rLt. Col. James Gunn III bailed out of his B-24 during a bombing run over Romania in August 1944, found himself the highest-ranking member of a 400-officer prisoner-of-war camp in Bucharest (plus two other camps, for a total of nearly 1,200 Allied POWs), then learned via smuggled radio that his host nation had surrendered to Allied forces, triggering German air raids on the city.

That's when Gunn's story of World War II heroism veered toward the stuff of legend — a story capped Oct. 17 at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, Texas, when his 99-year-old-widow, Aileen, and family members accepted his Silver Star.

Seven decades earlier, stranded amid Bucharest's chaos and attempting to secure a safe return for more than 1,100 POWs without a way to contact Allied forces, Gunn tracked down senior Romanian military officials and requested a plane to fly to Italy, promising to organize an attack on the nearby German-held airfield ... and begin plans for a rescue mission, according to Gunn's account published in Aerospace Historian in 1966 and later entered into the Congressional Record.

His first attempt as a passenger on an aging Savoia-Marchetti ended in about 20 minutes, when the pilot turned the plane around for reasons unclear to Gunn. Then, in a scene most movie scriptwriters would reject as unrealistic, a Romanian flying ace who would turn out to be a member of the nation's royal family presented Gunn with a new travel plan: "If you will ride in the belly of a Messerschmidt, I will take you to Italy."

Gunn "agreed without hesitation," he would recall in the magazine piece. Radio equipment was removed so Gunn could fit in the plane, American flags were painted on the side of the plane in hopes of deterring Allied firepower, and Gunn drew a map on a piece of cardboard for Capt. Constantin Cantacuzino to follow into friendly territory.

Gunn flew with no parachute, no way of escape should the plane crash or catch fire, and not even enough room to sit up. It was a two-hour trip, according to a contemporary account in the November 1944 edition of Air Force — which was, at the time, the "official service journal of the U.S. Army Air Forces."

When the Messerschmidt landed, the Romanian pilot popped out and asked for a screwdriver to remove the access panel used to secure his passenger.

"A soldier cried, 'Look at those GI shoes coming out!' " according to the Air Force report.

A rescue to remember

Gunn began contacting high-ranking headquarters staff "as soon as I gained my equilibrium," he wrote in his account. Soon after, plans were underway for fighter strikes against German bombers and for what would become an airborne evacuation of nearly 1,200 prisoners of war aboard specially configured B-17s.

After the war, Gunn transitioned to the newly formed Air Force and would serve throughout Europe as well as in the Pentagon before taking his final assignment, as vice commander of Lackland Military Training Center, in 1966. He retired a year later as a colonel and would remain part of the San Antonio community until his death in 1999.

"It was my father's request that not much be done about this until he died," said retired Air Force Maj. William Gunn on his father's honor. Gunn, 68, said he'd heard parts of his dad's story during social gatherings, but to get his father to spill details, "I basically had to pull it out of him."

Eventually, the father agreed to be interviewed by the son so the younger Gunn could pass on his memories — memories that began to fade in the colonel's later years. A proposal for Gunn to receive the Medal of Honor came on the heels of "War of the Cottontails," a book written by one of Gunn's fellow bomber pilots over Romania that recounted Gunn's heroics. In 2009, the Army ruled that Gunn's actions merited a Silver Star.

Then, this summer, Lt. Col. William McKnight with U.S. Army North "sent unsolicited letters to people named Gunn," William Gunn said, as the command attempted to reach next of kin for a possible ceremony. At first expecting to find children or grandchildren, William Gunn was happy to inform Army officials at JBSA that "well, actually, my 99-year-old mother is three miles away."

Bridging generations

Lt. Gen. Perry Wiggins, commanding general of U.S. Army North, presented the award a few months after the letter went out.

"I had kind of anticipated a fairly small ceremony ... and I think they pull out all the stops," William Gunn said. "I was astonished the number of people who stopped by on a very busy day."

More than 200 attended the event, according to a news release, including the 99-year-old guest of honor, who uses a wheelchair. The ceremony had been delayed until October so Aileen Gunn would escape some of the oppressive Texas heat.

"It's been awhile since I've seen a three-star on his knees, [as he was] hanging the medal around her neck," William Gunn said. That's not something you see every day. ... She was, I could tell, pleased beyond description."

Kevin Lilley is the features editor of Military Times.

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