Walk down memory lane
World War II veteran returns to training grounds in Fort Lauderdale
World War II veteran Timothy Maloney may be 96, but he still remembers his gunner training days like it was yesterday.
And every Veterans Day, he gets the chance to relive those days.
He still keeps one of his Navy uniforms in his closet. He still remembers the guys he trained with. And he will never forget the two close calls they had, where their planes crashed down to earth.
Maloney, then a young recruit from Troy, N.Y., trained on the Avenger torpedo bomber at the Fort Lauderdale air station 75 years ago. He was a gunner, with a seat behind the pilot facing the tail of the plane.
He’ll return to his old training grounds on Veterans Day, taking a tour of the Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum with his daughter, Margaret-Ann Bolton.
He first visited in 2014
and hasn’t missed a year since.
Maloney lives out of state in upstate New York, but Bolton, who lives in Parkland, invites him down every Veterans Day.
Gary Adams, of Hollywood, guided Maloney through the museum in 2014 and will do so again on Monday.
“Tim Maloney is unique because he actually trained here,” Adams says. “WWII veterans are getting pretty scarce, God bless them. It’s really amazing to listen to their stories. They’re truly America’s greatest generation. They made a lot of sacrifices. We owe them a big debt.”
In the 1940s, Fort Lauderdale’s naval air station had 213 buildings. All but one were torn down in the 1990s to make way for the expansion of the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, Adams said.
Twenty years ago, the building where the museum now stands was moved to its current spot west of airport at 4000 West Perimeter Road.
Built in 1942 for $25,000, the building is on the National Register of Historic Places, Adams said.
In 1943, future U.S. president George H.W. Bush spent 10 weeks at the air station training as a pilot. He was later shot down while bombing a Japanese-held island in the Pacific.
The museum was founded in 1979.
Maloney made his first visit 35 years later, in 2014. He returned Sunday with his daughter and son-inlaw and plans to come back Monday for Veterans Day.
For Maloney, it’s like coming home.
“This is where he wants to be every Veterans Day,” Bolton said. “When I was a little girl, he was always talking about where his
“This is where he wants to be every Veterans Day. When I was a little girl, he was always talking about where his squadron was formed. He’s just really, really happy to be here.”
— Margaret-Ann Bolton, daughter of Timothy Maloney
squadron was formed. He’s just really, really happy to be here.”
The first visit, he said he was curious to see how the place had changed over the years.
“Glory be,” he said with a laugh, noting all the high rise towers that have sprung up since he was a trainee.
During his training days, Maloney says he survived not one, but two plane crashes.
“I can remember getting out of the plane and the meat wagon — that’s what we called it — coming up,” he said. “The radio man and the pilot were still in the plane.”
He and the other guys were injured, but they all lived to tell the tale.
Maloney was an only child whose father served in the U.S. Army during
World War I. He came home in 1919 and died in 1926 from war-related injuries. Maloney was four years old.
At 18, he was in the middle of a basketball game when a classmate walked in to announce the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.
He wanted his mom’s blessing before joining the Navy.
Two years went by before she agreed, he said.
He wanted to be a pilot but kept being told they already enough pilots, he said. Had he been one, he would surely have been sent overseas, he said.
Instead, he was sent to study mechanical engineering.
“If he had been a pilot, I probably wouldn’t be here,” Bolton said. “Who knows what would have happened.”
Maloney’s daughter had a surprise waiting for her dad on Sunday — a memorial brick in his name joined the lineup of bricks in the garden outside the museum.
Maloney, who says he and his late wife were “blessed” with eight children, considers himself a lucky guy.
“He was in a couple planes that went down while he was training here,” his daughter said. “He’s lucky to be here. If he hadn’t survived, I wouldn’t be here either. So I’m lucky too.”
Maloney has one wish: To return to his old stomping grounds next year.