This day in History

The guys and gals that followed December 7, 1941 are called the Greatest Generation for good reason.

When I had to speak at a 95 year-old WWII vet friend's funeral, that was my last point..."greatest generation, and proud to have called him my friend.."

We were losing so many WWII vets, and now the Korean and Viet Nam vets are getting into their later years.

We owe so much to those that serve this country, both past and present....

I had an uncle who might have been the luckiest man in history.
He joined the Navy at 17, & was assigned to some minor ship in Pearl Harbor as a cook's helper. On about Dec 5th, 1941, he and a couple others were assigned TDY on the Arizona. The morning of Dec 7th, he was on the other side of the island picking up a load of fruit & vegetables when the attack happened. On the way back, they were pressed into service humping ammo for an anti-aircraft battery. By the time they got back to the harbor, it was all over.
He served on a couple of minor ships throughout the war, and at some point went home on leave for his father's funeral. He got orders to report to his new ship, but as he traveled across the country, the train broke down & he was a day late to sail with his new ship, which left without him. He was assigned to another minor ship and served there the rest of the war.
The ship he missed embarking on was the USS Indianapolis, on it's way to take the bomb to Tinian Delady.

It's my fathers birthday. He was in the NAVY in Pensacola.

He had celebrated with the neighbors and had just come home when the news flash came across the radio. They ran to the fence and yelled for dad to turn on his radio. Within a couple months, dad was shipped out to the Pacific.

Before he left, he got two small maps of the Pacific. The war time censors read all mail and would not allow anyone to mention where they were to loved ones at home for fear of that information falling into the wrong hands.

My father worked out a system with my mom. He would hold the map over a letter he was sending, and poke a pin through the island he was on. Upon receiving the letter, my mom would hold the letter up to the light and find the hole. Then, she'd overlay it on the small map to reveal where dad was. Throughout the war, the wives in his support squadron knew where the squadron was at all times (with a couple week delay for mail delivery) as it followed the front across the Pacific.

That is my dad on the left with two of his squadron mates in the Pacific...

My father-in-law was 101st Airborne, deployed shortly after D-day invasion.

He was 17 when enlisted, and did some fibbing to make it happen.

He was part of the action as the allies moved east after D-Day, but never spoke much of it.

CaveCreekRay said:

That is my dad on the left with two of his squadron mates in the Pacific...

Click to expand...

I'm sure there is a story as to why there is a prop blade stuck through that palm tree.

One of the aircraft lost control on landing and stuck the blade in that tree. If my foggy memory serves me, the two guys to the right of my dad may have been the pilots.



Amazingly, the NAVY flew a few B-26 Marauders they got from the ARMY as recon planes because they could outrun the Japanese fighters. The blade in the tree may have been from a fighter as well.

The maintenance guys decided it was easier to simply unbolt the blade from the plane and leave it.

As a NAVY photographer, my dad shot that blade picture at sunset and it's in the NAVY War Photographs file somewhere in Washington.