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Interviewed by: Madeline Folke |
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of 1941, I was a carefree young man breezing through my second year at Kansas State
University. That all changed on December 7th, when the Japanese bombed
Pearl Harbor. The following Monday morning, my first class of the day was Army
ROTC. The infantry sergeant greeted us by saying, "Shake hands with the guy on
your left and the guy on your right, because one of you isn’t going to be here next
semester." My draft status was "A-1," meaning I would probably be drafted within 30 days. I enlisted right away so I could pick which branch of the military I would serve in. I chose Navy Aviation, because they’d give me a good education and I had always wanted to fly. It must have been hard on my parents to have both of their sons in the military. However, the whole country was behind the war effort, and my parents never really doubted we would have to go. In August of 1942, I left my home in Genesco, Kansas, to begin 14 months of training with the Navy Air Corps. I began as a cadet at Navy Pre-Flight School, at St. Mary’s College, near Oakland, California. It was a unique program, with an emphasis on both academic and athletic excellence. Each day, our training began at 5:30 am, and didn’t end until 9:00 PM. For the first part of the day, we studied in the classroom. T he rest of the day was devoted to rigorous physical training. Our coaches were top-ranked athletes, who had received immediate commissions upon joining the armed forces. Gerald Ford, who would later become a US president, was our boxing coach. We were required to participate in 11 different sports, helping us grow in strength and teamwork. It was relentless, strenuous training, even for the toughest paratroopers and infantry units. My next training was Navy Primary Flight School, in Pasco,
Washington, where I had my first experience flying a plane. I also learned about
aerial strategy, navigation, meteorology, code and semaphore. I completed my pilot’s education at Advanced Navy Flight Training, in Corpus Christi, Texas. We racked up many hours of flight time in our single-engine SNJ planes. During these months together, I made a lot of good friends; some were in my squadron, some were flight instructors. I even got to know Tyrone Power, a famous movie star, who was also stationed on our base to finish his pilot’s training. On graduation from Advanced Navy Flight Training in April of 1943, each new pilot was assigned to a particular unit. I was among the 10% of our graduating class assigned to the Marines Corps. I was to join Marine Air Group 33, already at war in the Pacific. After leaving Corpus Christi, I had a 10-day leave before being stationed in New Orleans for training as a flight instructor. My high school sweetheart joined me in New Orleans, where we were married. My bride and I had only a few short months together before I was transferred to the West Coast, and she returned to Kansas to live with her parents and wait out the war. I missed my wife and family, and even though I couldn’t be with them, I sent home "voice recordings" on 45-rpm records that Shell Oil Company provided for the soldiers. In late summer of 1944, I joined up with a squadron of Marine Air Group 33 in San Diego, California which was my last stop before being sent overseas. For pilots, danger is not just in the air. As a junior officer, I traveled from base to base by ship, often on small aircraft carriers called a CDE’s. At sea, we were a target for air bombardment, and there was also the constant risk of submarine attack. Though our ships zigged and zagged, a Japanese one-man sub did manage to blow up a tanker just ahead of us. And there were other dangers, too. Once we were caught in a typhoon near Palau, and were afraid that our ships would crash into one another in the 40-ft waves. During my 15 months in the Pacific, I traveled on ship to Hawaii, Enewetak, Palau, Ulithi, Espiritu Santo, and finally Okinawa. That’s a lot of time at sea, believe me! After a brief stay in Hawaii, our squadron joined the rest of Marine Air Group 33 at Enewetac, in the Marshall Islands. Each day we studied aerial strategy, and practiced flying combat formations and maneuvers in our Corsair planes. There were three types of missions we needed to prepare for: 1) Combat Air Patrol -- flying toward enemy air space hoping to "catch" raiding planes coming in your direction, 2) Radar Picket Patrol -- circling above our Navy destroyers, protecting them from Japanese kamikaze pilots, and 3) Close Air Support -- providing aerial protection and additional firepower for our infantry units on the ground. Of the three, the Close Air Support was the most dangerous because we had to fly low to drop our rockets and strafe the enemy, and there was a greater risk of being shot down in enemy territory.
Later, our squadron was transferred to a base at Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides. Days were long, and I wrote home to my wife and family on tiny pieces of stationery provided by the army. In times of war, the mail is slow and unreliable. It was in March of 1944, in the New Hebrides, that I learned that I had become a father. The baby had been born six weeks earlier! I didn’t know it at the time, but I wouldn’t see my son for more than another year. I was one of the lucky ones. Some of my comrades never saw their children again. Flying from our base in the Espiritu Santo, we flew combat missions over the island of Okinawa, lying just 200 miles south of the Japanese mainland. Okinawa is a small island, about 65 miles long and 12 miles wide, but because of its strategic position, the Japanese wanted to defend it at all costs. On April 1st, 1945, the US Marine Infantry landed on the island of Okinawa, and took the Yonton air field. Our squadron was assigned to this perilous new toe-hold. The Japanese were still hiding in the ridge that ran down the middle of the island. They were dug in, and from their position could easily shell us with artillery. They even threw in some kamikaze pilots to bomb us, and sent suicide infantry troops that would land at night. My squadron’s job was to provide air support for US ships and infantry, and to protect the Yonton air field from Japanese raids. During battle, I tried to look on it like a job. Once a fight had begun, there wasn’t a lot of time for fear. Fighting reminded me a little of playing basketball, because you had to think fast and work as a team. Yet I always realized that the loser might get himself killed. Someone was going to score, and I wanted that someone to be me. Life on Okinawa was pretty rough. It was just a lot of mud and jungle, and we ate little more than K-Rations and Spam. Some of the men slept in tents, but I preferred a jungle hammock. The tents were leaking half the time anyway. At that time, I was the Operations Officer for our unit, and I could just string up my hammock wherever I could get some sleep. Later, as the infantry took more of the island, we were moved to the Kadena and Awasi air fields on Okinawa. In Awasi, around August 1, 1945, we learned that our squadron had been "selected" to invade the Japanese mainland. We would attack Kyushu, in southern Japan. We all knew an all-out invasion would be costly for both sides, because both the US intelligence and our own experience had taught us that the Japanese could be suicidal in defense of their country. They were all trained to kill, and would fight to the last person.
My greatest personal accomplishment as a pilot with Marine Air Group 33 was to come back alive. That was #1. So many men died -- great guys – college grads, fathers, really terrific guys. Of the 65 men in our squadron, 20 were killed in combat. When I’m asked if the war was worth it, I just say, "What would you do – GIVE UP?" We had to fight in World War Two. There was just no other way. You can’t sit still and expect to keep your freedom, and that’s a lesson we should never forget. Permission granted for use by the veteran © 2001
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Last update 03/25/01 08:37 PM
Copyright © 2001 Nieman Enhanced Learning Center
Name withheld at veteran’s request 
My
first combat mission was over the island of Pelieu, in the Palau island group. The
Japanese had a stronghold in the island’s central ridge and were holding tight.
No matter how much we bombed them, we couldn’t get those Japanese out of there.
As far as I’m concerned, the best thing that happened in World War Two
is when the US dropped the atomic bomb on Japan on August 6, 1945. During the war,
we had never doubted that the Allies would win. But afterwards, when I heard how
close Hitler was to perfecting the jet plane and his own atomic bomb, I think,
"Boy, did we luck out."