USS California Unknown David Walker Has Been Identified

From March 28, 2024, WVEC News "Over 80 years after he was killed in Pearl Harbor, a Portsmouth sailor will be laid to rest at Arlington" by Christopher Colette.

A Virginia sailor who died at Pearl Harbor aboard the USS California, has been identified and is returning home to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

The remains of 19-year-old Navy Mess Attendant 3rd Class David Walker were accounted for on November 27, 2023.

Walker was one of 103 crew members on the California who died that day.

He attended I.C. Norcom High School and whose family lived in Portsmouth, Virgina.

His body was recovered but no identification could be made at the time.  He was eventually buried as an unknown at the National memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.

The burial will be at the cemetery on September 5, 2024.

--GreGen

Pearl Harbor Survivor Richard Higgins Dies at 102-- Part 2: There Are Now 22 (PHSA) Survivors of Pearl Harbor

Richard Higgins died March 21, 2024.

He was born on a farm near Magnum, Oklahoma, on July 24, 1921 and joined the Navy in 1939, retiring 20 years later.  He then became an aeronautics engineer for Northrup Grumman, and other defense contractors.  

He worked on the B-2 Stealth Bomber.

His wife, Winnie Ruth, died in 2004 after 60 years of marriage.  Shortly after checking into hospice care Thursday, he told his granddaughter, "I'm ready to go see Winnie Ruth."

There are now just 22 survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack according to Kathleen Farley, the California state chair of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors.  She said that other survivors may still be alive because not all joined the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association (PHSA) when it was formed in 1958.

About 87,000 military personnel were on Oahu on December 7.

--GreGen

100-Year-Old D-Day Veteran Getting Married Near Beaches of D-Day-- Part 3

Harold Terens later got dysentery which almost killed him.  He later had another close call when a British barkeeper refused to serve him past closing time despite his pleadings for just one more drink.  Moments after he was kicked out, a German rocket destroyed the pub.

Following the German surrender, Terens again helped transfer freed Allied prisoners back to England before he shipped back to the U.S. a month later.

He married his wife Thelma in 1948.  She died in 2018 after 70 years of marriage.  His bride-to-be, Jeanne Swerlin married at 21 and then had a second husband who died after 18 years and a long term boyfriend who died in 2019.

The couple and their families will travel to Paris in late May where Terens and a handful of Americans will be honored.  It will be his 4th D-Day commemoration.

So Happy for Them.  --GreGen

100-Year-Old D-Day Vet Getting Married-- Part 2: D-Day and a Secret Mission

It is so nice writing about this instead of the sad deaths of our Greatest Generation.

On D-Day, Harold Terens helped repair planes returning from France so they could rejoin the battle.  He said half his company's pilots died that day.  He went to France twelve days later and helped transfer captured Germans and newly released Allied POWs back to England.

To him, the Germans seemed happy that their war was over and they might survive it, but he was angered at how badly the Allied prisoners had been treated by the Germans.

Later he went on a secret mission.  His planes hopscotched North Africa and eventually ended up in Tehran where he survived a robbery which left him naked in the desert until he was found by an American military police patrol.

He later learned the reason for the secret mission and that was that American bombers would fly from Britain to attack Axis targets in Eastern Europe.  They wouldn't have enough fuel to return, but instead would fly to the Soviet Union.  Terens job in the USSR was to feed the crews of those planes and get them ready to fly back to Britain.

--GreGen

One of the Last Pearl Harbor Survivors, Richard Higgins Dies at 102-- Part 1

From March 21, 2024, CBS News.

Richard C. "Dick" Higgins, 102, died in Bend, Oregon, on Tuesday, March 19, of natural causes.

He was a radioman assigned to a patrol squadron of seaplanes based in Hawaii when the attack came.  Higgins recounted that day in an oral history taken in 2008.  He had been in his bunk in the screened in  lanai on the third floor of his barracks when the bombing began.

I jumped out of my bunk and I ran over to the edge of the lanai and just as I got there, a plane went right over the barracks.  He figured the plane was about 50 feet over and 100 feet above his barracks.  He then described "the big red meatballs" on the plane (which were the Japanese symbol).

"So, there was no doubt what was happening in my mind, because of the things that had been going on."

--GreGen

Sure Going to Miss That 'World War II' Magazine

I was really saddened this past week to find out several of my favorite magazines are no longer going to be published.  And one of the best of the lot was the "World War II" magazine.  I was even considering taking out a subscription to it.  Kind of glad I didn't now.

I got quite a bit of material for this blog from it.

Right now I am going through the April 2022 issue which has these articles:

* Mel Brooks Goes to War.

* A U.S. Sub Commander's Ultimate Sacrifice.

* How a British Intelligence Blunder Killed Dozens of Allied Agents in Holland.

Always interesting articles and little-known facts about the war.

Hope It Comes Back.  --GreGen

100-Year-Old D-Day Vet Getting Married Near the Beaches of D-Day-- Part 1

From the March 11, 2024, Fox News "D-Day veteran, 100, to be married at World War II liberation site in France"  AP.

Harold Terens, 100, will be marrying his fiancee in France near where he first stepped ashore in that country as a 20-year-old Army corporal in 1944, a few days after the initial landings.

He will be honored in France in June on the 80th anniversary of that country's liberation.  Then, he plans on marrying his spry 96-year-old girlfriend, Jeanne Swerlin, near those same beaches.  They were both married to others before and started dating each other in 2021.

During the war she was in high school and dated soldiers who gave her war souvenirs like dog tags, knives and even a gun, trying to impress her.

Terens enlisted in 1942 and shipped to Great Britain the following year as a member of a four-pilot P-47 Thunderbolt fighter squadron as their radio repairman.  He said that all four of the original pilots died during the war.

--GreGen

USS Oklahoma Unknown from Alabama Identified

From March 11, 2024, WAFF 48 (Alabama)  "Remains of WW II veteran from Rogersville identified."

Navy Seaman 2nd Class Cecil Thornton was accounted for in April 2019 but his family only received the news.  He was aboard the USS Oklahoma on the day of the attack which left 429 crewmen dead.  He was one of them.

He was from Rogersville, Alabama, and that is where he will be buried.

--GreGen

And Another USS Oklahoma Sailor to be Buried: Raymond Boynton

From March 7, 2024, Detroit Free Press  "Michigan native killed aboard USS Oklahoma to get military burial in Hawaii this month" by Jennifer Dixon.

Raymond Devere Boynton will be buried at the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii, on March 20.

He grew up in Grandville, near Grand Rapids and enlisted in the U.S. Navy in June 1940, shortly after his 18th birthday.  He was promoted from apprentice seaman to seaman second class in October 1940 and died just over a year later at the age of 19.

His last surviving relative, nephew Harry Zies of Springtown, Texas, says the burial would have given Raymond's sister a sense of closure as she always felt in the back of her mind that he was still alive.  However, that sister, Bette, Harry's mother, died in 2013.

So Glad the U.S. Is Doing This.  --GreGen

Another Identified USS Oklahoma Sailor to Be Buried: Charles E. Hudson

One of the more recent unidentified USS Oklahoma dead has been identified.  He is U.S. Navy Water Bidding 1st Class  Charles E,. Hudson who was 39 when he died.

He was originally from Stockton, California.

He will be buried at the National Memorial of the Pacific on Oahu, Hawaii, on September 10, 2021.

--GreGen

Wreckage of Marine Plane Found in South Pacific

From the March 2, 2024, New York Post  "Wreckage of WW II plane that vanished in South Pacific found after 80 years" by Angela Barbuti.

The wreckage of a Marine Douglas SBD Dauntless was found by Papua New Guinea locals in a jungle last month.  It went down January14, 1944, with pilot Lt. Billy Ray Ramsey and gunner Sgt. Charlie J. Sciara aboard.

The plane crashed into three pieces after having left Munda Airfield in New Georgia in the Solomon Islands to target Japanese shipping in the Rabaul Harbor as a part of a large number of planes.  The tail was shot off.

The bodies were not found and both were declared dead and MIA a year later.  Their remains have still not been found.  It is believed that Sciara survived the crash but died later in a Japanese prison camp.

--GreGen

Iowan to Receive Congressional Gold Medal Posthumously for Service in the 'Ghost Army'

From the February 28, 2024, Des Moines (Iowa) Register "This Iowan served in World War II's Ghost Army.  Years later, his service is being recognized" by Kyle Werner.

The sons of John T. Cantrell, of Des Moines, will receive a Gold Medal for him at a special service in Washington, D.C., at the Capitol on March 21.

Today, only seven members of he "Ghost Army" are still alive and all of them 100 years or older.

Information on this top secret group was classified for more that fifty years before finally being released1996.  Its 1,100 members will be receiving a Congressional Gold Medal, the nation's highest non-military medal.

This is coming about because of a lot of work by groups who thought they should receive the honor.

--GreGen

About Those SS Concentration Camp Guards

From the April 2022 World War II magazine "Stopped Dead on the Tracks"  mail.

Christopher Hoffmann of Colorado Springs, Co. wrote that his uncle was a member of the 41st Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron of the 11th Armored Division when they opened the gates and liberated the Mauthausen slave labor camp in western Austria they had no idea what they were walking into.

He remembered that during the cleanup of the corpses, as SS officer-turned-prisoner had refused to work, declaring to a British sergeant that officers could not be forced to work under the Geneva Conventions.  The sergeant pulled out his pistol and told him to shut up and get back to his job.

The SS office continued to refuse, at which point the sergeant shot him dead between the eyes  My wide-eyed uncle recalled that all SS members were highly motivated for the remainder of the day.

Work Will Liberate You.  --GreGen

WW II Sergeant Laid to Rest 80 Years After His Death: Harold Hammett

From Feb. 20,2024, WECT News (WDAM News Hattiesburg, Ms.) by Jay Harrison and Andrew McMunn.

Sergeant Harold Hammett, USMC, left Hattiesburg for San Francisco in 1940 and later enlisted in the Marine Corps.  Thousands like him were sent to fight in the South Pacific.  In 1943, as a member of the 2nd Marine Division, he landed on the Japanese-held island of Betio

The ensuing fight, called the Battle of Tarawa claimed thousands of lives, including that of Hammett who was just 24 years old at the time and was one of the first killed.  His family was notified a month later.

His remains were declared non-recoverable until they were found recently in  Hawaii's National Cemetery  of the Pacific, known as the "Punchbowl."

Using DNA, his family was found. This past week, he was reinterred at Roseland Park Cemetery in Hattiesburg.

I am so glad our government makes this identification effort.  --GreGen

USS Maryland

From the February 19, 2024, National Interest.

The USS Maryland was at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked and sustained damage, but not seriously.  It later played a significant role in the Pacific War.

The battleship featured eight 16-inch guns in four turrets and entered service in 1920.  As such, she was one of America's most modern battleships due to the Washington Naval Treaty's limitations on new battleships.

Post Pearl Harbor, the Maryland underwent a rapid refit to modernize for operations in the Pacific, including improved anti-aircraft capabilities and torpedo protection.

Throughout the war, she served primarily shore bombardment roles, terrifying defenders with her formidable firepower.  Despite taking a torpedo hit and suffering from kamikaze attacks, she continued to support U.S. advances, including the critical Battle of Leyte near the Philippines.

After the war, she was placed in reserve, and, despite her historical significance, efforts to preserve her as a museum ship were not pursued and she was scrapped.

--GreGen

What Did Our WW II Service Men Think?-- Part 3

**  "I'll fight of necessary to prevent racial equality.  I'll never salute a negro officer and I'll not take orders from from a negroe.  I'm sick of the army's method of treating these inferior swine as if they were human."

**  "Why do you induct us in the first place.  Even as a leopard cannot change its spots, neither can we curtail our homosexual inclinations....  I'll just try not to get caught."

**  "I have been in the jungles  26 months.  I was just wondering of they will take us back in the States before thus war is over.  This jungle life will wreck your nerves....  Of the people back home don't think the jungle is hell just let them come over and stay for a few years."

**  "Better food should be considered for men in combat.  Constant diets of Vienna sausage & spam tends to decrease morale, as well as ruin a man's stomach."

--GreGen

What Did Our WW II Service Men Think? --Part 2

Some of their comments:

**  You people can't care for us over here in the jungles ... you folks there at home have a good bed and plenty of chow.  We eat ours out of cans.  Powder eggs & milk.  Give us some of this King's stuff & let us enjoy our life.

**  The Army would be a better place to live in, and the morale higher, if the Officers and many non-coms would not think that they are so high and mighty.  Also that the privates are human.

--GreGen

What Did Our WW II Service Men Think?-- Part 1

From the April 2022 World War II magazine "Soldier Surveys Virginia Tech University has published the transcripts of 65,000 surveys made by American GIs for the U.S, War Department in the early days of the war.  Needless to say, they were anonymous and they didn't hold back with their thoughts.

Many times they were quite patriotic, but lamblasted everything from uninspired leadership to bad food.  Black soldiers complained about discrimination.  Whites often expressed a bitterly racist view as was common back then.

--GreGen

Marietta, Ga. Man Killed on USS Oklahoma to Be Buried at Arlington National Cemetery

From the February 2, 2023, Marietta (Ga) Daily Journal by Jake Busch.

John Donald, Shipfitter 3rd Class was serving on the USS Oklahoma when the attack came and was one of the 429 who died aboard the ship that day.

He was born in Ball Ground, Cherokee County on July 15, 1913, and grew up in Marietta and enlisted in the Navy in Nashville, Tennessee on July 6, 1940.  His duties aboard the battleship Oklahoma included metal work,  pipefitting and  repairing different parts of the ship.

He received three promotions.

His was one of the Oklahoma Unknowns.  After being buried in the Punch Bowl for many years, his body was disinterred and DNA testing done on his remains which resulted in his identification.

Burial will be this month at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

Again, So Glad the U.S. Is Seeing to Identifying These Heroes.  --GreGen

New Fees at USS Arizona Memorial

From the March 29, 2023, Beat of Hawaii.

As of April 15, a new visitor fee will be implemented at Pearl Harbor to generate funds for the park's maintenance and provide further exhibits, new technology for visitors and security.

The fee for parking goes from free to $7 a day.  There willstill be no charge for admission and the Pearl Harbor National Memorial and USS Arizona Memorial program will remain free of charge.

To this day, the USS Arizona Memorail remains the number one in-demand destination for Hawaii tourists.

That Is Still Very, Very Reasonable.  --GreGen