Editor's note: We are saddened to learn of Emma Didlake's death on Sunday, Aug. 16, 2015, but humbled to have met her and grateful for her service.
At age 110, Emma Didlake still has her fashion sense and her sense of humor. When presented with a short-sleeved shirt, Emma asked for a different style.
“I don’t have Michelle Obama arms,” she said.
This coming from the oldest living World War II veteran who recently traveled on a special charter flight to Washington, D.C., where she visited the World War II Memorial, the Women in Military Service Museum, and even met with President Obama.
It was all made possible through many volunteers and donations – and the perseverance of Bobbie B., a Kellogg Company customer marketing coordinator.
In her spare time, Bobbie volunteers as president of the Talons Out Honor Flight group, the Southwest Michigan hub of the national Honor Flight Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping our nation’s oldest veterans visit the Washington, D.C. memorials built in their honor.
Bobbie became interested in the Honor Flight Network when the Kellogg Employee Resource Group (ERG)KVets and Supporters sponsored a showing of the movie “Honor Flight.” Kvets and Supporters honor military service and recognize the contributions of veterans to the workplace. ERGs often extend their support beyond the workplace and into the communities where Kellogg employees live and work.
After seeing the movie, Bobbie thought there should be an Honor Flight hub in southwest Michigan. “I asked someone from the national organization to ‘boot-camp’ us, and tell us how to get started,” says Bobbie.
From that first volunteer meeting in June 2013 to Miss Emma’s flight on July 17, Bobbie and the Talons Out group have organized six flights to Washington, D.C., involving 352 World War II veterans – funded solely through donations, volunteers and support from KVets and other organizations and businesses.
“Time is running short for our World War II vets,” says Bobbie. “Of the 16 million men and women who served, less than two million are alive today.”
On every Talons Out flight, veterans have stories to tell – memories they may never have shared before, even with family and close friends.
A veteran on one flight recalled frantically searching for survivors in the flaming aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor. On another flight, a general revealed he was one of the famed Monument Men. Another vet was among those who took the Eagle’s Nest, Hitler’s private sanctuary, during the last days of the war in Europe.
And of course, Miss Emma , who, as a Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps troop transport driver stateside, blazed the trail more than 70 years ago for other African American servicewomen during a time when segregation and discrimination against women and blacks was the norm.
“Many of these veterans live right here in southwest Michigan,” says Bobbie. “It’s so important for them to share their stories, and for all of us to learn their history.”
