Monthly Archives: January 2019
Hank Bauer – USMC Hero & Yankee All-Star
Baltimore Orioles manager Hank Bauer (42) in USMC uniform, viewing himself in team uniform over his shoulder during photo shoot. Composite. Bauer earned 11 campaign ribbons, two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts during his time with the Marines.
Baltimore, MD 8/13/1964
CREDIT: Neil Leifer (Photo by Neil Leifer /Sports Illustrated/Getty Images
After surviving some of the most intense fighting in the Pacific and earning a number of decorations, Bauer went on to achieve massive success on the baseball field in the decades after the war.
Bauer was born in East St. Louis, Illinois, in 1922. He was the youngest child of an Austrian immigrant family, and had eight older siblings. His father lost his leg in an aluminum mill accident, and the family found themselves in a situation of such dire poverty that Hank and his siblings had to wear old feed sacks as clothes.
Far from stewing in misery and despair about his circumstances growing up, however, Bauer was determined to work his way out of poverty and make a success of his life. From an early age it became obvious that he was a gifted athlete, and he excelled at both baseball and basketball.
After graduating from school in 1941, he took a job repairing furnaces at a beer-bottling plant. His brother, also a talented baseball player who had gotten into the Minor League, was able to get Hank a professional tryout. His tryout went well, and Hank was offered a contract with the Oshkosh Giants.
Just when it seemed that Hank was about to step into the professional baseball career he had always dreamed of, though, something happened that would change his life, and the lives of many other Americans: the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
Okinawa
A month after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Bauer enlisted in the Marine Corps and initially served with the 4th Raider Battalion. Pretty much as soon as he arrived in the South Pacific, he contracted malaria.
This was not going to be the first time he contracted the disease – he would end up contracting malaria another twenty-three times. Just as he had dealt with any other hardships life had previously thrown his way, he simply gritted his teeth and fought through it without a word of complaint.
His first taste of battle came in early 1943, when he reached the vicinity of Guadalcanal, where a large-scale battle between Allied Forces and the Japanese had been raging since late 1942. He and his fellow Marines had to fight in the dense jungle on the islands of New Georgia northwest of Guadalcanal, a campaign Bauer called “indescribable – the worst [place he had] ever seen.”
Hank Bauer (center) w/ Yogi Berra & Mickey Mantle
After this, the Raider regiments were absorbed into regular Marine units, and Bauer served with the 2nd Battalion 4th Marines, part of the 6th Marine Division. He fought on the islands of Emirau in Papua New Guinea, and then on Guam, where he received his first wound after being hit with shrapnel.
While he was decorated with the Purple Heart for his injuries, he would end up keeping another souvenir of this battle for many years: some pieces of shrapnel stayed in his body, and would end up being picked out of his back by his Yankee teammates in locker rooms many years later.
After Guam Bauer, who was now a sergeant, and his Marines joined the Battle of Okinawa, which would turn out to be the bloodiest and one of the most ferocious battles of the entire Pacific theater of war. Bauer commanded a platoon of sixty-four Marines, of which only six men – including Bauer – survived the intense fighting.
Bauer fought on for fifty-three days before he was wounded by shrapnel once again. This time it was serious enough to result in his being sent back to the U.S. to recover from his injuries.
While he was recuperating stateside, the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thus forcing the Japanese to surrender. When Bauer had healed and was sent back to his unit, he spent the remainder of his military service on occupation duty in Japan. He ended up being decorated with the Navy Commendation Medal, two Purple Hearts, and two Bronze Stars.
Owing to his war wounds, Bauer didn’t really think that he stood much chance of resuming his baseball career, but, as he had done with everything in his life, he gave it a shot anyway. A Yankees scout remembered Bauer from before the war, and signed him to the Quincy Gems, the Yankees’ farm team, in 1946. With his talent and determination, Bauer worked his way up.
In 1948 he was called up to the Majors – and the rest was history. Bauer ended up being named an all-star three times, and finished his Major League career with a batting average of .277. He once had a seventeen game hitting streak.
Even when he quit playing, he moved on to coaching and managing. He ended up as the manager of the Baltimore Orioles, which he led to a World Series championship in 1966.
Hank Bauer passed away in 2007 at the age of eighty-four, and will not only be remembered for his success as a baseball player and manager, but also for the grit, valor and determination he showed as a Marine during the Second World War.
Click on images to enlarge.
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Military Humor – 
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Farewell Salutes –
Elvin Bell – Oakland, CA; US Army, WWII & Korea
Philip DiStanislao – Bronx, NY; US Coast Guard, WWII
Mildred Grunder-Blackwell – Gary, IN; US Navy WAVE, WWII
Wallace Horton – Montgomer, AL; US Navy, WWII, PTO
Carmelo Ieraci – ITA; US Army, Korea
Ed Keeylocko – Cowtown Keeylocko, AZ; US Army, Korea & Vietnam, Sgt. (Ret. 23 y.)
William Masters – Atlanta, GA; US Navy, WWII
Paul ‘Duke’ Richard – Southbridge, MA; US Army, Army Digest Magazine, photographer/writer
Paul Sweeny – Upland, PA; US Navy, WWII, communications, Minesweeper USS Pheasant
Frances Temm – Whangarei, NZ; NZ Army # 36371, WWII, Sgt.
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USO Pacific Tour – Candy Jones
Candy Jones
By Sgt. Al Hine
YANK Staff Writer
Candy Jones was just back from a USO tour of the Pacific when I saw her, and with rare originality I said to her, “How are you?” She said, “Fine.”
Well, maybe she was telling the truth, and anyway who am I to be calling a beautiful model like Miss Jones a liar, but if she was feeling fine, she must have been pressing the old will power to its limit. The fact is that Candy had one of those Pacific trips that GIs usually are thinking about when they say, “Why doesn’t anyone ever print how lousy things are?”
She took off from the West Coast in November of 1944 and got back, a couple of months after the rest of the troupe she started out with, in August 1945. In this comparatively short time, she managed to get involved in two minor earthquakes, to lose the top of her dress on stage, and to spend a month in GI hospitals on Leyte and Morotai and in sick bay on the U.S.S C.H. Muir, the troop ship she came home on.
Candy Jones
Candy’s time on sick call was not goldbricking but the result of one of those nice little Pacific gadgets which medics diagnose as “fever of undetermined origin” and treat like malaria, coupled with a nasty case of eczema. A dame columnist in New York, shortly after Candy’s return, printed as an item that the showgirl-model was suffering from “jungle rot.” Possibly this made the eczema sound more romantic to the columnist, but eczema it was.
Candy threw off the fever in pretty good shape. “It only had me scared once, when I thought my hair was all going to fall out,” she said, “but after I lost a little, it stopped falling and everything was alright.”
The eczema left large areas of pale white on Candy’s otherwise sunburned chassis and this is possibly what caught the columnist’s eye. It caught other eyes too, namely the eyes of photographers for whom Candy made a living posing.
“I won’t be able to pose for any color work till I begin to get even again, ” she said.
By the time all this info had come out, I was ready to ask Candy if she stuck by her original statement that she felt fine. She said she did.
“It was a good trip and the GI’s we met were wonderful. They gave us a swell hand everywhere, except sometimes in the hospitals. I don’t see why I shouldn’t say that about the hospitals either. It’s the truth. Lots of guys who had been wounded were bitter and you couldn’t blame them. They’d look at you when you came in with a sort of “Well, who the hell do you think you are?”
“We played regular shows nights and hospitals during the day. After the regular shows, we’d get a chance to gab with the GI’s and stuff. There was almost an even balance between officers and GI’s among the people we got a chance to know.”
“How about the earthquakes?” I asked.
“One was at Leyte,” she said. “I was in bed when it happened and I almost fell out, but not quite. The other was at Finschhafen, our first stop after Hollandia. It was funnier because it was the first time I ever experienced an earthquake and I was in the johnny when it happened.”
“I was in the johnny and there was this crash and things started shifting around. For a minute or two I thought I had jungle fever. I pulled myself together, ran out and found it was only an earthquake.”
Candy’s itinerary ran from Brisbane to Leyte, hitting most of the whistle stops along the way. The gang she was with was called “Cover Girls Abroad”. The original destination was such a dead secret that Candy guessed wrong by thinking it was the ETO. When she arrived at the dock, complete with woollies, she was flabbergasted to find she was headed for hotter Pacific.
Candy Jones
“Somebody got a surprise poking around that dock we left from”, she said. “When I found out where we were going, I got rid of some of my luggage, women’s winter woolies.”
The Cover Girls played over 30 installations. The troupe did vaudeville-type stuff – juggling, acrobatics, songs and black-out skits. But it was a wedding number that Candy lost the top of her dress.
General Hospital dispensary/blood bank. Hollandia, New Guinea, 1945
“When the frame (for the ‘wedding picture’) went down,” she explained, “it hooked on top of the dress and took it with it. I went through the number, sweetly holding up the shreds of camouflage. After that time, we did the number in a reworked model of the same dress, the only strapless wedding dress I’d ever seen.”
Just as our interview was winding up, I thought of one more question: “How had she liked spending Christmas overseas?”
“Well, it wouldn’t have been bad really if I hadn’t gone and tried to be so smart. You see, I was staying with the 334th General Hospital in Hollandia. Christmas Eve had been rough. We had carol singing and whipped up a bit of the spirit of the season and then they brought in some casualties. Somehow it seemed worse than ever – no matter how many wounded men you might have seen – to see them on Christmas Eve.”
“But Christmas Dayed started out well. The guys in the mess were buzzing around with their preparations for a real Christmas dinner – turkey and everything. It sounded wonderful and I could hardly wait. In fact I didn’t. A friend asked me to go to the officer’s club for dinner at noon and thinking I’d be able to wolf down 2 Christmas feast, I accepted.”
“The officer’s club lunch was corned-beef hash; they’d have their turkey in the evening. But I could dream of dinner at the hospital. But when I returned to the hospital, I found that they had already feasted on turkey at noon.”
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Candy Jones made another trip with the USO during the Vietnam War. She passed away from cancer on 18 January 1990.
Click on images to enlarge.
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Military Humor – Saying Goodbye to the Best –
Bob Hope in Heaven
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Farewell Salutes –
Joshua Beale – Carrollton, VA; US Army, Afghanistan, 3rd Special Forces Group, KIA
Henry A. Courtney Jr. – Duluth, MN; USMC, WWII, PTO, Medal of Honor, KIA
Elwin Duhn – Grand haven, MI; US Army Air Corps, WWII, ETO, 82nd Airborne Division, 2 Purple Hearts
Martin Freed – Cleveland, OH; US Air Force
Rosemary Gancar – Mt. Sterling, KY; US Army Air Corps WAC, flight line mechanic
Edward Hock – Lewisburg, PA; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, Co. F/187th/11th Airborne Division
Ralph Jordon – Enfield, CT; US Army, Korea, Co. C/187th RCT
Edward Loeb – Berkeley, CA; US Navy, WWII
Charles Muehlebach – St. Louis, MO; US Army, WWII, PTO, 40th Infantry Division
Bill “Tiger” Watson – UK; British Army, WWII, ETO, Commando, POW,
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Paul Tibbets and Duty
Paul Tibbets
After receiving basic flight training at Randolph Field in San Antonio, Texas in 1937, Tibbets quickly rose through the ranks to become commanding officer of the 340th Bombardment Squadron of the 97th Bombardment Group. After leading the first American daylight heavy bomber mission in Occupied France in August 1942, Tibbets was selected to fly Major General Mark W. Clark from Polebook to Gibraltar in preparation for Operation Torch, the allied invasion of North Africa. A few weeks later, Tibbets flew the Supreme Allied Commander, Lieutenant General Dwight D. Eisenhower, to Gibraltar. Tibbets quickly earned a reputation as one of the best pilots in the Army Air Force.
Paul Tibbets in New Mexico
Tibbets returned to the United States to help with the development of the B-29 Superfortress bomber. On September 1, 1944, Tibbets met with Lt. Col. John Lansdale, Captain William S. Parsons, and Norman F. Ramsey, who briefed him about the Manhattan Project. Tibbets, who had accumulated more flying time on the B-29 than any other pilot in the Air Force, was selected to lead the 509th Composite Group, a fully self-contained organization of about 1,800 hand-picked men that would be responsible for dropping the first atomic bomb on Japan.
Paul Tibbets
From September 1944 until May 1945, Tibbets and the 509th Composite Group trained extensively at Wendover Air Force Base in Wendover, Utah. Flight crews practiced dropping large “dummy” bombs modeled after the shape and size of the atomic bombs in order to prepare for their ultimate mission in Japan.
In late May 1945, the 509th was transferred to Tinian Island in the South Pacific to await final orders. On August 5, 1945 Tibbets formally named his B-29 Enola Gay after his mother. At 02:45 the next day, Tibbets and his flight crew aboard the Enola Gay departed North Field for Hiroshima. At 08:15 local time, they dropped the atomic bomb, code-named “Little Boy,” over Hiroshima.
The crew of the “Enola Gay”
Tibbets was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross by Major General Carl Spaatz immediately after landing on Tinian. When news of the successful mission appeared in American newspapers the next day, Tibbets and his family became instant celebrities. To supporters, Tibbets became known as a national hero who ended the war with Japan; to his detractors, he was a war criminal responsible for the deaths of many thousands of Japanese civilians. Tibbets remains a polarizing figure to this day.
The book, “Duty”, by Bob Green, is a must read Duty is the story of three lives connected by history, proximity, and blood; indeed, it is many stories, intimate and achingly personal as well as deeply historic. In one soldier’s memory of a mission that transformed the world—and in a son’s last attempt to grasp his father’s ingrained sense of honor and duty—lies a powerful tribute to the ordinary heroes of an extraordinary time in American life.
No regrets … Colonel Paul Tibbets, standing.
What Greene came away with is found history and found poetry—a profoundly moving work that offers a vividly new perspective on responsibility, empathy, and love. It is an exploration of and response to the concept of duty as it once was and always should be: quiet and from the heart. On every page you can hear the whisper of a generation and its children bidding each other farewell.
Warning leaflet dropped on 14 Japanese cities
“TO THE JAPANESE PEOPLE: America asks that you take immediate heed of what we say on this leaflet. We are in possession of the most destructive explosive ever devised by man. A single one of our newly developed atomic bombs is actually the equivalent in explosive power to what 2000 of our giant B-29s can carry on a single mission. This awful fact is one for you to ponder and we solemnly assure you it is grimly accurate.” (American leaflet warning Japan to surrender)
With the end of the war in 1945, Tibbets’ organization was transferred to what is now Walker Air Force Base, Roswell, N.M., and remained there until August 1946. It was during this period that the Operation Crossroads took place, with Tibbets participating as technical adviser to the Air Force commander. He was then assigned to the Air Command and Staff School at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., from which he graduated in 1947. His next assignment was to the Directorate of Requirements, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, where he subsequently served as director of the Strategic Air Division.
BG Paul Tibbets
Brigadier General Paul W. Tibbets Jr. retired from the United States Air Force in 1966. He died in 2007, his ashes were scattered at sea. For more on Tibbets, see Manhattan Project Spotlight: Paul Tibbets. To watch his first-person account of the Hiroshima mission, click here.
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Leaflet dropped on Nagasaki
9 August, ‘Bock’s Car’ dropped the next atomic bomb, “Fat Man,” which was nicknamed after Churchill or Sidney Greenstreet’s character in “The Maltese Falcon,” there are two conflicting stories. The bomb killed 80,000 people. This second bomb was different in that it was a spherical plutonium missile, ten feet long and five feet in diameter. The plane made three unsuccessful runs over the city of Kokura, but due to the lack of visibility, they went on to Nagasaki. Jake Beser, an electronics specialist, was the only crew member to make both atomic bomb runs.
From the collection of images taken by Yosuke Yamahata, a Japanese military photographer.
Click on images to enlarge.
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Military Humor – 
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Farewell Salutes –
Stellla Bender – Steubenville, OH; US Navy WAVE, WWII
Ian Cowan – Christchurch, NZ; NZ Army # 635101, WWII, J Force
Raymond Evans – Naashville, TN; US Army, WWII
Wilbur Grippen Jr. (99) – New Haven, CT; US Army, WWII
Albert Hill – Nampa, ID; US Army, WWII, CBI
Floyd Kennedy – Tonasket, WA; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, 674/11th Airborne Division, Medical Corps (Ret. 21 y.)
Louis Mueller – Baltimore, MD; US Navy, WWII
Clinton Phalen Sr. – Foster City, MI; US Navy, WWII, Chief Petty Officer
Raymond Shannon – Worchester, MA; US Air Force, Korea
Max Thomas – Calhoun, GA; US Army, WWII
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Personal Note –
GP Cox had the pleasure – or should I say ‘best experience ever’ yesterday as I boarded a B-17 Flying Fortress. If anyone has a chance to take a flight – DO IT!!
The Wings of Freedom Tour of the Collins Foundation is coming to a city near you!! Tell them Pacific Paratrooper sent you!
I was unable to download any of my videos, Pierre Lagace did this for me! Actually for 6 years he has been helping me out – m Mentor!
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The 11th Airborne on Okinawa
C-47’s of the 54th Troop Carrier Group
Saturday, 11 August 1945, top secret orders were delivered to General Swing for the division to be prepared to move to Okinawa at any time. The division G-3, Colonel Quandt, called Colonel Pearson, “This is an Alert. Have your regiment [187th] ready to move out by air forty-eight hours from now.” Commanders throughout the 11th A/B had their men reassembled, even those on weekend passes had been found and brought back to camp.
11th Airborne
The lead elements left Luzon immediately. At 0630 hours on the 13th, trucks brought the 187th to Nichols and Nielson Fields for transport and they landed at 1645 hours that afternoon at Naha, Kadena and Yotan Fields on Okinawa. They would remain on the island for two weeks.
It would take the 54th Troop Carrier Wing two days to transport the 11th Airborne using 351 C-46s, 151 C-47s and 99 B-24s; with their bombs removed and crammed with troopers. The planes had carted 11,100 men; 1,161,000 pounds of equipment and 120 special-purpose jeeps for communication and supply. Eighty-six men remained on Luzon long enough to bring the 187th’s organizational equipment to Okinawa by ship.
Jeeps being stored
Okinawa, as one of the islands being “beefed-up” with supplies, men and materiel, quickly became significantly congested; it is only 877 square miles. One day would be unbearably hot and the next would bring the heavy rains that created small rivers running passed their pup tents. The troopers were back to cooking their 10-in-1, ‘C’ or ‘K’ rations on squad cookers or eaten cold.
Okinawa cave (in good weather)
A typhoon crossed the island and the men were forced to live on the sides of hills with their pup tents ballooning like parachutes and taking off in the wind. In the hills were numerous old Okinawan tombs that the Japanese troops had adapted into pillboxes and these helped to protect the men from the storms.
Click on images to enlarge.
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Military Humor – 
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Farewell Salutes –
James Bickel – Madison, TN; US Army, WWII, 85th Infantry
Douglas Clark – Portland, OR; US Navy, WWII, PTO
Roy Dillon – Auckland, NZ; RNZ Air Force, WWII
Jonathan R. Farmer – Boynton Beach, FL; US Army, Syria, Chief Warrant Officer, 3/5th Special Forces Group, 2 Bronze Stars, Purple Heart, KIA
Shannon M. Kent – NY; US Navy, Syria, Chief Cryptologic Technician, KIA
Wilsey Lloyd – Florence, CO; US Navy, WWII
Margaret Psaila – Louisville, GA; US Army WAC, WWII
William Schmitt – Anchorage, AK; USMC, WWII & Korea
Arthur Taylor – Mortlake, ENG; British Army, WWII, ETO, Dunkirk
Scott A. Wirtz – St. Louis, MO; Civilian, Dept. of Defense, Syria, former US Navy SEAL, KIA
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Lady Luck’s Unlucky Day
The 11th Airborne Division need not speculate any longer as the 5th Air Force prepares to move them to Okinawa!
Thanks to the historians of the IHRA, we can now have some answers.
After the atomic bombs were dropped, but before a Japanese surrender had been negotiated, V Bomber Command was busy moving troops and equipment to Okinawa. The 22nd and 43rd bomb groups were also enlisted to ferry troops, as all the C-46s and C-47s were already in use. While the B-24’s potential as a troop carrier may have looked good on paper, the logistics behind turning these bombers into transport aircraft subjected passengers to a potentially deadly situation. The ideal location for extra passengers would have been closer to the tail of the aircraft, but that would make the plane much more difficult to fly. Instead, passengers had to ride on precarious wooden seats installed in the bomb bay.
The 11th Airborne Division was selected to drop onto Atsugi Airdrome as part of the Army of Occupation if the Japanese were to surrender. First, though, they had to be moved from…
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11th Airborne Division – rumors fly
11th Airborne Division jump school, Lipa, Luzon, 1945
The intensity of the Air Corps Troops Carrier Group’s training and the establishment of the division’s 3rd parachute school at Lipa, Luzon started many rumors floating about the division area.
The more practical savants had the division jumping ahead of the forces invading Japan; others thought China a more obvious choice; and still other amateur strategists thought that Formosa would make a fine DZ. But, of course, none of these courses of action was to be.
Gen. Joseph M. Swing
At the end of July, Gen. Swing called John Conable into his makeshift office in a schoolhouse outside Lipa. Gen. Swing introduced Conable to an Air Corps Major. The Major asked Conable how many planes it would take to move the division about 800 air miles. Conable remembers:
I asked General Swing how many units of fire he wanted. He said figure on a quarter of a unit. To say that I was surprised is a major understatement. The Old Man never wanted to go anywhere without at least two units of fire.
Then the General added: “Be sure to bring the band in one of the early serials.” The Major and I went back to my desk. I got out the plans I had for Olympic.
While he was looking at them, I excused myself and went into the map room. It was just 800 miles from Okinawa to Tokyo! Both the Major and I were worried about gasoline. A C-46 or 47 didn’t have enough fuel capacity to make a 1,600 mile round trip. He left with the number of men, weight, and volume of mortars, jeeps, etc. No more was said.
But the incident caused Major Conable to consider that there was definitely “something different in the wind.” And indeed there was!!
The 5th Air Force (FEAF) were operating in both the CBI Theater and still on Luzon to support the ground forces, along with the USMC. All the existing units of the Air Corps in the Pacific were in motion at this time; moving their bases to more effective locations.
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Military Humor – When the WAC’s took over! Humor by: Pfc Everett Smith in New Guinea
“TOO MUCH BEER LAST NIGHT, MISS PRINGLE?”
“DAMN THESE G.I. LATRINES!”
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Farewell Salutes –
Matthew Brown – Massapequa, NY; US Army Air Corps, WWII, Co. F/152 Artillery/11th Airborne Division
Donald Edge – Fayetteville, NC; US Army, Korea, 187th RCT
11th Airborne Memorial at Tagatay, P.I.
Brian Garfield – Tucson, AZ; US Army / author of: “The Thousand-Mile War”
Joe Jackson – Newman, GA; US Air Force, WWII, Korea & Vietnam, Col. (Ret. 32 y.), U-2 pilot, Medal of Honor
Robert Leroy – Langley, WA; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, HQ/3/511/11th Airborne Division
Jeremy Nash – ENG; British Navy, WWII, ETO, weapons officer HMS Proteus, Commander (Ret.)
Alfred K. Newman – Bloomfield, NM; USMC, WWII, PTO, Code Talker, 1/21/3rd Marine Division
Elmer Patrick – Monticello, IN; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, Co. F/188/11th Airborne Division
Clarence Strobel – Stockton, CA; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, Co. F/ 188th/11th Airborne Division
Michael C. Vasey Sr. – Roseburg, OR; US Army, Vietnam, Military Police, Lt. Colonel (Ret. 20 y.), 2 Bronze Stars
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August 1945 – James Fahey’ Diary
USS Montpelier
From: The Secret Diary of an American Sailor, Seaman First Class, James J. Fahey aboard the USS Montpelier :
2 August – All hands rose at 4:30 am because of storm warnings, the ships turned back 110 miles from Shanghai. A typhoon is heading towards our position. We will then travel south and patrol around until the danger passes. The sea was full of enormous swells today.
3 August – It was very chilly on the midnight to 4 am watch. The sea was very rough. All hands were up for sunrise General Quarters at 4:30 am. We were to refuel the destroyers today but could not because of the condition of the ocean.
The radio reported that 820 B-29 super forts hit Japan — 819 planes returned to their home bases. It was the largest raid in history. They dropped 6600 tons of bombs.
Clement Attlee defeated Churchill in the election for Prime Minister of England. The Detroit Tigers are in first place by 3 games in the American League. A B-25 medium bomber crashed into the Empire State Building in NYC. Fourteen were killed and many suffered injuries.
The weather cleared and we headed up the China coast again. Capt. Gorry spoke over the loudspeaker informing us that we were 140 miles from Shanghai. We will advance north of the mouth of the Yangtze River and then proceed to the one fathom curve. The battle cruisers, Guam and Alaska will not go up as far as us.. We will return and join the cruiser at approximately 2:30 am.
It will be a very dangerous mission because of the many reefs we could be grounded upon. I wonder what Fleet Admiral Nimitz has in mind when he made plans to send us up there. This is a very bold undertaking.
4 August – We cruised up the Yangtze River in the heart of Jap-held territory. The only ship we came across was a Chinese fishing schooner. It was very chilly on watch again. During the day we patrolled about 150 miles from Shanghai. We refueled a destroyer in the morning. In the afternoon we fired at sleeves that were towed by our carrier planes.
5 August – We left the Yangtze River. Last night we came close to ramming a 1000-pound mine, but we detected it in time. A destroyer blew it up with machine-gun fire. The explosion was terrific.
Our practice was interrupted today because of Jap airplanes. Our CAP combat air patrol planes from our carriers went after them. The Japs dropped their bombs in the water and ran for home, but our fighters caught up to one and shot it down. Our fighters shot down a couple more around 4:30. It must have burned the Japs to see us having practice in their own backyard. Sunday mass was held in the crew’s lounge.
James Fahey
6 August – The weather was very clear and sunny as we went to General Quarters. Jap bombers were overhead at 30,000 feet. We held our fire. They looked like little white spots in the sky. It took some time to locate them. They were directly overhead and remained there for some time. But as they positioned themselves in formation, they headed away from the fleet.
Click on images to enlarge.
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Military Humor – 
“AND WHAT’S MORE, YOU CAN EXPECT A PRETTY STRONG LETTER FROM MY MOTHER, SO THERE!!”
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Farewell Salutes –
Walter Ashley – Bristol, CT; US Army Air Corps, WWII, B-26 tail gunner, 320th Bomb Group
Arthur Bleecher – Denver, CO; Merchant Marine, WWII, radio operator / US Army, Korea, Antiaircraft , Bronze Star
Malcolm Foster – Milford, DE; US Army, WWII
Clarence Helgren – Elgin, TX US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, Co G/511/11th Airborne Division
William Matthews – Brewster, MA; US Navy, WWII
Wendell O’Steen – Meigs, GA; US Army, WWII, ETO, Interpreter / Korea
William Pollard – Pleasantville, KY; US Army, WWII, ETO, 1st Lt., antiaircraft
Kenneth Stetson – CA; US Army Air Corps, WWII, B-29 pilot
Charles Troeller – Lehigh Acres, FL; US Navy, WWII & Korea
Thomas Zinglo – Hollywood, FL; USMC, Korea
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The British Unsung Hero of Burma
Major Hugh Paul Seagrim
Major Hugh Paul Seagrim
For all the heroes that became famous, there are just as many that did heroic deeds which, for them, was their duty. One of them, British Major Hugh Paul Seagrim, dedicated his life to resisting Japanese forces when they invaded Burma.
Seagrim was born in Hampshire, England in 1909. He was schooled at Norwich and then joined the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. In 1929 he obtained a commission in the British Indian army. He was sent to Burma and before long was accepted by the Karens, forming close friendships.
British in Burma
Burma, now called Myanmar, is situated west of Laos and Thailand in Southeast Asia. It was a colony of Great Britain from 1886 until 1948. The different major ethnic groups living in Myanmar are Burmans, Karen, Shan, Chinese, Mon, and Indian.
Most Indonesian countries regarded the British as haughty foreigners, who looked down on the native peoples while exploiting their land. They were pleased to find none of those traits in Seagrim.
He discarded his uniform, grew a beard and due to the sun his skin turned brown. The Major was always identifiable due to his extreme height of six feet four and earned the nickname “Grandfather Longlegs” from his men. He was a calm, grounded man who always put his men first and was kind to everyone.
Stuart tank advancing on Rangoon
In 1940, the Japanese invaded Burma, with their objective being the conquest of India. Over three hundred thousand British soldiers were forced to withdraw. Seagrim, however, stayed and fought.
The Burmans had their own Independent Army, which sided with the Japanese against the Karen, who possessed only crossbows for protection. Seagrim and his men hid in the jungle and obtained food and weapons when they could. Forced to move around to keep out of reach of the Japanese, they slept in crude bamboo huts and often had to eat rats. The Major was a man of faith and held a daily prayer service for those whose families had been converted to Christianity by missionaries in the 1800s.
After about a year of guerrilla warfare, the Japanese were aware of Seagrim and his men. Having by then lost their ability to wage war, they spied on the Japanese and relayed information to the British in India. Seagrim begged for reinforcements but to no avail.
The frustrated Japanese began attacking the Karen villages to flush the Major out of the jungle. One of their victims finally gave in after horrendous torture and revealed the location of the guerrilla army. As many as three hundred Japanese soldiers closed in on the area, but Seagrim and his men escaped.
Japanese firing squad
Rather than put the Karens in any more danger, the Major decided to surrender. He was taken to the “Rangoon Ritz,” a notoriously brutal prison. All through his captivity, the Major kept his poise, good humor and ability to walk with his head held high. He pleaded for the lives of his men, pointing out that he was the spy, not the Karens. When Seagrim refused to do what the guards told him, he did so courteously. He would not bow or show any submission but did so without animosity. Just his presence buoyed the spirits of the other prisoners.
After being sentenced to death by a Japanese tribunal, and ordered to dig their own graves, Seagrim and seven of his men were executed on September 22, 1944, as they were singing a hymn.
Seagrim posthumously received the Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire; the Distinguished Service Order and the George Cross.
The medals are on display at the Imperial War Museum in London.
Click on images to enlarge.
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Military in the Movies –
General admission – Private showing.
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Farewell Salutes –
Kenneth Adams – Cincinnati, OH; US Navy, WWII
John Bauer – Furth, BAV; US Army, WWII, ETO & Nuremberg Trials, MIS Interpreter “Richie Boys”
Harold Dawson – Bartow, FL; US Army, WWII
Allen Glenn – Great Mills, MD; US Navy, ATC, Vietnam, Desert Shield & Desert Storm
Gerard Gorsuch – NYC, NY; US Navy, WWII & Korea
Bonnie Jackson – Edgar, AZ; US Army Air Corps,WAC, WWII
Jack Moyers – Denver, CO; US Navy, WWII, pilot
Christina Neigel – Verendrye, ND; Civilian, Red Cross, WWII
Robert Sommer – Woodstock, IL; US Army Air Corps, WWII, ETO, B-17 gunner
Frederick Wheeler – Concord, MA; Civilian, WWII, ETO, ambulance driver
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Dexter – The Last US Naval Horse
Naval Square, Philadelphia, PA, the 24-acre plot of land on Grays Ferry Avenue has been associated with the Navy since 1827 and has the unusual distinction of being the final resting place of Dexter, the Navy’s last working horse.
The Philadelphia Naval Asylum, a hospital, opened there in 1827.
From 1838 until 1845, the site also served as the precursor to the U.S. Naval Academy, until the officers training school opened in Annapolis with seven instructors, four of them from Philadelphia.
In 1889, its name was changed to the Naval Home to reflect its role as a retirement home for old salts, as they used to call retired sailors.
It was in the service of the Naval Home that Dexter came to Philadelphia.
Originally an Army artillery horse foaled in 1934, Dexter was transferred to the Navy in 1945 to haul a trash cart around the Naval Home.
Despite his lowly duties, the men — only men lived there — loved him.
“That horse was more human than animal,” Edward Pohler, chief of security at the home, told the Inquirer in 1968. “He had the run of the grounds and would come to the door of my office every day to beg for an apple or a lump of sugar.”
The chestnut gelding was retired in 1966 and sent to a farm in Exton, but that did not last long. Naval Home residents who missed him committed to paying the $50 monthly bill for his feed and care.
For two years he grazed on a three-acre field that residents dubbed Dexter Park.
But on July, 11, 1968, Dexter, who had stopped eating and was not responding to medication, died at the age of 34 in his stall with a little human intervention to make it pain-free.
The next day, 400 people, including Navy men in dress uniform, turned out for a burial with full military honors.
Dexter was placed in a casket measuring 9 feet long, 5 feet wide, and 5 feet deep, with an American flag draped on the top. Retired Rear Adm. M.F.D. Flaherty, the home’s governor, offered final words, saying, “Dexter was no ordinary horse.”
As the casket was lowered by a crane into the 15-foot-deep grave, Gilbert Blunt rolled the drum and Jerry Rizzo played “Taps” on his trumpet. Members of the honor guard folded the flag into a triangle of white stars on a blue field and presented it to Albert A. Brenneke, a retired aviation mechanic and former farm boy from Missouri who was Dexter’s groom.
Brenneke recalled Dexter fondly, saying the horse was “very gentle and playful” and “liked to nibble on you,” according to news coverage of the funeral.
Three acres of the grounds were designated “Dexter Park” and Dexter was buried there. The naval home was re-located to Mississippi in the 1970’s.
According to the December 1968 issue of the Navy magazine All Hands, a retired 16-year-old Fairmount Park Police horse named Tallyho took up residence at the Naval Home after Dexter’s death.
But, unlike Dexter, Tallyho, a bay gelding, was a gift to the home’s residents and did not receive an official Navy serial number.
“As was the case with Dexter, Tallyho’s only duty will be to contribute to the happiness of the men who share their retirement with him at the U.S. Naval Home,” the magazine said.
What happened to Tallyho after he went to the Naval Home is not clear.
Click on images to enlarge.
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Military Humor – 
UH_OH !!
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Farewell Salutes –
Howard Acord – Frankfort, OH; US Navy, WWII, PTO, LST-1135
T. Moffit Burris – SC; US Army Air Corps, WWII, ETO
William Davis – Scottsdale, AZ; US Army, WWII, ETO
Lawrence Greenhouse – Syracuse, NY; US Army Air Corps, WWII
Alva Jackson Cremean – Madera, CA; USMC, WWII, KIA (Pearl)
Charlene Kelly – Spokane, WA; Civilian, aircraft dispatcher, Spokane Army Air Field
Willie Lawrence – Camden, AL; US Navy, WWII, PTO, USS St. Louis, (Ret. 20 y.)
Joseph Pigeon – Wausau, WI; US Army, WWII, ETO, 555th Heavy Pontoon Batt/Corps of Engineers
Sheldon ‘Mike’ Rosenkranz – Miami, FL; US Army Air Corps, WWII
Dorothy Weichman – Plainfield, NJ; Civilian, Red Cross, WWII
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“Flying Pancake” – Vought V-173
Flying Pancake, V-173
The Vought V-173 “Flying Pancake” was an American experimental test aircraft designed by Charles H. Zimmerman and was built as part of the Vought XF5U “Flying Flapjack” World War II United States Navy fighter aircraft program.
Both the V-173 and the XF5U featured a rather unorthodox “all-wing” design consisting of flat, somewhat disk-shaped bodies (hence the name) serving as the lifting surface. Two piston engines buried in the body drove propellers located on the leading edge at the wing tips.
The original prototype, designated the V-173, was built of wood and canvas and featured a regular, fully symmetrical aerofoil section. Designed as a “proof-of-concept” prototype, the initial configuration V-173 was built as a lightweight test model powered by two 80 hp Continental A-80 engines turning F4U Corsair propellers.
These were later replaced by a pair of specially modified 16 ft 6 in three-bladed units. A tall, fixed main undercarriage combined with a small tailwheel gave the aircraft a 22° “nose-high” angle.
The disc wing design featured a low aspect ratio that overcame the built-in disadvantages of induced drag created at the wingtips with the large propellers actively cancelling the drag-causing tip vortices.
The propellers were arranged to rotate in the opposite direction to the tip vortices, allowing the aircraft to fly with a much smaller wing area. The small wing provided high maneuverability with greater structural strength.
In January 1942, the Bureau of Aeronautics requested a proposal for two prototype aircraft of an experimental version of the V-173, known as the VS-135.
The development version, the Vought XF5U-1, was a larger aircraft with all-metal construction and was almost five times heavier than the first prototype.
The first flight of the V-173 was on 23 November 1942 with Vought Chief Test Pilot Boone Guyton at the controls. The aircraft’s most significant problem concerned its complicated gearbox that routed power from the engines to its two long propeller shafts.
The gearbox produced unacceptable amounts of vibration in ground testing, delaying the aircraft’s first test flight for months.
Vought V-173
Charles Lindbergh piloted the V-173 during this time and found that it was surprisingly easy to handle and exhibited impressive low-speed capabilities.
On one occasion, the V-173 was forced to make an emergency landing on a beach. As the pilot made his final approach, he noticed two bathers directly in his path. The pilot locked the aircraft’s brakes on landing, causing it to flip over onto its back.
Maiden Flight for the V-173
Remarkably, the airframe proved so strong that neither the plane nor the pilot sustained any significant damage.
The developmental V-173 made its last flight 31 March 1947. In 131.8 hours of flying over 190 flights, Zimmerman’s theory of a near-vertical takeoff and landing-capable fighter had been proven.
The V-173 is now part of the Smithsonian collection at the Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility in Silver Hill, Maryland.
V-173 on display
It was restored at the Vought Aircraft plant in Grand Prairie, Texas, as of April 2012 it is on loan to the Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas, Texas.
This 3-minute video shows the model and actual plane flying.
Article is from War History online.
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Military Humor –
Speed limit enforced by aircraft.
Watch out for speed traps !!
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Farewell Salutes –
Lee Alexander – Ashton, ID; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, 11th Airborne Division
Atereiti Blair – NZ; NZ Air Force, WWII, nurse
Rufus Britt – Gassville, AR; US Navy, WWII, electrician, USS O’Toole
John Cotton – Broad Channel, NY; US Navy, WWII
Richard Ennis – WA; US Army Air Corps, WWII, ETO, POW
Roland Hayes Jr. – Shelbourne, NH; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO
Nelon “Tex” LaCount – Syracuse, NY; USMC, WWII, PTO / Korea, Sgt.
Georges Loinger (108) – Strasbourg, FRA; French Army, POW (escaped), French Resistance
Victor Mellen – W. Pelham, MA; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, 1st Lt., navigator
Stephen O’Brien – Dubuque, IA; US Army, WWII & Korea
Doris (Gradwell) Plagenhoef – Scarbourgh, ME; US Army WAC, WWII, PTO, nurse
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Pacific Paratrooper 