Leo Thomas Keninger of the USS Oklahoma-- Part 2

From Find-A-Grave.

LEO THOMAS KENINGER

BIRTH:  9 March 1921

DEATH:  7 December 1941, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

BURIAL:  Saint Mary's Catholic Church Cemetery, Ackley, Iowa.

For eight decades, Leo's marker in St. Mary's Cemetery was a cenotaph, but on June 26, 2021,  his remains were buried there with full military honors.

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

He had had an adventure in a big storm in the Pacific when the USS Oklahoma was returning to the United States earlier in August 1941.  From the September 13, 1941,  Mason City (Iowa) Globe-Gazette.

"The ship was caught in a severe storm similar to a typhoon.  One man was washed overboard, six seamen were injured, one motor was incapacitated, and they returned to shore with one motor in operation.

The crew are now in San Francisco awaiting completion of repairs."

--GreGen

Another USS Oklahoma Sailor Comes Home: Leo Keninger-- Part 1

From the June 27, 2021, KCRG ABC News (Iowa) "World War II sailor killed in attack on Pearl Harbor laid to rest nearly 80 years later" by Becky Phelps.

U.S. Navy Fireman 1st Class Leo Keninger was 20 years old  when he was killed aboard the battleship USS Oklahoma on December 7, 1941.  His remains were positively identified in 2019.  This past weekend, he was buried in his hometown of Ackley, Iowa. 

The Elliot-Keninger American Legion Post in Ackley is named partly for him.  He was the first county casualty of World War II.

--GreGen

U.S. Marine Killed on Tarawa Comes Home: Sgt. Donald Deloy Stoddard

 From the June 23, 2021 Daily Camera "'Home to rest': World War II veteran receives ceremonial homecoming 78 years later" by Dana Cadey.

The remains of Sgt. Donald Deloy Stoddard were motorcaded from Denver to Boulder, Colorado, on Wednesday, June 23.

He was a member of  Company B, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Division and killed in action  on November 22, 1944, during the Battle of Tarawa in the Pacific Ocean.  His death came as the result of an artillery explosion during a Japanese  banzai charge.  He was 22 years old.

There were so many American casualties on the island of Betio that many were buried in mass graves.  His body was located in March 2019, but not identified  until a year later.  

Burial will be Saturday, June 26, at Mountain View Memorial  Park, next to his parents.

--GreGen

Paris Celebrated 75th Anniversary of Liberation in 2019-- Part 3: The Day Comes

The Parisians who weren't deported or didn't flee used ration tickets to eat, wooden soles to replace scarce leather and sometimes curtains for clothes.  The black market thrived.

The D-Day landings n June 6, 1944, helped change the tide of war, allowing the Allies to push through Normandy and beyond to other German-occupied lands around Western Europe.

The message went out to the French Resistance in Paris that the Allies were advancing.  resistance member Madeleine Riffaud, now 95,  described to the Associated Press killing a Nazi soldier on July 23, 1944, on a Paris bridge.

She was spotted as she escaped on her bicycle, then arrested, tortured and jailed before being freed in a prisoner exchange days before the liberation of the city.

Seventy-five years later, she doesn't take the killing lightly.  "To carry out an action like that isn't playing with dolls," she said.

On August 19, 1944, Paris police officers rebelled and took over police headquarters.  On the night of August 24, the first Allied troops entered southern Paris.  The grand entrance of Gen. Leclerc's 2nd Armored Division followed by Allied forces would come the following day.

The German military governor of Paris, Gen. Dietrich von Choltitz, was arrested at his headquarters at the Meurice Hotel and signed the surrender.

Paris buildings still bear the bullet holes from the fighting.

Quite the Event.  --GreGen

Paris Celebrated 75th Anniversary of Liberation Back in 2019-- Part 2

A Dixieland band played at the end of the parade which wrapped up at the site of a new museum about liberation and the resistance.

Long the jewel of European cities, Paris suffered relatively little damage in World War II, but its citizens were humiliated, hungry and mistrustful by the 50 months of German occupation.

The liberation of Paris was both joyous and chaotic.  It was faster and easier than the protracted battle through Normandy after D-Day, with its gun-filled hedgerows.  But the fight for the French capital killed nearly 5,000 people, including Parisian civilians, German troops and members of the French Resistance whose sabotage and attacks had prepared the city for liberation.

After invading in 1940, the Nazi hierarchy ensconced themselves in Paris' luxury hotels and hobnobbed at theaters and fine restaurants.  Collaborationist militias kept order, and French police were complicit in te most dastardly act of the Occupation:  the 1942 roundup of around 13,000 Jews at the Vel d'Hiv bicycle stadium before their eventual deportation to the Auschwitz death camp in German-occupied Poland.

--GreGen

Paris Celebrated 75th Anniversary of Liberation Back in 2019-- Part 1

From the August 26, 2021, Dubuque (Iowa) Telegraph-Herald "Paris celebrates its liberation from Nazis 75 years later" by Angela Charlton and Elaine Gainley, AP.

Parisians don wartime uniforms to retrace the entry of French and U.S. tanks into the city on August 25, 1944.

Paris, France, celebrated the American soldiers, French Resistance fighters and others who liberated the City of Light from Nazi occupation on Sunday, unleashing kissing, dancing, tears and gratitude.

Firefighters unfurled a huge French flag from the Eiffel Tower, recreating the moment when a  French tricolor stitched together with sheets was hoisted up it to replace the swastika flag which had flown there for four years.

Dozens of World War II-era jeeps, armored vehicles, motorcycles, trucks and people dressed in wartime uniforms and dresses paraded through southern Paris, retracing the entry of French and U.S. tanks into the city on August 25. 1944.

Among those there that day was Roger Acher, 96, one of the few surviving veterans, who entered Paris with Gen. Philippe Leclerc de Hauterclocue's 2nd Armored Division  around dawn that day.  Fighting with remaining German forces was fierce as they moved toward the center of the city, he recalled, "I almost got killed."

--GreGen

75th Anniversary of Paris Liberation in 1944-- Part 2: 'Nasty, Smelly, Terrible'

Harold Angle is from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and landed in Normandy in 1944 and moved to eastern France, where his division fought through a brutal winter.  He saved a piece of a bullet that hit his helmet and keeps it with a wartime photo of himself and a letter he wrote home to his mother, describing his scrapes with death.

Steve Melnikoff, 99, of  Cockneyville, Maryland, came ashore on Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944, with the 29th Division.  It was one of the most pivotal days of the war, but to him, just one of many life-and-death experiences infantrymen faced on the front lines of history's deadliest conflict.

"What we went through, to do what we did, people don't realize," he said.  He still has pictures in his head of a fellow soldier falling beside him, and another.  Of the muddy holes he called home.  Of the German machine guns, each capable of firing thousands of rounds.

War, he says, is "nasty, smelly, terrible."  But he maintains, "it was important for someone to do this," to stop Hitler from taking over more of the world.

Donald Cobb of Evansville, Indiana, took part in the invasions of Normandy and of southern France from aboard ship, operating high frequency antennae to detect German submarines and helping load ammunition when at battle stations.  

He's back in peaceful Paris this week with the Greatest Generation Foundation, which organizes trips for veterans.  He sometimes feels "survivor guilt," and has one fundamental message for younger generations:  "Learn history, and don't repeat  mistakes."

--GreGen

75th Anniversary of the Allies Liberating Paris Back in 1944-- Part 1

From the August 25, 2019, Dubuque (Iowa) TelegraphHerald "I think we saved the world" by Angela Charlton, AP.

U.S. WW II veterans were back in Paris to mark he 75th anniversary of the liberation of France's capital from the Germans.

Now in their nineties  these men want everyone to remember what happened back then  so that it doesn't happen again.

"The veterans, all the veterans of World War II,  I think  we saved the world," said Harold Angle, who came to France with the U.S. 28th Infantry Division in 1944, and recounted his experiences to the Associated Press.  "To be under the domination of a dictatorship like the Hitler regime and some of the terrible, terrible things that they did."

Bow 96, he is among Allied veterans, French Resistance fighters and others taking part in ceremonies on Saturday and Sunday marking the 75th anniversary of military operations that liberated Paris from Nazi occupation.

--GreGen

Two Brothers Who Died on USS Pennsylvania Identified-- Part 2

Navy Fire Controlman 2nd Class Harold F. Trapp, 24 and Navy Electrician's Mate William H. Trapp, 23, were aboard the USS Oklahoma that day in Pearl Harbor when it capsized and they met their deaths.

They were from La Porte in northwest Indiana.

Distinguishing between the two brothers using their bone DNA would have been difficult except the older brother was taller, so they just measured the bone fragments.

They were born in Chicago, but the family moved to La Porte when they were young.  They earned money picking fruit and caddying at a local golf course.

Harold was more studious, serious and athletic, while William was more artistic and carefree.  Even with these differences, the brothers were extremely close.  Very patriotic, they joined the Navy Reserve while in high school.

It was William who first put forth the idea of enlisting in the regular Navy.  Harold went along with him.  William reported to the Oklahoma in 1939 and Harold the following year.

The hardest thing for the family was not knowing what happened to them until February 19 when the Navy notified them that they had been unable to locate them.

--GreGen

Two Brothers Who Died on the USS Oklahoma Identified

From the June 20, 2021, Albuquerque Journal "Brothers killed at Pearl Harbor finally at peace" by Rick Nathanson.

As if the three brothers from Wisconsin dying on the Oklahoma that day, here is another really sad story.  Two more brothers have been identified.

It took nearly 80 years, but brothers Harold and William Trapp were finally given a  formal burial last week at the National memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii.  Carol  Sowar along with ten members of her family were at the ceremony for her uncles.

Harold Frank Trapp and his brother William Henry Trapp were both on the USS Oklahoma.

--GreGen

Three Brothers Killed on USS Oklahoma Identified-- Part 3: 'We Were At Peace'

After the attack, the parents had to wait two agonizing weeks "hoping and praying  that by some miracle their boys were still alive," according to a Post Crescent article from 1861.   But at 2 a.m. on December 21, they got the call.  Their three sons had been reported missing in action.

On February 13, the Barbers got a telegram:  "After exhaustive search it had been found impossible to locate your sons, who must therefore be considered  dead."

They later received  a letter from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, offering his sympathy.

A year after his brothers were lost,  17-year-old Clayton Barber enlisted in the Navy to avenge their deaths.

On October 10, 1943, Mrs. Barber  christened the USS Barber, a destroyer escort.  Clayton sailed on its first crew.

"We are not bitter," father Peter Barber said, "but we were at peace when the attack started."

--GreGen

Three Brothers Killed on USS Oklahoma Identified-- Part 2: Malcom, Leroy and Randolph Barber

The article was longer than I thought and with more information.

All three of the brothers were on the USS Oklahoma that day on December 7, 1941, and were among the 429 who died on the ship.  It took some two years to get the capsized ship upright so that the bodies could be recovered, but by that time, there wasn't much left to identify them.

The three Barbers were the sons of Peter and Gertrude  Barber of New London, Wisconsin.

Malcolm and Leroy  joined the Navy in May 1940, with younger brother  Randolph joining in August.  Leroy was first to be assigned to the battleship USS Oklahoma and he advised his brothers to request duty on that ship.

Because it was peacetime, the Navy made an exception to its rule against more than one brother serving on the same ship.

Gertrude Barber wrote "how grand they thought it was that they would all be on the same ship."  But, their father had other ideas and wrote the Navy two weeks before the attack requesting that his sons  be transferred to separate ships.

--GreGen

Three Brothers Killed at Pearl Harbor Identified

From the June 16, 2021, Appleton (Wi) Post Crescent "Three New London brothers killed at Pearl Harbor officially identified" by Larry Gallup.

Wednesday, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency confirmed the deaths of three brothers

Fireman  1st Class Malcolm J. Barber, 22

Fireman 1st Class Leroy K. Barber, 21

Fireman 2nd Class Randolph  H. Barber, 19

Too bad the article did not say what ship they were on.

Can You Even Imagine That Poor Family?  --GreGen

USS Oklahoma Unknowns: John F. Middleswart and Floyd D. Helton

**  June 8, 2021, DVIDS:  "Pfc Middleswart Funeral "

U.S. Marine Corps Private First Class John F. Middleswart, a native of San Diego, California,  will be laid to rest for the final time on June 8 at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego.

He was serving on the USS Oklahoma on December 7, 1941, when the attack came.  His identity was discovered  on February 4, 2021.

**  June 18, 2021, AP News

The remains of Navy Seaman 2nd Class Floyd D. Helton, 18, of Somerset, Kentucky, have been identified.

He was on the USS Oklahoma on December 7, 1941, and one of the 429 who died.

His remains will be buried  in Burnside, Kentucky, on July 31.

--GreGen

Another USS Oklahoma Unknown Buried: William Eugene Blanchard

From the June 15, 2021, Daily Reflector (Greenville, B.C.) "Killed in Pearl Harbor attack, sailor's remains finally laid to rest in Elizabeth City" by Chris Day.

Petty Officer 1st Class  William Eugene  Blanchard died December 7, 1941, when the battleship USS Oklahoma was sunk.  He was a boilermaker on the ship.  He was born in Tignall, Georgia, and was a blacksmith by trade before he enlisted in the Navy in  1936.  His wife, Laura  Ann, was from Bremerton, Washington, and he met her while in the service.  They were married in 1939.  

On Monday, June 7,  nearly 30 people, including several members of his family, attended a memorial service at  Twiford  Funeral Home in Elizabeth City, North Carolina.  The service began at 1:56 pm, which in Pearl harbor would have been 7:56 am, when torpedoes struck the USS Oklahoma.

His son lives in Elizabeth City.  He was buried at New Hollywood Cemetery.

--GreGen

Unknown USS Oklahoma Sailors Identified: Stanislaw F. Drwall and Raymond D. Boynton

**   June 15, 2021 WV News "World War II sailor from West Virginia who died on the USS Oklahoma identified."  

Navy Patternmaker  1st Class Stanislaw F. Drwall, 25, has been accounted for on March 25, 2021.  He was assigned to the battleship USS Oklahoma.  He will be reburied August 5 in his hometown.

**   June 15, 2021 9 and 10 News  "Michigan Navy  sailor killed in World War Two to be properly buried this year." 

Navy Seaman Second Class Raymond D. Boynton, 19, was assigned to the USS Oklahoma.  he will be reburied  September 8 at the National Memorial  Cemetery of the Pacific on Oahu.

--GreGen

USS Mobile (CL-63)-- Part 4: Operations in the Phillipines , Okinawa and the End of the War

In October the Mobile was detached with two destroyers to sink an enemy cargo ship which they accomplished.  Then the Mobile formed a division around two crippled American cruisers, the Houston and Canberra in a ruse to trick the Japanese fleet into attacking, but it was discovered by enemy scout planes and they didn't take the bait.

For the rest of 1944, the Mobile operated in the Philippines area.

On December 26, she left for the West Coast for overhaul and alterations.

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

1945

Returning to operations, the Mobile joined Task Force 54 (TF54) in the invasion of Okinawa.  Arriving on April 4, the ship then spent the next two months providing fire support, anti-aircraft and anti-submarine patrols.

She operated in the Philippines for the rest of the war.

After that it was duties involving the occupation of Japan and later "Magic Carpet" runs returning service men to the United States.

Decommissioned in 1947, she entered the Reserve Fleet at Bremerton, Washington, and remained there until 1959 when she was struck from the Naval Registrar and sold for scrapping.

--GreGen

USS Mobile (CL-63)-- Part 3: Constant Operations

1944

On January29, the Mobile bombarded Wojte Island.  She participated in two carrier strikes.  By her one year anniversary, March 24, the USS Mobile had steamed  over 70,000 miles and participated in 11 operations against the enemy.

From 29 March to 3 April, the task force the Mobile was in struck  Oalaus, Yap and Wolei.  After that it supported Allied landings at at Aitape,  Humboldt Bay and Tanah Merah Bay in New Guinea.

In June, they struck Saipan, Tinian.  Then came the Battle of the Philippine Sea in which three Japanese aircraft carriers were sunk.  All during this time the Mobile performed duty protecting the American carriers.

Later in August, the Mobile and the Cruiser Division made a sweep against Japanese shipping and sank a destroyer and a large cargo vessel.  Next came a bombardment of Chichi Jima.

Later in October came operations preparing for the Philippines operations.

--GreGen

USS Mobile (CL-61)-- Part 2: Just the Facts

JUST THE FACTS:

LAID DOWN:  14 April 1941

LAUNCHED:  15 May 1942

COMMISSIONED:  24 March 1943

DECOMMISSIONED:  9 May 1947

STRICKEN:  1 March 1959

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

LENGTH:  610 feet 1 inch

BEAM:  66 feet 4 inches

SPEED:  32.5 knots per hour

COMPLEMENT:  1,225 officers and enlisted

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

ARMAMENT:

Twelve 6-inch guns

Twelve 5-inch anti-aircraft guns

Assortment of anti-aircraft guns

--GreGen

USS Mobile (CL-63)-- Part 1

There is a new U.S. Navy warship named USS Mobile.  It was just commissioned on May22, 2021.  It is am Independence-Class littoral combat ship and it was even built by Austal USA in Mobile.  The ship just left Mobile for its homeport in San Diego.

Thousands turned out for its commissioning and is the fifth ship to bear the city's name.

There was also a World War II USS Mobile which I have never written about in this blog, nor have I ever even heard of it.

From Wikipedia

It was built in Newport News and commissioned  24 March 1943, arriving at Pearl Harbor  23 July 1943.  She was involved in the Gilberts Island Campaign and  screened the ships  in the attack on Tarawa Atoll in September.  In December, the Mobile  was in the attacks on Kwajalein and Wotje in the Marshall islands.

--GreGen

77th Anniversary of D-Day-- Part 3: The Dead American Paratrooper in the Tree

"In France, people who remember these men, they kept them close to their hear," Charles Shay said.  "And they remember what they did for them.  And I don't think the French people will ever forget."

On Saturday morning, people in dozens of World War II vehicles, from motorcycles to jeeps and trucks, gathered in Colleville-Montgomery to parade down the nearby roads along Sword Beach to the sounds of a pipe band.  Residents, some waving French and American flags came to watch.

Henri-Jean Renaud, 86, remembers D-Day like it was yesterday.  He was a young boy and was hidden in his family home in Saint-Mere-Eglise when more than 800 planes bringing U.S. paratroopers flew over the town while German soldiers fired at them with machine guns.

Describing an "incredible noise" followed by silence, he remembers crossing the town's central square on the morning of June 6.  He especially recalls seeing one dead American paratrooper stuck in a big tree that is still standing by the town's church.

"I came here hundreds of times.  The first thing I do is look at the tree," he said.  "That's always to that young guy that I'm thinking of.  he was told:  'You're going to jump in the middle of the night in a country you don't know' ... He died and his feet never touched (French) soil, and that is very moving to me."

D-Day cost the lives of 4,414 Allied troops with 2,501 of that number Americans.

--GreGen

77th Anniversary of D-Day-- Part 2: Rapidly Dwindling Group of Survivors

Charles Shay regretted that the pandemic "is interrupting everything."  He is expected to be the only veteran at Sunday's anniversary day ceremony at the Normandy American Cemetery of Colleville-sur-Mer.

"We have no visitors coming to France this year for two years now.  And I hope it will soon be over soon," he said.

Shay's lone presence is all the more poignant as the number of survivors of this epochal battle dwindles.  Just one veteran bow remains of the French commando unit that joined U.S., British, Canadian and other Allied troops storming Normandy's code-named beaches.

Some French and a few other World War II history enthusiasts from other European countries gathered in Normandy.

Driving restored jeeps, dressed in old uniforms or joyfully eating at the newly reopened terraces of restaurants, they're contributing to revive the commemoration's special atmosphere -- and keeping alive the memory of June 6, 1944.

--GreGen

77th Anniversary of D-Day-- Part 1

From the June 6, 2021, Chicago Tribune "D-Day spirit of remembrance lives on despite  pandemic" by Sylvie Corbet.

In a small Normandy town where paratroopers landed in the early hours of D-Day, applause broke the silence to honor Charles  Shay.  he was the only veteran attending a ceremony at Carentan, France, commemorating the 77th anniversary of the assault that helped bring an end to World War II.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, this year's D-Day commemorations are taking place with travel restrictions that have prevented the veterans or families of them from coming from the United States

Shay, who lives in Normandy, was a 19-year-old U.S. Army medic when he landed on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944.  Today, he recalls the "many good friends" he lost that day and on other battlefields.

He is now 96-years old and originally from Maine and is a Penobscot Native American.  Throughout the ceremony commemorating the assault on Carentan that allowed the Allies to establish a continuous front joining nearby Utah Beach and Omaha Beach, he stood steadily while the national anthems of the Allied countries were played.

--GreGen

USS West Virginia Unknown Identified and Buried May 31 in Kentucky: Wellborn Ashby

"Pearl Harbor  casualty arrives  in Kentucky 80 years later --  Honolulu, Hawaii"  June 4, 2021

Martha Christian once traveled to Pearl Harbor and dipped her feet in the water as she cried thinking about her long lost brother from that Day of Infamy.   His name was Wellborn Ashby.  His body was later recovered after the ship was raised, but was unidentifiable.

That is, until DNA and other testing became available.

All his family knew for sure was that some of the West Virginia's crew died instantly  and that as a Navy Firefighter he probably was involved in the effort to keep the ship from capsizing like the USS Oklahoma as it sank.

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

From Honor States.com

Wellborn Lee Ashby

Born October 19, 1917  Died December 7, 1941

Fireman 3rd Class

Enlisted in US Navy September 24, 1940

Identified  20 November 2020.

--GreGen

USS Oklahoma Unknowns: Earl M. Ellis and Shelby Treadway

**  "USS Oklahoma sailor from Arkansas  accounted for."  June 3, 2021,.

Navy Radioman 3rd Class Earl M. Ellis, 23, of Hope, Arkansas.  Was accounted for on December  22, 2020 by the DPAA.

He will be buried July 15, 2021, in Eureka, California.

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

**  "He was killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor.  It took 79 years for the Kentucky sailor to be laid to rest."

Navy Gunner's Mate  3rd Class Shelby Treadway.    From Manchester, age 25.

He was given a full military funeral June 2, 2021, at the National Memorial Cemetery  of the Pacific (the Punch Bowl).

He was identified September 2020.

--GreGen

Spam Wartime Facts-- Part 2: Even the Top General Ate It

**  One person wrote:  "Spam became  a substitute for real meat and, for years after the war,  one of my favourite foods.  We served it up as batter-fried fritters or just grilled thick slices of it and served it with chips.  Genuine Spam became a luxury compared with  cheaper substitutes, most of which came from Denmark."

**  In wartime Britain, a 10-ounce tin cost 12 ration book points or 1 shilling and sixpence in old money.

**  100 million pounds of Spam were issued as a Lend-Lease staple in rations to American, Russian and  European troops during the war.

**  GIs called Spam "ham that  failed the physical."

**  The Red Cross parcels that were distributed to POWs in Germany contained Spam.  A can of Spam could be traded for  three packs of cigarettes in the camps.

**  President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a letter acknowledging the role that Spam had played in the war, stated that he ate his "share  of Spam along with millions of other soldiers."

The letter was sent to retired Hormel president H.H. Corey in 1966.  A copy of the letter is on display  in the World War II section of the Spam museum.

--GreSpam

Some Spam Wartime Facts-- Part 1: Uncle Spam and Spam and Salad

From the World War II Encyclopedia.

**  SPAM was used as a "B" ration -- to be served in rotation with other meats behind the lines overseas and at camps and  bases in the States.  However, at times, GIs were eating it two or three times a day.

**  SPAM was incorporated into the language of the war.  Uncle Sam became Uncle Spam.  Food supply depots were  Spam Canyons  One military base in the Pacific was called Spamville.  A photo of it showed the word Spamville written on its makeshift watertower.  There is a replica of the base at the Spam museum.

**  Throughout 1943m Hormel hired  448 women to replace men who had gone to war.**  Soviet Union leader Nikita Krushchev wrote, "Without  Spam we wouldn't have been able to feed our army.

**  The British really liked the Spam they received.  Margaret Thatcher, then a teenager,  remembered opening a  tin of Spam on Boxing Day (an English holiday observed the day after Christmas).  She stated:  "We had some lettuce and tomatoes and peaches, so it was Spam and salad."

--GreSpam