Family fought battle together 

7 Dasso veterans include 2 fallen.

The young pilot knew the plane was going down, so he ordered those passengers who could to bail out. The 23-year-old Rock Island airman refused to abandon the crippled craft himself, hoping desperately he could somehow save the plane and its cargo of wounded soldiers. He struggled at the controls, but, within minutes, the airplane smashed into a ditch in Madgeburg, France, and burst into flames. On Jan. 28, 1945, World War II created another hero pilot Eugene Dasso, Rock Island. Two of Mr. Dasso's six broth ers sat down last week to talk about Eugene, World War II and the Dasso family, which sent a troop of seven siblings marching overseas. Only five of them marched back home. Robert and Vincent Dasso, both of Milan, proudly told how the survivors who had jumped to safety from their brother Eugene's airplane 50 years ago traveled to Rock Island after the war to meet Henry and Frances Dasso, the parents of the brave pilot. "Eugene had every chance to bail out, but he wouldn't do it with the wounded on board," said Vincent. Sadly, Eugene's death was the second blow to strike the Dasso family. Twenty-six-year-old Carl, also a pilot and the oldest of nine Dasso children, had been shot down during a raid over Berlin less than a year earlier. Carl, Vincent, Robert and Eugene were joined in World War II by their sister Lucille and brothers Raymond and Leo. Robert was a bombardier and navigator who was stationed in England, not far from brothers Carl and Eugene. He had taken a leave to visit his big brother, Carl, in May 1944. The day he arrived at Carl's base, he was told his brother had been killed. "They acted kind of stunned when I asked to see Carl. They wouldn't talk to me. That's when I found out," Robert remembered. By a cruel coincidence, Robert took another leave in January 1945, this time to visit younger brother Eugene. But he learned that, once again, he was too late. Vincent, who was serving in the Merchant Marines, learned of his family's second loss when a family friend invited him for a walk. "She told me that my brother (Eugene) was dead. Man, I couldn't talk for a while," he said. While overseas, Vincent and Robert worried about their parents back in Rock Island and how they would deal with the loss of a second son. Carl and Eugene were buried overseas, and the Dasso family did not hold services at home. "My mother didn't want it, because she didn't think she could stand it. It wore on them pretty bad," said Robert. It wore on Robert and Vincent, too. Vincent said he was already feeling "beaten up" when he came back to the States after serving in the war for nearly three years. "After all I'd been through, and then to lose another brother ..." he said, his voice trailing off. The young Marine had watched a ship explode while hauling ammunition in the Philippines, and it had left a dark mark on his memory. "We were over a mile away, and it knocked everybody on our ship to the ground. Not long after that, we were hauling thousands of tons of ammunition in New Guinea. Other ships weren't even allowed around us because of what we were carrying. It was kind of cary, after seeing that ship explode," Vincent said,The war left its mark on Robert too, who, according to Vincent, "had the toughest go of it." Robert flew 63 missions during his year-long tour in World War II. Robert remembers Christmas Day of 1944, when he didn't get a meal. He was too busy dropping bombs at the Battle of the Bulge. Robert didn't talk about that experience, or anything else associated with the war, for 40 years. "I think I was in shock and a state of grief. Over there, you didn't let your feelings show," he said. He no longer hides those feelings. Robert and Vincent live less than a mile from each other in Milan. They laugh easily as they tell the amazing tales from five decades past. The war didn't beat them down. Their spirits were bigger than the Big One. They took turns telling the story of their sister, Lucille, who worked as a nurse during the war. The brothers explained how, 25 years after the war, a paratrooper spent two years searching the country for Lucille the nurse who saved his life. "He just had to find her. And he did. They still write to each other," said Vincent. The five Dasso veterans sometimes talk about the war they shared, but "not all the time," said Robert. He and Vincent stayed playful and pleasant as they spoke of the Dasso family's amazing role in the war. After 50 years, the brothers still seem a little stunned by the numbers seven kids from one family serving in the war. "It was volunteer or get drafted, so they got us," Vincent laughed. "It might not be a record, but it's a hell of a good average," he said. And the brothers laughed together.