Ivan B. Munson
Age: 88
Born: Dec. 13, 1922
Hometown: San Pedro
Residence: Palm Desert
Military branch: U.S. Army Air Corps; Fort Worth Army Air Field, 1014th Headquarters; Headquarters Squadron.
Years served: 1942 - 1946
Rank: Private first class
Family: Wife Juneafred; two children, Shayna Powell of Palm Desert and Claudia Shaw of Prunedale; two granddaughters.
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Ivan Munson doesn't have a left ankle. It was shattered during a crash landing at Forth Worth Army Air Field in 1944.
He can't bend his foot up or down, or side-to-side. It's frozen in place at a 90-degree angle.
Munson, an Army Air Corps radioman, was assigned to a training base for B-24 pilots, where he flew practice flights around Texas.
Early one morning, while it was still dark, Munson and the crew chief joined the pilot and co-pilot for another junket.
Munson already had logged close to 2,000 hours flying with trainee pilots, and while he had a couple of close calls, it was nothing compared to what he experienced soon after the bomber was airborne that morning.
Munson was sitting at a small desk next to a window, right behind the co-pilot.
“We take off and all of a sudden the crew chief screams, ‘Get it up!'”
Once the aircraft gains altitude, it needs to be leveled out, Munson explained.
But the plane was sinking.
“I could see the lights inside the farmers' houses,” he said.
The co-pilot pulled back on the yoke, but couldn't get enough lift.
“We ‘mushed in' — we hit the ground tail-first. I hit the back of his seat. It knocked me out cold.”
Munson briefly regained consciousness and remembers trying to get out of his parachute harness before passing out.
“When I woke up, I had my head in a woman's lap,” he said, laughing.
The Good Samaritan came out to help when she saw the plane go down.
“Everything from the wings on back was completely destroyed. The nose wheel smashed my legs and ankles and split my new GI boots.”
The pilots, who were strapped in, fared much better than Munson and the crew chief, who broke a shoulder, arm and leg when his body went flying under the dashboard.
Munson was treated at the nearby base hospital, then transferred to Ashburn General Hospital in McKinney, Texas.
“That's where I stayed for almost two years,” he said.
He had at least a half-dozen surgeries — including bone grafts — and had more casts than he could count.
Once he was discharged from the hospital — and the military — he was classified as a disabled veteran.
A disabled vet, by definition, is someone who can't go back to his original livelihood.
Prior to his service, Munson worked in a shipyard in San Pedro building Liberty troop ships. He was in charge of laying out the deck sections before they were assembled.
Munson was put through a battery of tests to determine a new career path. He scored high in dexterity and decided to go to watchmaking school.
As part of the training, he attended jewelry manufacturing school, Sawyer's School of Business and a gemological institute. Four years later, he was more than qualified for a career as a jeweler.
He sold watches for a while, but soon lost interest.
His first love was electronics, so he worked at companies including Bendix Corporation's computer division, Wyle Laboratories and Xerox Data Systems in the Los Angeles area.
But he eventually put his post-military training to good use. Munson and his wife, Juneafred, moved to the desert and opened Munson's Jewelers in Indio in 1972.
After nearly 40 years, the couple closed up shop in May.
The time was right to retire. The down economy and the skyrocketing price of gold didn't bode well for business.
A little nudging from his wife also played into the decision.
“Junie used to keep telling me, ‘How many 83-year-old grandmothers are still working?'”
Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II on Sundays. Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via e-mail at denise.goolsby@thedesertsun.com
