Paul Russell Cross, 96, one of Lead's elder "gentleman" died July 11, 2013 at the David M. Dorsett Healthcare Center in Spearfish.


Born in Chicago, Illinois on October 19, 1916, he was the son of John W. and Minnie (Doty) Cross. The family lived on a farm in northwestern Iowa for a few years and then moved to Hastings, Nebraska when Paul was about eight.


Paul graduated from Hastings High School in 1934. He wanted to go to college but like many young people during the Depression, had little money. He talked to the registrar at Hastings College who asked him how much money he had. Paul allowed he had a total of $7.50. The registrar said, "Fine, that will be $5.00 for your student activities fee and $2.50 for books!" Paul than got a part time job at the Adams County Weekly to help pay for the rest of his college stay. While in college he excelled in track and basketball. He graduated in 1939 with a major in English and a minor in Economics.


Following graduation, he became a full time reporter for the Adams County Weekly covering local sports, the courthouse and the local government. About a year later with war clouds gathering over Europe, Paul told his mother that he was going to enlist. "Paul, don't do that," she told him, "there's no war anywhere." "There soon will be," Paul replied and enlisted in the Army Air Corps. A week after he entered basic training, Paul's father died. When home for that funeral, Paul assured his distraught mother that he and her other children would take care of her. Thereafter, Paul sent home all but $7.00 a month to her from his pay which started out at $18 a month. After the war, when Paul returned to Hastings, his mother turned over a savings account where she had put the money he had sent home. It was nearly $1,500 and it paid off his college loan.


Completing basic training at Ft. Leavenworth in Kansas, Paul went on for advanced training at military bases at Tucson, Arizona and Pueblo, Colorado. Completing those courses, he became a specialist in bomb sights and automatic pilot electronics. In order to get clearance to work on the then top secret Norden Bombsight, Paul had to be cleared by the FBI. "They talked to my professors, my principal, my pastor and even my mother" he said years later. "Apparently no one had anything bad to say about me," he chuckled.


Paul was shipped over to a China in 1943 and first worked at a base at Kun Ming. He kept the bomb sights and auto pilots working on the B-24 bombers stationed there. In order to check on this equipment he would fly with the bomber crew from China to India over the Himalayas. There were very few emergency landing spots along the way and many planes were lost "flying the hump" as it was called. One time the bomber he was in did set down on one of those short emergency landing spots in the middle of a jungle. Flying out of the landing strip was perilous: Paul heard the tops of the trees at the end of the landing strip hitting the bottom of the bomber as it climbed in its take off. "I was really scared," Paul said in recounting the incident.
When the base had to be moved, Paul, who was then a second lieutenant, was picked by the base commander to move 22 vehicles loaded with cargo and equipment to Liuchow, a forward base about 600 miles away. The move was required because the Japanese Army had advanced to within 20 miles of the base. Paul was able to hand pick 50 men to go with him. They were all armed; Paul carried a submachine gun. Part of the territory that they would travel would go through the area controlled by Mao Tse Tung, the Communist revolutionary. There were many natural barriers such as streams to ford and mountains to negotiate. They even had to plow through 18 inches of snow at one point. However, Paul was able to get to the new base "without loss of man or machine." It took 13 days. His beard had grown so long that Paul could hardly recognize himself in the mirror.


Paul was in the 425th Squadron of the 308th Bomber Group of the 14th Air Force. Known as the "Yellow Jackets", they had the insignia of the wasp on their flight jackets and their planes. The Bomber Group received a presidential citation for outstanding efforts in sinking over 100 Japanese boats including several cruisers, and damaging at least 50 other. Paul was honorably discharged in 1945 as a First Lieutenant.


Paul enjoyed his tour in China. He had his first sweet and sour pork dish there. Although he wasn't a drinker, he admitted to enjoying Chinese plum wine on occasion. He met some pretty Chinese women who were invited to the base dances. But he decided not to get too serious with any of them when they indicated they were looking for a husband. When discharged, Paul and others sailed from China west through the Indian Ocean, the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean Sea and then the Atlantic, finally landing in New York after 20 days at sea. "We docked at night. The next morning I got up and looked down the Hudson River. There was Miss Liberty. "My God, we're home!", Paul recounted, his voice still emotional 66 years after the homecoming.


He resumed his career as a newspaperman in Hastings. That paper was owned by Seaton Publishing. In 1947, Seaton purchased the Lead Daily Call and the Deadwood Pioneer Times and moved Paul to Lead to run the papers as managing editor. While in the position he met Dolly Ruzick who worked in the Penny's Store in Lead. They married in 1951. Shortly after that they moved to Idaho and purchased The Arco Advertiser. They were involved in several other newspaper ventures before returning to work for the Rapid City Journal in 1963. In 1974, Paul and Dolly moved back to Lead where Paul rejoined the Seaton Publishing Company papers here. He retired in 1981.


Paul and Dolly enjoyed the Black Hills and did a lot of fishing, golfing at the Tomahawk Club, hunting deer and hiking. Paul returned to China in a flight organized for some veterans in 1994. Of course the country had changed a lot but Paul found it interesting. One difference he noted was that the multitudes of bikes he saw there during the War were now replaced by multitudes of cars. As he looked back on his military career, he found it exciting. "You never knew, from day to day, what was going to happen and what new thing you were going to experience."


Paul was a big Nebraska Huskers fan. He wore his Huskers hat every day and had the Big Red "H" by his entrance door. During the football season he avidly followed the team which was a great source of entertainment for him. Paul was also a life member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Episcopal Church.


Preceding him in death were his wife, Dolly, his parents, two brothers and one sister. He is survived by numerous nieces and nephew including Peggy Cross Wilkinson who has managed to visit him regularly these past years.

Memorial services will be held Tuesday, July 16, 2013 at 10:00 AM at Lead-Deadwood Memorial Chapel in Lead with the Rev. Vern Raschke officiating. Inurnment will be in the Black Hills National Cemetery.