95th Bomb Group's Larry Buchholz Flies Final Mission

A fallen hero is honored. Riverside National Cemetery, California. (Photo courtesy of Larry's granddaughter Rachel Terry)

Eagle on Larry's casket. (Photo courtesy of Larry's granddaughter Rachel Terry)

One of my heroes, the soft-spoken, brilliant Larry Buchholz, passed away last month, I heard from his granddaughter a few days ago. This news makes me very sad, because Larry was a hell of a nice guy, a true gentleman, and a man who bravely answered his nation's call to service in its time of need. Larry flew 30 missions as a radio operator on a B-17 Flying Fortress with the 95th Bomb Group out of Horham, England in World War Two.

I had the pleasure and honor of meeting Larry in Tucson Arizona a few years back at the 95th Reunion. He was kind, quiet, and possessed a thoughtful and intelligent nature that I really appreciated. Though I only knew Larry for a few days, we became friends and his loss is just one more example of the rapidly-disappearing 'Greatest Generation'. God bless you, Larry, on your final mission.

Read the obituary of an American hero here.

George Wahlen Passes Away, Iwo Jima Corpsman, Utah's Last Surviving WWII Medal of Honor Winner

I never met Mr. Wahlen, but I do have a signed copy of his book, which I consider recommended reading for any WWII historian.
Read about the book here: http://www.americanlegacymedia.com/TQH/TQHIntro_black.html

Reluctant WW II hero was a champion of veterans causes
By Matthew D. LaPlante
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 06/06/2009 03:57:35 PM MDT

(Paul Fraugton / Tribune file photo)

Every now and again, when her husband was feeling strong enough, Melba Wahlen and her children would take him for a drive.
He could have gone anywhere in the Weber Valley, but George Wahlen always wanted to go to the same place.
"Let's go watch the construction of the nursing home," he would say. "Let's see how they're coming along."
Utah's last surviving Medal of Honor winner, a zealous advocate for veterans' rights who helped lobby for cemeteries, hospitals -- and, most recently, a veterans nursing home in Ogden -- died Friday morning after a long battle with cancer. Doctors said Wahlen passed comfortably at the Salt Lake City Veterans Affairs Medical Center which, much to Whalen's humble chagrin, was named in his honor in 2004.
He'd never liked the spotlight, but in his waning years, he understood his place in it.

A hero is born
It all began on Feb. 19, 1945. U.S. military leaders, prepping for an invasion of Japan, had set their sights on a little-known island 600 miles south of Tokyo, known as Iwo Jima.
Wahlen, a 20-year-old Navy corpsman who had never seen combat, rushed with his platoon from a beach-landing craft -- right into machine gun and artillery fire.
Seemingly unconcerned for his own well-being, according to those he treated, Wahlen set immediately to work tending to the wounded. But the Ogden native quickly learned he could not save everyone.
"We turned over one Marine and he had been shot between the eyes and was bleeding all over," Wahlen told The Salt Lake Tribune in 2004. "That was quite a shock."

Wahlen would spend the next two weeks trying to keep his comrades alive, often dashing through machine gun fire to reach the wounded.

Trying to reach several injured Marines about a week into the fighting, he came upon a Japanese grenade bunker that was holding U.S. forces at bay. He called to a Marine to throw him a grenade, then crawled to the bunker to kill those inside. Wahlen, hit by grenade fragments, bandaged his own right eye and helped a badly wounded Marine off the deadly hill.
Several days later, Wahlen was trying to pull a wounded Marine from the lines when a shell landed nearby, hitting him in the shoulder and the back. Wounded once again, he could have been evacuated. He chose to stay.

"When you've been with these guys, they're like family," he said. "You don't want to let them down."

The next day Wahlen was headed to an artillery crater to attend to five wounded Marines when a shell landed in their position. A piece of shrapnel struck Wahlen near his right ankle, breaking his leg. "I bandaged myself up, took a shot of morphine and crawled over and started helping a Marine that had both his legs blown off," he recalled.

After putting tourniquets on the Marine, Wahlen was too badly injured to continue. The medic was put on a stretcher and evacuated.

Seven months later he received the Medal of Honor from President Harry S. Truman while recovering in a Marine hospital in Camp Pendleton, Calif.

In and out of the spotlight

Friends and family said Wahlen never wanted his life to be defined by the blue-and-white-ribboned medal he'd received "for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life."
In fact, Melba Wahlen said she didn't know that her husband had won the U.S. military's highest honor for heroism until a peculiar letter arrived, several years after they were married.
"It was an invitation for an event with the president at The White House," she laughed. "I had no idea what it was for."

As word of Wahlen's heroism drew attention in Utah after the war, his wife recalled, the quiet man longed for anonymity.

He found it back in uniform, enlisting in the Army and serving in Korea and Vietnam before finally retiring to take a job assisting veterans at Weber State University.

In the post-Vietnam era, when many Americans wanted to forget about their nation's wars, Wahlen found some of the obscurity he'd been seeking. But he also found a lack of attention to the needs of those who had answered their country's call.

As veterans groups sought state funding to improve the Utah Veterans Memorial Cemetery at Camp Williams, they leaned on Whalen's fame.

Melba Wahlen said her husband reluctantly obliged -- and "found that he was very good at it. He would do anything for veterans."

When the cause was right, Department of Veterans affairs Director Terry Schow said, Wahlen would make an appearance, give a short speech or go shake a few hands on Capitol Hill -- all in the name of loosening purse strings for fellow veterans.

But Wahlen never did grow used to the spotlight. In brief remarks at a 2004 ceremony in which the Salt Lake City hospital was named for him, Wahlen said nothing about his fateful fortnight on Iwo Jima.

"I just represent the veterans, that's what this is all about," he said.

"The way George always rationalized in his mind, he was a symbol for all of the other veterans," said Gary Toyn, who wrote about Wahlen's war experiences in the biography Quiet Hero . "He got all the attention, and he never liked that, but he understood that he had a role to play. At one point he realized, 'You know, I can really do some good with this.' And that's how he continued to serve."

A legacy continues
Just hours after his father's death, Brock Wahlen stood before television cameras in a hastily arranged press conference in the medical center lobby. Patients passed by, some shuffling with walkers and others gliding through in wheelchairs, en route to medical appointments.
Brock Wahlen made a vow: "He always fought for the veterans and their rights. We're going to continue that legacy as a family."

Schow had asked George Wahlen to speak at the November opening of the Veterans Nursing Home in Ogden. And Wahlen was looking forward to doing so.

But when Schow visited, last week, it was clear that his friend would not make it.

"But his thoughts were still on what he could do to help," said Schow. "We gave him a progress report and he asked about sponsoring a room there."

Schow choked back tears at the loss of a man he called his hero. "He won't be there to speak at the dedication," he said. "But he will be there. By God, he'll be there."
mlaplante@sltrib.com

"Our state has lost our humble hero."
Gov. Jon Huntsman, Jr.
"His service to this country and Utah will not soon be forgotten."
Sen. Orrin Hatch
"His real contribution came from a lifetime of dedication to those in the military and his fellow veterans."
Sen. Bob Bennett
"Though he could have easily acted like the celebrity he was, George never thought of himself as anything more than a humble friend to those he met."
Rep. Rob Bishop
"He said, 'So many other people have done so much.' But we all know the truth."
Department of Veterans Affairs Director Terry Schow
"He was a hero in his own right, but he viewed all veterans as heroes."
VA Hospital Chief of Staff Ronald Gebhart
"Our hearts are broken... he was part of our famliy."
VA Spokeswoman Jill Atwood

Another Hero Flies Final Mission; Jake Deshazer: Doolittle Raider and Christian Teacher

Another of my heroes flew his final mission last week--Jacob 'Jake' Deshazer. Mr. Deshazer was one of the Doolittle Raiders and ended up a POW in Japan for the entire war. Several of his crew-mates were executed by the Japanese, and his treatment was abysmal. His captivity strengthened his Christian faith, and after the war, he returned to Japan as a missionary. In one of history's intriguing stories, one of the men he converted to Christianity was the pilot who led the attack on Pearl Harbor.

I did not know Mr. Deshazer well, but had correponded with him over the years. He was a gentle, quiet, and friendly man who knew the Lord and whose greatest joy was serving Him. What follows is his obituary from the New York Times:

Obituary written by: RICHARD GOLDSTEIN
Published: March 23, 2008
Jacob DeShazer, a bombardier in the storied Doolittle raid over Japan in World War II who endured 40 months of brutality as a prisoner of the Japanese, then became a missionary in Japan spreading a message of Christian love and forgiveness, died on March 15 at his home in Salem, Ore. He was 95.

Jacob DeShazer
His death was announced by his wife, Florence.
On April 18, 1942, crewmen in 16 Army Air Forces B-25 bombers, commanded by Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle, flew from the carrier Hornet on a daylight bombing raid that brought the war home to Japan for the first time since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The raid resulted in only light damage to military and industrial targets, but it buoyed an American home front stunned by Japanese advances during the war’s first four months.
Corporal DeShazer, a native of Oregon and the son of a Church of God minister, was among the five-member crew of Bat Out of Hell, the last bomber to depart the Hornet. His plane dropped incendiary bombs on an oil installation and a factory in Nagoya but it ran out of fuel before the pilot could try a landing at an airfield held by America’s Chinese allies.

Below, Jake Deshazer stands at far right with the rest of Crew, Navigator George Barr; pilot Lt. William Glover Farrow (executed by a Japanese firing squad on October 15, 1942); Engineer-Gunner Sgt. Harold A. Spatz (executed by a Japanese firing squad on October 15, 1942); Co-pilot Robert Hite (POW); and Bombardier Cpl. Jacob Deshazer.

Hite, Barr, and Deshazer were liberated August 20, 1945.

The last plane off the flight deck, Deshazer's crew takes wing for Japan.

The five crewmen bailed out over Japanese-occupied territory in China and all were quickly captured. In October 1942, a Japanese firing squad executed the pilot, Lt. William G. Farrow, and the engineer-gunner, Sgt. Harold A. Spatz, along with a captured crewman from another Doolittle raid plane. Corporal DeShazer and the other surviving crewmen from his plane, Lt. George Barr, the navigator, and Lt. Robert L. Hite, the co-pilot, were starved, beaten and tortured at prisons in Japan and China — spending most of their time in solitary confinement — until their liberation a few days after Japan’s surrender in August 1945.

Amid his misery, Corporal DeShazer had one source of solace.

“I begged my captors to get a Bible for me,” he recalled in “I Was a Prisoner of Japan,” a religious tract he wrote in 1950. “At last, in the month of May 1944, a guard brought me the book, but told me I could have it only for three weeks. I eagerly began to read its pages. I discovered that God had given me new spiritual eyes and that when I looked at the enemy officers and guards who had starved and beaten my companions and me so cruelly, I found my bitter hatred for them changed to loving pity. I realized that these people did not know anything about my Savior and that if Christ is not in a heart, it is natural to be cruel.”
Corporal DeShazer gained the strength to survive, and he became determined to spread Christian teachings to his enemy.

Upon returning home, he enrolled at Seattle Pacific College (now Seattle Pacific University) and received a bachelor’s degree in biblical literature in 1948. He arrived in Japan with Florence, also a graduate of Seattle Pacific and a fellow missionary in the Free Methodist Church, in late December 1948. A few days later, he preached his first sermon there, speaking to about 180 people at a Free Methodist church in a Tokyo suburb.

In 1950, he gained a remarkable convert, Mitsuo Fuchida, the Japanese naval flier who had led the Pearl Harbor attack and had become a rice farmer after the war, came upon the DeShazer tract.

Jake Deshazer with Pearl Harbor lead pilot Mitsuo Fuchida, who he brought to Christ.
“It was then that I met Jesus, and accepted him as my personal savior,” Mr. Fuchida recalled when he attended a memorial service in Hawaii in observance of the 25th anniversary of the attack. He had become an evangelist and had made several trips to the United States to meet with Japanese-speaking immigrants.

Mr. DeShazer spent 30 years in Japan doing missionary work, interrupted only by a sabbatical to earn a master’s degree at Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky in 1958.
In 2001, he was a guest at the premiere of the movie “Pearl Harbor.”

In addition to his wife, he is survived by his sons Mark, of Winston, Ore.; John, of Coos Bay, Ore.; Paul, of Salem; daughters Ruth Kutrakun of Seattle, and Carol Dixon of Chicago; a sister, Helen Hindman of Iowa City; 10 grandchildren; and 6 great-grandchildren.
Over the years, Mr. DeShazer met on several occasions with Mr. Fuchida, who died in 1976.
“I saw him just before he died,” Mr. DeShazer once told The Salem Statesman Journal. “We shared in that good wonderful thing that Christ has done.”

This April, there will be one less upturned glass at the Doolittle Reunion, a tradition begun in 1946 when General Doolittle celebrated his birthday with the Raiders in a hotel. The Raiders have met every year since. In 1959, the city of Tucson , Arizona , gave the Raiders a set of silver goblets, one for each of the 80 men on the mission. Doolittle presented the goblets to the Raiders and a sacred ceremony for the crews began. The goblets hang in a display case at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs with each name of a “Raider” inscribed right side up and upside down on it. After reading the names of each man in roll call fashion, the Raiders who are left answer “here” for those still living or go and turn a goblet upside down for those who have gone. They then toast “To those who have gone,” and sip their wine. When the last two men living remain for the ceremony, they will open a 1896 bottle of cognac (the year Jimmy Doolittle was born) and complete the ceremony for the last time.

8th Air Force Legend Thomas Jeffrey Flies Final Mission

One of the truly great men of the American air war over Europe in WWII is Thomas Jeffrey. Every man I've ever talked with that served under this gentleman loved him. I'm saddened to learn of Gen. Jeffery's passing. Mike Faley, one of the historians of the 100th Bomb Group, posted this post today:

General Thomas S. Jeffrey Jr. has passed away
by Michael Faley on Fri Mar 14, 2008 2:07 pm
It is my sad duty to inform the 100th Bomb Group Foundation the Gen Thomas S. Jeffrey has passed away at the age of 91. As Deputy Group Commander of the 390th Bomb Group he was instrumental in the formation, training, and deployment of the Group to England. He was the 390th's Command Pilot on the Schweinfurt mission "Black Thursday" October 14, 1943 for which the group received it second Distinguished Unit Citation. In May of 1944, Gen Jeffrey took over command of the 100th Bomb Group (The Hard Luck Group) and implemented procedures and discipline that made the 100th BG one of the best groups in the ETO. His leadership before during and after the War were inspiring to those who served under him and those who only had the pleasure of knowing him through our reunions. Our Condolences go our to Ann and Tom Jeffrey and we wish Gods speed. To read up more on General Jeffrey, please go to this page on our website. http://www.100thbg.com/mainpages/crews/crews6/jeffrey_t.htmhttp://www.390th.org/warstories/Jeffrey.htm. Below is a letter from Gen. Jeffrey to the 100th BG that he sent last fall:

"(September 2007)Greetings! Best wishes to the 100th Bomb Group reunion attendees! Wish I could be here to swap tall tales!We are still hanging in here. We're ALL hanging in here; we're all still here, some just floating a little higher than before. As the old song says “…You take her up and spin her, and with an awful tear, your ship folds up, your wings fall off, but you will never care, for in two minutes max another pair you'll find… and dance with Pete and the angels sweet, and you will never mind.” Well, never mind this old age stuff. We'll get through it, we always have. We're tough, made of strong fiber and all of my colleagues of yesteryear proved it – showed what they were made of. We're all steadily turning over the great 100th Bomb Group Foundation to younger members with new ideas, a fresh outlook, and a desire to be a part of it. And that is as it should be. The proud tradition carries on. And we are pleased.Thank you for carrying on, thank you for cataloging the history, and keeping the memories alive. I raise my glass to you all!Maj. General Thomas S. Jeffrey Jr.Commanding Officer100th Bomb Group (H)
---Michael P. Faley 100th Bomb Group Historian 100th Bomb Group Photo Archivist 13th Combat Wing Historian
Michael Faley

Flying Tiger Legend Tex Hill Flies Final Mission

Tex Hill in his World War II Army Air Force uniform in 1943.
-- Courtesy photo

An aviation legend, who was a member of the famed Flying Tigers, died Oct. 11.Retired Air National Guard Brig. Gen. David Lee “Tex” Hill, 92, died at his home near San Antonio, Texas, of congestive heart failure.

Life with Tex Hill was always lighthearted because of his personality and sense of humor, said his grandson Col. Reagan Schaupp, director of Air University’s Joint Flag Officer Warfighting Course.“He could deliver a one-liner like you wouldn’t believe,” the colonel said. He said his grandfather’s outlook on life is illustrated by a story about one of the new guys reporting to the 23rd Fighter Group command section to meet his new commander, Tex Hill. The man found an inbox and an outbox on General Hill’s desk. The inbox held roasted peanuts. The empty shells were in the outbox.

The famed Flying Tigers commanded by aviation pioneer, Gen. Claire Chennault, was known officially as the American Volunteer Group. They were a small group of volunteer aviators recruited by Chennault at the request of China’s Madame Chiang Kai-shek to defend the country against the Japanese during the early years of World War II. On a mission to strafe Japanese aircraft at an airfield near Raheng, China, he and other Flying Tigers encountered enemy Ki-27 Nate fighters, and suddenly, General Hill’s P-40 Tomahawk began to shudder badly. “Something was wrong. Tex was vibrating and shaking so violently, he concluded the engine was coming out of the airplane,” Colonel Schaupp wrote in Tex’s memoir. “Feeling he didn’t have long in the air, Tex headed for Burma to put as much distance between him and the enemy as possible. He sweated out the shuddering ride, expecting any minute to begin a slow dive into the jungle, but somehow the P-40 stayed doggedly in flight and made it back to the base.”Upon inspecting the aircraft, General Hill discovered 11, 7.7-millimeter bullets lodged in his aircraft with a couple in one of the propeller’s blades. That had thrown the propeller rotation out of sync and was the cause of the intense vibration. Looking at the bullets, General Hill realized the loud thumps he heard while battling one of the Japanese fighters were, “very nearly the last sounds he ever heard.”

When the Flying Tigers were deactivated in July 1942, General Hill remained in China with the 23rd Fighter Group. He was one of only five Flying Tiger pilots to stay longer than two weeks after the American Volunteers Group disbanded, and was given the task of activating the 75th Fighter Squadron. General Hill left China in December 1942 to command the Proving Ground Group at Eglin Field, Florida, and returned to China in 1943 to command the 23rd Fighter Group. When he returned home in 1944, he was credited with destroying 18.25 enemy aircraft making him an ace three times over.

Hill became a brigadier general, and at age 31, he was the youngest one-star in the history of the Air National Guard. General Hill retired from military service with that rank in 1968.

As Colonel Schaupp remembers his grandfather, he realizes, for Tex, there are no more enemy fighters to duel in the sky, no more ground targets to strafe, and no more wars to win.“Others will have to see to those things,” he said. “What’s important is that young men and women know his story, understand his sacrifice and carry on where he left off. What’s important is for the nation to remember and uphold the freedom such patriots paid so dearly for.”

Pilot of A-Bomb B-29 Paul Tibbetts Flies Final Mission

By JULIE CARR SMYTH, Associated Press Writer

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Paul Tibbets, who piloted the B-29 bomber Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, died Thursday. He was 92 and insisted for six decades after the war that he had no regrets about the mission and slept just fine at night.

Tibbets died at his Columbus home. He suffered from a variety of health problems and had been in decline for two months.

Tibbets had requested no funeral and no headstone, fearing it would provide his detractors with a place to protest, said Gerry Newhouse, a longtime friend. (My comment: I find this very sad).

Tibbets' historic mission in the plane named for his mother marked the beginning of the end of World War II and eliminated the need for what military planners feared would have been an extraordinarily bloody invasion of Japan. It was the first use of a nuclear weapon in wartime.
The plane and its crew of 14 dropped the five-ton "Little Boy" bomb on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945. The blast killed 70,000 to 100,000 people and injured countless others.

Three days later, the United States dropped a second nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Tibbets did not fly in that mission. The Japanese surrendered a few days later, ending the war.

"I knew when I got the assignment it was going to be an emotional thing," Tibbets told The Columbus Dispatch for a story published on the 60th anniversary of the bombing. "We had feelings, but we had to put them in the background. We knew it was going to kill people right and left. But my one driving interest was to do the best job I could so that we could end the killing as quickly as possible."

Morris Jeppson, the officer who armed the bomb during the Hiroshima flight, said Tibbets was energetic, well-respected and "hard-nosed."

"Ending the war saved a lot of U.S. armed forces and Japanese civilians and military," Jeppson said. "History has shown there was no need to criticize him."

Tibbets, then a 30-year-old colonel, never expressed regret over his role. He said it was his patriotic duty and the right thing to do.

"I'm not proud that I killed 80,000 people, but I'm proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it and have it work as perfectly as it did," he said in a 1975 interview.

"You've got to take stock and assess the situation at that time. We were at war. ... You use anything at your disposal."

He added: "I sleep clearly every night."

Tibbets took quiet pride in the job he had done, said journalist Bob Greene, who wrote the Tibbets biography, "Duty: A Father, His Son, and the Man Who Won the War."

"He said, 'What they needed was someone who could do this and not flinch” and that was me,'" Greene said.

Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr. was born Feb. 23, 1915, in Quincy, Ill., and spent most of his boyhood in Miami.

He was a student at the University of Cincinnati's medical school when he decided to withdraw in 1937 to enlist in the Army Air Corps.

After the war, Tibbets said in 2005, he was dogged by rumors claiming he was in prison or had committed suicide.

"They said I was crazy, said I was a drunkard, in and out of institutions," he said. "At the time, I was running the National Crisis Center at the Pentagon."

Tibbets retired from the Air Force as a brigadier general in 1966. He later moved to Columbus, where he ran an air taxi service until he retired in 1985.

The National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton plans a photographic tribute to Tibbets, who was inducted in 1996.

"There are few in the history of mankind that have been called to figuratively carry as much weight on their shoulders as Paul Tibbets," director Ron Kaplan said in a statement. "Even fewer were able to do so with a sense of honor and duty to their countrymen as did Paul."
Tibbets' role in the bombing brought him fame ” and infamy ” throughout his life.
In 1976, he was criticized for re-enacting the bombing during an appearance at a Harlingen, Texas, air show. As he flew a B-29 Superfortress over the show, a bomb set off on the runway below created a mushroom cloud.

He said the display "was not intended to insult anybody," but the Japanese were outraged. The U.S. government later issued a formal apology.

Tibbets again defended the bombing in 1995, when an outcry erupted over a planned 50th anniversary exhibit of the Enola Gay at the Smithsonian Institution.

The museum had planned to mount an exhibit that would have examined the context of the bombing, including the discussion within the Truman administration of whether to use the bomb, the rejection of a demonstration bombing and the selection of the target.

Veterans groups objected, saying the proposed display paid too much attention to Japan's suffering and too little to Japan's brutality during and before World War II, and that it underestimated the number of Americans who would have perished in an invasion.

They said the bombing of Japan was an unmitigated blessing for the United States and the exhibit should say so.

Tibbets denounced it as "a damn big insult."

The museum changed its plan and agreed to display the fuselage of the Enola Gay without commentary, context or analysis.

He told the Dispatch in 2005 that he wanted his ashes scattered over the English Channel, where he loved to fly during the war.

Newhouse confirmed that Tibbets wanted to be cremated, but he said relatives had not yet determined how he would be laid to rest.

Tibbets is survived by his wife, Andrea, and three sons: Paul, Gene and James as well as a number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. A grandson named after Tibbets followed his grandfather into the military as a B-2 bomber pilot currently stationed in Belgium. "

My own thoughts on Paul Tibbetts and his important mission: by dropping the A-bomb on Hiroshima, Tibbetts saved the lives of countless American soldiers who would have died in a land invasion of Japan, not to mention the lives of all the Japanese military personnel and civilians. The fact that Hiroshima killed thousands must thus be looked at in perspective with the lives it saved. War is about killing, and in the words of American general William T. Sherman, "War is Hell". I am equally saddened by the loss of young American lives at Pearl Harbor in an unprovoked attack on December 7, 1941.

___

Photo Correction

Fellow WWII historian Marilyn Walton informs me that I have used the incorrect photo of the late Nolan Herndon's crew from the Dootlittle Raid. The correct photo is found here.

My apologies.

TAPS--95th Great Grif Mumford Flies Final Mission--First American to Bomb Berlin

Grif Mumford in the command pilot's seat, 1944. Grif led the first U.S. daylight bombing mission of Berlin in March of 1944. He passed away earlier this month. (Photo sent to Rob Morris from Grif in 2000)

The first American commander over Berlin meets the first American commander over Tokyo, Grif meets Jimmy Doolittle in this US Army publicity shot from 1944. Grif sent me this photo back in 2000.

It is with great sadness that I report that Grif Mumford has flown his final mission. Grif was a good man and a friend and I will miss his knowledge and his willingness to help keep the history of the air war in World War Two alive. Over the years, I have had the pleasure to correspond and talk with Grif. He was always open, always helpful, always a gentleman. God bless you, Grif.

The following is Grif's obituary from the San Fransisco Chronicle.

Col. H. Griffin Mumford -- pilot led 1st daytime bombing of Berlin

John Koopman, Chronicle Staff Writer Friday, July 20, 2007

The date is March 4, 1944. A squadron of B-17 Flying Fortress bombers is high over the skies of Germany, on its way to Berlin, the most heavily protected city in the world at the time and the capital of the Nazi regime.

A radio call comes in and a voice tells the pilots, "You are to turn back and abort the mission ..."
Col. H. Griffin "Grif" Mumford commanded that squadron and had the unenviable task of deciding whether to turn his aircraft around or continue on the first daylight bombing raid of Berlin.

Col. Mumford flew on. His radio operator could not get proper confirmation that the radio message was legitimate. The four-engine bombers made it to Berlin and dropped thousands of pounds of bombs on the German people.
When he returned to base at Horham, England, the colonel was hailed as a hero and awarded the Silver Star.

Col. Mumford died July 7 at Marin General Hospital after having suffered a fall earlier that the week. He was 89.

"I don't think that raid (over Berlin) was so important militarily," said the colonel's son, Toby Mumford of Tiburon. "It had more propaganda value than anything else."
In fact, the German air marshal, Hermann Goering, had once boasted that Allied aircraft would never bomb the Fatherland. Col. Mumford's raid was not the first time Berlin was bombed, but it did mark the first time U.S. aircraft dumped their payloads during daylight hours, allowing for more precise targeting.

"I wonder if they (the bomber crews) realize the significance of this mission," Col. Mumford once said during a speech, remembering the moment. "That it could be the turning point of the war."
After that raid, bombing runs routinely flew over the German capital. The war in Europe ended on May 8, 1945.

Col. Mumford was born in Missouri on Feb. 26, 1918. He moved with his family to El Paso, Texas, when he was 6, and his father died a year later. Col. Mumford attended the University of Texas in El Paso, but left to join the Army Air Corps in early 1940.

Toby Mumford said his father loved to fly, and he soon became a flight instructor. He trained on the B-17 bombers and went to England as a bomber pilot with the 95th Bomb Group in 1942. He arrived as a captain -- at the controls of his bomber, called "I'll Be Around" -- and eventually rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel and squadron commander.

After the raid on Berlin, Col. Mumford remained with the 95th until he returned to the United States in early 1945, his son said.

After the war, Col. Mumford was discharged. Among his decorations were two Silver Stars, one Bronze Star, the French Legion of Honor and the British Distinguished Flying Cross.

He moved to San Francisco to work for his father-in-law at the Ocean Shore Ironworks. Nine months later, he was back in uniform, this time with the newly created U.S. Air Force.
Toby Mumford said his father held a variety of posts in the Air Force until he retired in 1970 at the rank of full colonel.

After he retired, Col. Mumford worked for another 20 or so years for Hill Real Estate in San Francisco. He played a little golf and fished, but mostly Col. Mumford stayed active in the 95th Bomb Group Association. He spoke and wrote extensively about the work and the missions of the B-17 crews in the war.

"He was a guy right out of the Tom Brokaw book," Toby Mumford said, referring to "The Greatest Generation." "It was important to him that people remembered what went on during the war."

Col. Mumford's wife, Jacklyn, died in 2004. He is survived by his sister, Neva Miller of Hemet (Riverside County); son, Toby; two daughters, Trudi Costello of Tiburon and Gretchen Pattengill of San Diego; nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Services will be held at 2 p.m. July 26 at St. Hilary Church in Tiburon.

God bless you, Grif.