Military Service a Family Affair for the Cassidys

This is the third in a series of articles about Pratt & Whitney employees and their connection to World War II.

When you talk about military service with Maureen Cassidy, a quality inspector in Middletown with 37 years at Pratt & Whitney, it's a case of "all in the family." Cassidy's father, John Arthur Cassidy, and mother, Laura Mola Cassidy, both served during World War II and Maureen joined the Air Force out of high school, where she served for six years and was a crew chief on C-141 airlifters. "I definitely was inspired by my parents to join as I grew up listening to their stories from the time I could retain them," she said.

John Cassidy was a master sergeant in the Army Air Corps and a side gunner and photographer flying on B-17s all over Europe, serving for the entire war. Laura Mola was an early member of the Women's Army Air Corps (WAAC) stationed at Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts. "My parents met at Westover when my dad flew in," Cassidy said. "The WAACs would hand out sports equipment to the troops and she gave archery equipment to him. They began dating and eventually married."

It turns out two soldiers were pursuing Cassidy's mom – her future husband and another soldier. "She was smart enough to do some checking and discovered the other soldier was married," Cassidy said. "That's how she wound up with my dad."

Cassidy's father told her a number of "war stories" while she was growing up. One she remembers, in particular, was when his plane was shot down over France. "Unfortunately, he had a young private with him who was on his first mission," she said. "When the crew was told to bail out, my dad opened the door to the escape ladder and told his young charge to get out. The boy froze on the ladder and refused to jump. My dad eventually had to step on his fingers to get him off the ladder."

Cassidy said her dad prayed and watched him go and hoped the young soldier remembered to pull the 'D' ring on his parachute [he did]. "By this time, he was the last crew member still on the plane – even the pilots had bailed out – and the plane had traveled a considerable distance from where the rest of the crew had jumped," she said. "My dad made it out but was given up for dead when the plane crashed, as no one had seen him escape. Eventually, days later, he came across a farm house and was taken to safety." Cassidy still has the parachute "D" ring from when her father jumped.

Some of the combat photos John Cassidy took during the war have been published. However, since all photos at the time were the property of the War Department, his name has not been associated with them. Cassidy has many of his original photos and donated ones he took of the Memphis Belle to the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.

"My dad would talk about his positive memories of the war, so there were many things he would discuss but many he would not," Cassidy said. "I discovered that he helped liberate a prison camp when I was in high school and found pictures he had taken of bodies being thrown on trailers. All he said was, 'Reeney, put the pictures away.' I also remember writing about genocide for my college thesis and when he read it, he cried."

After the war, John Cassidy worked at Pratt & Whitney for a while, before becoming a spring maker for different companies.

"I'm very proud of my mom and my dad for their service," Cassidy said. "She was a pioneer for women in the service and he was in active service and captured history with his camera. I know he saw many things that bothered him to the day he died. But he learned to put it aside."