Conducted by Gene T. Chávez, Ed.D., Historian in Residence, Kansas City Museum
Video Recorded and Edited by Zachary Laman at Mr. Crow’s home November 27th , 2023.
Oral History with Vernon Crow
Conducted by Gene T. Chávez, Ed.D., Historian in Residence, Kansas City Museum
Video Recorded by Zachary Laman at Mr. Crow’s home November 27th , 2023.
A native of Sigourney, Iowa, Vernon Crow was born in 1925, graduating high school in 1942. He joined up for WWII shortly thereafter in the Army Air Corps and made the military his career through the Vietnam conflict. After retiring from the military, he became a teacher at Shawnee Mission Northwest High School teaching science for five years before retiring again. Vernon was married to Marjorie Stricklin for forty years before her death in 1992. They had five children, including 3 boys who were all in military service. Vernon remarried in 2008 to Della Ellingson. He is a lifetime member of the VFW and American Legion and loves spending time at the Don Bosco Community Center in the Historic Northeast.
Vernon talks at length about some of the missions he was part of during his military career. Some of his later missions (1958 –1960) include serving as ship’s navigator while cruising back and forth in the Taiwan Straits to keep Communist China from invading; flying the first plane into Guantanamo Bay, Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis (1963); keeping track of Soviet Russian ships all over the world; map making in Korea, Newfoundland, Labrador, and Alaska some of which were used for the Alaska Pipeline; led an all-volunteer boarding party during the Vietnam War on what was believed to be a spy ship.