FROM ROMANIA TO GG IN A 1939 BUICK
Cornell Iliescu wants to honor ‘Greatest Generation’

CORNELL ILIESCU (on the right) & ELENA (on the left) with the 1939 Buick which  is at the center of an adventure stretching from Romania to Garden Grove.

From Romania to Garden Grove “It ’s all about patriotism. It ’s about passing the torch from one generation to another.”

By Melissa Morton Garden Grove Journal

   August 1943. Six-year-old Cornell Iliescu is riding in a black 1939 Buick alongside his father in the countryside of Romania. American B-24 bombers were attacking the oil refineries in Ploesti, in one of the most famous (and costly) air attacks of World War II, and Iliescu and his father are motoring to the rescue of U.S. aviators hotly pursued by Nazi forces.  

 March 2009. The very same Buick, with a 71-year-old Cornell at the wheel, pulls onto Main Street in downtown Garden Grove to take part in the Friday night car show.

“It’s all about patriotism,” he said, dressed in the nostalgic uniform of an Army Air Corps officer. “It’s about passing the torch from one generation to the next,””to remind people that American soldiers didn't die in vain.” His father was employed as transportation manager of the Concordia Vega Oil Refinery in Ploesti. At that time,German troops occupied Romania, and the Ploesti oil fields were a major supplier of petroleum to the Axis war machine. During the raid on Aug. 1, the elder Iliescu spotted a downed B-24 Liberator bomber. He told Cornell to hide in the woods while he raced to the aircraft to pull American airmen out and get them o safety. While they were hiding, the aviators befriended Cornell, giving him a pair of pliers to play with, as well as his first Hershey’s chocolate bar. Although the airmen were eventually made prisoners of war, Cornell never forget them or the dream of America they inspired. 

“The dream to be American was more than anything else,” said Illisecu. Romania saw its Nazi overlords re- placed by Communist rulers, but he managed to make it to the U.S. in 1970. Cornell hunted for the Buick Cornell and the 1939 Buick until 2006, when he discovered that after a series of European owners, the car had found its way to New Jersey. The American owner died, leaving the car to his daughter who put it up from sale on Ebay, where Cornell found it and purchased it. He has since restored the car and now travels around Southern California, showing the car and telling his story to raise money and awareness for his Noble Cause Foundation, whose purpose has been to “preserve and protect the legacy of the greatest generation.” That’s what brought Cornell and the Buick to the Garden Grove car show. He’s “not just displaying the car, [but] paying tribute to some heroes that died.” For those reasons, he plans on returning to Garden Grove with a new display that continues a historic adventure that began thousands of miles away in the same car that came rolling onto Main Street five decades later.


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