A Hero's Return Home-- Francis Wiemerslage: Part 3: His Mother Held Out Hope

In 1950, worsening diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union, who controlled that part of Germany at the time, and the United States, prevented American Graves Registration Command  (AGRC) from investigating Sgt. Wiemerslage's remains further.  

Three years later, two German citizens conducted another search of the area on the behalf of AGRC.  They fund some bones, including a jaw with teeth and part of aa wallet with the initials "FW."  In March 1954, the remains were interred, to be held until the recovery of additional remains could be found.

Over the years. Wiemerslage's mother exchanged many letters with the mothers of the other six killed in the March 2, 1945, mission over Dresden.  She never gave up hope that her son might have survived.

Dresden was especially heavily bombed in four raids between February13 and 15, 1945, when over 1200 heavy British and American bombers dropped  more than 3,900 tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs on the city.    Three more U.S. Army Air Force raids occurred  after that, with two of them on March 2, when Wiemerslage's plane was shot down.

"Our grandmother Vivian [Francis' mother] never gave up hope that miraculously he had survived.  [She hoped] that maybe he bumped his head and had amnesia and was living with another family under a different name.  She would set a place-setting up for him every Thanksgiving hoping that he would walk through the door," Phil Wiemerslage said.

--GreGen

A Hero's Return Home-- Part 2: Sgt. Francis Wiemerslage

On Friday, five members of the Wiemerslage family were met at Midway Airport by members of the River Grove American Legion, Rolling Thunder and the Patriot Guard Riders and the U.S. Army Honor Guard.

Francis, called Frankie by his family, had a sister and two brothers.  His brother Roland passed away in 2019 at the age of 84 and searched for his brother most of his life and gave a DNA sample  to assist in recovery efforts shortly before he died.

One of his last words to his family before he died was "Don't forget about Frankie."

After the war, the American Graves Registration Command was in charge of recovering remains of fallen service members in Europe.  Between 1947 and 1948, the remains of all the airmen who died in the B-17 crash, except for Wiemerslage were found and identified.

Because there was no evidence that he was a prisoner of war, a finding of death was issued a year after the crash.  His name is recorded on the Tablets of the Missing at the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in Hombourg, Belgium, along with the others still missing from World War II.

GreGen

A Hero's Return Home: Sgt. Francis Wiemerslage Comes Home, 76 Years Later

From the October 18, 2021, Chicago Sun-Times by Bob Chiarito.

Remains of WW II gunner from River Grove who was shot down over Germany brought back.

Seventy-six years after being killed in World War II, the remains of U.S. Army Air Force Sgt. Francis Wiemerslage returned home Friday.

He was a native of suburban River Grove and a 20-year-old ball turret gunner on a B-17G Flying Fortress bomber during a mission over Dresden, Germany, on March 2, 1945, when his plane was shot down by enemy fighters.

Two of the nine crew members parachuted from the aircraft before it exploded in mid-air and crashed near Zullsdor, Germany.  The six others killed were found and identified by 1949, but Wiemerslage remained unaccounted for until August, when his remains were confirmed.

Welcome Home.  --GreGen

Another USS Oklahoma Sailor Identified: Lester P. Delles

From the June 1, 2021, DPAA.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that Navy Electrician's Mate  3rd Class Lester P. Delles, 21, of St. Charles, Illinois, killed during World War II was accounted for on February 12, 2021.

He was assigned to the battleship USS Oklahoma, moored at Ford Island in Pearl Harbor when the attack came.  This resulted in the deaths of 429, including Delles.

He was buried October 23, 2021, in Sutter Creek, California. 

--GreGen

Another USS Oklahoma Sailor Identified: Jesus Garcia

From the October 6, 2021 California News Times

Navy Steward's Mate  2nd Class, Jesus Garcia was buried in Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego in a morning ceremony.

He was from Guam and only 21 years of age when he died December 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor while on board the USS Oklahoma.

The majority of his family still lives in Guam, but he has relatives in San Diego.

His remains were identified through the efforts of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA).

--GreGen

Japanese Ships Sunk During WW II Resurface at Iwo Jima

 Just in time for Halloween, you think?

From October 21, 2021 WION.

Two dozen Japanese ships sunk near the island of Iwo Jima during the war have been raised from the ocean floor due to seismic activity at Mount Suribachi, one of Japan's most dangerous volcanoes.

The 24 Japanese transport vessels were captured by U.S. forces and moved to the western side of the island and sunk to make up for the absence of a port on the island.

The seabed in that area has started rising due to the seismic activity causing them to sit on volcanic ash.

The island today has no inhabitants, but the Japanese military has a presence there.  It was the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the war.  During the battle, the U.S. lost 7,000 soldiers while the Japanese lost 20,000.  This is where that iconic photograph of Marines raising the flag was taken.

The island was of significant importance to the U.S. as it was thought that it could be used as a Navy base for the invasion of Japan.

Like, Boo!!  --GreGen

USS Oklahoma Sailor Billy Turner Identified

From the October 10, 2021, Daily Ardmoreite (Ardmore, Oklahoma)  "Missing sailor's remains identified after 80 years:  Carter County's first WW II casualty went down with the USS Oklahoma" by Drew Butler.

Nineteen-year-old Carter County resident Seaman 1st Class Billy Turner was serving aboard the USS Oklahoma that day in Pearl Harbor and died, listed as being missing in action for 80 years.

His remains were officially  accounted for on October 1 by the Defense  POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA).

He was born November  18, 1922, in Memphis, Tennessee,  and moved to Ardmore, Oklahoma,  with his family in 1926.  Inducted into the U.S. Navy in Oklahoma City on January 4, 1940, he was sent to San Diego for training.  On December 7, 1941, he was stationed aboard the USS Oklahoma in Pearl Harbor.

There are no known relatives of him still living in Ardmore, but Turner Street is named after him and the mural adjoining the Ardmoreite  building depicts the USS Oklahoma in his honor.

The article did not say where he will be reburied.

--GreGen

USS Oklahoma Sailor James O. McDonald from Levelland Accounted For

From the October 20, 2021, KBCD 11 News .

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that U.S. Navy Fireman 1st Class James O. McDonald, 25, of Levelland, Texas, killed during World War II was accounted for on December 22, 2020.

He was on the battleship USS Oklahoma, moored at Ford Island in Pearl Harbor when it sustained several torpedo hits and capsized on December 7, 1941.

He will be buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific on January 19, 2022.

--GreGen

Octavius Mabine, USS Oklahoma Unknown, Is Identified

From the October 20, 2021, ABC 7 News "Octavius Mabine, Navy sailor from Virginia lost on December 7, 1941, has been identified" by Don Parker.

A U.S. Navy sailor from Virginia who was killed along with 428 others when the USS Oklahoma went down in Pearl Harbor has been identified according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting  Agency (DPAA).

Navy Mess Attendant Octavius Mabine, 21, of Portsmouth, Virginia, died when his ship capsized after being hit by multiple torpedoes while moored next to Ford Island in Pearl Harbor.

Both he and the previous post's Rodger Butts were from Portsmouth, Virginia, and worked in the ship's mess.

He will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery at a future date.

It is so wonderful to be having these brave men identified.  Thanks DPAA.

--GreGen

Another USS Oklahoma Unknown Identified: Rodger Butts

From the October 19, 2021, Channel 12 NBC, Portsmouth, Virginia.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) has announced  that a Virginia sailor from Virginia, Navy Ship's Cook 1st Class Rodger Butts, 47,  of Portsmouth, Virginia, has been identified.

He was serving on the USS Oklahoma in Pearl Harbor when it was attacked December 7, 1941.

He will be buried in Newtown, Pennsylvania at a future date.

Both he and the USS Oklahoma sailor I will write about next, Octavius Mabine, were from Portsmouth, Virginia and both had jobs in the ship's kitchen.

--GreGen

Another USS Oklahoma Unknown Identified: Charles L. Saunders

October 8, 2021, CBS Dallas-Fort Worth,

The Defense  POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced Friday October 8 that  the remains of Navy Seaman 2nd Class Charles L. Saunders, 18, of Winnie, Texas,  was accounted for on February 11, 2021.

He was on board the battleship USS Oklahoma which was moored at Ford's Island , Pearl Harbor, when the attack came December 7, 1941.

He will be buried December 7, 2021, in his hometown.

--GreGen

USS North Carolina-- Part 8: Making It Local and Not Your Grandparents' Battleship

There is another irony in the Battleship, with all its focus on  history, they have to keep a constant eye on the future.

One situation Terry Bragg wants to address is increasing local visits to the ship.  Some locals act almost as if they don't know the ship is there.  Bragg says they hear all the time from locals that they haven't visited the ship in 20 or 30 years.    "It shouldn't just be people from Ohio who are enjoying (it)."

Sixty percent of the ship's visitors come from more than four hours away from Wilmington.

Bragg says one of his goals  is "to awaken the Wilmington community to this great resource for service and  education, and this wonderful attraction right here in your backyard."

Mentioning a $2 million renovation that was done to the Battleship's  visitors' center, Bragg said:  "You  don't really know the Battleship if you haven't been here in the last five years.  We're not the Battleship of your grandparents and your parents.

Looks like to me that the USS North Carolina could not be in anyone else's better care than she is with Capt. Bragg.  And, as I say in the picture of the USS North Carolina at the top of the blog, my favorite warship ever built.

A Big Fan.  --GreGen

USS North Carolina-- Part 7: Development?

As we look to the future, it is possible that the USS North Carolina might have some more neighbors on the west bank of the Cape Fear River.  Developers have been eying this land for years, and most recently this month.

Terry Bragg points out that the Battleship was named  a National Historic Landmark in 1986, which gives it certain protections.

"You couldn't put up a Walmart next to the Battleship," for example, or  do "anything that could encumber our historical significance," Bragg said.

Bragg says he has met with several developers over the years who were interested in building on the west side of the river by the Battleship, but the costs they would sustain for building in a flood plain, infrastructure, lack of sewer and water and meeting federal guidelines were just too cost prohibitive.

One project Bragg sees as having possibility is the development of a park on Eagles Island by the ship.

--GreGen

Battleship USS North Carolina-- Part 6: 'Living With Water'

Their solution to the climate change situation, according to Bragg. is to make access to the ship sustainable into the future is a project called "Living With Water."

The first phase of the $4 to $5 million project, which Bragg said is currently funded to about $2.3 million, involves raising the level of the current parking lot and creating  a "constructed wetlands," or so-called "living shoreline" around it that can better handle the effects of climate change.

And the timeline for the project is estimated to be around 2023, with a second phase  centered on the often-flooded Battleship Park slated for 2024.

"We can deal with climate change," Bragg said, by using  this "cutting edge technology (of living shorelines) that has not been used  that much locally.

--GreGen

Battleship USS North Carolina-- Part 5: Climate Change Now a Big Problem Because of Flooding

During a ceremony that attracted media from around the state, a cofferdam that allowed work to be done on the USS North Carolina was flooded and the battleship floated once again.

Next up  are meetings with contractors to discuss $1 million in repairs, funded by Hurricane Florence recovery funds, to the ship's main mast where the steel is deteriorating.

"Now that  the ship itself has been stabilized," Bragg said, "the big wolf on our doorstep  is climate change."

At this point, according to Bragg, the Battleship site, which includes a park, parking lot and a road to the facility, sees some kind of flooding three out of five days a year, increasingly caused by  high tides on the Cape Fear River.  This not only causes damage to he infrastructure used to operate the Battleship and its surrounding site, but also  forces closures and delayed openings.

Some well-known  attractions in North Carolina, most famously like the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, have been physically moved in order to deal with threats from encroaching water.

But, Bragg says the Battleship isn't going anywhere.

"The Battleship will never be moved.  People don't realize how big it is," said Terry Bragg, and getting it under the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge, which was built in  1967, after the Battleship was already in place (1961), would be nearly impossible.

"We have a suitable site, even though the Cape Fear River is not the Cape Fear River of 60 years ago."

--GreGen

USS North Carolina-- Part 4: Repair It or Scrap It

The day-to-day operations of the Battleship,  however, from the salaries of the twenty-five full-time staffers to IT support, insurance and more is "100% receipts funded," Bragg said.  "Everything is paid for by funds made at the battleship" from entry fees, gift shop sales, event rentals and more.

Not long after Bragg started his tenure, the battleship would face a major challenge.

"When I got there, there were many  compartments (on the ship) that were flooded," according to Bragg.

Then, the head admiral of the U.S. Navy in charge of ship inspections and repair "sent me a letter saying the Battleship North Carolina either needs to be repaired or scrapped in accordance with the donation contract" with the state of North Carolina.

From that point on, he said, his main goal, along with enhancing  both the Battleship's staff and the quality of educational displays and programs, was "to fix the Battleship."

This past June, the $14 million repair project was completed.  Featuring a walkway that goes around the entire ship, it involved literally  cutting and replacing  parts of the Battleship's steel hull that had deteriorated over the years.  (In the gift shop, you can buy knives and other steel products made from parts of the Battleship's hull that were replaced.)

--GreGen

USS North Carolina-- Part 3: Serves Three Functions for the Wilmington Area

From the start, the "Showboat" of World War II, as she was called, was in Wilmington to impact tourism, especially after the city's #1 industry , the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, left.  It also came to serve as a World War II memorial and a floating museum.

It has continued to serve all three of those functions for sixty years, said retired Navy Captain Terry Bragg, who has been executive director  of the Battleship North Carolina since 2009.

As Wilmington's number one tourist attraction (other than arguably the nearby beaches), the battleship is also one of the most popular tourist attractions in eastern North Carolina.

"Our numbers are so much bigger than anybody else's,"  Bragg said.   "We're still maintaining our obligation as the economic engine of the area."

One thing people don't understand, Bragg said, is that  the Battleship is  "technically  an enterprise of the state" overseen by the USS North Carolina Battleship Commission, which was established in 1960.

The state has "an obligation to the U.S. Navy to maintain the ship, according to Bragg, and the state can appropriate money for repairs when needed, which has happened in recent years.

--GreGen

USS North Carolina Celebrates 60th Anniversary in Wilmington-- Part 2: It's History

But even as the battleship exists today as a celebration of U.S history, it is now a part of Wilmington's history itself, and it is positioning itself to be a part of the city's future for decades to come.

The story of how the USS North Carolina came to Wilmington in the first place is an epic onto itself.

It involves then-governor  Terry Sanford, the North Carolina legend, the first president of the renowned Wilmington Azalea Festival Hugh  Morton, nickel-and-dime donations of hundreds of thousands of  school children including me and my brother) from across the state.  

Then, there was Wilmington's own James S. "Jimmy" Craig, who got the idea to bring  the USS North Carolina back to its name-sake state after getting the idea after Texas bought its name-sake USS Texas to Houston in the 1940s.

--GreGen

Battleship North Carolina Marks Its 60th Anniversary

From the October 2, 2021, Wilmington (NC) Star-News by John Staton.

It has now been sixty years since the famed battleship USS North Carolina arrived at her permanent home of Wilmington, North Carolina.

It arrived October 2, 1961, before over 100,000 onlookers and moored across from Wilmington on the west bank of the Cape Fear River.

It was dedicated on April 29, 1962, as a memorial to the more than 10,000 North Carolinians who died fighting in World War II.  For the past sixty years, the 728-foot decommissioned  Navy vessel has not only been  a vital part of the downtown Wilmington skyline, but also its economy, attracting tens of thousands of visitors a year, including more than 200,000 since October 1 of last year.  (Not too bad in these days of the pandemic.) 

--GreGen

Service to Remember 828 British POWs Who Died on the Lisbon Maru When It Was Sunk

From the October 3, 2021, Lichfield (UK) Live "Service to remember  British prisoners of war who died  after Japanese ship was torpedoed during Second World War."

The service was held at the National  Memorial Arboretum commemorating the 828 British prisoners who died when the Japanese ship Lisbon Maru was sunk.  It was being used as a troop ship at the time and was carrying Japanese troops as well as 1,816 British POWs  when it was torpedoed by an American submarine on October  1, 1942.

The hatches were battened down on the cargo holds where the prisoners were kept.  When the men were able to break out just before it sank 24 hours later, they were fired on by the Japanese troops still on board the ship.

As the ship went down, some were rescued by Chinese fishermen, but 828 died from gunshot wounds and drowning.

As well as descendants of those men aboard the ship, veterans and representatives will be attending the ceremony.

A Tragedy.  --GreGen

USS Oklahoma Sailor from LaClede Comes Home: George Merton Gooch

From the October 1, 2021, Linn County Leader (Missouri) "Laclede native  coming home decades after death at Pearl Harbor" by Angie Talken.

Laclede native George Merton Gooch, Petty Officer 3rd Class, died December 7, 1941, on board the battleship USS Oklahoma.  His remains have finally been identified and he will be buried October 9 in his home town of Laclede, Missouri.

He was born April 23, 1919, to Linn  and Hulda Mae Gooch in Purdin, Missouri, and was a 1939 graduate of Laclede High School.  In 1939, he joined the U.S. Navy.

His remains were identified using family DNA.

Welcome Home.  --GreGen

USS Oklahoma Sailor from Detroit Comes Home: Irvin Franklin Rice

From the September 30, 2021, Fox 2 Detroit "Detroit Navy vet lost at sea in Pearl Harbor has remains id'd with DNA, will be laid to rest" by Amy Lange and David Komer.

Irvin Franklin Rice was 22 years old and a radioman 3rd class when he met his death aboard the USS Oklahoma in Pearl Harbor.  His remains were recently identified through DNA.

The funeral service will be held at Roseland Park Cemetery in Berkley on Saturday afternoon.  This is where his parents had placed a headstone years ago reading "Lost in Action at Pearl Harbor."

Many veterans organizations will be on hand as well as an escort by the Patriot Guard.

The procession will leave the funeral home in Livonia and go up I-275 to I-696 to Woodward Avenue.  Plans are being made for spectators to line this thoroughfare waving flags all the way.

He will be laid to rest with full military honors.

--GreGen