May 27, 2017 3 min read

Cokeburg native Peter Ladisic reacted with characteristic warm humor when his daughter told him he was going to receive his high school diploma, more than 70 years after he left high school.

“He said, ‘Now that I’ve got a diploma, if I have to get a job, I’ll make more money,'” said Ladisic’s daughter, Kim Thompson of Bentleyville.

Ladisic, 92, a decorated World War II veteran, received his diploma from Bentworth High School during the graduation ceremony Thursday.

A color guard from American Legion Post 165 in Bentleyville, where Ladisic is a member, stood at attention in front of the high school gym while Ladisic was recognized.

Ladisic, surrounded by four generations of his extended family, greeted a line of parents, students and district educators after the graduation ended.

“It’s an honor,” Ladisic said, thanking district officials for the gesture.

Ladisic left Ellsworth High School in 1941 to work in the mines when his father was injured in a mining accident. He was drafted in 1943 and joined the U.S. Army Air Forces, serving as a machine gunner in a B-24 Liberator.

Before presenting Ladisic with the diploma, Bentworth Superintendent Scott Martin asked the 67 graduating students to imagine themselves as a part of his bomber’s crew.

“Your crew receives a last-minute flight mission, but before leaving, you promise each other that if the unthinkable were to happen, the other surviving crew members will take care of the families,” Martin said.

Ladisic received a Distinguished Service Cross – the second-highest military award a member of the U.S. Army can receive – for his actions as a tailgunner during the July 2, 1944, mission over Hungary, when he crawled back into his turret after being blown out of it by a shell from a German fighter. He later lost his right leg from injuries he sustained that day.

Despite heavy damage, the crew managed to limp the plane over the Adriatic Sea. To compensate for the disabled landing gear, the crew tied a parachute to it when the plane landed near the Italian coast, Ladisic said during an interview last year.

Martin said Ladisic was assigned to the plane’s ball turret but had switched places with the tailgunner that day, so Ladisic’s family was notified that he’d been killed, while the wife of the man who’d taken his usual place was told her husband had survived but lost a leg. Ladisic later met his friend’s widow, Frances, at a hospital in New York.

“Honoring the promise that the crew had made, he proposes, and they are subsequently married for 44 years,” Martin said.

Ladisic went on to own a locksmith business in the Bayside neighborhood of Queens, N.Y., and moved back to his hometown when he retired.

Thompson said she contacted Martin about three weeks ago to ask whether her father could receive the diploma.

“We just facilitated it and made it happen quickly,” Martin said. “We thought this would be the perfect way to honor him.”

Thompson said her father didn’t want to detract from recognition for the graduating students.

“His biggest thing was, ‘I don’t want to do anything to take away from the kids,'” she said.