Stories tagged with: claude and clyde stokes

• Twin brothers, WWII veterans, joined for eternity

  by Mike Schueler, posted Friday, November 10, 2017 (5 years ago)

  

  Photo courtesy of Hannah Hanzel/Baptist Messenger

  MCALESTER, Okla. (BP) -- Claude Stokes guessed he had about 15 seconds to decide how he was going to die.

  It was 1944, and the 20-year-old tank commander was lying face-down in a ditch in the middle of a firefight in central Italy when he heard something sizzling. Claude looked up to see a German artillery shell sticking out of the mud about six inches from his head. Since the shell didn't explode on impact, he had a choice: stay put to hope for a dud or run for it through a cloud of German machine gun and mortar fire. Read More