Irish Airman's Grave Found in Russia-- Part 4: Edmund Seymour Burke

Prior to the outbreak of the war, Burke had studied at Pembroke College in Oxford and had desires to be an actor once the war was over.  But all that was put on hold when he signed up to fight the Germans.  He never realized his dream, however.

In an ironic twist of fate, Ian Campbell Burke, Edmund's younger brother,  was shot down and killed  when returning from a bombing raid over Germany just two months after Edmund went missing off the coast of Norway.

*******************************************

COMMONWEALTH WAR GRAVES

Sub-Lieutenant EDMUND SEYMOUR BURKE

Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve

F.A.A. 800 Squadron HMS Furious

DATE OF DEATH

30 July 1940

Age 24 years old

BURIED OF COMMEMORATED AT

Vaida Bay Military cemetery

Grave 5

Russian Federation

--GreGen

Irish Airman's Grave Found in Russia-- Part 3: Finding Relatives and the Ceremonies

The JCCC place an advertisement in the Duplin People newspaper seeking the long-lost relatives of Edmund Seymour Burke who was born in Dublin.  The story was picked up by a popular radio show host and Maureen Hayes, whose mother was Burke's maternal first cousin came forward saying that as a child she'd heard stories about Burke.

She said that her relatives never knew what had happened to him.  She attended the ceremony in 2017.

Meanwhile Finders  International, a genealogy company, also heard the story on the radio and commenced their own search and found three of Burke's first cousins.  Two of them attended the ceremony in England.

Another distant relative, Andrew Furlong,  even attended a ceremony in Russia at the Vaida Bay Military Cemetery on the Rybachy Peninsula where Burke and Beardsley are buried.  

Furlong said there were about fifty Russian airmen also buried at the cemetery who were shot down  during the Second World War and that the cemetery had been revamped in 2017 and that a Greek Orthodox priest had blessed the graves of the Russians and a British Navy chaplain had done the same for the two British aviators.

--GreGen

Irish Airman's Burial Site Found in Russia-- Part 2: Identification

In 2017, a Russian journalist told the British Consulate in Moscow that he had found  two unmarked graves on the Rybachy Peninsula  in northern Russia.

The graves simply noted that they were of two unknown British airmen, so the Consulate and the Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre (JCCC)  set about identifying the two men.

The two young pilots had evidently drifted  along the Norwegian coast until their dingy beached  in Rybachy, a desolate and bleak peninsula jutting out from northern coast of Russia.  Nomadic people in the area reported finding the bodies of the two men dead in the dingy.

Despite being pitched into the sea in the middle of the summer, the conditions were still extremely cold and they probably died of hypothermia.

They two organizations discovered who the two men were and then set out to find relatives. 

The Ministry of Defence and the JCCC were going to have a re-dedication ceremony in south England in 2017 and wanted to have relatives of Burke and Beardsley in attendance.

The JCCC must be like the U.S. Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command.

--GreGen

Irish Airman's Burial Site Found in Northern Russia-- Part 1: Edmund Seymour Burke

From the Feb. 15, 2021 Irish Central "Discovery of  Irish airman lost at sea during the Second World War" by Shane O'Brien.

When Irish fighter pilot Edmund Seymour Burke's plane  went down near Norway, his family had no idea what happened to him.  They knew that he had died, but nothing beyond that.

His plane was based on the aircraft carrier HMS Furious and he helped protect ships bound for Russia from German attack.  The Germans had also established naval bases in several nearby Norwegian fjords which made any effort to rescue Burke and his leading airman James Beardsley too dangerous when their plane went down on July 30, 1941.

The two men were seen getting into a dingy, but the Furious had to leave  because of the presence of German planes and submarines in the vicinity.

That was the last anyone knew of them.

--GreGen

Percy L. Jones Army Hospital in Battle Creek, Michigan-- Part 3: It Was Huge!

The hospital grew as the flow of casualties continued to increase.  In 1944, Dr. John Kellogg donated his mansion of the nearby Gull Lake to the Army, which assigned it to the Percy Jones as a convalescent center.  The Fort Custer Reception Center was also used by patients on "casual duty."

The Percy Jones Hospital  complex was massive, self-contained and fully integrated.  It had its own water supply and power generation.  In addition, it had its own bank, post office, public library and even a radio station, "KPJ."

The Percy Jones Institute was an accredited high school with dozens of  educational and training programs for patients ranging from photography to business and to agriculture.

At the height of the war, more than 2,000 people visited the hospital on a daily basis.  Entertainers like Bob Hope, Jimmy Stewart, Ed Sullivan, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers put on shows there.

In 1945, Percy Jones became the largest medical installation of any kind in the world.

Following V-J Day in 1945, the population of the hospital peaked with 11, 427 patients assigned to its three area sites.  One of those patients, of course, was Bob Dole.

Percy Jones specialized as an Army center for neurosurgery, amputations, handicapped rehabilitation, deep x-ray therapy and plastic artificial eyes.  In one month alone, 729 operations were performed.

In the decade it was open,  the hospital made an impact on the City of Battle Creek which was the first American city to install wheelchair ramps in its sidewalks to accommodate Percy Jones patients when they visited downtown.

--GreGen

Percy L. Jones Military Hospital in Battle Creek, Michigan-- Part 2

With the outbreak of World War II, local builder Floyd  Skidmore proposed that the nearly vacant sanitarium be converted into a military hospital.    Upon his recommendation, in August 1942, the United States Army bought the buildings for $2.5 million and F.J. Skidmore & Son rebuilt the derelict structure in just six months working around the clock.

The capacity of the hospital was raised from 1,000 beds to 1,500 and ramps and rails were constructed throughout the facility.

On February 27, 1943, the hospital was officially dedicated by its first commander, Colonel Norman T. Kirk.  He was the former chief of surgical services at Walter Reed General Hospital in Washington, D.C.. The new hospital was named after Colonel Percy L. Jones, U.S. Army,  a pioneering Army surgeon who  developed modern battlefield ambulance evacuation.

--GreGen

Percy Jones Army Hospital-- Part 1: A Varied History

From Wikipedia.

This is where former U.S. Senator Bob Dole recuperated for two and a half years after his wound in Italy during World War II.

It is now part of the Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center in Battle Creek, Michigan.

Before it became the Percy Jones Army Hospital, it had a long career, first as  the Western Health Reform Institute which opened in 1866 featuring holistic medicine by the Seventh-Day Adventists.  In 1876, it was acquired by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (invented corn flakes) and it became the Battle Creek Sanitarium.

However, the Great Depression caused the place to go into receivership.

With the United States entry into World War II, it became apparent that places would be needed to treat the large number of wounded military personnel.  

A new use was found for the place.

--GreGen

Bob Dole's Constant Pen In Hand a Reminder-- Part 2: Wounded in Italy

Once in the Army, Bob Dole rotated around several U.S. camps before getting into Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning in Georgia.  As a 2nd lieutenant in the Army's 10th Mountain Division, he deployed to Italy.

But just a few months into that deployment, Dole, on April 14, 1945, led a charge on Hill 913 north of Castel D'Aiano, with his soldiers taking heavy artillery fire.  When he saw a fellow soldier go down, Dole went to help pull him into a manhole and as he scrambled out, he felt a sharp sting in his shoulder.

He collapsed on the battlefield and it was nine hours before medics could evacuate him to a field hospital.  The next two and a half years  were spent at the Percy Jones Army Medical Center in Battle Creek, Michigan, in a head-to-hip plaster cast, having lost a kidney and full use of his right arm.

"For nearly a year, I couldn't feed myself.  I had to learn to walk and dress myself all over again," Dole told the Topeka Capital-Journal.

For his sacrifices, he received  two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster.  But it was the use of his right arm and hand that he so desperately sought to  restore, undergoing extensive therapy and seven failed surgeries.

The right arm has remained essentially paralyzed for the rest of his life and he holds that pen in his right hand to prevent people trying to shake that hand.

So sorry to hear of his cancer prognosis.  Wishing him the best.

Definitely One of the Greatest of the Greatest.  --GreGen

Bob Dole's Constant Pen in Hand a Reminder of World War II Wound-- Part 1

From the Feb. 18, 2021, Topeka (Kansas) Capital-Journal by Rafael Garcia.

For those who know former  U.S. Senator Bob Dole closely, know  not to shake his right hand.

For those not so aware, Dole constantly keeps a pen in that hand whenever he's out in public.  That pen serves two purposes.  It is a gesture to dissuade people from shaking that hand and it is a therapeutic remedy to an injury that changed Dole's life forever.  An injury that occurred in battle during World War II.

On Thursday, Bob Dole, 97,  announced that he is battling advanced lung cancer and will begin treatment Monday.

Dole has a history of battling wounds and health issues dating back to his military service during World War II.

A native of Kansas, Bob Dole was briefly a student athlete  on the University of Kansas'  football, basketball and track teams when in December 1941 he learned that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor.  A year later, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve Corps and left for active duty in June 1943.

And, One of the Greatest of the Greatest.  --GreGen

Italian POW Art Discovered in Nebraska

From the Feb. 19, 2021, Norfolk (Nebraska) Daily News "Minatare man  discovers art dating from World War II behind restaurant wall" by Justin Garcia.

Minatare is a town of 816 on  the western border of Nebraska.

Dennis Wecker began remodeling one of the rooms of  his bar, Broken Spoke Bar and Grill in Minatare when he discovered something he hadn't expected at all.  There was a painting of three horseman galloping across the Great Plains.  It is now out front in the room for everyone to see.

How did it get there?

He has owned the business for about four years now and said that the building was once part of a World War II prisoner-of-war camp in Scottsbluff, Nebraska.  German and Italian POWs were imprisoned across the entire state during the war.  One of those prisoners was an Italian artist.

He has heard that the artist covered the entire building with art and that at the end of the war, the building was moved to Minatare.

--GreGen

 

Some More on the USS Oklahoma's Unknowns

From the Feb. 17, 2021, Meadville  (Pa.) Tribune.

Veterans Corner.

These former Unknowns from the USS Oklahoma have been identified.  All are U.S. Navy personnel.  Internments are pending:

**  Fireman 1st Class James W. Davenport, 21

**  Ship's Cook 3rd Class Robert Goodwin, 20

**  Seaman 2nd Class David Clark, Jr., 18

**  Boilermaker 1st Class William E. Blanchard, 24

**  Seaman 1st Class Wallace G. Mitchell, 20.

Welcome Home Boys.  --GreGen

Detroit's Fort Wayne-- Part 2: Anything Automotive, the Red Ball Express and Italian Prisoners

Every single tank, truck, jeep, tire or spare part that was produced in the Detroit area during the war came through Fort Wayne.   In addition, a railroad spur had been built by the river front , docks for large ships and over 2,000  (mostly civilian women) workers were employed.  It was a mighty busy place in the American war effort.

Drivers of the Red Ball Express were also trained there.

In addition, Italian prisoners from North Africa were interned there and used as  servants, cooks and janitors.    After Italy's surrender, they were given the opportunity to return to their country, but many chose to remain and settled in Detroit.

To see the whole history of Fort Wayne (as well as two other Detroit forts)  from the 1840s to the present, go to my Not So Forgotten: War of 1812 blog for February.

--GreGen

Detroit's Fort Wayne-- Part 1: The Supply Line from Detroit

I have been writing about this fort in my Not So Forgotten; The War of 1812 blog.

This fort was not the one that played a large role in the War of 1812, but was constructed after it.

It saw service in the Civil War as well as the Spanish-American War, but starting with World War I it became extremely important because of its motor supply center.  Hey, Detroit and all those automobiles you know.

But, it became huge in World War II when the fort was designated Motor Supply Depot and buildings were constructed for warehousing and shipping.  At the time, Fort Wayne became the world's largest motor supply depot.

Its command center controlled the flow of materials from the automobile industries (who weren't making automobiles, but war materials)  to the citywide network of   storage and staging facilities which included the Michigan State Fairgrounds and Port of Detroit  terminal.

--GreGen

World War II Veteran 'Nick' Joswiak Turns 101: How Did He Become 'Nick'?

From the Feb. 15, C&G Newspapers, Michigan by Brian Louwers.

He received his second dose of virus medicine Feb. 15 and also celebrated birthday number 101.  Just a few days earlier he had bought lunch for 130 people in his building at Park Place Heritage Village in Warren, Michigan.

"Nick" Joswiak was born in Texas in 1920 and his family suffered during the Great Depression so at age 16. he left them and moved to Detroit where he worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps.  After Pearl Harbor, he knew exactly what he wanted to do and enlisted in the Marines which he did in 1942.

This is when he received his "new nickname."  When asked what his name was, he replied "Adolph Joswiak."  They told him, "You can't have a name like that and join the Marine Corps."  He told them to give him a nickname and that was when he became "Nick."   The name stuck.

He fought the Japanese for the next three years in the Pacific.

He landed with the Marines on Guam, New Caledonia and Okinawa.  Much of his time was with the 2nd Marines.

--GreGen

Military Service of Captain Sir Thomas Moore-- Part 2: Part of the 'Forgotten Army' in Burma and Worked With Churchill Tanks

As part of the Fourteenth Army, the so-called "Forgotten Army", he served in Arakan in western Burma where he survived an attack of the dengue fever.

Moore returned to Britain in February 1945 to take a training course on the inner workings of the Churchill tanks and learned how to become an instructor.  He did not go back to his regiment, however, as he  remained as an instructor and the Technical Adjutant of the Armoured Vehicle Fighting School in Bovington Camp until he was demobilized in early 1946.

Back in civilian life, he worked with a roofing company and then a concrete one.

He raced motorcycles competitively and had been riding them since he purchased his first one at age 12.

--GreGen

Military Service of Captain Sir Tom Moore-- Part 1

The last four posts have been about this man who had become quite the hero and representative of the Greatest Generation in the United Kingdom this past year.  Here is a short look at his military career.

From Wikipedia.

He was born on 30 April 1920 and grew up in the town of Keighly, West Riding of Yorkshire.

Moore was conscripted to the 8th Battalion, Duke of Wellington's Regiment (8 DWR) in May 1940 and stationed at Weston Park in Otley for eight months and was selected for officer training later that year.  After attending that, he was commissioned a second lieutenant on 28 June 1941.

On 22 October 1941, Moore became a member of the Royal Armoured Corps because 8 DWR  became an armoured unit designated as the 145th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps.  Later that year he was transferred to the 9th Battalion (9 DWR) in India.

While there, he was tasked with setting up and running a training program for army motorcyclists.  He was initially posted to  Bombay and later to Calcutta.

Later, Moore was promoted to war-substantive  lieutenant 1 October 1941 and temporary captain on 11 October 1944.

--GreGen

Britain's Captain Sir John Moore-- Part 4: And, What a Life

Imagine, interviews with media elites.  An audience with the queen.  A knighthood.  The flag above the Prime Minister's residence lowered in your honor.  A respectful pause taken in a contentious debate at the House of Parliament, noting your death.

A name written in fireworks across the London sky on New Year's Eve.

A No. 1 single ion the U.K pop charts.  Yeah.

A legacy of persistence, of sacrifice, of unselfishness, of humor and good cheer.

A quotidian life, suddenly of extraordinary usefulness by writ of its very ordinary nature.

What an incredibly wonderful way to go.

I hadn't heard of him before his recent death, but considering all the Google Alerts concerning his death, quite the man.

So Long Captain Tom.  --GreGen

Death of Britain's Capt. Sir Tom Moore-- Part 3: What He Accomplished

It's easy to be cynical about heroes and, somewhere early in the story of Captain Sir Tom Moore, there was a daughter with a press release.  But the modest aim, clearly, was just to raise a few British pounds for the NHS and help, a man who still felt the need to serve.  The rise of this man never felt like the result of a cynical algorithm.

Moore's extraordinary age and humility helped.  There was a book ("Tomorrow Will be A Good Day"). talk shows and other stuff, but he was still about as pure a hero as it is possible to be, not the least because his heroism was so  rooted in the ordinary.

A walk around his garden, that was all.  But a walk after living and serving for a century.

In some ways, the end of Moore's life is like a bucket-list fairy tale, something we might all wish in our most improbable dreams.  An ordinary life that became not just a great life, but one that acknowledged as such by much of the world.

--GreGen

Death of Britain's Capt. Sir Tom Moore-- Part 2: A Spokesman of His Greatest Generation

Most of the deaths from COVID-19 have taken place in the quiet shadows, in care homes and hospitals hidden not only from private view, but from the loving gaze of family members.  They did not spark protests or riots for they were cloaked in old age.  Few of them were rich people or citizens with access to social-media megaphones.  They have been, in short, mostly anonymous occurrences, assessed collectively.

Not only was Moore a member of the Greatest Generation, his walk around the garden to raise funds for Britain's National Health Service might well go down in the history books as one of his generation's last, great acts of beneficence. 

He could be the last chapter in that book.

And historians will argue it was not an insubstantial contribution.

He raised in excess of $50 million for the cause of public health, sure, but he was also a human motivation machine spawning countless other walks, runs, jogs, and bake-offs.

In the U.K., he was not the face of the virus, but the face of the war required to combat its ravages.  Most of those who have died were old.  It was right that their spokesperson was one of their own.

One of the Greatest Continuing To Be The Greatest.  --GreGen

Death of Britain's Captain Sir Tom Moore-- Part 1

From the Feb. 5, 2021, Chicago Tribune "Why the British hero Captain Tom Moore mattered" by Chris Jones.

Beloved centenarian died Wednesday from pneumonia, coronavirus.

"Why did an old man pottering around his perfectly ordinary garden come to mean so much to the British struggle against COVID-19"

"A hundred thousand reasons.  "On January 26, the United Kingdom reported its 100,000th death from the coronavirus.  It was a grim milestone, shared by the United States, which hit that number in May of last year...."

But. Captain Sir Tom Moore dying on February 3 came to represent another number: 60,375.  That was the moment the virus' victims surpass the number of folks killed during World War II on English soil between 1939 and 1945, mostly the consequence of German bombing.

"Moore  was a veteran of that war, and thus he provided a crucial link to a previous era, a mythology really, where many people sacrificed their lives for the common good.  Public health officials. desperate to get people to change their behavior, understood his symbolic power."

--GreGen

300th USS Oklahoma Unknown Identified: John F. Middleswart, 19

From Feb. 5, 2021, Connecting Vets  "300th service member killed aboard USS Oklahoma identified" by Julie LeDoux.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) says the 300th member of the USS Oklahoma's crew that died that day has been identified.  He is Marine Corps Pfc John F. Middleswart, 19.

The DPAA has a conservative estimate that another 42 will be identified, but they are still going to try for all 388.

Again, So Proud of Our Government.  --GreGen 

Dunn NC's Favorite Son, General William C. Lee, 'Father of the Airborne'

From the Feb. 4, 2021, Chowan (NC) Herald ""Week in NC history."

On February 5, 1844m William C. Lee, the "Father of the Airborne" suffered a heart attack which ended his military career. 

Born in Dunn in 1895, Lee volunteered  for the United States Army in World War I.  After the war, he remained in the Army and, in 1939, was assigned  to the Chief of the Army's office in Washington, D.C..  There, he became part of a maverick group of officers advocating for the development of an airborne army infantry force.

The Army authorized  the development of a test platoon of paratroopers, and placed Lee in charge.  When the Army raised two airborne divisions, Lee received command of the 101st.  He oversaw its development and training and was instrumental in getting airborne and glider operations going at Camp Mackall and Laurinburg-Maxton Army Base.

The inclusion of the airborne divisions in the Normandy Invasion in June 1944 was a direct result of Lee's work.    Unfortunately, because of the heart attack, he wasn't able to participate in the attack. However, the members of the Screaming Eagle 101st Airborne were ordered to yell the name "Bill Lee" as they jumped out of their transports above France in the early morning hours of June 6, 1944, D-Day.

Lee died in 1948 and is buried in Dunn.

--GreGen

Winston Churchill Painting Given to FDR Goes Up At Auction

From the Feb. 2, 2021, CNN Style "Angelina Jolie is selling Winston Churchill's only painting  created during World War II" by Rob Picheta.

The work is expected to sell for $3.4 million at auction.

Churchill painted "Tower of Koutoubia Mosque"  in Marrakech, Morocco, after attending the  Casablanca Conference in January 1943, during which he and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt formulated the next stage of their plans to defeat Hitler.

Churchill gave it to FDR as a gift and it ultimately found its way  into Jolie's art collection in 2011.

The painting was made only after the two leaders agreed to accept only an "unconditional surrender" of Germany.  Churchill had made several paintings of Morocco before the war, but this is the only one during it.

It will be sold by Christie's in London on March 1.

--Gregen