YOUR YEAR OFF SUCCESSFULLY

Meet! East Dallas

LIVE LOCAL East Dallas is pleased to partner with ·East Dallas Networking

·Lakewood Women in Business

·Greater East Dallas Chamber of Commerce

·Exchange Club of East Dallas to bring you MEET! East Dallas.

Date: Thurs. Feb. 2nd 5:30-7:30pm

Where: Another Broken Egg (Casa Linda)

Cost: $5 per person, cash only at the door (covers cost of event/includes hors d’oeuvres]

RSVP: rsvp@livelocaleastdallas.com (deadline: Thursday, January 26th by 5pm]

Why: Five Groups AND THOUSANDS OF OPPORTUNITIES apolis for a 492nd reunion.

They interviewed eight members of the group, plus two or three children of men who had already passed away. They came back with 12 hours of footage.

Since then, they’ve been researching, interviewing, filming and editing.

More recently, Mena interviewed Robert Cash of Fairview, Texas. Cash remem-

“The average life expectancy of a bomber in a crew was 12 missions, and then they were either blown out of the sky or shot down.” bers Mena’s dad and his crew.

“One of the worst missions they flew was on June 20, 1944. It was a raid on Politz, Germany,” Mena says. “They lost 14 planes that day, and each plane carries a crew of 10. Seventy six men were killed.”

Cash’s craft was blown out of the sky, and he was the only survivor.

“That’s a pretty dramatic, horrific story to tell,” Mena says.

Mena is still raising money, but he expects the movie, “Crew 713,” to be finished next year.

He’s in a hurry. Four of the veterans he interviewed have since died.

“I have a time consideration because I want them to see the film,” he says.

Mena’s dad was 84 when he died, and he was the last living member of his crew. The elder Mena talked openly about his experiences in World War II. He also served in Korea and Vietnam, spending a total of 24 years in the U.S. Air Force. But the children of the men Mena has interviewed for the film often tell him they’re hearing war stories for the first time.

“I think they figure it’s good for the official record of the war,” Mena says. “They want to get it out there.”

About 10 books have been written about the 492nd, but “Crew 713” will be the first film about it. All of the authors and historians who have written about the group are supporting the film, along with the Frontiers of Flight Museum, the Dallas Film Society, the U.S. Latinos and Latinas Oral History Project at UT Austin and the Second Air Division Memorial Library in Norfolk, England, among others.

“It’s a labor of love,” Mena says. “It’s a love song to my father.” n