This is heartbreaking. What this guy went through and the way he feels now. Notice the silver Star & the campaign metals. This poor old dude survived a living hell. That video really hurts my heart.
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I had this one sent to me. Sad thing. Not many left from his era. It would be cool to sit down with him and listen to some of his experiences.
That man’s lament about how things are now in our society and culture and his telling of the men he knew that died for our freedoms and trying to imagine what he went through really tears your heart. All of their sacrifices for our freedom almost seems as if our current crop of leaders and people in our country have just taken all of that sacrifice for granted and have just squandered our freedoms and liberties away. You think about all the lives of our servicemen that were ended and futures erased in defense of our country and nowadays you have all these entitled “citizens” that ■■■■■and moan about not getting enough free stuff. It’s sad.
In World War II, the horrors of war were bad enough in the European Theater of Operations but what the Marines endured in the Pacific Theater is beyond description. A good primer would be EB Sledge’s “With the Old Breed” deals mainly with the fighting at Peleliu and Okinawa. Another good book, though not quite as impactful as “Old Breed” would be Leckies “Helmet for My Pillow” which describes his experiences in Guadalcanal and New Georgia/New Britain Campaigns.
There’s a number of good books about the Korean War. First one comes to mind but can’t recall the exact title deals with the marine defense of Fox Hill which covered the Main Supply route that Marines were withdrawing through from the Chosin Reservoir in Nov/Dec 1950. Hector Cafferata, Medal of Honor.
A relief unit was sent to assist Fox Company and when they arrived after most of the fighting the commander remarked that his feet couldn’t make contact with the ground in front of Cafferata’s position because the ground was covered with dead chinese communist soldiers.
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Not many of those folks left. I believe they truly are/were our greatest generation. There are a lot of really great young folks today so I don’t want to demean the entire generation but, I can’t imagine WWII with this generation.
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During the Second World War my Grandfather worked as a civilian mechanic/machinist at the Walterboro Army Air Field. My mother worked as a civilian (staff?) car driver or chauffeur. She dated and was acquainted with some of the pilots that graduated with this class of P47 pilots. She made notations on the back of this photo regarding what she knew of their wartime outcomes/fates for lack of a better phrase.
Probably will have to download picture to read. Of note is John Drummond who was shot down and taken prisoner in July 1944. He was from Ninety-six and went on to become a state senator.
The bottom row got cut off a little bit. From left to right col 5, Matt Parcel(killed), col 6, Lt Tom C Hamilton(prisoner struck through, Returned to USA), col 7, Capt Basil L Poole(missing struck through Returned to USA), col 8, Lt Paul R Ellison(prisoner struck through, Returned) and col 9, Lt Marvin Leinweber(missing 8-10-44)
Col 9, row 3, Maj Jenkins. Computer search will show several hits for “Jenkins Jerry Junkers” I’m trying to find a site that I came across several years ago that has a picture of him overseas in France with more information on his squadron 510th Fighter Squadron.
(My mother worked as a civilian (staff?) car driver or chauffeur. She dated )
That line out of your post made me think about and laugh like hell the first time I deployed. We flew (civilian airline) from California to Alaska from Alaska to Okinawa. When we took off from Alaska they played the movie swing shift.
All the ladies were working in factories alongside the man that were unfit for duty. And the majority of the ladies were having affairs.
Only a handful of the guys were married. So you know all of us single guys had a ball with that.
I still to this day can’t believe the airline played that movie. Knowing we’re all going to be gone from home for at least a year maybe more.
That had to have had a serious impact on the married men’s morale.
Dear John, …
My Father in law was the manager/accountant for the base PX. He had a front license plate ID for his car
I suppose Walterboro AAF was considered a satellite base to Charleston AF? CAAF mostly had B24 Liberators from what I can remember of the history. Jimmy Stewart flew B24s in Europe.
My Grandmother was a Civilian Observer and her duty station was the roof of the old local Walgreen Drug store on Main St. That’s her aircraft silhouette Identification handbook.
Never saw one first hand, but I’ve heard some stories about a lot of tunnel systems in and around our Air Base and the industrial area. Louis Guess used to work at Best Steel and told me about finding one when they were doing some digging. I’ve also heard several caches of weapons / ammo and even a few jeeps were found in one area.
I used to hear those stories too. Going back to the early 70’s when I first started hearing those stories. If true it would be neat to find. My stepfather said they were mostly rumors? My cousin used to metal detect and he would mostly find discarded dog tags and some cartridges. My stepfather said that there’s still some aluminum skin and some components from a P47 that crashed . I think it was located off the north end of the field. My wife and I used to walk around the perimeter of the field in the 90s and early 2000 or so. Never came across anything unusual except occasional wild dogs. The AF graded and surfaced the field in a hurry because of the urgency of war time training. In recent years buried stumps and so forth have rotted leaving potholes in some of the taxiways.
Did Louis say what they found? Or should I not ask? Belts of .50 caliber maybe? DoD was good at burying stuff when in a hurry to demobilize. I think Walterboro Army Airfield was decommissioned before the war ended?
My mother’s friend and cousin, Jean, told me that on occasion she and my mother and friends would go down to Beaufort for an outing, movies, shopping on main street. Whenever they went my mother would take her large German Shepherd. As Jean put it, “whenever they encountered any inebriated Jarheads that became too fresh or overly solicitous my mother would introduce her German Shepherd to them whereupon the German shepherd would jump up/stand up and put his front paws on the Marines’ shoulders and look him in the eyes”. “That usually sobered them right up and took care of any problems in Beaufort” That was the best that i could remember of Jean’s words.
That’s pretty cool that stuff was taken care of and handed down.
Do I need to call the FBI… hahaha
Silhouettes of early model P47 and P51A. All kinds of pic’s inside. Always fascinated me when I was kid thumbing through this book. Still fascinating.
There was a German POW camp on or adjacent to the base and the POWs were allotted one beer per day from the PX. My FIL noticed the Germans never drank their beers during the week, so he asked one of the Germans why. The German POW said that they all saved their beers up for the weekend so they could have a party.
Not sure he found much other than tunnel systems. ? the other stuff was much closer to the airport. Long before 9-11 we used to race on one of the abandoned runways. I believe your generation did it a lot more. Would be neat to run that area with a metal detector.
“My Generation”?!..well daggum I feel old now! Darn ole’ arthur startin’ to kick in with this weather!
We did all our racin’ out on the country roads, Dr’ Creek Rd and other nearby roads…
Just kidding! Smokey had a Black Fairlane.
Whenever we used to walk out there and when I was taking lessons you would see a lot of tire marks from drivers burning out. Occasionally you’d find where some jokers would bust bottles out there on the north end of the field(approach end to Rwy 17). We’d clean up and pick up as much as we could of the glass and report to old Lloyd that used to work there.
All three runways are still operational in spite of the airport commission, and other powers that be, trying to close down(through neglect) Rwy 09-27 so that they could sell commercial/industrial lots off the departure end of Rwy 27.
Was there any “shine” in the trunk? “shine” always makes you go faster…
Whether it’s in the trunk, or the tank.
LOL…
Not in the trunk. A jarful was on the front seat, occasionally passed to the back seat…
Ah, the good ol’ days.,.
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