LeMay – LBJ – MLK – Thousand Word Pictures

While we were growing up a controversy simmered regarding LBJ’s WWII service and his receipt of a Silver Star medal, one of our country’s highest honors for heroism. There are several good online references available that tell detailed stories about the event. Let me leave it that this picture tells quite a bit about the real story of his Silver Star—I had not seen it until recently. A lot of similar photos are coming out of formerly private collections and are being posted online.

Refer to my previous posting and to any good online bio of General Curtis LeMay. See if this December 1963 picture tells you the same story it tells me.

This 1966 picture tells a story of its own.

At the 2008 inauguration, there was this one....

 About 1967-68, an NSC meeting...

Adios

Father's Day - 2014

Only about one-sixth of the men serving in the military during WWII saw any combat. My father (R), saw quite a bit of it…my father-in-law (L) saw none. However, my father-in-law captured a Japanese soldier, an accomplishment for which he received quite a bit of notoriety and respect. As with many such stories, there was a “rest of the story” to it.

The Rest of the Story. My father-in-law, Larry, was an older man with a wife, a young daughter, and a burgeoning career as a big band leader. For him, WWII was a nuisance that he wanted to avoid, if he could…so he didn’t volunteer for service, he had a family to support and was gambling that the draft would not reach men his age. Nevertheless, he received his draft notice in April 1944, about a year before the end of WWII. He was 29. Found among his things was the newspaper clipping from his hometown paper. It told 2-stories, although he only knew one of them—he was one of those scraped from the “bottom of the barrel” as proclaimed in the circled headline.

The second article, circled at lower right, told of the largest Air Force bombing raid ever launched; this one, one of the first sent to Berlin. My father, the guy on the right above, was one of those flying that mission. Larry never knew the combined story, nor did my father. I put the story together after comparing their separate records.

In late July 1945 Larry was aboard a troop transport with several thousand others sailing west from San Francisco…destination, Okinawa, a Japanese island about 450-miles south of the Japanese mainland. The Battle for Okinawa, which claimed about 65,000 Allied casualties, had just wound up in June. Okinawa was to be the staging ground for the invasion of Japan and Larry was slated to be one of the soldiers in the invading army. Fortunately for him, President Truman made the decision to drop the first 2 atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki while Larry was on that troop ship and the war ended. His procrastination had paid off, but only by a small margin.

Okinawa was a mess when he got there. Besides the 65,000 Allied casualties, there were over 100,000 Japanese soldiers lost during the battle. And there continued to be isolated Japanese resistance for many weeks after war’s end.

Larry was a good-humored, skilled raconteur who often told the story of his capture of a Japanese soldier on Okinawa—something very few soldiers ever accomplished. He was on the crapper, pants down, and his rifle a few steps away when he looked up and saw a Japanese soldier advancing on him from across a field with his rifle braced diagonally across his chest. Larry was in a tough situation…largely incapacitated, his rifle a few steps away. For a few seconds that seemed like an eternity, Larry had no idea how he was going to get out of his rotten predicament.

Suddenly, the Japanese soldier threw down his rifle and raised his hands over his head. He was surrendering…to Larry, the first American soldier he could find--the one sitting on the crapper. He hurried to hitch up his pants, grab his rifle, and take charge of his prisoner. Larry never told the whole story to others while he was in the service, preferring to be known as the guy who had single-handedly captured the Japanese soldier on Okinawa.

His soldierly feat, along with his musical expertise paved the way for him to find a band leader assignment to the Army Band in Occupied Japan for a couple of years after the war. It was during those years that the picture above was undoubtedly taken. Larry was also the “very tall Wally” who never fixed things I mentioned in a previous article HERE. He was a helluva guy.

Dad’s picture above also has an interesting story. It was taken in London during late March 1944, just after he had completed his first 6 missions…the ones during which many young aviators lost their lives as “green crews” flying in the tail-end Charlie position. Sitting beside him were his pilot and co-pilot. He described this leave and portrait sitting in his journal which is how I was able to fit it into his story. Four of those first six missions were to Berlin and were among the bloodiest ever flown by the Eighth Air Force…it was a miracle he was alive to be sitting for this picture. Those anxious young eyes were very quickly becoming more serious as the days passed. Notice there were no ribbons on his chest at this point…the vacant space would fill up substantially during the ensuing weeks as he flew 44 more.

...and he was buying me a drink (Andy Rooney)

Our WWII Fathers

Father's Days and Veteran's Days find most of us with only fond memories of our fathers. A touching thing began to develop recently on Facebook as first one then another of our classmates began to post pictures of their fathers. Several of them posted pictures of their dads in their WWII uniforms.

It happens that the WWII Army Air Force has been a topic I've delved deeply into over the past few years. Except in general terms, many people, including me, had little idea what our fathers did during the war. A lot of them were front line warriors, others were in support functions, still others served in stateside billets. All of them did their parts to preserve our country for us and our children.

I hope you will choose to participate in this ongoing project to add your father's picture to the collages that I hope grow from this small start.  Classes of 1960-65 welcome.

Send me a picture of your Dad in uniform and I will be pleased to add it to the collection posted here.

This modest blog has had over 138,000 views (402,000 as of 2023.Oct) and gets about 100-200 new views each day. Not bad for a bunch of computer illiterate old duffers, eh?  SEND 'EM IN.

July 2011 update: My father was one of those young men who flew in the bombers high in the skies over Europe during WWII. During the early months of the war the young airmen were shot out of the sky in such alarming numbers that the bombing missions were entirely halted for some weeks while the brass scrambled to figure out how to combat the deadly effectiveness of Hitler’s Luftwaffe. As the Air Force was strengthened, the Luftwaffe was effectively neutered by Spring 1944. After that, it could only mount vigorous defensive attacks on infrequent occasions. The danger to the airmen increasingly came from the deadly accurate anti-aircraft guns on the ground…flak.

Dad’s diary provides an interesting account of his experiences aloft during 1944-45. Wording in his diary was purposely frugal. He never showed it to me nor talked much about his war experiences. Only in recent years have I been able to learn quite a bit of what he saw, but never told…it was frightening. His diary, that of a 21-year old, showed a degree of youthful excitement during his first tour, Spring 1944; but, his second tour, which ended in early March 1945, was clearly less eventful. The war was winding down.

Recently, a pair of pictures were posted to an account of a late March 1945, mid-air collision over Germany, near Koblenz. The pictures were far more detailed than any I had ever seen before. One of the difficult things for an airman to tell and a layman to understand is the stark terror and grinding fear that accompanied most of our young WWII Army Air Force aviators flying in the ETO. The picture posted below shows the 2 bombers plunging to earth a few moments after their collision. Pictures like this are very rare and this one tells the story my father and so many of his fellows couldn't.

Ten young men are still in each of the planes. Two will survive, eighteen will die. One man got out in time to open his parachute about 400-feet above the ground. The other, a ball-turret gunner, fell to earth unable to get out of his turret…and he survived! When this collision occurred, Dad was en-route home, his second-tour missions completed, his part in the war, done….

June 2014 Update:  Added new photos.

Nov 2023 Update:  Added Holman photo.


Bail out, Jimmy.  Are there any chutes?

Quintessential Texas - Spring Bluebonnets

One of the neat things about the net and Facebook is that some of my friends have been putting up some great bluebonnet photos recently.  What's better than a Longhorn in a field of bluebonnets?

...or a chicken...but, be careful...

 ...one guy added...watch out for the fire ants, too.

 

Oh yes, this is a very good day !

What now?  Lost 'em or can't find 'em ?

Adios

Our Lives, Our Sacred Honor

 

The following piece has, I think, been around for some time; there was, I believe, a small booklet sold in the National Park Service bookstores that outlined the underlying facts. This most recent version of it comes to us courtesy of Rush Limbaugh.

If you have had the opportunity to visit Independence Hall in Philadelphia, then you've seen the room where the Declaration of Independence was hammered out and signed. If you've had the opportunity to visit Mt. Vernon, Monticello, and some of the Signers' James River plantation homes you've seen that our Founders were not insubstantial men. They were very well educated men of means. Signing the Declaration of Independence put each of them at enormous risk.

The Americans Who Risked Everything

My father, Rush H. Limbaugh, Jr., delivered this oft-requested address locally a number of times, but it had never before appeared in print until it appeared in The Limbaugh Letter.  My dad was renowned for his oratory skills and for his original mind; this speech is, I think, a superb demonstration of both.  I will always be grateful to him for instilling in me a passion for the ideas and lives of America's Founders, as well as a deep appreciation for the inspirational power of words which you will see evidenced here:

"Our Lives, Our Fortunes, Our Sacred Honor"

It was a glorious morning.  The sun was shining and the wind was from the southeast.  Up especially early, a tall bony, redheaded young Virginian found time to buy a new thermometer, for which he paid three pounds, fifteen shillings.  He also bought gloves for Martha, his wife, who was ill at home.

Thomas Jefferson arrived early at the statehouse.  The temperature was 72.5 degrees and the horseflies weren't nearly so bad at that hour.  It was a lovely room, very large, with gleaming white walls.  The chairs were comfortable.  Facing the single door were two brass fireplaces, but they would not be used today.

The moment the door was shut, and it was always kept locked, the room became an oven.  The tall windows were shut, so that loud quarreling voices could not be heard by passersby.  Small openings atop the windows allowed a slight stir of air, and also a large number of horseflies.  Jefferson records that "the horseflies were dexterous in finding necks, and the silk of stockings was nothing to them."  All discussing was punctuated by the slap of hands on necks.

On the wall at the back, facing the president's desk was a panoply -- consisting of a drum, swords, and banners seized from Fort Ticonderoga the previous year.  Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold had captured the place, shouting that they were taking it "in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!"

Now Congress got to work, promptly taking up an emergency measure about which there was discussion but no dissension.  "Resolved: That an application be made to the Committee of Safety of Pennsylvania for a supply of flints for the troops at New York."

Then Congress transformed itself into a committee of the whole.  The Declaration of Independence was read aloud once more, and debate resumed.  Though Jefferson was the best writer of all of them, he had been somewhat verbose.  Congress hacked the excess away.  They did a good job, as a side-by-side comparison of the rough draft and the final text shows.  They cut the phrase "by a self-assumed power."  "Climb" was replaced by "must read," then "must" was eliminated, then the whole sentence, and soon the whole paragraph was cut.  Jefferson groaned as they continued what he later called "their depredations."  "Inherent and inalienable rights" came out "certain unalienable rights," and to this day no one knows who suggested the elegant change.

A total of 86 alterations were made.  Almost 500 words were eliminated, leaving 1,337.  At last, after three days of wrangling, the document was put to a vote.

Here in this hall Patrick Henry had once thundered: "I am no longer a Virginian, sir, but an American."  But today the loud, sometimes bitter argument stilled, and without fanfare the vote was taken from north to south by colonies, as was the custom.  On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was adopted.

There were no trumpets blown.  No one stood on his chair and cheered.  The afternoon was waning and Congress had no thought of delaying the full calendar of routine business on its hands.  For several hours they worked on many other problems before adjourning for the day.

Much To Lose

What kind of men were the 56 signers who adopted the Declaration of Independence and who, by their signing, committed an act of treason against the crown?  To each of you, the names Franklin, Adams, Hancock and Jefferson are almost as familiar as household words.  Most of us, however, know nothing of the other signers.  Who were they?  What happened to them?

I imagine that many of you are somewhat surprised at the names not there: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Patrick Henry.  All were elsewhere.

Ben Franklin was the only really old man.  Eighteen were under 40; three were in their 20s.  Of the 56 almost half - 24 - were judges and lawyers.  Eleven were merchants, nine were landowners and farmers, and the remaining 12 were doctors, ministers, and politicians.

With only a few exceptions, such as Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, these were men of substantial property.  All but two had families.  The vast majority were men of education and standing in their communities.  They had economic security as few men had in the 18th Century.

Each had more to lose from revolution than he had to gain by it.  John Hancock, one of the richest men in America, already had a price of 500 pounds on his head.  He signed in enormous letters so that his Majesty could now read his name without glasses and could now double the reward.  Ben Franklin wryly noted: "Indeed we must all hang together, otherwise we shall most assuredly hang separately."

Fat Benjamin Harrison of Virginia told tiny Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts: "With me it will all be over in a minute, but you, you will be dancing on air an hour after I am gone."

These men knew what they risked.  The penalty for treason was death by hanging.  And remember, a great British fleet was already at anchor in New York Harbor.

They were sober men.  There were no dreamy-eyed intellectuals or draft card burners here.  They were far from hot-eyed fanatics yammering for an explosion.  They simply asked for the status quo.  It was change they resisted.  It was equality with the mother country they desired.  It was taxation with representation they sought.  They were all conservatives, yet they rebelled.

It was principle, not property, that had brought these men to Philadelphia.  Two of them became presidents of the United States.  Seven of them became state governors.  One died in office as vice president of the United States.  Several would go on to be U.S. Senators.  One, the richest man in America, in 1828 founded the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.  One, a delegate from Philadelphia, was the only real poet, musician and philosopher of the signers.  (It was he, Francis Hopkinson not Betsy Ross who designed the United States flag.)

Richard Henry Lee, a delegate from Virginia, had introduced the resolution to adopt the Declaration of Independence in June of 1776.  He was prophetic in his concluding remarks: "Why then sir, why do we longer delay?  Why still deliberate?  Let this happy day give birth to an American Republic.  Let her arise not to devastate and to conquer but to reestablish the reign of peace and law.

"The eyes of Europe are fixed upon us.  She demands of us a living example of freedom that may exhibit a contrast in the felicity of the citizen to the ever-increasing tyranny which desolates her polluted shores.  She invites us to prepare an asylum where the unhappy may find solace, and the persecuted repost.

"If we are not this day wanting in our duty, the names of the American Legislatures of 1776 will be placed by posterity at the side of all of those whose memory has been and ever will be dear to virtuous men and good citizens."

Though the resolution was formally adopted July 4, it was not until July 8 that two of the states authorized their delegates to sign, and it was not until August 2 that the signers met at Philadelphia to actually put their names to the Declaration.

William Ellery, delegate from Rhode Island, was curious to see the signers' faces as they committed this supreme act of personal courage.  He saw some men sign quickly, "but in no face was he able to discern real fear." Stephan Hopkins, Ellery's colleague from Rhode Island, was a man past 60.  As he signed with a shaking pen, he declared: "My hand trembles, but my heart does not."

"Most Glorious Service"

Even before the list was published, the British marked down every member of Congress suspected of having put his name to treason.  All of them became the objects of vicious manhunts.  Some were taken.  Some, like Jefferson, had narrow escapes.  All who had property or families near British strongholds suffered.

• Francis Lewis, New York delegate saw his home plundered -- and his estates in what is now Harlem -- completely destroyed by British Soldiers.  Mrs. Lewis was captured and treated with great brutality.  Though she was later exchanged for two British prisoners through the efforts of Congress, she died from the effects of her abuse.

• William Floyd, another New York delegate, was able to escape with his wife and children across Long Island Sound to Connecticut, where they lived as refugees without income for seven years.  When they came home they found a devastated ruin.

• Philips Livingstone had all his great holdings in New York confiscated and his family driven out of their home.  Livingstone died in 1778 still working in Congress for the cause.

• Louis Morris, the fourth New York delegate, saw all his timber, crops, and livestock taken.  For seven years he was barred from his home and family.

• John Hart of Trenton, New Jersey, risked his life to return home to see his dying wife.  Hessian soldiers rode after him, and he escaped in the woods.  While his wife lay on her deathbed, the soldiers ruined his farm and wrecked his homestead.  Hart, 65, slept in caves and woods as he was hunted across the countryside.  When at long last, emaciated by hardship, he was able to sneak home, he found his wife had already been buried, and his 13 children taken away.  He never saw them again.  He died a broken man in 1779, without ever finding his family.

• Dr. John Witherspoon, signer, was president of the College of New Jersey, later called Princeton.  The British occupied the town of Princeton, and billeted troops in the college. They trampled and burned the finest college library in the country.

• Judge Richard Stockton, another New Jersey delegate signer, had rushed back to his estate in an effort to evacuate his wife and children.  The family found refuge with friends, but a Tory sympathizer betrayed them.  Judge Stockton was pulled from bed in the night and brutally beaten by the arresting soldiers.  Thrown into a common jail, he was deliberately starved.  Congress finally arranged for Stockton's parole, but his health was ruined.  The judge was released as an invalid, when he could no longer harm the British cause.  He returned home to find his estate looted and did not live to see the triumph of the Revolution. His family was forced to live off charity.

• Robert Morris, merchant prince of Philadelphia, delegate and signer, met Washington's appeals and pleas for money year after year.  He made and raised arms and provisions which made it possible for Washington to cross the Delaware at Trenton.  In the process he lost 150 ships at sea, bleeding his own fortune and credit almost dry.

• George Clymer, Pennsylvania signer, escaped with his family from their home, but their property was completely destroyed by the British in the Germantown and Brandywine campaigns.

• Dr. Benjamin Rush, also from Pennsylvania, was forced to flee to Maryland.  As a heroic surgeon with the army, Rush had several narrow escapes.

• John Martin, a Tory in his views previous to the debate, lived in a strongly loyalist area of Pennsylvania.  When he came out for independence, most of his neighbors and even some of his relatives ostracized him.  He was a sensitive and troubled man, and many believed this action killed him.  When he died in 1777, his last words to his tormentors were: "Tell them that they will live to see the hour when they shall acknowledge it [the signing] to have been the most glorious service that I have ever rendered to my country."

• William Ellery, Rhode Island delegate, saw his property and home burned to the ground.

• Thomas Lynch, Jr., South Carolina delegate, had his health broken from privation and exposures while serving as a company commander in the military.  His doctors ordered him to seek a cure in the West Indies and on the voyage, he and his young bride were drowned at sea.

• Edward Rutledge, Arthur Middleton, and Thomas Heyward, Jr., the other three South Carolina signers, were taken by the British in the siege of Charleston.  They were carried as prisoners of war to St. Augustine, Florida, where they were singled out for indignities.  They were exchanged at the end of the war, the British in the meantime having completely devastated their large landholdings and estates.

• Thomas Nelson, signer of Virginia, was at the front in command of the Virginia military forces.  With British General Charles Cornwallis in Yorktown, fire from 70 heavy American guns began to destroy Yorktown piece by piece.  Lord Cornwallis and his staff moved their headquarters into Nelson's palatial home.  While American cannonballs were making a shambles of the town, the house of Governor Nelson remained untouched.  Nelson turned in rage to the American gunners and asked, "Why do you spare my home?"  They replied, "Sir, out of respect to you." Nelson cried, "Give me the cannon!" and fired on his magnificent home himself, smashing it to bits.  But Nelson's sacrifice was not quite over.  He had raised $2 million for the Revolutionary cause by pledging his own estates.  When the loans came due, a newer peacetime Congress refused to honor them, and Nelson's property was forfeited.  He was never reimbursed.  He died, impoverished, a few years later at the age of 50.

Lives, Fortunes, Honor

Of those 56 who signed the Declaration of Independence, nine died of wounds or hardships during the war.  Five were captured and imprisoned, in each case with brutal treatment.  Several lost wives, sons or entire families.  One lost his 13 children.  Two wives were brutally treated.  All were at one time or another the victims of manhunts and driven from their homes.  Twelve signers had their homes completely burned.  Seventeen lost everything they owned.  Yet not one defected or went back on his pledged word.  Their honor, and the nation they sacrificed so much to create is still intact. 

And, finally, there is the New Jersey signer, Abraham Clark.  He gave two sons to the officer corps in the Revolutionary Army.  They were captured and sent to that infamous British prison hulk afloat in New York Harbor known as the hell ship Jersey, where 11,000 American captives were to die.  The younger Clarks were treated with a special brutality because of their father.  One was put in solitary and given no food.  With the end almost in sight, with the war almost won, no one could have blamed Abraham Clark for acceding to the British request when they offered him his sons' lives if he would recant and come out for the King and Parliament.  The utter despair in this man's heart, the anguish in his very soul, must reach out to each one of us down through 200 years with his answer: "No."

The 56 signers of the Declaration Of Independence proved by their every deed that they made no idle boast when they composed the most magnificent curtain line in history.  "And for the support of this Declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

My friends, I know you have a copy of the Declaration of Independence somewhere around the house - in an old history book (newer ones may well omit it), an encyclopedia, or one of those artificially aged "parchments" we all got in school years ago.  I suggest that each of you take the time this month to read through the text of the Declaration, one of the most noble and beautiful political documents in human history.

There is no more profound sentence than this: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness..."

These are far more than mere poetic words.  The underlying ideas that infuse every sentence of this treatise have sustained this nation for more than two centuries.  They were forged in the crucible of great sacrifice.  They are living words that spring from and satisfy the deepest cries for liberty in the human spirit.

"Sacred honor" isn't a phrase we use much these days, but every American life is touched by the bounty of this, the Founders' legacy.  It is freedom, tested by blood, and watered with tears.

- Rush Limbaugh III

Thomas Jefferson's Letter to Roger Weightman

Unlike more recent WH events, JFK and JKO regularly brought extraordinary artistic talent to perform at our White House. JFK uttered his famous Jeffersonian quote on the occasion of one of those functions, “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House - with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”

In keeping with my periodic postings of historic documents, this letter written by Thomas Jefferson, 83, to the Mayor of Washington just 10-days before Mr. Jefferson passed away is “considered one of the sublime expressions of individual and national liberty.”

Thomas Jefferson to Roger Weightman, declining to attend the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in the District of Columbia. This was the last letter written by Jefferson, who died 10 days later, on July 4, 1826.

Monticello, June 24, 1826

Respected Sir -

The kind invitation I receive from you, on the part of the citizens of the city of Washington, to be present with them at their celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of American Independence, as one of the surviving signers of an instrument pregnant with our own, and the fate of the world, is most flattering to myself, and heightened by the honorable accompaniment proposed for the comfort of such a journey.

 It adds sensibly to the sufferings of sickness, to be deprived by it of a personal participation in the rejoicings of that day. But acquiescence is a duty, under circumstances not placed among those we are permitted to control. I should, indeed, with peculiar delight, have met and exchanged there congratulations personally with the small band, the remnant of that host of worthies, who joined with us on that day, in the bold and doubtful election we were to make for our country, between submission or the sword; and to have enjoyed with them the consolatory fact, that our fellow citizens, after half a century of experience and prosperity, continue to approve the choice we made.

May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man.

The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.

I will ask permission here to express the pleasure with which I should have met my ancient neighbors of the city of Washington and its vicinities, with whom I passed so many years of a pleasing social intercourse; an intercourse which so much relieved the anxieties of the public cares, and left impressions so deeply engraved in my affections, as never to be forgotten. With my regret that ill health forbids me the gratification of an acceptance, be pleased to receive for yourself, and those for whom you write, the assurance of my highest respect and friendly attachments.

Remarkable (Mr. Jefferson passed away on July 4th)

D-Day

For almost 2-years the Army Air Force had been the only U.S. fighting force taking the fight to Germany within its own borders. On this day, 6 June 1944, the ground war to retake the European continent opened the western front on the beaches of Normandy.

The skies overhead had been cleared of the Luftwaffe and huge Army Air Force bomber streams rumbled overhead unchallenged. Clouds were broken, restricting the visibility of many bombers when their time over the beach came. Many of the bombers did not release their loads to avoid the possibility of dropping on their own troops. German ground resistance was determined and close.                                

Thus, the liberation of Europe began 68-years ago today. Eleven months of fighting remained. Thousands more of our young men would die. When it was over, all the United States asked for was enough land to bury her dead.

News report today:  Only 56% of the present American population know the significance of this day in history.  Gus is surprised the percentage is that high.

Jim’s Ditching Story

            This is an abbreviated version of a much longer story I thought I would share as an illustration of the kind of useful information transfer that can take place online.  Before the arrival of the net, developing something like this was essentially impossible.  For instance, until many of the WWII veterans started retiring in the 1980s, most of them knew very little about the larger story they had once been a part of during the war.  My father, a 21-year old aviator in 1944, built a substantial WWII library and for most of his life, studied the Army Air Force he had been a part of. 

            The wide availability of the net arrived a little late for most of them, but many invested a huge amount of time and effort in further recording their experiences as young men.  Their communication tools:  a phone, mail, and Xerox copies of original documents.

            Jim never flew with my father’s crew although they did fly their missions during some of the same months of 1944, from the same Army Air Force base in England.  A few years ago, as I went through my father’s things, I found the beginnings of Jim’s story.  It was a 1-½ page typewritten letter and a few pictures Jim, then 70, sent to my father as his submittal for possible use in the Group’s reunion history.  Jim’s story wasn’t used; he passed away a year later.

            His brief letter didn’t contain much information, but as I read it I could sense the pride and strength in the once young eagle’s words.  He included a photocopy of his Goldfish Club patch and certificate, which suggested that there might be an interesting story beyond Jim’s words.  I dug into it.

            Here is Jim’s 1991 letter as he wrote it:

A Mission Remembered

“One of the most memorable of the thirty missions as a ball turret gunner was my sixth with the Squadron and the sixty third for the Group.

            “May 12, 1944 was to be a day not easily forgotten.  Our mission was to destroy a parts and repair plant, the Focke Wulf, in Swickau, Germany.

            “Early in our flight we were met with heavy German resistance.  In spite of the loss of one engine due to heavy enemy fire and flack, we were able to continue and deliver the bombs right on target.

            “Returning back to the base was a bit more challenging.  Two more engines were made useless by the constant German fire and flack.  The injured tail gunner managed to down one enemy plane and I downed two from the ball turret.  On orders we’re going to abandon ship.  Within a split second our plans were changed when the injured waist gunner accidentally kicked out another chute as he jumped.  It was decided that we would ditch in the English Channel.

            “As the plane lost altitude, everything of weight was thrown out (guns, ammo, radio), anything to make her lighter.  The plane took quite a beating.  We now had a B-17 with one engine and a flack ridden bomb bay door which could not be completely closed, heading for the channel.  The crew had a fatally hit tail gunner and a severely wounded navigator.  Under the skilled hands of Lt. William Moses, the plane skimmed the choppy waters and an unbelievable landing was made.

            “Our surprise of surprises came as those red handles were pulled and only one dinghy was found put aboard.  I have since learned that a stripe or two was lost due to the oversight).

            “The deceased tail gunner was buried with the fast sinking plane as the others got into the dinghy.  The dying navigator knew I was the only crew member on the outside of the raft, hanging on rather tight.  He asked the co-pilot that he be buried at sea thereby making room for one more, me.  Upon his death, his wish was sadly carried out and I was helped on board.

            “The sight of an English sea plane coming to our rescue made us more aware of being attacked by ground troops.  We were closer to the French boarder than first thought.  The rescue plane took two rough hits but we safely boarded and headed out.

            “After being released from the English hospital, where flack was removed and treatment was given, a week of R&R at Spetchley Park was quite a welcome change.  Then it was back to the base from where the remaining missions were flown.

            “Before leaving for the U.S., I was presented with a patch and a card making me a member of the Gold Fish Club.  On the way home I truly felt exactly what belonging to the “Lucky Bastard’s Club” made me. . .

            “Upon graduating in Larado from gunnery instructors school, it was on to Westover Field, Massachusetts.  Assignment at the Range ended about the time of V.J. Day.  Honorably discharged at Ft. Devens, I headed for Toledo with a new “Ruptured Duck” and a promise that was fulfilled six months later when a New England gal became my wife.  Looking back there is no doubt, I had the privilege to fly with a great crew that day.  As anyone reading this has experienced…some days were a bit easier than others but it’s great that I’m here to write this and that you are here to read it.  So it surely was a good cause after all…God bless America.           

Jim - 1991

                                                                       

                    Jim’s letter was puzzling in that he didn’t name any members of his crew.  A bomber crew was typically a very tight-knit unit, but in Jim’s case, as I discovered later, he was flying as a replacement with this crew…so, he didn’t know any of the others.  He had a story he wanted to tell, but it was really hard to figure out from his letter just what it was.  This is not uncommon when you read old accounts, or more recent accounts written by older men…we all tend to lose our sharp recollections over time.  However, I recognized the specialized terminology from having studied my father’s AAF service.

            There are so many similar stories that time doesn't permit developing them unless they touch my father’s experience.  Jim’s halting story intrigued me.  Within a few hours online, I had the names of the crew and a very narrow idea of what had occurred.  Within a couple of weeks I had the Missing Air Crew Report from Maxwell AFB and a much better understanding of the story.  Of the 10-man crew, 7 had been rescued, 2 killed, 1 bailed out and taken prisoner; and the rescue planes had come under fire from the shore about 4000-yards distant.  This was a far more dramatic event than most similar ditchings with which I was familiar.

            After taking the story as far as I could in 2007, I wrote up a brief piece summarizing the information I had, and posted an inquiry to one of the WWII Air Force forums.  Almost 4-years passed before the first response came in.  It was Jim’s daughter and she knew less than I did about her father’s ditching experience, except that it had happened.

            About a year later, after 5-years had passed, a great nephew of the “deceased tail gunner” and the pilot’s son got involved by comparing their notes and pictures.  The MACR contained a real collection of documents that included reports from nearby aircraft, from a German POW camp, and from several of the rescued crewmen themselves.

            Jim’s crew had been seriously shot up over the target, torn up further by Luftwaffe fighter attacks on the way out, and ultimately they ditched just offshore.  Unlike most ditched aircraft where the crew was killed, 7 of Jim’s crew managed to survive the ditching and escape capture aboard a rescue plane as it came under fire from the nearby shore.  As a result of the "deceased tail gunner's" distraught father being very persistent in seeking the details of his son’s death, the MACR was filled with far more information than are most others.  There are lengthy personal letters from several crewmen describing what had happened in much more detail than Jim wrote in 1991.

           

            Quite a bit more could be developed about these crews and this particular mission.  For instance, other researchers are working on the details of the mission itself and of individual unit locations.  It is known that the Luftwaffe fighters had repeatedly attacked Jim’s bomber stream in their devastating 10-abreast frontal attacks.  At this point in the war, these attacks were rare--the Luftwaffe had been severely damaged earlier in the year during "Big Week."

            The following is a page from Don’s personal journal describing Jim’s May 12, 1944, mission from Don's perspective flying in a nearby B-17…it was found quite by chance as I was preparing this essay.  These are his words, verbatim, as he wrote them into his journal after returning to base from the mission…it’s poignant to think that as he was writing these words, Jim and what was left of his crew were just being recovered from the English Channel:

 “We started out this morning at 8 O’clock, flying our own ship (400) as #5 in the lead.  Our route was between Dunkirk and Ostend.  A little way in enemy territory, we picked up a few of our escort (P47’s).  Then about half-way to the target, bombardier calls out about 10 e/a which attacked from 12:30 high.  They passed thru us not making any hits, or us on them either.  P47’s jumped, leaving us without dropping bombs on us (no effects seen) and attacked following wing.  That wing was lit up like a Christmas tree with 20 mm cannon fire.  I saw at least 10-12 B-17’s blow up or else go down out of control.  It was a horrible sight.  About 5 minutes later about 15 e/a passed thru our formation, causing one ship in high group to blow up, and a few other planes to feather props.  This was another head-on attack.  From then on to the target we were not bothered by e/a, but were also without visible fighter support.  Our bombs were dropped over primary target O.K., and from what I could see results were not good.  However, the other group really plastered the aircraft plant.  There was no flak there, but during the day we ran into scattered stuff, none of it accurate.  After the target, we picked up some P-38’s which “S” –ed overhead.  At that time we were attacked by 12 ME 109’s from 1 O’clock, a little high.  The escort didn’t seem to pay a bit of attention to them, which burned us up.  From then on the rest of the mission was without incident.  Our crew made no claims on e/a, and I saw only one fighter go down.  Peters (co-pilot) and Prendergast (navigator) flew with us, otherwise complete crew.  Flying time was 8 hrs. about 6 ½ on oxygen.  No damage to our ship.

            This was a helluva mission, and made me admire those old timers that flew without escort (note: just a few months earlier in 1943).  The Luftwaffe still packs a mighty wallop, if they want to come up and fight.  On visual missions, like today, we are going to see a lot more of ‘em. (Hope not!!!)”

 

            Most recently, and most astoundingly, one of the current descendents researching this story of his great uncle (the deceased tail gunner), found on eBay a picture of a lone B-17 shown in a large, but clear Army photograph.  He bought it knowing only from its markings, that the plane is from his great uncle’s Group.  He sent a copy of it to me after he received it.

  

 

             I was able to isolate the plane and enlarge the clear image.  The tail number identifies the aircraft as being Jim’s plane !   And the lower border nomenclature reveals that the mission is the one that Jim’s story tells.  You can clearly see smoke trailing from the off-side, outboard (#4) engine, #3 appears to be feathered, and there is visible damage on the horizontal stabilizer.  As related in the accounts, this plane was shot to hell.

            They were still aloft, by themselves at this point, in slow descent heading for their date with destiny.  And this is a fantastic story that began with a single posting to the net, about 5-years ago.  None of the survivors ever saw this picture...the story now belongs to their descendents.

Do you see any tears in my eyes?

The Queen

If you have any interest in English history and the monarchy represented by Queen Elizabeth, do yourself a favor and watch (several times) the 2006 film entitled, "The Queen" starring Helen Mirren.  It's a masterful performance that depicts the days just after Dianah's death.

There is one scene that accurately portrays the sense of historic responsibility Queen Elizabeth shoulders each day of her long life.  For some background, see this link.  There are some vintage photographs I've never seen before.

As we colonials like to say, she is the real deal.

Pearl Harbor – 2011

These guys have been getting together for almost 70-years to honor their lost friends and recall the event that immediately plunged the United States into WWII; the youngest of them is about 90. One of the local old-timers spoke into a radio station microphone to tell of his own grand children and great grand children having no knowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack and not wanting to hear anything he had to say about it. Think about that for a moment.

I’m sorry to say that in my own youth, I had little interest in the topic other than to watch some of the old WWII movies and read of it in our school textbooks—but I was aware of it throughout my life. While we were at EHHS, WWII was pretty recent history and was thus lightly treated in our history textbooks…to some extent, it was still a nearly current event as many of our fathers played a part in it.

However, myopia on the part of youth and younger adults is nothing new. Noted Civil war veterans such as General Steven Lee wrote of it near the end of their lives during the early years of the 20th century. So did the noted Civil War historian, Bruce Catton, in the introduction to his 1962 Civil War trilogy,

”The books which makes up this trilogy began, very simply, as an attempt to understand the men who fought in the Army of the Potomac. As a small boy I had known a number of these men in their old age; they were grave, dignified, and thoughtful, with long white beards and a general air of being pillars of the community. They lived in rural Michigan in the pre-automobile age, and for the most part they had never been fifty miles away from the farm or the dusty village streets; yet once, ages ago, they had been everywhere and had seen everything, and nothing that happened to them thereafter meant anything much. All that was real had taken place when they were young; everything after that had simply been a process of waiting for death, which did not frighten them much—they had seen it inflicted in the worst possible way on boys who had not bargained for it, and they had enough of the old-fashioned religion to believe without any question that when they passed over they would simply be rejoining men and ways of living which they had known long ago…..

“…We do learn as we grow older, and eventually I realized that this picture was somewhat out of focus. War, obviously, is the least romantic of all of man’s activities and it contains elements which the veterans do not describe to children. This aged berry-peddler, for instance, who lost his arm in the Wilderness: he had never told me about the wounded men who were burned to death in the forest fire which swept that infernal stretch of woodland while the battle was going on; nor had any of his comrades who survived that fight and went on through the whole campaign to the last days at Petersburg ever mentioned the lives that were wasted by official blunders, the dirt and the war-weariness and the soul numbing disillusionment that came when it seemed that what they were doing was going for nothing. There was a deacon in the church, who used to remind us proudly that he had served in the 2nd Ohio Cavalry. Not until years later did I learn that this regiment had gone with Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley, burning barns, killing livestock and pillaging with a free hand so that the Southern Confederacy, if it refused to die in any other way, might die of plain starvation. In a sense, the research that went into these books was simply an effort to find out about things which the veterans never discussed.

Yet, in an odd way, the old veterans did leave one correct impression: the notion that as young men they had been caught up by something ever so much larger than themselves and that the war in which they fought did settle something for us—or, incredibly, started something which we ourselves have got to finish. It was not only the biggest experience in their own lives; it was in a way the biggest experience in our life, as a nation, and it deserves all of the study it is getting.

In any case, these books try to examine a small part of that experience in terms of the men who did the fighting. Those men are all gone now and they have left forever unsaid the things they might have told us, and no one now can speak for them. Here is my attempt to speak about them."

I hope the young will continue to be taught the correct and amazing history of this noble experiment, the United States of America. Given the state of current events and feckless leadership, I often wonder.

WWII was so much more vast than was the Civil War that it is difficult to generalize the experience. However, one nice, small story (my favorite kind) about Pearl Harbor can be discovered by entering the names Zenji Abe and Richard Fiske in your Google search window.

Adios

Vietnam - Robert S. McNamara & General Curtis LeMay

Studying the USAF’s early days inevitably leads to a focus on a surprisingly small number of men who played key roles in its development from just after the Wright Brothers first flight at Kitty Hawk. The picture above is a visual link between General Hap Arnold, one of the first Army aviators to take a Wright flying machine into the air, to the formation of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), led by another remarkable USAF commander, General Curtis LeMay.

In the c.1945 picture, taken at the close of WWII, Arnold was the commander-in-chief of the Army Air Force and LeMay had commanded the Third Air Division of the Eighth after rapidly rising from the position of an Air Force Major at the start of the war. LeMay moved from the ETO to the China-Burma-India (CBI) theater in August 1944, later taking command of the final aerial assault on the Japanese home islands.

About the time we graduated from EHHS, Air Force Chief of Staff General LeMay, 57, and Secretary of Defense, Robert Strange McNamara, 47, were involved in epic clashes over the direction the defense of this country should take. LeMay was a highly experienced combat commander with an incredible service record; McNamara was a former “Whiz Kid” at Ford Motor Company, who had been a low-level statistician during WWII, ultimately working for LeMay in that role. After commanding the Berlin Airlift and leading the formation of the Strategic Air Command after WWII, LeMay, who was once McNamara’s Army superior, became McNamara’s subordinate when JFK came into office, bringing McNamara with him as Secretary of Defense.

McNamara’s culpability in taking our generation into Vietnam is told in the following article published in the AIR FORCE Magazine, August 2009, not long after McNamara died. LeMay retired in 1965, some would say in disgust.

”The No-Brainers of Robert S. McNamara

By Robert S. Dudney, Editor in Chief

His lack of integrity was deeply troubling, but it was the world-class arrogance that did the real military damage.

It should be evident to all that Robert Strange McNamara (b.1916), to paraphrase a line from the 1940 book Guilty Men, was among the worst selections for high office since Caligula chose to make his horse a consul at Rome. He died July 6, 2009, at age 93. Today’s officials can profit from studying his career.

McNamara, the Pentagon chief in the Kennedy and Johnson years, showed sketchy character on many occasions, but nowhere did he do this more baldly than in his 1995 memoir, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. My predecessor, John T. Correll, dissected it in an editorial, “The Confessions of Robert S. McNamara.” I cannot improve upon it. He wrote:

‘Robert S. McNamara could give duplicity a bad name. In his new memoir, ... he says that the Vietnam War was a mistake and that he knew it all along. We should have gotten out in 1963, when fewer than 100 Americans had been killed. When he and other US policymakers took us to war, they ‘had not truly investigated what was essentially at stake.’

“McNamara was Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968 in the Kennedy Administration, which led the US into the Vietnam adventure, and in the Johnson Administration, which widened the involvement to a war in which 58,000 American troops died. He was not some star-crossed functionary who went passively along with a policy he opposed. He was so fiery an advocate that Vietnam became known as ‘McNamara’s War.’ His actions then and his statements now cannot be reconciled with honor.

“The duplicity has another dimension. News accounts bill In Retrospect as a stark admission of guilt, but an actual reading of it tells a different story. McNamara does, to be sure, acknowledge that he and his colleagues were ‘wrong, terribly wrong,’ but the admissions account for relatively little of the book’s substance. The bulk of it explains how these were honest mistakes and not altogether the fault of McNamara and his friends.”


Correll went on to point out a startling blind spot in the book:

“Somehow, it is not altogether surprising that McNamara comes close to ignoring the rank and file of the US armed forces. In the entire book, there are just four brief instances, one of them in a footnote, when the troops cross his mind. The best he can bring himself to say for those killed in action is that ‘the unwisdom of our intervention’ does not ‘nullify their effort and their loss.’”

Damning as these passages are, it is what comes next that most clearly spotlights McNamara’s biggest failing. Correll wrote:

“McNamara never learned the real lessons of the war. In Retrospect ticks off ‘11 major causes for our disaster in Vietnam,’ but they run mostly to philosophical mush like, ‘We misjudged then—as we have since—the geopolitical intentions of our adversaries,’ and, ‘We failed to recognize that in international affairs, as in other aspects of life, there may be problems for which there are no immediate solutions.’

“Incredibly, McNamara recalls—but regards it as insignificant—that the service Chiefs told him in 1964 that the US had not defined a ‘militarily valid objective for Vietnam.’ With similar arrogance, McNamara continues to believe that his strategic and tactical abilities were better than those of the military professionals and that his micromanagement of the war was a good idea.”

In short, his lack of integrity was deeply troubling, but it was the world-class arrogance that did the real military damage. Many have testified to the pervasiveness of this arrogance. One who experienced it up close and personal was Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, USAF Chief of Staff in the years 1961-65. LeMay was the greatest combat commander the Air Force had ever produced, yet it counted for little in the lounges of the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Warren Kozak, author of a new biography, LeMay: The Life and Wars of General Curtis LeMay, notes that, “Robert McNamara had very clear ideas of what he wanted to do at the Pentagon. ... He was determined to take control.”

Faced with such brash confidence, LeMay and the Chiefs didn’t have much of a chance. McNamara killed key service programs. He halted the supersonic B-70 bomber that was LeMay’s top priority. The Pentagon chief forced on the Navy and the Air Force the dual-service TFX—later F-111. Most especially, LeMay quarreled with McNamara over the latter’s embrace of “gradualism” in Vietnam. LeMay was proved right.

The New Frontiersman saw little reason to consult with the Chiefs. They “sensed this and felt that Kennedy and the people under him simply ignored the military’s advice.” LeMay was “especially incensed” when McNamara brought in a group of young statisticians as a buffer between him and the military. LeMay referred to them with the dismissive term “whiz kids.”

Bombs Away