Hanging on to the side of the plane, with an axe in hand, he struck the shackles holding the bomb. Again and again he swung at them, until both bombs fell.

Almost 65 years later, Stamatakos, now an 84-year-old retired MSU professor, walks to the front of a room, a cane in hand. His wife, three sons, their wives, seven grandchildren and a crowd of onlookers watch as a small star is pinned onto the jacket of his suit.

It’s a Silver Star — one of the nation’s highest honors for bravery in combat. Long after the plane landed that day in 1945 and the men kissed the ground, long after Stamatakos returned home, married and was hired for the “best job in the world,” the star was presented to him at a Wednesday ceremony in the House Speaker’s library in the state Capitol.

“I thank you for coming, for honoring me at this time,” Stamatakos said at the ceremony. “And I honor you for your friendship, for your patience on occasion and for taking time off from your lives and your weeks and honoring me. I thank you all. This is very touching and I’ll never forget it.”

Mission #23

There are moments when you do what you have to do, Stamatakos will tell you. And you don’t think about it.

“I think basically in times of emergency, you know something has to be done and let’s say you know it is what you have to do or you don’t — you’re still going to try and if it doesn’t work, well, goodbye,” he said.

Cutting the bombs was one of those emergencies.

“Everyone is in the back part and they’re all pointing at the bomb swinging back and forth, the other one hanging up, and they’re all looking at me as if I’m the savior,” Stamatakos said.

“I didn’t know what to do. … I did what I thought I had to do. I think that kind of describes it.”

After the plane landed and after the men kissed the ground, several crew members spoke to the pilot and asked him to nominate Stamatakos for a Silver Star, said Richard Rainoldi, a retired Air Force colonel who was one of Stamatakos’ crew mates.

“The pilot decided that he just was doing his job, which I thought was wrong,” Rainoldi said.

“If it wasn’t for Lou, I wouldn’t have two daughters, I wouldn’t have had any grandchildren. He wouldn’t have any children … He saved 10 lives and an aircraft.”

Life goes on

After he stopped shaking that day, Stamatakos said life moved on.

“After that, well you have other things to do, to look out for,” he said. “So that was it.”

Soldiers live day to day, he said. So after the bombs fell, the men celebrated and went on with it.

“You figure well, you’ll do what you’re told, you’ll learn what you’re supposed to learn, maybe all that learning’s going to help save your life and with a little bit of luck, maybe you’ll get out alive,” he said.

He came home, went to college, met his wife and had children. He taught higher education administration at several schools before coming to MSU. He retired in 1992.

He never knew about the Silver Star.

At first he had nightmares about the war. On occasion, he sang Army songs with his brother, but other than that, people didn’t really talk about the war.

And then, in 1992, he and several crewmates got together over a couple of fifths of whiskey and scotch and reminisced about the war.

“Hey, Greek,” someone said. “Did you ever get that Silver Star?”

It was the first time Stamatakos had heard of it and he dismissed it.

“We just left well enough alone,” he said. “We said, ‘So what? That was 50 some years ago. We’re alive, we’ve had a good life. That’s all that counts.”

A soldier’s chronicle

Several years ago, Stamatakos handed each of his sons a book put together at Kinko’s after four years of writing.

“He had mentioned once several years ago that he was pulling together some notes on his childhood,” said his oldest son, Philip Stamatakos. “My brothers and I never paid much attention to that.”

The book details Louis Stamatakos’ life, from growing up during the Great Depression and dreaming of flying, to the 22 months he spent in the war.

And in the 387 pages of the book, titled “Contrails and Combat,” are several pages devoted to the events of Mission #23 on Feb. 28, 1945 in Kassel, Germany.

The account stood out to the Stamatakos’ sons, who decided to see if, 65 years later, they could get their father that Silver Star.

“I read it two or three times because it took a while to sink in,” said Ted Stamatakos, the middle son. “I try to put myself in his situation and say, ‘Could I have done that? Would I have done that?’ I don’t think I could.”

The three sons contacted U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and submitted the paperwork to nominate their father for the Silver Star. They didn’t hear anything for eight or nine months, Philip Stamatakos said.

On Christmas Eve, Louis Stamatakos came home from church to find a package from the Army.

“I said, ‘What the hell, I’m 84 years old, what would the Army want with me,” he said. “My wife said, ‘Who knows? Open it.’”

Inside were four letters written by four different people attesting to the events of Feb. 28, 1945.

Louis Stamatakos called his youngest son to ask what he had to do with it.

“I was in my driveway and my brother called me and said, ‘He got the Silver Star,’” Ted Stamatakos recalled. “I said ‘You got to be kidding me, I don’t believe it.’ I started to cry.”

Ceremony

As in the case of many other men and women serving in the military, the day Louis Stamatakos saved the crew and plane came and went, Levin said at Wednesday’s ceremony.

The Silver Star he was awarded also serves as a recognition for all of soldiers whose actions will never be recognized, he said.

Levin said the stories of such soldiers often are forgotten.

“I’m telling you these stories get lost without the kids and the grandkids,” Levin said to Tim Stamatakos after the ceremony. “They get lost.”

But Stamatakos could have won the award for a number of different things he did in his life, said Pete Jennings, a close family friend who said Louis Stamatakos was like a father figure to him.

“It’s just a reflection of who he is,” Jennings said. “It’s not so much for doing this, it’s an achievement award for the different things in his life, for who he is. It’s who Mr. Stamatakos is.”