens put their lives on the line for their Country.

COMPHROC

Called COMPHROC (for the Committee to erect a Permanent Honor Roll for military veterans of Old Cambridge), the steering committee is well along in planning the monument. They are accepting public contributions, which should be addressed to: COMPHROC, Jack Decker, Treas., 14 N. Park St., Cambridge NY 12816.

Those who served, fought and died that we might live Free,

must not be forgotten. They must be memorialized, their idealism and sacrifice perpetuated as a model to future generations, who otherwise may not learn the truth, that Freedom is not Free.

NEW BEDFORD, MASS.

Al Brigham was born April 7, 1923 in New Bedford, Mass. His father was a forester; his mom a housewife. Al attended a number of New England schools. Later, he would matriculate at Tufts University. Still later, he would earn an MA from SUNY Oneonta. But first he went to war.

After high school graduation, he volunteered for service in the US Army Air Corps. He trained at Scott Field, Illinois as a radio operator. From there he traveled to Atlantic City and by ship across the Atlantic. His ship passed through the Pillars of Hercules (Strait of Gibraltar) on Christmas Eve, 1942.

They landed at Oran, North Africa. Soon Al was assigned to the 60th Troop Carrier Group, stationed at Relazon, Algiers.

Later his unit shifted to El Djem, Tunis, from which base they supported the successful invasion of Sicily in July, 1943.

The unit was moved forward to a captured base in Sicily, from which they flew missions over Salerno, dropping supplies and paratroops.

In March 1944, Al was assigned to the 315th Troop Carrying Group in England. They were a part of the Allied build-up prior to the massive and historic invasion of "Fortress Europe".

On "D-Day", Brigham's Gooney returned with 85 holes in its skin from flak bursts.

Then they took part in a series of special operations in which they dropped troops onto the continent behind enemy lines. The first Dakotas arrived at Spanhoe in February, 1944, but the unit did not attain its full operating strength until May, when 48 planes carried out the units first successful paratroop mission.

One month later, as the planes set off on a similar mission over occupied France, a grenade exploded in one of the troop carriers, killing three paratroops and wounding 16 others.

Of the 47 Goonies that flew that mission, only one returned without droppings its paratroops. Seven returned with flak perforations.

In September, nine Goonies were shot down and two more damaged on the second of four troop drops in Operation Market Garden. This was a vain attempt to end the war by seizing the bridges over the Rhine in Holland before the German armies could retreat across them into the Fatherland.

POLISH BRIGADE

On September 21st, 1944 Al's squadron had the distinction of dropping "The Polish Brigade" of paratroops behind enemy lines. The Gooneys took in 600 men at 500 ft. altitude.

Al remembers clearly the look of the murderous flak thrown up by the defenders.

"The Germans somehow knew of our drop zone and 50 percent of the Polish Freedom-Fighters were casualties before they hit the ground. "They literally jumped into a bed of fire."

The American air crew knew it was suicidal and the Poles knew it, but every one on board Brigham's plane took that fatal leap without hesitation.

"It took a lot of guts," Al said. "They all went right out into a triple cross-fire".

DARKEST HOUR

Then came his Group's darkest hour. After the Germans had destroyed the bridges across the Rhine, the 72 Gooneys of the 315th lifted off to join 1,428 others in leap-frogging Allied troops across the formidable river barrier.

"We crossed the Rhine sometime in the morning," Al recalled.

"We could see clouds of smoke from the barrage coming up to 4,000 feet.

"Our group of 72 planes went in, each dropping 18 paratroops at the town of Wessel".

Over the target, a nervous co-pilot forgot to turn on the green jump light. Brigham leaned out from his radio compartment and yelled, "Bail out!" The Troopers leaped into the smoke and disappeared toward the German countryside below.

It was as the pilot turned for home that the plane took its hit. A 20 mm. cannon shell entered the now empty troop compartment

and exploded.

"It tore off my right shoe and schrapnel hit my right and left legs." He had earned his Purple Heart, although he described them as minor wounds. It did not take him out of action, but the 315th was through as a combat unit.

From that September, 1944 until the end of the war, the 315th carted supplies to the troops still fighting toward Berlin and evacuated the wounded to England.

Following Germany's collapse, the Gooneys transported to Freedom prisoners of war, mostly the British.

On May 10, 1945, the Group left England and returned to the United States. Their mission: To train new crews for the invasion of Japan.

Those to be trained were destined to drop into what would have been a military maelstrom: "Fortress Japan", the invasion of the main island. They were the llth Airborne Division.

That unit included a man who became one of the most beloved doctors in Old Cambridge history, the late Charles B. Cole. It is not likely that he would have survived, for the official projection was for one million Allied soldiers to die in the invasion.

Fatalities among the fanatical Japanese were expected to reach four million.

Fortunately for both sides, US-made atomic bombs, exploding over the Jap cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki broke the final resistance and the Japanese military surrendered.

Al is another WW II veteran who does not float candles down the local creeks on the anniversaries of those horrendous blasts. "Those two atomic bombs saved five million lives," he observed.

With the collapse of Jap resistance, Al and several million other "citizen soldiers" were free men and women.

"When the war ended, I was asked to sign up for the reserves," Recalled Albert S. Brigham, veteran of the United States Army Air Corps in World War II.

"But I told them I had volunteered in and was volunteering out."

He returned to New Bedford. With his war-time savings and the GI bill, he enrolled at Tufts University. In 1948, "Al" graduated with a degree in economics.

He tried a variety of jobs in the field of business before joining The Electric Boat Co. in 1951. He was a Field Expediter for the construction of the first Atomic-powered submarine, the Nautilus, one of thousands working under the task master genius Hyman Rickover.

He was involved in the creation of the land prototype, which was constructed in Idaho. At its completion, Brigham came to West Milton to the General Electric facility, for the construction of the land prototype of the second atomic submarine, the Sea Wolf.

1ST TEACHER

In 1954, "Al" married Marjorie Hillman. In 1958, he came to Cambridge, hired by the late, great Charley Bowler to start the first special education class in the "modern" history of the Cambridge District.

He went to school summers and evenings and picked up his Masters degree in education. His training in special education he obtained at Russell Sage College.

In conjunction with the original special education program at CCS, Brigham developed a program which gave vocational training to special ed. students, in school and on jobs in the community. Students were employed in the school cafeteria, and at Mary McClellan Hospital, the A&P and village service stations.

Brigham originated the Gulag Archipelago award. The program was started in 1976 as a product of the Cold War between the communist countries and the Free World. This entailed writing essays on the subject of what human freedom meant to the student authors. At one time, the contest included all schools in Washington County.

For 24 years, Al sponsored the Chess Club, which is still a competitive intellectual student activity at CCS. For 10 years, Al sponsored the National Honor Society.

Professionally, he was a delegate to the teachers retirement system for 20 years and 20 years a delegate to the State Teachers Association.

He is a past president of the Washington County Teachers Assoc.

CONSERVATIVE CRUSADER

In public education, Brigham is a rare bird. He is an ardent fiscal and political conservative. He never shies from a good fight, no matter the odds. He is always ready to respond to the well-organized liberal "ten percent" that sometimes dominates the free letters space provided by The Eagle.

In a classic David-Goliath conflict back in the late 1960s, he took on the trustees of the New York State Teachers' Retirement system.

In researching the way the system used the Teachers' money, Al discovered a conflict of interest on the part of the dominant Trustee.

Over a period of ten years, this bank president had in his bank on a daily basis, $5 million in teachers retirement money.

For the use of this money, according to Brigham, his bank paid the teachers no interest; and yet the banker earned money with it for his bank.

This same trustee-banker also collected finder's fees on FHA mortgages, which were funded with money from the State Teachers Retirement Fund.

His bank received 1/2 of l percent of $450 million in finder's fees. This is $2.5 million.

This was a direct conflict of interest on the part of the banker.

20 YEAR FIGHT

Brigham crusaded 20 years for the redress of this grievance.

He received strong support from the local and tri-county teachers associations, but none from the State Teachers Assoc.

Perhaps this is because the State Teachers Assoc. was at the time borrowing money from this same banker. This, too, was a conflict of interest.

Over the years, Brigham was verbally abused and at one point threatened with a mafia-style "hit"; but he stuck to his crusade.

Ultimately, Brigham's position was sustained by the New York State Court of Appeals.

FOR LITTLE GUY

Clearly, it was a triumph for the Little Guy, but the Big Guy really didn't lose much. According to Brigham, no compensatory damages were assessed, although the court ordered the deposits transferred to another bank.

After 24 years at Cambridge Central, Brigham retired from teaching in 1982.

Meanwhile, he and Marge had raised two children, Robert and Jane. Today Jane is married, has two children of her own and lives in Salem.

Robert is married and attended Kentucky Univ., where he matriculated in 1994 with a doctorate in Far East studies.

He was and is an author and college professor.

STILL CRUSADED

Al did not give up his political crusading when he retired from teaching. He shifted from problems in education to problems faced by the general public.

His first post retirement effort was a campaign to induce the Federal government to reduce taxing and cut spending. This campaign was manifested primarily in the production and wide distribution of the popular bumper sticker "Read Our Lips: Cut Spending, Cut Taxes".

This motto was used by Patrick Buchanan in his New Hampshire campaign in 1992, Al recalled. The Manchester Leader headlined his strong showing in that primary: "Read our Lips!"

Al's last effort was an attempt to stop the on-going

practice of government misuse of the Social Security Trust Fund.

It is a practice that has out-raged millions of Americans, both retirees and those who are still a part of the National work force.

In 1965, Pres. Lyndon Johnson, in order to finance the Vietnam War and, at the same time, his Great Society program, got a bill through Congress that said that "all surpluses of the Social Security system" were to be deposited in the Federal treasury.

The government, in turn, issued a special Treasury bond that is not marketable. These bonds were given as an "IOU" to the Social Security system.

What the government did was to issue its own version of the "junk bond", thereby bilking American retirees of not billions, but "trillions" of retirement dollars.

FRAUD, EMBEZZLEMENT

According to Brigham, the late Senator Patrick Moynihan has characterized this practice "Fraud".

The late Senator Heinz called it "embezzlement".

Al lived his final days in a home in Coila. Like many local men, he "moon-lighted for years as a teller at one or another of the regional race tracks. He enjoyed searching for "treasures" with his metal detector and had been known to play an occasional round of golf.

When Al died in 2000 the community gave a Flag set in his memory to CHS, where he taught for so many years. It was presented to the student body at half-time during a home football game.