In the great expanse of the Pacific War, Ie Shima was just another spitball of an island where good men died in obscurity and anonymity, but this island was spared that indignity by the death of a national celebrity. It was there, on Ie Shima, where a Japanese machine gunner ended the life of Ernie Pyle, easily the most notable of World War II war correspondents.

I served aboard the USS Clearfield (APA 142), a troop carrier that carried LCVPs instead of lifeboats. Our mission in the war was to transport troops and other personnel to their destination and put them ashore in our landing craft. As with other members of the crew, I did double-duty as a deckhand aboard one of those boats.

By D-Day+3 (probably around 19 April 1945) our designated landing beach had been thoroughly secured. We delivered our cargo of Army reinforcements without incident and decided to prowl the beach in search of souvenirs. Evidence of the fury of battle was everywhere: bomb and shell craters dotting the beach, coconut palm trees grossly disfigured, large and small shell casings strewn about, empty ammo boxes and other debris scattered throughout.

We poked through the debris until a voice from somewhere put an abrupt end to our souvenir quest: “Hey, swabbies, I wouldn’t be poking around in there, the place is loaded with booby traps!” The warning, valid or put-on, was enough for us swabbies. We abandoned our search for souvenirs and just strolled along the beach, sightseeing, until we came upon a dramatic sight.

Of all the surviving memories of my sailor days, that scene is among the most vivid. A group of war-weary GIs, some armed with Tommy-guns, were seated in a semicircle and glaring menacingly at a group of five Japanese POWs seated Buddha-like within the circle. The soldiers were grousing and grumbling among themselves. “Hey, Sarge,” someone yelled, “give us five minutes with ’em!”

The request was immediately echoed by a chorus of “Yeah, Sarge, come on, be a sport! Just five minutes!”

The sergeant gravelly responded, “Knock it off, you guys!”

Today, combat film from the Pacific War invariably depicts scenes of Japanese soldiers in the act of surrendering. Not many such scenes, of course, mainly because the enemy preferred suicide to surrender. Those who did allow themselves to be taken captive were, invariably, in drab combat fatigues. (Small skinny guys, wearing mainly loin cloths, are probably Korean laborers.) The “Ie Shima Five,” as I lamely dubbed them, did not fit either of those molds. Those POWs were different, to say the least.

First off, they were big guys, big and husky, all of them, and obviously well fed, the picture of health, and neatly groomed. All sported trim crew cuts. Their uniforms were oddly clean and, stranger still, of a cool pastel hue. They returned the guards’ menacing glares with passive inscrutability, neither hatred nor anxiety.

Over the years I have spent many an idle moment wondering about the identity of those prisoners. Were they, perhaps, the favored staff of some important general or civilian dignitary? Could they have been Shinto or Buddhist priests? Did some diabolical misfortune place them on Ie Shima instead of their planned destination? The possibilities are virtually endless. Perhaps a reader can shed some light on this perplexing mystery.

Editor’s note: If you can shed some light on who these men were, contact Military through our email link and we will pass the message to the author.

This year’s Memorial Day observance spans a timeline extending from our War of Independence through America’s involvement in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. These military actions have silenced approximately 1,317,804 voices forever. (This does not include those still missing in action.) But the true essence of this day involves individual human beings, not a compilation of assorted statistics.

Up close
As a helicopter medical evacuation pilot, who flew nearly 1,000 missions in Viet Nam, I’ve been front-row-center for a lot of devastating action. I’ve often had an unrestricted close-up view of unspeakable battlefield carnage where unexpected, life-changing events swirled around everyone like fog in a rainstorm. That is where a soldier realizes in a flash that harm and death don’t befall just the wicked. It’s a place where I’ve heard my medics tell critically wounded comrades, time and again, “Hang on, buddy, you’re going to be all right.” A lot of the time we, and perhaps even those wounded, realized that this was undoubtedly a well-intentioned lie. These visions of violence are not cherished highlights in anyone’s memory bank.

The real champions of our nation’s wars have been those men and women who innately understood the horrendous risks and still left their safe havens in an attempt to preserve freedoms for others. These were freedoms that so many of them would never get to experience or enjoy much past their teen years, once they raised their right hands and took their enlistment oaths. The first things that had to be discarded in combat were any rose-colored glasses. These soldiers knew there would be little glory, no glamour, only darkness, destruction, disease, dismemberment and death. But still they went, willing to swim into piranha-infested waters or no-holds-barred confrontations, to do their duty.

That’s why the chalky-white tombstones stretching from Arlington to Gettysburg and across the Pacific Ocean to Omaha Beach, in addition to hundreds of other once violent places around our planet, speak so eloquently of America’s military personnel over the course of its illustrious martial history. They voluntarily risked death to provide peace for the rest of us. And we must learn to live for it, too. Our fallen heroes have found their peace. Those of us fortunate enough to remain must continue to grope for ours in a world that still appears as dangerous and uncertain as ever. But even for us who remain, haunting memories and often nightmares may still persist long after the guns on distant shores have fallen silent.

Memorial Day is a time of solemnity and remembrance. We honor the dedication of those who were seized from us by the ravages of war and relive the pain of their loss. Armed conflict has always proven that not everyone survives these confrontational situations. Our fallen realized that the enemy was always lurking in the shadows with a goal to terminate their existence. They also accepted the fact that the odds were often stacked against them. When everything in close vicinity had descended into havoc and potential disaster, they all failed to be whiners, cowards or quitters. And they were intimately aware that in battle you can’t call a time-out because you’re tired, beat-up or outnumbered. It’s an undeniable truth that rivers of warrior DNA flowed through each of them.

Legacies
The soldiers I recall most vividly from combat were anonymous to all but their friends, families and those they served with. I witnessed too many of them die month after weary month. Some volunteered to crawl alone into dangerous and claustrophobic, enemy tunnel systems using only guts, a pistol and flashlight. They walked an exposed point while “humping the boonies” as grunts on the ground. Many flew through intense anti-aircraft fire over enemy strongholds. Others fought off massive human wave attacks in the dead of night on remote landing zones and artillery bases. Each morning, despite the unknowns, they forced their bodies to move out and do it all again. They persisted. They didn’t back off. Fear, courage, close and final calls were a way of life to them in these tempestuous moments.

The legacy of our war dead is like summoning the legend of the Trojans who vowed never to come home without their shields. In every conflict this country has been engaged in, America’s warriors came home with them… or on them. Their goal was never to betray themselves or act in ways unworthy of a great homeland.

Every war and battlefield in this nation’s history has been unique, yet the strong threads of soldier commitment, determination and acts of valor connect all of our fallen. It wasn’t a person’s size, sex, age or race that mattered in the final analysis, because courage has always been defined by the individual act itself. That’s why it’s not appropriate to recount their countless heroic deeds with verbose and flashy rhetoric. The documented facts concerning their actions require no further elaboration or additional justification.

Each new soldier generation is required to take up the banner of safeguarding our nation and to derive the necessary sense of obligation from memories, stories and records of those who have gone before. That’s why David’s encounter with Goliath will never be forgotten, because it’s recorded in the Bible; the legendary deeds of Odysseus in the Trojan War are remembered because of Homer’s writings. So it’s essential and obligatory that America’s fallen warriors be honored in speeches and articles on this special and significant day. In this way, those whom they protected and served to their fullest measure of devotion will never forget their manifestation of love, duty, discipline and gallant courage.

The debt
America’s war dead have always been this nation’s most precious resource because we would not have been able to appreciate or enjoy any of our other resources without their sacrifices. All of us, our children and everyone who will come hereafter, walk in their shadow and their debt. It’s a debt we can never repay and must never forget.
One of the simplest, yet most profound, eulogies ever written for our combat veterans who never returned — this side of the Gettysburg Address by President Abraham Lincoln — was penned by combat journalist, extraordinaire, Ernie Pyle in 1943 in his WWII book “Here Is Your War.”

Pyle wrote, “Medals and speeches and victories are nothing to them any more. They died and others lived and nobody knows why it is so. They died and thereby the rest of us can go on and on. When we leave here for the next shore, there is nothing we can do for the ones beneath the wooden crosses, except perhaps to pause and murmur, ‘Thanks, pal’.”

Pyle, a noncombatant civilian, was himself killed, on 18 April 1945, by Japanese machinegun fire on Ie Shima, an island off Okinawa.

Like Ernie Pyle, war veterans have our own memories of fallen comrades that have been stored, like squir-rels store their nuts, somewhere for safekeeping in the cache of our hearts. We reflect on their smiles in faded combat photographs we’ve stashed in dresser drawers, a box under our bed or dusty closets. Their smiles are frozen in time during moments of better days… before they were no more. These were times when what lay ahead was not yet known and couldn’t be known, although we heard many of them provide unsettling and ac-curate premonitions long before these mental forewarnings became reality.

Price for freedom
In today’s society, it appears that many of the protected have short memories when it comes to understand-ing and appreciating the sacrifices of our war dead. Combat forces a soldier to take personal responsibility for representing his country, protecting himself and those around him. This is something that large portions of Americans now appear comfortable letting others do for them. With the all-volunteer Army, why not let someone else endure the risks and pain?

Some are even offended that anyone might suggest that they should have to “pay any personal dues” for the privilege of living in a free country, other than paying taxes. And many of their perceptions about the reality of war are based on the often skewed views of news and entertainment media or politicians who’ve never donned a military uniform or heard a shot fired in anger. One wonders what our Founding Fathers would think about the current path we find ourselves on as a nation.

Observing the deaths of Americans, foreign civilians and even the enemy, from close range, touches the very core of the human condition. It’s something you can never dismiss or forget as long as you live. Each of the deaths of those I carried in my helicopter cargo compartment had its own strangeness and sorrow. I recall so many distinctive youthful faces tilted toward the light with open and unseeing eyes. This was a common sight and experience for medevac crews and also soldiers fighting on the ground. These fallen were the “heaviest” portion of all that we carried. They were the ones each of us did what we could to save; yet ultimately failed in the attempt.

Untimely death in war reminds us that life is fleeting but that any time spent defending freedom is time well spent, whether it’s for our country or someone else’s. And, on this special day, we can’t forget warriors’ age-old fear that their sacrifices might be forgotten. It is the obligation of those who survive, no mat-ter which war it is, to see that this fear is never realized and to relate the stories of those who didn’t, like Ishmael in Moby Dick.

Memorial Day can carry combat veterans back to WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq or whatever war we fought in, as effectively as any time machine. It reinforces our grief of lost relatives, friends or comrades and continues to haunt us, hitching a ride on our thoughts and emotions by creating persistent aches in our souls. The memories of these silenced warriors will forever be etched in our minds.

This nation’s main line of defense is not, and never has been, state-of-the-art defense systems destined for land, sea or space. Rather, it is the American men and women whose own lives have defended besieged foreigners and the rest of their fellow citizens for as long as we’ve been a nation.

So on this 2012 Memorial Day — regardless of where these fallen fought, what era military uniform they wore or whether they volunteered or were drafted — Ernie Pyle’s memorable words are meant especially for them. “Thanks, pal.” The democracy, peace and safety we experience today wouldn’t be a reality without the selfless gift of their collective efforts.

The legacy of ships named Hornet extends all the way back to the birth of the U.S. Navy during the Revolutionary War. Hornet (CV-12) is the eighth ship of its name in the American fleet. Her immediate predecessor, Hornet (CV-8) launched the daring Doolittle Raid on Tokyo, fought at the decisive Battle of Midway and helped turn back Japanese expansion during the Battle of Guadalcanal. In October 1942, almost one year to the day from her commissioning, she was lost to a ferocious enemy air attack at the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands.

One of the legendary Essex-class aircraft carriers, Hornet (CV-12) was commissioned in November 1943 and entered the Pacific fray in March 1944. For the ensuing 15 months she never tied up at a pier, until being put out of service by a typhoon during the battle of Okinawa. The ship was a marvel of technology for her era — and a big one too. She is three football fields long, originally displaced 27,000 tons and the top of her mast stands 190 feet above the water. She could carry up to 100 aircraft and as many as 3,500 men. During WWII, her pilots and crew destroyed over 1,400 enemy planes and sank 73 enemy ships, both U.S. Navy records. Her reputation for being a lucky ship derives from having been attacked 59 times but suffering only minor damage and casualties. Hornet is one of the most decorated ships of WWII, having participated in nearly every major action in the latter-stage of Pacific combat operations.

Designed specifically to sweep the Pacific islands, skies and seas clear of Japanese combat forces, 24 Essex-class carriers were built during WWII. With the introduction of jet-powered aircraft into the fleet during the Korean War, the Essex-class ships were superseded by even larger carriers. In the late 1950s, Hornet was extensively modified to engage in an anti-submarine warfare mission and its designation was changed to CVS-12. After her Viet Nam service was over, Hornet was selected to recover the Apollo 11 lunar landing mission. On 24 July 1969, Neil Armstrong’s first steps back on Earth were taken in Hornet’s hangar bay with President Nixon in attendance. After recovering the all-Navy astronaut crew of Apollo 12 four months later, Hornet was decommissioned and mothballed in Bremerton, WA, for 25 years.

A living museum
Hornet was nearly scrapped in 1995 until some of its former crew and other volunteers banded together to preserve this key piece of America’s heritage as a living museum. The museum personnel have always been passionate about “bridging” the values of the World War II generation to the youth of today. The museum receives no financial support from any government organization. Basic operations are supported by revenue gained from daily visitors, tour groups and private functions. The creation of new exhibits and major events relies on the generosity of corporate sponsors and private benefactors. While there are four other aircraft carrier museums in the U.S., the Hornet is unique due to the extensive “period” restoration and education activities performed by its staff and volunteers.

Many years ago, kamikazes screamed overhead trying desperately to plunge their aircraft into the flight deck. Urgent voices on the loudspeakers boomed, “All hands, man your battle-stations.” The sound of gunfire reverberated throughout the entire ship, as sailors fought off attack after attack. Today, only seagulls shriek and wheel over the flight deck. Those same loudspeakers now primarily announce the next engine room or bridge tour. The main sounds echoing throughout the cavernous hangar bays are the voices of laughing children.

All principal operational spaces have been restored including the Captain’s bridge, crew’s berthing quarters, torpedo room, engine room, flight control center, combat information center and infirmary. Educational displays are located throughout the ship, many with videos the whole family will enjoy. The museum has 12 aircraft on display, ranging from a vintage WWII TBM bomber to an F-14 Tomcat used as recently as operational Desert Storm. There are some unique Apollo artifacts, including the Mobile Quarantine Facility (trailer) used by Apollo 14 astronauts upon their return from the moon in 1971 and an Apollo spacecraft that flew an unmanned test mission in 1966 (and was recovered by Hornet) and the SH-3 Sea King helicopter used in the highly acclaimed 1995 movie “Apollo 13.”

The public is welcome to tour much of the ship on their own, or take docent-guided tours into special locations, any day of the week. Many of the docents served aboard aircraft carriers, some even on the USS Hornet. They have an infectious attitude, wanting to share their knowledge with all visitors, tall or small. Many have great sea stories they are willing to share with your family. More than just a museum, the ship is a floating repository of memories, of courage in times of great danger, of honor in times of sacrifice.

One Saturday a month (usually the third) is designated Living Ship Day, giving visitors significant insight into a sailor’s life at sea. Radar antennas sweep the horizon, loudspeakers blare out various personnel commands, and airplanes are tugged around the hangar bay by “mules.” The carrier’s huge aircraft elevator whisks airplanes — and people — between the flight deck and the hangar bay in a few seconds, as it did during combat operations.

Since the museum opening in 1998, over 100,000 children have spent a night onboard the ship. Many Friday and Saturday nights, 350 lucky children participate in the Liveaboard encampment program. They sleep in the same berths, shower in the same lavatories, and eat in the same mess hall as the original sailors did. A privileged few scouts also get to attend one of the merit badge classes on Saturday, whose topics include radio, aviation and space exploration.

Over the years, the museum has also earned a special reputation in the Bay Area entertainment field. Its Big Band dances, held twice a year, have gained a dedicated group of swing dance aficionados who dress up in WWII period costumes and cut a mean rug! All or part of the Hornet is also available to be rented for private functions such as corporate dinner parties, group meetings or military reunions. Several movies and TV documentaries have also been filmed onboard.

In today’s school environment, children can only read a brief overview of major events such as WWII or the space race of the 1960s. At the Hornet Museum, they can touch it, providing a unique opportunity to actually step into history!
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USS HORNET MUSEUM (Pier 3, Alameda Point, P.O. Box 460, Alameda, CA 94501; phone 510/521-8448 x282, www.uss-hornet.org) is open daily from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. (closed Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s). Adult admission, $15; $12 seniors, students and military, $6 ages 5-17. There is ample free parking at the head of Pier 3 by the museum.

Bob Fish is the author of “Hornet Plus Three,” the first book to reveal the eyewitness story of the recovery of Apollo 11 in 1969.

“This is an exciting milestone for all of us associated with USS Slater,” said Tim Rizzuto, Executive Director of the USS Slater. “It represents the ultimate recognition for our volunteers who have put 19 years and thousands of hours of working to preserve this historic ship.”

The designation would provide greatly needed resources to further preserve and maintain the USS Slater (DE-766), which is docked on the Hudson River in Albany. The USS Slater, which served in the United States Navy fleet during WWII, has undergone an extensive 17-year restoration to its 1945 configuration. The ship is named after an Alabama sailor, Frank Slater, who was killed during World War II.

During a pre-Christmas visit in December 2011 to the 92-year-old and his family at their Green Lake, Maine, home we were surprised to hear him make a few comments about his army service, maybe because his son Steve, a former Marine, was there.

I saw my opening and asked Enos if he had ever had any contact with his buddies after the war, thinking that in this computer age it would be easier to locate a person from long ago. He hadn’t. Because his father had lost both legs, Enos had been given a hardship discharge in April 1945, and was separated from his unit prematurely. I asked him if there were anyone he would like me to help him locate. Without a blink, he said, “Curtis Hooper O’Sullivan, my old platoon leader.”

Thus began a feverish desire for me to deliver something nice for Enos. A search of the so-called white pages produced nothing other than references to a Curtis H. O’Sullivan in Yountville, Salida and San Bruno, California, with ages of 88 and 89, which were enticing clues, but there were no current addresses or telephone numbers and I wasn’t yet prepared to answer and pay for those “find anybody” ads.

So I tried the Google search engine and, yes, there he was: Brigadier General Curtis Hooper O’Sullivan, mentioned in connection with his having reviewed articles for several publications. One reference in particular caught my eye: a review in 2009 for Military magazine published in Sacramento, CA. I went to their website and contacted them, explaining my mission and asked if they could put me in touch with the General. Almost immediately the magazine’s editor, John Shank, responded with a mailing address in Santa Rosa.

Making contact
On 20 December I wrote to Curtis, and not knowing whether or not he might have passed on, I ended with, “If you or a member of your family receive this, I would appreciate your calling or writing to me. Ideally, I could have Dave call you if you were willing. He’s a young 92, still working his construction business with his sons up here in Maine.”

On 24 December, Curtis called me and, indeed, he remembered Enos and very much wanted to talk with him. I right away called Enos saying, “Guess who I was just talking with?” You can imagine his surprise and excitement. A little more than an hour later, Enos called me back announcing that they had talked all that time. He said their contact was the best Christmas present he could have. That was reward enough for my efforts.

Soon after, I asked Curtis if he would write a little about their service together and he was gracious enough to oblige.

Heading to Africa
Curtis was at Camp Devens, Massachusetts, in August 1942, an officer in the Reconnaissance Company of the 645th Tank Destroyer Battalion attached to the 45th “Thunderbird” Division. He was among those welcomed by Major General George S. Patton to his invasion force, OPERATION TORCH. That was the name given to the British-American invasion of French North Africa during the North African Campaign started 8 November 1942 to expel the Axis Powers, improve naval control of the Mediterranean Sea and prepare for an invasion of Southern Europe in 1943.

Because of a shortage of shipping, Curtis’ outfit was held back. Instead they were sent to Pine Camp, NY, Indiantown Gap, PA, and Camp Pickett, VA, before finally sailing in April 1943 from Staten Island, NY, on the SS John Ericsson, formerly the Swedish SS Kungsholm, once a lavish Art Deco cruise ship built 1924, carrying such notables as Greta Garbo. It was appropriated by the U.S. shortly after Pearl Harbor and converted to a troop ship. They arrived May 1943 at Mers-el-Kébir, a port town in the Oran province of northwestern Algeria where the French fleet holed up after France’s defeat in 1940. The fleet was destroyed by the British Navy 3 July 1940 to prevent its falling into German hands.

Enos had enlisted in December 1942 and following three months training in Texas and other assignments was shipped out 6 June 1943 on the SS West Point from Newport News, VA, bound for Casablanca, Morocco. The West Point had the largest capacity of any USN troopship in service during World War II. On one voyage, she carried over 9,000 people, including the ship’s company of approximately 750 sailors and marines. She made two fast trips to Casablanca in May and June 1943, with a total of 16,300 troops destined to be used in the invasion of Sicily and Italy. The Atlantic was heavily infested with Axis submarines but the ship was fast, and by zigzagging constantly it was able to make the trips unescorted.
In eastern Tunisia, the Germans, Rommel and von Arnim had some successes against the mainly inexperienced French and U.S. Corps, particularly at the Battle of the Kasserine Pass in late February 1943. But the Axis forces were eventually caught in a pincer movement and surrendered on 13 May 1943 yielding over 275,000 prisoners of war. This huge loss of experienced troops greatly reduced the military capacity of the Axis powers, although the largest percentage of Axis troops escaped Tunisia.

It was after the Axis defeat in Tunisia that Enos joined Curtis’ Reconnaissance Company there and the two became closely associated. While still in Algeria, Patton, then a Lieutenant General had insisted that every officer have someone to relieve him of routine and PFC Hamilton was Curtis’ choice. The 645th was waterproofed for a landing in Sicily in July 1943, but was bumped for truck units so their first landing was at Salerno, Italy, 9 September 1943. Curtis was wounded in action and sent to a recovery center in Sorrento and Enos went with him. The two had time to see Naples, Pompeii and so on. Later that fall they were part of a provisional rifle company on the Winter Line, a series of well-prepared German positions across the waist of Italy designed to halt the Allied advance. For the individual soldiers, the attack involved bitter fighting from hill to hill.

Anzio and beyond
The two were part of the Anzio landing on 29 January 1944, which, because of the element of surprise, was largely unopposed. But within a week, as Allied troops consolidated their positions and prepared to break out of the beachhead, the Germans gathered troops to eliminate what Adolf Hitler called the “Anzio abscess.” The next four months would see some of the most savage fighting of WWII during which the Allied forces suffered over 29,000 casualties. They broke out 23 May and captured Rome on 4 June. Shortly after, they were pulled out to prepare for Southern France where they landed 15 August 1944 on a dismounted commando, ranger-type mission to capture specific targets. They moved rapidly up the Rhone valley to contact Patton’s Third Army when they were halted at the Vosges Mountains and again given an infantry mission. When they were able to have a brief break, Curtis managed to sneak off to Paris, with Enos driving him, to find a family relative.

They were at the southern flank of the Bulge during that battle and were pushed back during the final German offensive, “Nordwind,” January 1945. They crossed the Rhine in March 1945 into the heart of the Reich. In April, Curtis and Enos had their last ride together when they went to the Red Cross representative at Division Headquarters to arrange Enos’ separation to handle family matters at home brought on by his father’s loss of both legs.

Curtis reported having had 525 days of front line combat during which Enos and he were together – an obvious reason why these two old soldiers had much to talk about and would treasure having time for more. Not so obvious was Curtis’ closing sentence in his letter to me saying: “We also managed to have some fun and saw some fascinating places and people.”

When he joined CAP the first time, Compton was in his early 20s. It was during World War II, when German submarines were effortlessly picking off American cargo and transport ships. As a volunteer member of the fledgling CAP — established 1 Dec 41, and originally called the Coastal Patrol — Compton flew missions on numerous aircraft, including a Stinson and Grumman G44 A.

During WWII, the presence of CAP aircraft discouraged enemy submarines from surfacing to recharge their batteries, forcing them out to sea. Those that were spotted were reported by CAP to the military for action, though members of the organization — which was eventually allowed to carry ordnance — were credited with sinking two German U-boats.

CAP’s WWII service also included towing targets for military shooting practice, transporting critical supplies within the country and conducting general aerial reconnaissance. Compton played a key role in accomplishing these missions.

The Distinguished Service Medal is CAP’s highest award for service and is bestowed for “conspicuous performance of outstanding service in a duty of great responsibility where the position held and results obtained reflect upon the accomplishments and prestige of CAP on a national scale.” Compton earned his recognition for his service at CAP Coastal Patrol Base 1 in Atlantic City, NJ. The use of CAP personnel during WWII literally depended on the success of this base, which was given a 90-day trial.

Compton left two Chicago jobs — one as an advertising salesman for the Daily News and one working in a plant that manufactured aircraft parts — to go to the East Coast as a CAP citizen volunteer based, he said, on “a desire to be more actively engaged in the war effort.” There he was part of the flight staff, serving on missions to search for German submarines and providing escorts for American convoys as they sailed along the Eastern seaboard.
The duty was dangerous, Compton recalled. “There was nothing like GPS,” he said, and members used partially sunken American merchant ships, which were plentiful, as a navigational tool.

He showed his great sense of humor when he related CAP aircrews’ struggles to discern between enemy submarines and whales to avoid any ridicule for attacking marine life. And he told about dangerous night duty on base when someone patrolling the perimeter encountered a sentry. “Both you and the sentry needed to know the correct password, or it would mean a ‘tense moment’,” he said.

Compton, who at one time commanded CAP squadrons in both Evanston and Morton Grove, IL, was honored at a ceremony on 18 June, organized by the Illinois Wing’s Palwaukee Composite Squadron and held at the Presbyterian Home where Compton resides. In addition to the entire membership, including a cadet color guard and honor guard, of the Palwaukee squadron, which “adopted” Compton, other guests included Ann Compton, Compton’s daughter and White House correspondent for ABC News; Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), the Rev. Jill Paulson, granddaughter of Gill Robb Wilson, who is credited with founding CAP; and CAP’s national commander, Maj. Gen. Amy S. Courter, and national vice commander, Brig. Gen. Charles Carr.

Compton is one of some 60,000 unsung heroes who volunteered through CAP during its early years to protect the American homeland.

On 20 August 1969, I was a U.S. Army captain assigned to the 236th Medical Detachment (Helicopter Am-bulance) in Da Nang, South Viet Nam as operations officer and a medical evacuation pilot. Our mission en-tailed evacuating wounded and dead Americans, South Korean, South Vietnamese, Australian allies, Vietnamese civilians and, often, enemy soldiers to aid stations and hospitals in our 5,000-square-mile operational area.

From 20-22 August, I had assigned myself as copilot to a field-site crew of four at Landing Zone (LZ) Baldy, approximately 25 miles south of Da Nang. Warrant Officer 1 William A. (Wild Bill) Statt was the aircraft commander, SP5 John N. Seebeth was our medic and SP5 Paul L. Sumrall was the crew chief. I’d barely been in Viet Nam a month, and in our unit for two weeks as a rookie pilot.

What we weren’t aware of was that we were about to be shoved into the middle of a major battle involving four regiments of the U.S. Army’s 196th Light Infantry Brigade, two battalions of the U.S. 7th Marines and batteries of the U.S. 82nd Artillery that provided fire support from four firebases. These Americans were fac-ing 1,500 Communist troops.*

Insecure missions
In those 2 1/2 days of devastating action, our crew evacuated 150 wounded Americans from the Que Son Val-ley on 42 missions, 15 of which were “insecure.” This meant that our ground troops couldn’t guarantee the safety of the LZ because the enemy was in contact and too close, or friendlies were low on ammunition and couldn’t provide appropriate covering fire. On a majority of these insecure missions, helicopter gunships were unavailable to cover our unarmed aircraft because there was too much action requiring their services in other parts of this battleground. So our only alternative was to take our chances and go in alone because most of the wounded wouldn’t have survived if we waited for gunships to arrive.

During late morning of 21 August, our UH-1H (Huey) was shot up by enemy AK-47 rifle fire while exiting another insecure LZ. One of our three patients was wounded for the second time. A burst of enemy fire ripped into a can of oil our crew chief kept under my armored seat, spraying it over my Nomex fire-retardant flight pants. Another round locked me in my shoulder harness when it clipped a wire on the unlocking device attached to the left side of my seat. After depositing our patients at the battalion aid station at LZ Baldy, a replacement bird and a different crew chief were flown down from Phu Bai (a medevac unit north of Da Nang) for our use.

Less than 24 hours later, we were shot up for the second time on another insecure mission. This one involved evacuating an infantry staff sergeant who’d been shot in the back. Seebeth was wounded in the throat as we made our hot-and-hairy tactical approach into the LZ. An AK-47 round tore out his larynx before we’d even landed. As we exited the LZ with our original patient, who’d been literally thrown aboard by two of his comrades under heavy enemy fire, two of our three radios were also shot out.

In the aid station at LZ Baldy, Seebeth kept mouthing the words, “I can’t breathe” as he kicked his legs in frustration. I held his legs and attempted to calm him while Captain George Waters, M.D., performed a tracheotomy without anesthesia. The wound had swollen so fast that it was cutting off his oxygen. Time couldn’t be wasted being concerned about alleviating his pain. Doc Waters immediately initiated an incision. Mercifully, Seebeth quickly lapsed from shock into unconsciousness.

John survived, but endured 12 follow-up operations since then… one of which gave him back a voice. But it’s not the same voice we’d known and grown to love as he provided emergency medical care to thousands of his patients; instead his voice is produced by a plastic Montgomery T-tube that’s inserted into his tracheotomy opening and, when he wants to talk, he must plug an opening on one end with a finger to force air through his mouth.

Crossing paths
Since that first paragraph of Rocky Bleier’s story in 2001 had caught my attention, I decided to do some re-search. I’d heard that Bleier had written an autobiography, “Fighting Back” (with Terry O’Neil). In it, he’d written about his early life, the fact that he’d been drafted into the U.S. Army in 1968 and details concerning his subsequent service in Viet Nam in 1969 where he was severely wounded in both legs. He also provided an inspiring story of how he overcame his wounds and recovered the use of his right foot, which doctors had at one point thought would have to be amputated. This ultimately led to Bleier being a part of four winning National Football League (NFL) Super Bowls as a starting running back with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1974, 1975, 1978 and 1979.

Both the 1975 and revised/updated 1995 editions of Bleier’s autobiography were out of print, so I contacted an out-of-print book dealer who was able to acquire a copy of the 1975 edition. I sat down to read the entire book as soon as it arrived in 2002.

Before beginning the first chapter, I glanced at the contents and Chapter 7, titled “August 20, 1969,” quickly caught my eye. This is when things became interesting and nearly unbelievable.

On 20 August, Bleier was an M-79 grenadier with the 196th Light Infantry Brigade of the Americal Division. He was wounded twice on that Wednesday near Million Dollar Hill (which gained its name and fame because a million dollars worth of American helicopters were shot down there in one day) that was located east of the infamous village of Hiep Duc. His book described in detail how a “Dust Off” medevac helicopter had pre-viously completed two missions to their location that night evacuating other wounded Company C members. Bleier was next to the last patient crammed into the cargo compartment on this third and final flight to be evacuated to LZ Baldy at 0200 on 21 August. That’s when it hit me.

I went to my military files and pulled out my combat flight records. Then I retrieved a citation for the Distinguished Flying Cross that our entire crew had been awarded for those traumatic 2 1/2 days. Everything fit. Our unit’s lone field-site was at LZ Baldy and I only assigned one flight crew there at a time. Hiep Duc and Million Dollar Hill were in our area of operations. That’s when I recalled our crew landing on the same hilltop three times in one night during that period of time. We were obviously the crew that had evacuated Bleier and his other wounded infantry comrades from that ambush site during this chaotic night.

Ernest Hemingway wrote, “The world (and also combat) breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” Perhaps this is what happened to Rocky Bleier, our flight crew and so many others in Viet Nam. Adversity has a way of introducing you to yourself.

Empathy & guilt
As soldiers, especially medevac crews, doctors, nurses and medics, we were all our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers… and still are to this day on different battlefronts. It was a fact that many of our brothers needed evacuation and immediate medical care during that horrific August 1969 night on Million Dollar Hill in Viet Nam. I’ll always be grateful that our crew was there and able to assist those courageous American warriors.

On this Memorial Day, I’m again reminded of how war changes veterans’ lives forever in painful ways. Those who’ve experienced combat’s physical and psychological pressure cooker know it can be like swimming with piranhas, great white sharks and moray eels in a sea of blood. Surviving in such an atmosphere is often as easy as attempting to perform disappearing magic tricks in front of a firing squad.

When we veterans returned home, and so many of our friends and comrades didn’t, nagging doubts had the ability to creep into our minds about whether we really accomplished everything that we could have done. Survivor’s guilt can overwhelm a combat veteran with an emotional tsunami just because he or she is still alive.

In my own case, I know how it feels to make a judgment error that cost a South Vietnamese lieutenant colonel with seven children his life. My crew could have saved him but, as aircraft commander, I failed to recognize the danger he was in quickly enough. Forget those other 986 missions that ended successfully. That particular incident continues to wend its way through my thoughts almost daily. I finally forgave myself for this personal blunder, many years later, but the survivor’s guilt I internalized for so long etched this mistake deep into my conscience. How quickly and easily war can destroy lives. Just the blink of an eye and their lights are extinguished forever.

A persistent voice in the back of my mind used to whisper a disturbing thought. Why did you survive when so many others didn’t? I don’t know the answer to that question and may never know in this lifetime. That’s one of the reasons I became a writer. I’ve made it a personal goal to ensure that the legacies of courage, duty and dedicated service our military members have provided through over 235 years as a nation don’t die and aren’t swept into the dustbin of history.

Honor
I celebrate my combat survival, and over 27 years of military service on three continents that began at the age of 17, by writing and publishing the truth about the heroism and sacrifices of military personnel that I’ve witnessed. That’s because it’s important to honor all veterans — dead and alive — who’ve served America in time of both war and peace.

Some of our fellow citizens, journalists, college professors and politicians apparently lack understanding about our warrior culture. They often fail to fully appreciate its deep loyalty to comrades, Ramboesque competitive nature, periodic paranoia (generated mostly by reality) and profound sense of service. I feel obligated to help educate them, whenever possible, about this magnificent “band of brothers and sisters.”

A day seldom passes when I don’t recall bloody scenes of young men sprawled on our cargo deck, most whom were barely out of high school, and how they were cut down defending the freedoms of others before their own lives had barely begun. I think of all the milestones they never reached such as graduation from college, marriage, children… and old age with the rest of us. Remembering is a continuous act. I don’t need Memorial Day to remind me. Every day is Memorial Day in my world.

August 20, 1969 was merely another dangerous and dramatic day for so many in our country’s history of sacrifice and service on behalf of others. But it taught me an important lesson. We never know whom our actions might impact in this life or who might touch and influence us in return. And each time Memorial Day rolls around, we can benefit ourselves and others by celebrating, acknowledging and never forgetting those who gave — and are still giving — their all in the fight for freedom around this planet. We forget their strength, courage and dedication at our nation’s peril. Honoring their memories, missions and meritorious achievements is the least we can do for them, now and forever.

*Nolan, Keith, “Hiep Duc ‘Death Valley,’” VFW, (August 2008), p. 39.

I had gone to Italy on a troop ship from Newport News, VA, departing in July 1944, and arriving at Naples, Italy, a couple of weeks later. Mooring in Naples gave the thousands of replacements aboard their first sight of the wreckage caused by war. Our troop ship tied up to a big ship that was on its side, and we off-boarded onto the side of that ship going to the dock. We were marched to a railroad where we boarded a 40-and-8 boxcar that took us on a short ride to Caserta. From there we were marched to a huge replacement camp; it had been Count Ciano’s dairy farm.

The dairy farm was a new kind of camp for us as there were few structures and some big tents. We were broken up into groups and told to pitch pup tents along a line after making a dirt form to keep rain from seeping into the tents. Two to a tent was the drill, and I partnered with a nice fellow I’d met on the ship. This is where we were to sleep and live until we were shipped further. There were mess tents nearby, and each of them fed about 1,000 men.

The food was passable, but the lines took a lot of the day, and so did the lines for cleaning our mess kits.

This camp was made to accommodate replacements for a short period of time, but the invasion of southern France was to take place in August, and it was expected that many replacements would be needed. Alas, it was an easy invasion with few casualties, so few of us were needed in France. Instead, the 5th Army in northern Italy had plenty of casualties, so that was our destination.

A new job
One day I saw a “cook” from our mess packing to leave. I asked him about it, and he said he was going north. I ran over to the mess tent, and volunteered to take his place. The mess sergeant asked me about my skills and I somehow managed to get the job. Although it meant starting at 0400, and working till 2200 or 2300, every third day I could get a pass to Naples. I did my best — which was good enough as there was very little real cooking, mostly a lot of hard pumping to make the gas stoves work.

Heading out
I stayed there until the end of September when I was called to pack and board a boxcar; it took us two days to get to Florence. On the way, two fellows were killed — one was on the roof of a boxcar when we got to a tunnel; the other fell between two cars. It was a slow trip, with lots of pauses near farms with wine for sale. Once we got to Florence we were housed in a pleasant camp with wood-framed pyramid tents, but I was only there a few days.

The next trip was a 6×6 ride up Highway 65, which took me to the 88th Division HQ. We spent one night there dug in on a hill. We had been warned of possible shellfire, and thought it was just a joke on us green doggies. It wasn’t, and several of our new replacements were hit. We had another C ration meal, and then were split up and taken to our new units.

A few of us ended up with the 2nd platoon of H Company of the 350th Infantry Regiment. I was a heavy machine gunner, and this platoon was supposed to have four squads with these water-cooled guns. However, the battalion had just been relieved after a very costly battle for Mount Battaglia in which the battalion was awarded a Presidential Unit Citation, and the CO of G Company received a Medal of Honor. There were not too many survivors, and the ones there were not a happy crew. Sergeant Mazzarella questioned me, and when he heard that I had 16 months on these guns, he appointed me a gunner. I did not quite realize why the survivors did not want the gunner’s job, but they knew the score all too well. Sergeant Mazzarella left that day as he was to be commissioned, and Sergeant Forbes took over.

My replacement days were over all too soon. We got into several scraps in which quite a few of those who had come up with me went back over the pack saddles of mules. Their experiences in combat were short and deadly. A good measure of the KIA/MIA rate was the fact that I was promoted 10 days after I arrived with my platoon.

Through October until the war in Italy ended, we had a steady stream of replacements. We called many of them Camp Blanding Commandos, having only 16 weeks training at Camp Blanding in Florida. The assignment of junior officers was even worse; they were given patrols before they knew where they were.

Winding up
I’ll end with the tale of my brother Joe, who was assigned to the 80th Division during the Battle of the Bulge. After just 13 hours with his outfit he was taken back to an ambulance and spent the rest of the war in a hospital. He survived with a 45% disability.

It is worth noting that the Army Specialized Training Program was broken up in the winter of 1944-45, and those poor ex-students, about 145,000 of them, were fed into the replacement system whether they were reasonably trained or not. That is a story unto itself.

His tank battalion was a separate outfit in General George S. Patton’s 3rd Army, operating most of the time with the 90th Infantry Division. “The 712th is my spearhead,” once remarked Division Commander, General James Van Fleet.

His tank section had taken over the lead when the other section got stuck in the mud off the main dirt road into the French town of St. Suzanne in early August 1944. They had experienced some resistance in that area.

Tank Platoon Sergeant Warren B. Willinger was positioned in the open top hatch of Sparks’ tank with a clear view of the road ahead. Suddenly a German Panzerfaust rocket launcher fired an anti-tank rocket from high up on a ridge over the road. The rocket killed him as it entered the open hatch and exploded inside.

The beginning
Sparks grew up in Abilene, KS, where his father worked for a telephone company, moving to Modesto, CA, in 1937. He registered for the draft at the age of 23, a few months before Pearl Harbor, and had been classified 1-A. He was working in a wholesale grocery business in Modesto at the time. He received his draft notice in January 1942 and was ordered to the Presidio of Monterey for induction. His advanced training was at Fort Riley, KS, where he learned how to ride a horse and take care of it. “We all carried broom sticks in those early days as there was a shortage of rifles at the time,” he remembered with a laugh.

Private Sparks was not too happy doing the scoop-shovel work around the horse barn. “I could think of a whole lot of other things I would rather be doing,” was how he put it. His assignment with the horses didn’t last too long however.

The Army became mechanized in 1942 and, with that horse training experience, the new soldier ended up in an “iron horse” of the 712th Tank Battalion that had formed up at Fort Benning, GA. The unit left for England after extensive training in the States.

In the Army
“I was a gunner at first and later became a driver,” he said. “We had five men in the crew and were equipped with M-4 Sherman tanks with short-barreled 75-millimeter guns. The muzzle velocity was so slow that the projectiles in flight were visi-ble from a position standing directly behind the tank.”

The German tanks had a real edge against the American tanks with their long-barreled 88-millimeter, high-velocity guns. They also used that multi-purpose round in field artillery guns and anti-aircraft guns. The 75mm guns in the Sherman tanks were no match for the German 88s

Sparks lost his second tank in the fighting around St. Suzanne, France; he was awarded a Silver Star for his actions in that battle. When an anti-tank rocket fired from a hill above them entered the open top hatch, the molten slag produced by the rocket’s impact splattered around inside the tank, started a fire and welded the gun-breech closed. Sparks immediately turned on the tank’s fire extinguishing system and put out the fire. After he removed the wounded crewmen, he went back into the tank and moved it off the road to allow the rest of his battalion to continue into town.

A few days later he and another crewmember trucked back to an ordnance outfit to pick up another tank. The first tanks they saw had new long-barreled 76mm, high-velocity guns.

“You can’t have one of those as they are all going to another unit. You can go over to the other tank park and pick out one of those older ones we have fixed up,” said the ordnanceman.

The two tankers went to the other site, took a look at those old patched up “coffins,” and both agreed, “To hell with that,” and left without a tank. They went back and reported what they had seen to their company commander and some time later the 712th got the newer tanks with the 76mm guns.

The end of the war
They were in Suscice, Czechoslovakia, when the war ended and then relocated to Amberg, Germany, for rest and maintenance of their equipment. There he received his Silver Star — pinned on personally by Maj. Gen. James Van Fleet, 90th Infantry Division Commander — before leaving with the others for the States.

Sparks never received a copy of his Silver Star citation for that August 1944 incident; the Military Records Department in Washington, DC, searched for his citation in the 712th Tank Battalion records but found nothing. In 2004, Lloyd asked California Congressman Dennis Cardoza to have Washington check the records of the 90th Division for his citation and there it was found! Sparks received a nicely bound copy of the citation in June 2004, arriving just two months short of 60 years after he was awarded it in 1944 when the world was still at war.

It read: “For gallantry in action on 7 August 1944 in the vicinity of St. Suzanne, France. The tank which Technician Fourth Grade Sparks was driving was set ablaze by a hostile bazooka round. Technician Fourth Grade Sparks immediately crawled onto the back deck and operated the armored vehicle’s fire extinguishing mechanism. He then went back into the smoking turret and removed a wounded comrade from the tank. Despite intense machine gun fire directed at him, he carried the casualty 500 yards to an aid station. Returning over the fire-swept route, he evacuated another wounded crewmember. On his third return, he located the hostile machine gun position for the infantry commander to effect the speedy elimination of the strong point. The gallantry dis-played by Technician Fourth Grade Sparks was in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflects great credit on himself, the 712th Tank Battalion, and the Army of the United States.”

The veteran tanker remarked, “I still have a copy of the history book from our battalion and the one from the 90th Division. I also have Gen. Patton’s ‘Prayer Card’ with my name printed on it.”

Lloyd was discharged in October 1945, went back to Modesto and got his old job back. In 1962 he began working for the California Department of Transportation, retiring in 1980. He presently hangs out at the Merced Senior Community Center (Merced, CA) and shoots a “mean” game of pool.

Bedcheck Charlie had been raiding before the cease-fire finally stopped him. When Charlie flew his single-prop plane at night over Radio Company, the men scrambled out of the huts with their weapons and jumped into foxholes and bunkers around the compound, some manning machine guns. The enemy aviator lobbed grenades in the pitch darkness, hoping to hit men and equipment, his vision impeded by searchlights from the ground. Most of his grenades managed to plow up the rice paddies.

Operation BIG SWITCH
Bruce Bottum was our radio-teletype operator who relayed the progress of the armistice negotiations from Panmunjom to Tokyo, before and during the signing in July. In August he was at Munsan-ni, reporting on Operation Big Switch, the major prisoner exchange. (There would be POW exchanges into 1954.)

These POW exchanges were contentious, to put it gently. As the Chinese and North Korean prisoners approached the exchange area on trucks, they stripped down to their shorts in protest against their American-made clothing and shouted “Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!” incessantly, waving small North Korean flags. With fists they broke the windows of the train that would take them back to North Korea, intentionally making their hands bleed on the broken glass.

With their blood they wrote defaming slogans on the sides of the train against the Americans.

Bruce was a witness to this exhibit of fanaticism and rage. One of the American prisoners was a high school acquaintance of his, a downed fighter pilot who was purportedly tied to a tree and had cold water thrown on him in the freezing cold of winter.

Our mission
The mission of the 304th Signal Battalion (headquartered in Seoul) was to supply the 8th Army with radio, wire, photo and crypto support.
Our company, on the site of a WWII Japanese radio station, was the radio-teletype arm of 304th Signal. We slept in Japanese-built wood-and-cement huts and, outside the compound, was a minefield — and lots of raggedy kids, dust, mud, and stink. Originally, Radio Company was in a palace in Seoul, but a fire there in 1951 made it move to Bupyeong. I was assigned to the radio repair shop. My MOS of 1649 (Fixed Station Radio Repairman) was of little use in dealing with the mobile equipment I found.

Our mainstay was the AN/GRC-26, dubbed the “Angry 26.” These walk-in radio-teletype/voice rigs were mounted on deuce-and-a-halves for quick deployment. Radio electronics were based on vacuum tubes. Bristling with antenna posts, our company would have been an easy target from the air, had the Chinese and North Koreans not been pinned down by our forces.

War’s heartbreaks
The heartbreaks of the war must include the plight of the war orphans. Like other units in Korea, Radio Company hosted an orphanage, where the children had food, clothing, a place to live, and as much cheer as we could provide — like Christmas parties in our mess hail.

I am proud to have participated in the rescue of South Korea from the Communists, whose ferocity and determination to deliver South Korea to Kim Il Sung caused enough bloodshed and suffering to still spring tears among those who remember. But after everything is said and done, we must dwell on the importance of our action in Korea.

This is best summarized, I think, in the words of a label for the Korean War that I recently came across: “The substitute for World War III.” I think we can all be proud of the stunning result for the people of the Republic of Korea.