NEW HOPE, Minn. — A German Messerschmitt fighter plane was
bearing down on Don Stoliel's B-17 bomber as he flew a mission during World War
II.
Stoliel, the pilot, looked out the windshield of his cockpit and
saw the enemy plane zooming straight at him with machine guns blazing.
"This is it," he thought, as he braced for the barrage
of bullets that he expected to blast through the glass and tear into his body.
It didn't happen. Not one piece of lead penetrated the cockpit.
The reason? Stoliel, a member of Sacred Heart in Robbinsdale, believes he had a
layer of protection no German machine gun could penetrate — a first-class relic
of St. Therese of Lisieux.
Tucked into the pocket of his uniform pants, it was with him on
every mission. He believes St. Therese kept him alive in the cockpit during six
months of bombing runs that ended in 1944 when he reached the end of his tour
of duty and returned to the United States.
The then-22-year-old got the relic from a chaplain, Father Edmund
Skoner, at an airfield in Molesworth, England, shortly after arriving in
December 1943.
After surviving 31 bombing missions into Germany, Stoliel came to
believe that St. Therese was watching over him. He escaped several close calls
and saw other planes flying near his get hit and go down. Nary a bullet touched
his cockpit. Only once did a member of his 10-man crew get injured. None were
killed.
"St. Therese, oh, she took care of us — absolutely,"
Stoliel told The Catholic Spirit, newspaper of
the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. "She means just about
everything because I wouldn't be here now if it wasn't for St. Therese."
Today, the 98-year-old, who married after the war and had four
children with his late wife, Shirley, is as passionate as ever about his
favorite saint, "The Little Flower."
Fittingly, he lives at a facility in New Hope that bears her
name: St. Therese of New Hope. He has told his story numerous times, both to
Sacred Heart parishioners and students at Sacred Heart Catholic School.
Stoliel crossed paths with the relic by chasing his boyhood dream
of becoming a pilot. He had what he called "a romance with the
clouds." Growing up in Olivia about two hours west of the Twin Cities, he
often would run out of his house to watch World War I-era planes fly overhead.
After graduating from high school in 1938, he enlisted in the
Army National Guard in 1940 with the hope of becoming a pilot. He was placed
into the regular Army after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941.
Transferred to Camp Haan in California, he noticed a nearby aviation training
facility called March Field.
"I used to watch those B-17s take off over at March
Field," he said. "My body was in Camp Haan; my heart was over there
across the road at March Field. I wanted to get in the (Army) Air Corps."
It took some persistence. Initially, he was assigned to operate
anti-aircraft artillery. That landed him in Alaska, where U.S. forces were
anticipating a Japanese attack. For several months, it looked as though his
military tour would involve firing at enemy fighter planes.
"But, I still had my heart in the air," he said.
"I wanted to do that more than anything else in the world."
With the help of a commanding officer, he was able to go to
Anchorage to apply for aviation cadet training in the Army Air Corps (now
called the Air Force). He was rejected the first time because of a medical
condition, but eventually passed in June 1942. The news "was like going to
heaven," he said.
Once in flight school, he chose to be a bomber pilot and was
assigned to the 303rd Bomb Group in Molesworth. There he met the chaplain who
gave him the relic.
Stoliel wants to make sure his story — especially the part about
the relic — lives on. After carrying the relic in his pocket for decades after
coming home, he gave it to the pastor of Sacred Heart, Father Bryan Pedersen,
three years ago.
The two met just a week after Father Pedersen came to Sacred
Heart in 2008. They forged a friendship through weekly breakfasts at a local
restaurant after morning Mass and built a trust that motivated Stoliel to place
the relic in his pastor's care.
"I just felt humbled that he would want me to have that
relic," Father Pedersen said.
Meanwhile, Stoliel continues his devotion to St. Therese. He
currently is reading her autobiography, "The Story
of a Soul," and also makes regular visits to a smaller, secondary
prayer space at his care facility called Little Flower Chapel. He goes to this
chapel for Mass twice a week and tries to stop by daily to acknowledge the
saint's help in the cockpit of his B-17.
"I go by there and I'll say, 'Thank you, Therese, for
31,'" he said. "She got me through those 31 missions without a
scratch. There were some mighty, mighty, mighty close calls."
Father Pedersen is glad to have the chance to know someone from
what is known as The Greatest Generation.
Stoliel is "a man of service, and dedicated to country, to
family and to his faith, the Catholic faith in particular," he said.
"We need more men like Don Stoliel today. Our world, our country would be
far better off."
Hrbacek is a photographer/reporter at The Catholic
Spirit, newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
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