This is an aviation site well worth taking the time to read! Enjoy your weekend!
Following the declaration of war with Japan in World War Two on December 8th, 1941 and their rapid invasion of the South-West Pacific and New Guinea, by 1942 Australia was under the imminent threat of Japanese Invasion. Between February 1942 and November 1943 Japanese aircraft attacked targets in the north of mainland Australia (Northern Territory, Western Australia and Queensland) along with nearby shipping and islands at least 97 times. The worst attack made was upon Darwin on February 19th, 1942 killing between 235 to 250 people and causing widespread destruction of the city and military targets including ships and aircraft.
Darwin in flames – February 19th, 1942 (photo source: RAN Historical Collection)
The RAAF was not well equipped with modern combat aircraft at the start of World War Two and in the first two years of war many of the RAAF pilots and air crews were serving in Europe, North Africa and the Middle…
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Sydney Harbour attack
1-8 June – Three type A midget submarines pulled away from their I-class “mother” submarines about 15 km from Sydney, Australia with the mission to sink the Allied shipping in the harbour. The first two-man sub, commanded by Lt. Chuma Kenshi, entered the harbour at 8pm. There was only the central section of the anti-torpedo netting stretched from Georges Head to Green Point, but Chuma’s boat became entangled.
Midget submarine crews
It was detected by a harbour worker and located by defense craft an hour later. Before it could be attacked, the Japanese sailors, who had made repeated but unsuccessful attempts to break free, destroyed themselves and their submarine by detonating its 35-kilogram scuttling charge.
Sydney Harbour
Meanwhile, the second submarine, commanded by Lt. Ban Katsuhisa, had slipped past the boom net and made its way to a position off Potts Point. It was seen and fired upon around 11 pm by the US heavy cruiser USS Chicago and the RAN corvette, Geelong. The third submarine, commanded by Lt. Matsuo Keiu, was at this time already spotted and being subjected to a depth charge attack from the harbour defense.
HMAS Kuttabul
Ban Katsuhisa took this opportunity to fire his 2 torpedoes at the Chicago, which stood out against the illuminated flood-lights of Garden Island. Both weapons missed their target: one ran aground on Garden Island and failed to explode, the other passed under the Dutch submarine K-9 and struck the sea wall where the converted harbour ferry HMAS Kuttabul was moored. The blasted damaged the K-9 and sank the Kuttabul, resulting in the deaths of 19 Australian and 2 British naval personnel; 10 others were wounded.
retrieval of Midget No. 21 after depth charge attack
The Allied warships started to leave the port as the harbour defense began a full-scale search for the enemy submarines. The third midget [Matsuo’s] was finally located at 5 am in Taylors Bay and attacked with depth charges. The two crew members shot themselves to avoid capture.
Reconstructed midget sub on tour
The remaining midget submarine [Katsuhisa’s], was thought to have left the harbour at 1:58 am, according to an electronic indicator loop, but was not located until 12 November 2006 by amateur divers off of Sydney’s norther beaches. Pictures and the story by the crew that located sub M-24 can be located HERE!
Japanese Type A midget submarine, identical to the 3 that attacked Sydney in 1942, located near Pearl Harbor by the Hawaii Undersea Research Lab, 2002, according to Navy News.
2 June – The United States and China signed a lend-lease agreement. Immediately afterward, the US began to channel large amounts of military equipment to China by way of Indian ports. Chiang Kai shek would end up using most of the matérial to fight the Chinese Communist forces rather than Japan.
house bombed at Bellevue Hill
unexploded torpedo, Sydney
8 June – Sydney, in the early hours received 10 high explosive shells from Japanese submarine I-24 for 10 minutes. Enemy sub I-21 fired an unknown amount of shells for a period of 16 minutes at Newcastle. Although it has been estimated at 15 high explosive and 6 star shells, many of which failed to explode.
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Data about Australia retrieved from the NSW State Records and the Australian National Archives,
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Ronald Allan – Toowoomba, AUS; RA Air Force # 434610
Alexander Ashley – Sydney, AUS; RA Air Force # 424012
Theresa Carter – Portland, AUS; RA Air Force # 174164
Jack Chalker – UK & AUS; British Royal Field Artillery/ RA Army, CBI, POW (Changi)
Patricia Hawkins – Wellington, NZ; Indian Wing of British Army, WWII, CBI
Rangi Ryan – Albany, NZ; RNZEF # 274451, WWII
Tom Swalm – Plano, TX; US Air Force, MGen (Ret. 31 years) Vietnam
John Wells – Louisville, KY; US Army, WWII, ETO
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A portrait of Leland Davis surrounded by his family.
The following is based on an article by Leann Davis Alspaugh, previously published in The Hedgehog Review.
The snow-clogged islands [Aleutians] were considered strategically important and the push to wrest control of them from the Japanese took more than a year. Brian Garfield chronicled this “forgotten battle” vividly in his 1969 book, “The Thousand-Mile War.” A small section of that book details the actions of Leann’s uncle, Leland Davis.
Ensign Davis and his crew flew as part of a squadron of PBY-5A Catalinas. Hardly fighter planes, the Catalinas were designed to transport men and equipment; they nevertheless proved to be valuable assets in the siege of Kiska Harbor. In Garfield’s words, the planes looked like “a brood of huge chicks” as they went into action supplying fuel, oil, parts, ammunition and bombs to the men on the ground and in the air.
Maneuvering a PBY out of the ice.
On 10 June 1942, Davis sighted a Japanese super-submarine off Tanaga and dropped bombs and depth-charges. The sub turned out to be an I-boat sent to pick up the pilot of a downed Zero and was merely damaged by Davis’ actions. The following day, the ensign and his crew were ordered to prepare to attack Kiska Harbor with everything they had regardless of the weather.
Following the attack of the First Air Force on Kiska, the Catalinas set off, heavily loaded down and experiencing poor visibility, the planes and pilots began to show the strain. Flying low, the crews began to hear the brittle airframes crack and pop and watched warily as the wings flapped like a bird’s.
US Navy Cross
After his first bombing run, Davis returned with his damaged aircraft to reload and refuel. He also brought back a crewman KIA. Ready to go, he flew back out to rejoin the blitz which would continue for 3 more days. The Japanese kept up a steady stream of antiaircraft fire and before long the crews nicknamed Kiska the “PBY Elimination Center.”
It was first thought that Ensign Davis’ plane crashed in the water after being hit by machine-gun fire. In 2002, Leland’s sister received a phone call from a genealogist saying that her brother’s body had been found. A Canadian biologist studying near Kiska Volcano discovered a life vest, parachute, 2 parachute packs, leather boots and a sweater. The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command excavated the site and unearthed the aircraft and the remains of 7 servicemen in 2003.
Today, all seven rest in peace under a common marker that states, “Aircraft Accident – Alaska, June 14, 1942.” Elwin Alford, Albert J. Gyorfi, John H. Hathaway, Dee Hall, Robert F. Keller, Robert A. Smith and Leland L. Davis, the Eternal PBY Crew.
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WAKE UP!!
WHO LEFT THE GARAGE OPEN?
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John Brisko – Mountain View, NY; US Army (Ret. 22 years), Vietnam
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Dennis Crooke – Paeroa, NZ; RNZ Army # 632212, WWII, J Force
Robert Fewster – Ballarat, AUS; RA Air Force # 449872
Kyle Halford – Fayetteville, Ar, US Army, Afghanistan, 21st Signal
Melvin Knapp – Vine Grove, KY; US Army, Korea, Vietnam
Ruth Lang – Sheboygan, WI; US Navy WAVE, WWII, nurse
Cecil Matthews – Houston, TX; US Army, WWII, ETO
Ralph Reeder Sr. – Dakota Dunes, SD; US Army Air Corps, WWII, ETO
David Thomas Sr. – Mobile, AL; US Army, Korea, MP
Iver Sonderby – Kingman, AZ & ND; US Navy, Korea, Chief Petty Officer 3rd Class
Ronald Weber – Emmett, ID; US Navy, Vietnam, SeaBee, dog trainer, Purple Heart
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Feb 21
This gallery contains 5 photos.
Originally posted on The Reluctant Retiree:
Thursday 24th May 2012 “In that hour before sunrise, on the waters of the bay, you may hear the roar of motors, and the swirl of flying spray. Loaded to the Plimsoll to carry out her role, ’tis a Catalina taking off to begin her lone patrol.” Partial Excerpt…
Robert Larson
Ensign Robert Larson, PBY Co-pilot and Navigator, from Monticello, Iowa – on the Aleutian War.
Dutch Harbor, 1942
“When the Japanese came ashore at Attu and Kiska on 6 June, the original intent was never to hold the islands. The operation was to be a side show to divert the US Navy and draw them into a final destructive battle at Midway. Admiral Yamamoto had hoped that with the bulk of their fleet destroyed, the Americans would accept some sort of peace settlement that would let Japan consolidate her gains.
Japanese troops on Kiska
“After the landings on Attu and Kiska the only aircraft capable of reaching the islands from the US bases were the Navy PBY’s and the B-17s and B-24s of the Army Air Corps. Commander Leslie E. Gehres was a 4-stripe regular Navy captain in command of Patrol Wing 4.
US Army in Alaska, 1942
“The Army attempted to bomb the Japanese forces but with little success with the small amount of aircraft at their disposal. Capt. Gehres notified CINCPAC of the landings and informed them that he had a seaplane tender at Nazan Bay, Atka Island, halfway to Kiska with 20+ PBY’s. The USS Gillis was the tender.
USS Gillis
“The captain had his hands full servicing many more aircraft with bombs and fuel than his ship was designed or supplied to support. The crews took over part of an Aleut fishing village and were fed by a school teacher from her small kitchen with the help of some of the willing Aleut natives. Off the bay, one of the PBY’s bombed a Japanese submarine near Tanga Island that had been on life guard duty for the enemy pilots.
William Thies, pilot
“The PBY’s opened the campaign on 11 June, following up a bombing run by B-24s of the 11th Air Force. The PBY’s came down through the overcast dive bomber fashion and the Japanese soon got the range with their 20-mm antiaircraft cannon and 13.2-mm heavy machine-guns.
“The air combat went on for 3 days and at the end, the exhausted crews suffered multiple dead and wounded. The entire supply of pencils and rags of the Aleut village were used for patching holes in the aircraft as the planes continued a non-stop shuttle back and forth to Kiska. The PBY was a dependable but slow lumbering aircraft (175 mph), not suited to sudden stressful evasive maneuvers. Often they came back to the Gillis so riddled by AA fire that they almost sank.
Engineers in action.
“The Japanese, now wise to the American tactics, brought out more heavy antiaircraft guns, pointed their AA batteries at holes in the low overcast and waited for the PBY’s to emerge. Finally, with ammunition and fuel almost exhausted and men pushed to the brink of their endurance, the Gillis withdrew from Nazan Bay, urged on by the arrival of Japanese float recon planes from Kiska.
Koga’s gravesite
“Japanese Commander Mukai later stated that the PBY’s interfered considerably with their efforts to develop Kiska into a support base. Their attacks forced them to withdraw their ships from Kiska Harbor. The Japanese had brought in their Mavis 4-engine recon planes, but the attacks had kept their supplies out their reach. Bill, [William Thies, pilot], flew one other support mission at this time. He returned to Kanga to pick up a weather team of 5 men, who after burning the station, climbed aboard. When the Mavis’s got operational, they flew over the Aleut village at Atka, and even though it was burned out, they dropped their bombs anyway. Bill and his crew would soon return to Nazan Bay [within a few weeks] with both the Gillis and Casco and find the fighting worse. They would fly every day for 33 days.”
Robert Larson would later make Commander while in the reserves and he spent 33 years as Chief of Technical Staff of Boeing. Cmdr. Larson passed away 21 December 2007.
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Judy Hardy had 2 relatives in Alaska during the war – try her site for the home front view…HERE!
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USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) expected to be commissioned later 2015
Captain James Kirk
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Dean Allgood – Rigby, ID; USMC, WWII, PTO, Purple Heart
Brian Black – Henderson, NZ; RNZ Air Force # 429953, WWII
Raymond Delsart – Sturgeon Bay, WI; US Army, WWII
Aleutians, 1943
Alexander Dyce – Toronto, CAN; RC Air Force, WWII, 413th Squadron
Horace Finch – Griffin, GA; US Army, WWII, PTO
Kurt Landsburger – born: Prague, NJ & FL; US Army, WWII, ETO, translator
John Moingo – Marion, IL; US Navy, Korea, Vietnam, Captain (Ret. 30 years)
Ralph Nittolo – Jupiter, FL; US Navy (19 mos), US Air Force (Ret. 20 years), Korea & Vietnam, tech Sgt.
Joseph Pezzulo – Queensbury, NY; US Air Force, Korea
Anthony Tedeschi Sr. – Endicott, NY; US Army, WWII, ETO
John Wilders, JR. – Merrimack, NH; US Navy, Vietnam, radio operator
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In 1942 the birthday’s of Washington and Lincoln were celebrated separately. Here is a sample of what your parents and grandparents saw….
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Even back then you had to have shopping advertisements!
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Entertainment
Casablanca
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And memories…
I believe I need to add here that this is officially a celebration for Washington’s birthday even though the name was changed to President’s Day in 1971. Congress voted NO to including Lincoln and the rest of the presidents simply jumped on board anyway!
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Things could be worse…
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This is the Tateyama Kurobe Snow Corridor in Murodo, Japan. They receive approximately 21′ of snow per year, but there have been times when 60′ fell. The Corridor can only be open April thru October, so these pictures are not even in the winter!
contributed by William Peacan, now in 0*F weather himself plowing the roads in New England.
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Sidney Bashein – Palm Bch County, FL; US Army, WWII, ETO
William Cross Jr. – Shenandoah, VA; US Army, Lt.Colonel (Ret 24 years), WWII, ETO, Bronze Star, Purple Heart
Donald Dalton – Mayflower, AR; US Air Force (ANG), BGeneral, pilot
Verner Gaul – Harlan, IA; US Army Air Corps, WWII, 101st Weather Group
Levi Lattomus – Milford, DE; US Army, WWII, ETO, Signal Corps
Marie McMullen – WPalm Beach, FL; US Navy WAVES, WWII
William Nevius – Hempstead, NY; US Navy, Captain (Ret.)
George Rawston – Christchurch, NZ; RNZ Army # 3515, WWII
Harry Sparks Jr. – Spokane, WA; US Army, WWII, heavy machine-gunner
Dan Woods – Norwalk, CT; US Army, Korea
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LET’S ALL HELP CANADA CELEBRATE THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THEIR FLAG!!
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I suppose this applies to most everyone these days!!
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Kenneth Berg – Vancouver, CAN; RC Army, Korea, PPCLI
Don Berndt – Edmonton, CAN; RC Air Force, Master Warrant Officer (Ret. 37 years)
Gordon Loverin – Kelowna, CAN; RC Air Force (Ret. 29 years)
John Carr – Victoria, CAN; British Army, WWII
Alan Dalby – Victoria, CAN; RC Army, WWII
A.D. MacDonald – Montreal, CAN; RC Navy, Lt., WWII
Roy Scott – Calgary, CAN; RC Air Force, WWII, Parachute Corps
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Another view of Alaska.
Kirsten Olson provides another interesting piece of Alaskan history. This time, inspiration came to Kirsten while working on a collection of items deposited at UAMN via a repository agreement with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In 2012, USFWS transferred 93 items collected from Attu Island to the museum and Kirsten spent several months cataloging, researching, and curating these items. She painstakingly constructed customized archival boxes for each piece, from pieces of shrapnel to gas masks, toothbrushes to Japanese paper dolls. She discovered the human stories behind these rusted and damaged items, and developed a small exhibit, which is on display at the UAF Rasmuson Library 4th Floor until August 2014. ~~AJL
Guest blogger, Kirsten Olson here again, this time to honor our men in arms. May 17th marks Armed Forces Day, so to recognize this day and our soldiers, I’d like to take a moment to shed some light on…
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“Koga’s Zero” by Jim Reardon
The following is a continuation of the condensed version of Jim Reardon’s research ____
[at the time] Ensign Robert Larson, from Monticello, Iowa was the co-pilot in Lt. William Thies’ PBY crew that located the downed Japanese Zero, “We approached cautiously, walking in about a foot of water covered with grass.” The Japanese pilot, Petty Officer Koga’s body, thoroughly strapped in, was upside down in the plane, his head barely submerged in the water.
Robert Larson
“We were surprised at the details of the airplane,” Larson continued. “It was well built, with simple, unique features. Inspection plates could be opened by pushing on a black dot with a finger. A latch would open, and one could pull the plate out. Wingtips folded by unlatching them and pushing them up by hand. The pilot had a parachute and a raft.”
Koga’s body was buried nearby. In 1947, it was shifted to a cemetery on nearby Adak Island and later his remains were returned to Japan. Thies determined that the wrecked plane was nearly a new Zero, which suddenly gave it special meaning, for it was repairable. Unlike US warplanes that had detachable wings, the Zero’s wings were integral with the fuselage and complicated salvage and shipping.
Larson on Zero 4593
Navy crews fought the plane out of the bog and Zero 4593 arrived at North Island Naval Air Station, San Diego. A 12-foot-high stockade was erected around it inside a hangar. Marines guarded the priceless aircraft while Navy crews worked around the clock to make it airworthy.
In mid-September, Lt.Cmdr. Eddie R. Sanders later said, “My log shows that I made 24 flights in Zero 4593 from 20 September to 15 October 1942. These flights covered performance tests such as we do on planes undergoing US Navy tests. The very first flight exposed weakness of the Zero that our pilots could exploit with proper tactics.
Zero 4593
“The Zero had superior maneuverability only at the lower speeds used in dogfighting, with short turning radius and excellent aileron control at very low speeds. However, immediately apparent was the fact that the ailerons froze up at speeds above two hundred knots, so that rolling maneuvers at those speeds were slow and required much force on the control stick. It rolled to the left much easier than to the right. Also, its engine cut out under negative acceleration [as when nosing into a dive] due to its float-type carburetor.
Zero 4593 being worked on
“We now had an answer for our pilots who were unable to escape a pursuing Zero. We told them to go into a vertical power dive using negative acceleration if possible, to open the range quickly and gain speed while the Zero’s engine was stopped. We waited for an answer and finally it came back, ‘It works!'”
Another eye witness story will follow next from Robert Larson, co-pilot.
Judy at Greatest Generation Lessons had two uncles in Alaska during WWII; give her blog a try for the home front point of view.
Click on images to enlarge.
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To honor a great, well-respected military leader, on 7 February 2015, the USNS Lt.General Lewis B. (Chesty) Puller (T-MLP-3/T-AFSB-1) was christened. General Puller was the only Marine to earn the Navy Cross five times; he put in 37 years to the USMC.
USS Lewis B. Puller” a mobile landing platform vessel
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Military Humor – Bill Mauldin’s view on staying warm
“Is this really worth it?”
“Run it up th’ mountain agin, Joe. It ain’t hot enough.”
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Mark Amirault – Digby, CAN; RC Air Force (Ret. 20 years)
James Boyland – Taupo, NZ; RNZ Navy # 2102, WWII & Korea
Missing Man formation
Eugene Dunn – Washington, DC; US Army Air Corps, WWII, Sgt.
Dolores Fehmer – Oklahoma City, OK; US Navy, Lt. Commander (Ret.)
Anne Fitch – Jacksonville, FL; US Air Force, Lt. Colonel (Ret. 24 years)
Lucien Guay – Saco, ME; USMC, WWII, PTO, Korea & Vietnam, Gunnery Sgt. (Ret. 21 years)
William Harves – W. Austr; RASC # 6410036, Vietnam
Anthony Lein – Westphalia, MI; US Army, Korea, A/17th/8th Division
Willis Miller – Blooming Prarie, MN; US Navy, WWII, PTO, USS Craven
Ben Piotrowski – Shelton, CT; US Coast Guard, WWII / US Air Force, Korea
Bob Simon – NYC, NY; Correspondent nearly 50 years, Vietnam Bosnia, Iraq, POW
Russell Washburn – Buffalo, NY; US Army Air Corps, WWII & Atomic Energy Commission
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The following has been condensed from an article by author Jim Reardon.
In the raid of 4 June, 20 bombers blasted storage tanks, a warehouse, hospital, a hangar and a beached freighter, while 11 Zeros strafed at will. Chief Petty Officer Makoto Endo led a 3-plane Zero group whose pilots were Flight Petty Officers Tsuguo Shikada and Tadayoshi Koga, 19 years old. Koga’s Zero, serial number 4593, was light gray, with the Imperial Rising Sun insignia on its wings and fuselage. It had left the Mitsubishi Nagoya aircraft factory on 19 February, only 3½ months earlier, so it was the latest design.
Tadayoshi Koga
Earlier that day, soldiers at an US Army outpost had seen 3 Zeros shoot down a lumbering Catalina amphibian. Most of the 7-member crew climbed into a rubber raft and began paddling to shore. The soldiers watched in horror as the Zeros strafed the crew until all were killed.
Japanese pilot, Endo led his section to Dutch Harbor where it joined the other 8 Zeros in strafing. It was then [according to Shikada, interviewed in 1984] that Koga’s Zero was hit by ground fire. An Army intelligence team later reported, “Bullet holes entered the plane from both upper and lower sides.” One of the bullets severed the return oil line. A Navy photo taken during the raid shows a Zero trailing what appears to be smoke and there is little doubt that this is Zero 4593.
“Koga’s Zero” by Jim Reardon
After the raid, 8 American Curtiss Warhawk P-40s short down 4 Val [Aichi D3A] dive bombers 30 miles west of Dutch Harbor. In the swirling, minutes-long dogfight, Lt. John J. Cape shot down a plane identified as a Zero. Another Zero was almost instantly on its tail. He climbed and rolled, trying to evade, but that was the wrong maneuver to escape a Zero. The enemy fighter easily stayed with him, firing its 2 deadly 20-mm cannon and 2 7.7-mm machine-guns. Cape and his plane plunged into the sea.
Another Zero shot up the P-40 of Lt. Winfield McIntyre, who survived a crash landing with a dead engine. Endo and Shikada accompanied Koga as he flew his oil-spewing airplane to Akutan Island. A Japanese submarine waited nearby to pickup downed pilots. The 3 Zeros circled low over the green, treeless island. At a level, grassy valley floor half a mile inland, Koga lowered his wheels and flaps and eased toward a 3-point landing. As his main wheel touched, they dug in, and the Zero flipped onto its back, tossing water, grass and gobs of mud. The valley floor was a bog.
The Thies PBY crew
Endo and Shikada circled. There was no sign of life. If Koga was dead, their duty was to destroy the downed fighter, but KOga was a friend and they couldn’t bring themselves to shoot. Endo and Shikada abandoned the downed fighter and returned to the IJN Ryujo.
The wrecked Zero lay in the bog for more than a month, unseen by US patrol planes and offshore ships. On 10 July a US Navy Catalina (PBY) amphibian with a gunner named Wall called, “Hey, there’s an airplane on the ground down there. It has meatballs on the wings.” The patrol plane’s pilot, Lt. William Thies, descended for a closer look. Back at Dutch Harbor, Thies persuaded his squadron commander to let him take a party to the downed plane….
Ensign Larson on Koga’s Zero
To be continued…..
[The IJN Ryujo was sunk two months later in the eastern Solomons by carrier aircraft from the USS Saratoga. Japanese Chief Petty Officer Makato Endo was killed in action at Rabaul on 12 October 1943. Petty Officer Tsuguo Shikada survived the war and became a banker.]
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John Ambruso Sr. – Westbrook, CT; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, 1st & 9th Bomber Group
Lester Card – Calgary, CAN; RC Air Force (Ret. 28 years), WWII, ETO
Gerald DeBoer – Kalamazoo, MI; US Navy, WWII
Aleutians, 1943
Ed Freeman – Boise, ID; US Navy, WWII, USS Cacapon/ US Army, Korea, Sgt/ US Air Force, Vietnam, helicopter pilot, 1st Cavalry Division, Captain
Sherwood B. Griffith – Carver, MA; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, bombardier
Donald Johnson Sr. – Endwell, NY; US Army Air Corps, WWII, B-24 navigator, 36 missions
Henry Koren Jr. – Colorado Springs, CO; US Army, Colonel (ret. 30 years), Ranger, Vietnam
Joseph Langdell (100) – Yuba City, CA; US Navy, WWII, USS Arizona survivor
Van Mayhall – Baton Rouge, LA; US Army, Capt.-Col., WWII, ETO, Bronze Star
Janet Moir – Warworth, NZ; British Navy WREN, WWII
Richard Powers – Portland, OR; US Army, Lt.Colonel(Ret. 24 years), WWII, Alaska 10th Mountain Division & ETO/ Korea, MP, Bronze Star
Dean Smith – Chapel Hill, NC; US Air Force, basketball coach
Hershel ‘Roy’ Womack, Sr. – Rolla, MO; US Army, Colonel (Ret. 39 years), WWII
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