Children — donned in their best Halloween costumes — are eager to pet “Clarence the Camel,” the mascot of the pilots of the 86th Fighter Group and donate some of their candy to the children of Berlin, so that Clarence can ferry them to the blockaded city on his own C47 Operation Vittles flight.
In 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed an executive order that officials used to pull Japanese Americans from their homes, force them to sell their property and imprison them in internment camps for years. Baseball, the most American of sports, served as a desperately needed diversion.
Butler Martin made his mark as a barrier-breaking World War II Marine who trained under challenging conditions in the segregated South. He died Sept. 27 at age 101.
