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CATHY WURZER: It's Friday, the start of the Memorial Day holiday weekend. And here at MPR all this spring, we've been honoring Minnesotans who served in World War II. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the end of that conflict, and it's one of our last chances to hear many of the veterans tell their own stories.

Our photographer Evan Frost has been leading this project. He joins me now. Evan, good morning.

EVAN FROST: Good morning.

CATHY WURZER: Just saw your newest portraits. You've been publishing these beautiful black and white portraits and interviews with Minnesota Veterans of World War II every couple of weeks. Who are you going to be featuring this weekend?

EVAN FROST: Well, this weekend, I have a veteran named Dick Kern.

RICHARD DALE KERN: My name is Richard Dale Kern.

EVAN FROST: So, when were you born?

RICHARD DALE KERN: I was born in Duluth in the 29th of December 1925.

EVAN FROST: He says that since he was young, he's had a passion for planes.

RICHARD DALE KERN: And been building model airplanes since I was about 15 years old. I don't know, it just was in my blood, I guess, that I loved to fly.

EVAN FROST: So by the time he got to high school, the war was well underway. It was 1942. And an army recruiter came to his school and talked to him and a few friends about joining.

RICHARD DALE KERN: He talked us into going into the cadet program in the Air Force.

EVAN FROST: So he and two other friends that he flew model airplanes with enlisted.

CATHY WURZER: So, what was his role exactly? What was he doing in the Air Force?

EVAN FROST: He was picked to be part of a flight crew on a B-24 bomber, which was the most widely used bomber in the war and most widely used plane in US military history. And he was a tail gunner. So he manned the turret at the very back of the airplane.

RICHARD DALE KERN: And the only reason they put me in the tail, I was the smallest one that could fit into the turret. That was funny.

EVAN FROST: They flew missions over China, Burma, and India and what he calls the forgotten theater of the war. And it's called that because 250,000 men served there, but that's less than 2% of the 16 million US soldiers who served in World War II.

CATHY WURZER: He was in a gun turret? Oh my gosh, that was pretty dangerous work. What were they doing there, exactly? I mean, what were these missions all about?

EVAN FROST: Well, their goal was to stop Japan from advancing into China and Southeast Asia.

RICHARD DALE KERN: The Japs were trying to get into China from the South.

EVAN FROST: They flew bombing missions taking out roads, railroads, and bridges used to supply Japanese forces.

RICHARD DALE KERN: Without any bridges, they couldn't use a railroad. Well, then they start using what they called sand pans, a flat bottom boat.

EVAN FROST: He told me one story about trying to take down a bridge on the River Kwai.

RICHARD DALE KERN: And we missed our target.

EVAN FROST: They had to go back twice because the first time, their bombs missed.

RICHARD DALE KERN: Came back a couple of days later, and we did what we called a skip bombing. And we skipped it into the bridge and blew it up.

CATHY WURZER: Oh my gosh, he was a part of that? That was a very famous book, and I believe it was made into a movie.

EVAN FROST: Yeah.

CATHY WURZER: Wow. Then he must have been there when we dropped the atomic bomb?

EVAN FROST: Yeah, he was on a mission when the bomb was dropped. And they were radioed to turn around and come back to base. And their plane was still full of bombs.

RICHARD DALE KERN: And of course, we couldn't land with land bombs in the airplane.

EVAN FROST: He told me that they couldn't land like that. So they had to drop all their bombs into the Indian Ocean.

RICHARD DALE KERN: When we were crossing the Bay of Bengal, we dropped our bombs in the ocean.

EVAN FROST: And they found out the war was over when they hit the ground. And it was a big relief. A few weeks after that, he was headed home.

CATHY WURZER: Say when you talked to him, what did he tell you about how all that affected him now as he looks back?

EVAN FROST: Well, the biggest reflection he had was just how much growing up he did during the war in such a short amount of time.

RICHARD DALE KERN: Of course, being only 19 years old--

EVAN FROST: He was so young, and so was everyone else he served with.

RICHARD DALE KERN: It was like a big family is what it was.

EVAN FROST: And yet they were facing these incredibly dangerous missions where they had to just trust and rely on each other, and they're training every step of the way.

RICHARD DALE KERN: It's like I grew up overnight.

EVAN FROST: And I have to say before we go that passion for model airplanes is still with him. He took me down to the basement of his apartment and showed me his workbench where he still builds model airplanes. I took some photos of that, too. It was pretty cool.

[ANNE SHELTON, "COMING IN ON A WING & A PRAYER"]

CATHY WURZER: Evan, thank you for sharing.

EVAN FROST: Yeah, thank you, Cathy.

(SINGING) Coming in on a wing and a prayer they're coming in on a wing and a prayer.

CATHY WURZER: That's our photographer Evan Frost talking about his interview with Duluth resident Dick Kern, a veteran of World War II. You can find Evan's portraits of Mr. Kern on our website-- they're beautiful-- mprnews.org. Check out all the other stories, too. And thank you, thank you to those gentlemen and women for their service.