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The Stanly County Historical Society will host Oakboro native Dr. Charles Coble as the featured speaker at the annual member appreciation banquet on Sept. 29.

His presentation will highlight an historical Stanly County connection to the1945 dropping of the atomic bomb and the secret and highly sophisticated mission that brought World War II to an end.

Coble will share some background, facts and rare photographs and present recollections of his Uncle Warren’s account of the mission as told at a family Christmas gathering in the early 1950s.

The late Warren L. Coble, also a native of Oakboro, flew on companion flights for both atomic bomb missions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

Sgt. Coble, radio operator and navigator in the U.S. Army Air Force, was recruited into the 393rd Bomb Squadron of the 509th Composite Group and eventually deployed to Tinian Island in the Pacific.

From there he served as radio operator on both flights that photographed the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima, Aug. 6, and Nagasaki, Aug. 9.

After the war and after completing his law degree at then Wake Forest College, he became an attorney in Albemarle with the firm Coble, Morton, and Grigg, Attorneys at Law.

He was an active and involved member of the Albemarle First Baptist Church.

Charles Coble is professor and dean emeritus of the East Carolina School of Education and former vice president of the University of North Carolina System.

He presented a program last year for the Stanly County Historical Society at Juneberry Ridge near Norwood titled “Rocky River Springs: A Connection to the James Madison White House.”

During the evening program, Kent Harkey, president of the SCHS, will present the 2022 Annual Report, and Dr. J.C. Boone, chairman of the recent “Preserving Our Heritage” $500,000 endowment campaign, will share progress results.

The dinner will be 6-8:15 p.m. in the Family Education Center of the Central United Methodist Church, 172 N. Second St., Albemarle. The cost is $10 per member.

For more information about becoming a member or to make reservations, call 704-986-3777.