Vet gets medal, 68 years later

Longtime North Forker Lee Downes got a surprise on Sunday — a medal for his military service in post-war Europe, 68 years after the fact.

Tom Countryman, a retired Naval Hospital Corpsman Master Chief from Columbia Falls heard Downes had never received his Army of Occupation Medal. The medal was created in the aftermath of World War II to recognize those who had performed occupation service in either Germany, Italy, Austria or Japan.

Countryman served in the Navy for 30 years and has connections in the Pentagon. After hearing Downes story, he made some calls to friends in the Pentagon and two weeks later, Downes’ medal arrived.

Countryman gave it to Downes Sunday during a gathering of friends and family at the Nite Owl/Back Room Restaurant.

Downes, who will soon be 92, served in the Army from 1950 to 1953. He probably would have qualified for the Olympics as a sharpshooter, but he was drafted and sent overseas. He landed in Casablanca, Morocco and eventually served in Italy and Germany.

“I wouldn’t take a million dollars for the experience and I wouldn’t give 10 cents to do it again,” he said with a laugh after Countryman gave him the medal.

Downes became severely seasick at the end of his tour on the boat ride home and the Army was happy to be rid of him, he said. It burned him that he never received his medals. He suspects others medals should be coming his way, including one recognizing his shooting ability while in the military.

Downes recalled a few stories from his service, including walking over to a hole in the ground that was a good 15 feet wide and nearly as deep. It was the hub of a propeller from a fighter plane.

“People don’t realize what those guys went through,” he said.

He recalled seeing 200 to 300 steam engines piled up at a yard in Nuremberg. Crews were salvaging the parts to make working engines a full five years after the war had ended.

Downes recalled one Sergeant he met, just a short fellow, who landed at Normandy and fought his way to Berlin during the war — all on foot.

Folks who visit the North Fork have driven by Downes’s place, just after Coal Creek on the North Fork Road. He said he bought it for the timber but then decided it would be nice to have a cabin there. The family lived in the basement while they finished the house. He held a variety of jobs over the years, including a logger and a dozer operator.

In 1961, Downes married Marietta Louise Downes. She had lost her first husband, Neil Christenson, when he was killed in a hunting accident. Downes said Christenson was his best friend.

Downes did what he could to help Marietta in the years following Christenson’s death and eventually the two became a couple.

Marietta had two daughters and two sons from her first marriage. Downes moved in with the family in a house near Martin City. He and Marietta later had two daughters, Kerri and Marilee.

In the mid-1960s, the family purchased what they eventually came to call “the river place” or The Soaring Eagle Ranch. The 136 acres were west of the North Fork Road in the vicinity of the big sign that informs northbound motorists that the road ahead is bordered by private land for many miles.

One day, Downes followed tracks of an elk and the bootprints of what he assumed to be hunters across the family property. Ultimately, he saw evidence that an elk had been shot, but nary a hunter in sight. He suddenly realized, too late, that a grizzly bear had claimed the carcass.

Downes said as soon as he made eye contact with the bear, the animal charged. At first, a thick stand of lodgepole pines thwarted the grizzly’s advance. But then the bear found an opening and quickly approached to within about 30 feet.

“I shot it in the neck,” he recalled. “It didn’t die right away. He stood up and was grabbing at the lodgepoles and then fell over dead.”

Countryman said he was happy to help Downes get his medal and said if other local veterans need help with medals, he is happy to assist them as well. After 30 years in the Navy, he now lives on Columbia Falls in the community where he was born and raised.

“I’m more than happy to be a conduit,” he said.

This story contains additional information from a 2019 Interview with Downes by Daily Inter Lake reporter Duncan Adams.