F6F Hellcat Carrier Story and Video

Fellow historian Marilyn Walton sent this interesting story and video today. You will like it, too. I quote Marilyn from here on:



"Point of interest...about 3 minutes 20 seconds into the clip, you will
see an F6F Hellcat, it's hydraulics shot away during a strafing run,
pancake on the carrier deck and slew into the island. A deckhand was
crushed between the aircraft and the superstructure and killed. The
number on the plane is 30.

The lanky pilot sitting dazed in the cockpit is a gentleman named Andy
Cowan, a friend of mine. He is hale and hearty at 87 and lives just
north of Salinas, Ca. To this day he cannot recall this accident
without a tear coming to his eye. The swabby who was killed was his
crew chief.

Andy is a marvel. He has absolute total recall of those bygone days.
He is regularly invited back to the Naval War College to give a power
point demonstration to the young fighter jocks of today's Navy. They
hang on his every word. A living link to the past, to the days when
you got up close and personal to kill the enemy. No over-the-horizon
missile kills..

Andy was the longest serving Navy fighter pilot in WWII. He was on his
shakedown cruise off Gitmo on December 7th, 1941. The carrier Ranger
made flank speed to Norfolk and the pilots were transshipped to San
Francisco by train, then sped to Hawaii by ship. He saw Pearl not long
after the sneak attack, and again is unable to speak of it...a
horrible disaster. He immediately went aboard the Lexington and in the
course of the war had 4 carriers shot out from under him as he fought
in every major Pacific battle. Coral Sea, Midway, Battle of Santa
Cruz, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima...you name it. Credited with 4.5 kills.
Flew with Butch O'Hare, Cmdr Thatch (inventor of the "Thatch Weave"),
flew with high scoring ace David McCampbell...served under Admirals
Nimitiz, Bull Halsey...


He has studied the Japanese side of the Pacific War and is a
recognized expert on their side of it. He can reel off the names of
all their capital ships and admirals and battles from memory.
Remarkable man...and still alive to tell the tale."

Lately, links on blogger are not working well. Just cut-and-paste this link for video: http://tinyurl.com/yrpc24

'Before You Go' a Touching Tribute to WWII Veterans

Click on this link for a song and story honoring WWII veterans. It takes about a minute to load, but it's worth it.

http://www.managedmusic.com/Music/PlayBeforeYouGo.php

Ask a World War Two Airman: Some of Your Questions Answered Today

A few weeks back, I initiated a feature called 'Ask a WWII Airman'. I invited readers to send in questions, and promised to get answers from my panel of WWII Air Corps veterans. Today, we have two questions, along with answers.

Question Number One: "Did the training you receive adequately prepare you for the experience of aerial combat, or, after your first experience with enemy fighters did you feel like you had been thrown into something that was impossible to prepare for?"

Maurice Rockett, who flew his tour with the 95th Bomb Group as a B-17 bombardier, responds:

Training did not prepare us for the realities of combat. There was no way, as I see it now, to put trainees into positions of death-defying situations. We did not even dream them up nor would instructors have any notion of what it would be all about either. It might have been helpful to spend longer flight periods at altitude with the poor equipment we had--speaking for my time, of course--and to fly with little rest.

As for fighters and flack, these elements had to be experienced personally for evaluation. Even then, many crewmen did not endure the hammering blows of the two mentioned perils. Regarding bailing out and the ensuing result of imprisonment would also be impossible to duplicate training experiences. Although, it would not have been impossible to give us jumping practice, but with the time constraints it was probably never even considered.

We just got shoved into impossible situations. as cannon fodder, without any guarantee of survival. Each person had to deal with death, or the possibility thereof, their own way with the hope luck would be on their side."

Dan Culler, who flew his tour with the 44th Bomb Group as a B-24 flight engineer/gunner, and ended up a POW in Switzerland, writes:

"We were always told you will get more training in your next assignment which ended up over Germany. I can't blame the military, they needed crews very bad and not that much time to train. As far as myself, the actual combat didn't bother me as much as my older crew. After all I was the youngest in our squadron. I guess that is why they want the very young to do the fighting. It doesn't bother you until later in life. I was kept busy jumping in and out of the top turret, trying to keep the dam plane flying, plus hand cranking the faulty turret. Poor Maurice in the nose saw everything coming at him. You know Maurice, I read later the people who made the top turret for B-24s admitted they had a failure problem on some turrets over 18,000 ft."

Question Number Two: "As you got further into your missions, did it get tougher to go on them or easier? Easier because you'd already been through the experience or tougher because you had fewer to go and had thus far been lucky?"

Maurice Rockett responds: "I really did not relate to missions like you do. I thought of a mission being tougher, not in anticipation, but as the result of what I encountered. While I did not fly a 'last' mission, one to finish my tour, the feeling or hope of survival would be paramount after so many hair-raising events in the skies over Europe."

Thanks for the questions, and thanks to Maurice and Dan for answering.

Anybody else have anything they'd like to know from these two living legends?

US's Third Largest Air Force Never Leaves the Ground

My pilot friend Jay sent me these photos of the aircraft Boneyard at Davis Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona. It is, according to him, the US's third-largest Air Force, and the only one that makes a profit, as it is a major tourist attraction. HE also writes that the planes are capable of being restored to service if necessary.
I hope to see this when I am in Arizona in April.

New Information on Hitler and American POWs

My friend and fellow historian John Havers of England sent me an email today that sheds more light on the story from a few days ago about the American POW camp near Berlin and the possiblity that Hitler visited the camp and announced FDR's death. The information sheds some doubt on the account, but I imagine we'll never know until Dan Culler hears from his historian friend in Germany about the exact location of the Berlin POW camps.

Thanks, John, for this valuable information.

John writes:


By coincidence I read your piece on the blog about Hitler and POWs just as I had found in our local library Until the Final Hour - Hitler's last Secretary by Traudl Junge. Pub 2002 ISBN 0 297 84720 1. This, as she was then, very young lady was in the Berlin bunker close to Hitler right to the very end.

It is not a day-to-day record of events but does tell a lot of what was happening. Given that FDR died on 12Apr45, and based on what is said in the book, I find it a little difficult to believe that Hitler was outside the bunker around this time; obviously I am unable to prove anything but it does make me wonder about the story.

Best regards
John

Remembering the Bataan Death March--Honoring those Dead and Living

Looks like my friend Les Poitras and I will be going to New Mexico in March to participate in the Bataan Death March Memorial Hike, a 26-plus mile hike across the desert to honor the memory of the original Bataan Death March participants.

More details as they develop. Suffice it to say, Les and I have some serious training to do.

The Death March Memorial Hike website is http://www.bataanmarch.com/.



Men on the Bataan Death March, one of the most infamous mass war crimes against American soldiers in the Pacific in World War Two. Survivors will be at the march this March, and my plan is to conduct some interviews for my book Untold Valor: The Pacific

POW Remembers Hitler Visiting Camp and Honoring FDR

An aged Adolph Hitler, shown here in the years before his death, visited a small camp of American POWs in Berlin and informed them of the death of FDR, then stood at attention while the camp honored FDR, in a story related by POW Dan Culler.

Here is an amazing story I'd never heard about before, related by good friend Dan Culler, who was himself a POW. I quote Dan's story in its entirety.

"Roosevelt and Hitler

Here is a story you all might find interesting. I learned of it at our weekly POW
meeting at the VA which ended sometime in 2001 because not many of us were left,
and Sam Atterbury our councilor retired. It was told by Harold, one of our POWs who was shot down over Berlin in Jan. 1945 and was placed in a small POW
camp in the Berlin area, with Americans and British.

He mentioned the camp was close to Hitler's last bunker, and they let the allies
know of the camp hoping the allies wouldn’t drop bombs in that area.

Harold said several times Hitler with several guards would come to
the POW camp and would just stand next to the wire and look at the
prisoners.

Then when Roosevelt passed away on April 12, 1945 Hitler
came to the camp and had the guards inform the Americans of
Roosevelt's death and had them assemble in the yard and stand at
attention for a short time in honor of Roosevelt. Hitler and his
guards outside the wire, also stood at attention, and as you know
Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945.

How about that gentlemen, here was Hitler a maniac dictator who was responsible for
million of death paying homage to a ruler who help being him down.
Harold said the Russians freed them."