POWERGRAMS

An American Hero Art Scroggins has always admired his father, yet for much of his life he didn't know Robert Scroggins was an American hero. Seventy years after surviving three harrowing airplane emergencies during World War II, the 92-year-old Scroggins remains a source of pride for the Selma Power Delivery- Distribution-Generation Operations manager and two grandsons who work for Alabama Power: Union Springs Local Operating Lineman Keefe Merrett and Southern Division Power Delivery Technician Ryan Merrett. Four of Robert's grandsons have been deployed overseas, including Shane Scroggins, who just returned from Afghanistan. "My father has been my hero from an early age and still is today," said Art. "It had nothing to do with his exploits during WWII. I did not know very much about the details of his military service until later in life." Robert Scroggins earned a Purple Heart, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, six Air Medals and eventually was recognized in "American Veterans – Their Stories of Service and Valor," a new book profiling heroes from the Civil War through the Afghanistan War. Scroggins was aboard a heavily damaged B-17 bomber plane that was forced to ditch in the North Sea just after New Year's Day 1944. The crew of the scuttled "Flying Fortress" was rescued by a British ship, where once on board their frozen uniforms had to be cut from the soldiers' bodies. In July, Bombardier Scroggins had been bolted into the nose of an experimental P-38 that was nearly shot down over Germany. The damaged fighter plane limped back to England, skidding down a runway without brakes before stopping in a field where he was cut out of the ruined craft. Disaster struck again on another B-17 flight over Germany. "Just as we started the bomb run, we got a direct hit," Scroggins told Willie Moseley of Elmore County Living magazine. "It knocked me out of my seat and I was on top of the navigator who was right behind me. I was bleeding from my right hand, both legs and was cut across my forehead. That was the least of my wounds, but it was the most scary, because blood was coming down into my eyes." The navigator was killed but Scroggins released the bombs while one of the B-17 engines was in flames, leading to an emergency landing in Belgium. "He did not talk much about his service until around the mid-1980s, when some of the schools in the Tallassee area asked him to speak on Veterans Day," Art said. "He continued to do this because I think he realized how much the younger generation needed to know about WWII and the sacrifices that were made by so many men and women." Robert Scroggins eventually returned to his hometown, joining a National Guard unit that was activated during the Korean War. He was an instructor at several Air Force bases and took part in atomic testing in Nevada before serving as Tallassee's postmaster for 35 years. He and his wife, Irene, have been married 70 years. "Robert Scroggins epitomizes the very essence of our greatest generation that brought us through World War II and those postwar years of unbridled economic growth, advanced education, the Camelot years, the space program and so many other achievements that would not have been possible without the service and sacrifice of so many of his era," said James Lawrence, author of "American Veterans" and a retired lieutenant colonel from Cecil, who spoke to Elmore County Living. About a dozen B-17s remain flyable today from the 12,732 built to fight for freedom around the globe. On Oct. 31, Robert and Art Scroggins stepped aboard the "Aluminum Overcast" at Montgomery Regional Airport, joining other veterans in a World War II bomber flight that came back to earth in a leisurely fashion the father could only have dreamed of in 1944. "He is truly a war hero like so many of that generation, but to me he has been an everyday hero for many reasons," Art said. SALUTING VETERANS 3 Scroggins, top right, and other members of B-17 crew during World War II. SCROGGINS PROUD OF B -17 BOMBARDIER'S WWII SERVICE Scroggins in 1944. Scroggins in 2014. Photos by Joe DeSciose

• Cover