After Pearl Harbor A salute to World War II veterans
Charles ‘Chuck’ Glidden survived 110 combat missions despite an officer’s promise: ‘If I have my way you are not going home alive’
Irene Currin fell in love while treating wounded soldiers in France and North Africa Inside
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December 7, 2013
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Dear Lord / Lest I continue / My complacent way / Help me to remember Somehow out there / A man died for me today. / As long as there be war I then must / Ask and answer / Am I worth dying for? Poem Eleanor Roosevelt kept in her wallet during World War II
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After Pearl Harbor A SALUTE TO WORLD WAR II VETERANS
On the cover: The battleship USS Arizona belches smoke as its superstructure topples over into the sea Dec. 7, 1941, during a Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. AP Images photo
Take time to ask questions, listen to veterans’ war stories
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➤ MEMORIES OF PEARL HARBOR: Residents recount the Dec. 7, 1941, attack. p. 20-21 ➤ IMAGES OF WAR: An unidentified young American soldier, captured by German troops during their counterattack in the Belgian Ardennes region, leads a march of prisoners in December 1944. The second atomic bomb explodes over the Japanese port town of Nagasaki, on Aug. 9, 1945. INSIDE
AP photos
lenn Lewis dropped out of high school at age 17 so he could join the Navy and fight the Japanese. Ralph Kesling flew missions as a ball turret gunner until his plane was shot down and he was captured by the Germans. Buster Newlun was paralyzed after he was shot during a battle in Okinawa. These World War II veterans are members of what is now known as the Greatest Generation, kids raised during the Great Depression who as teenagers and young adults headed off to war. Of those who left from Klamath County, 187 died. Four of those died during the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, according to Klamath County Museum records. Today, an estimated 550 World War II veterans are living in Klamath County, according to the latest statistics from the U.S. Veterans Administration. About 60 are still living in Lake County. The average age as of 2011 was 92. But we’re losing this generation — quickly. In 2011, the Department of Veterans Administration estimated that 670 World War II veterans are dying every day. Statistically, they say there will be no more World War II veterans living by 2036. We didn’t get a chance to hear all the stories and hope there will be more opportunities in the future. But the ones we heard — and share with you — paint a picture of patriotism, bravery, optimism and hard work. They also are our last living memories of this particular time in history. There are many veterans who don’t talk about the war, but if you know one, ask. You might be surprised at the stories you’ll hear. Until recently, Don Clem, now 90, rarely told stories about strafing and skip bombing enemy airfields in a P-51 Mustang fighter. Why? “I haven’t talked about it at all,” he told us. “I guess there’s no one to talk to.” — Marcia McGonigle
written and designed by marcia mcgonigle for the herald and news
➤ DON CLEM, P-51 MUSTANG FIGHTER PILOT: A 12-inch piece of shrapnel — now a souvenir — almost ended his life. p. 6 ➤ IRENE CURRIN, ARMY NURSE: Falling in love on the battlefield. p. 8 ➤ RALPH KESLING, B-17 BALL TURRET GUNNER: After six months as a POW, he had open sores on his legs. “I became a bit depressed and began to think I may not make it home,’ ” he wrote. p. 10 ➤ RAY DAFFER, USS WHITLEY: “Seeing the innocent people who were hurt by the war is one of the things that haunts me.” p. 12 ➤ NAVY SEAMAN DON ARNOLD: “I’ve always been lucky …” Missed boat saves his life. p. 14 ➤ CHARLES GLIDDEN, NAVIGATOR, B-24 BOMBER: Staying alive against the odds. p. 16 ➤ TOM HILL, 13th ARMORED DIVISION: After Tom Hill died in 1997, his family found his World War II treasures. Among them: German money, an Army songbook, a knife made in occupied Japan and a cloth emblem with a green eagle and black Nazi symbol. p. 18
➤ ROBERT PURKHISER, NAVY: A two-beer liberty on Ulithi ended with a reunion between the seaman and his older brother, Ross, a pharmacist mate with the 51st Seabees. p. 22 ➤ WARD FRIEDMAN, ARMY AIR CORPS: Radioman helped transport POWs to safety. p. 24 ➤ GLENN LEWIS, 96th SEABEES: He dropped out of high school his senior year so he could go to war. “I couldn’t wait.” p. 26 ➤ BUSTER NEWLUN, ARMY: He was paralyzed from the waist down after being shot during a battle in Okinawa. p. 28
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AFTER PEARL HARBOR: A SALUTE TO WORLD WAR II VETERANS
DON CLEM, P-15 fighter pilot, Air Force, 1941-45
A piece of shrapnel, a close call Now 90, the Klamath Falls fighter pilot recalls combat missions in Europe, northern China
‘L Submitted photos
TOP: Don Clem, poses in front of his P-51D Mustang, also pictured above.
WORLD WAR II: A TIMELINE For Americans, World War II began in the morning hours of Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese Imperial Navy bombed the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. The U.S. entry signaled the start of the war in the Pacific. Europeans, however, had been fighting since September 1939 when Germany, led by Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, invaded Poland, causing England and France to declare war on Germany. World War II involved countries from all over the Continued on page 7
et’s strafe them,’ fighter pilot Don Clem ordered.
The P-51 Mustang single-seat fighters were on a mission to dive bomb a Japanese-held airfield. Clem was flight leader and after spying Japanese planes parked by a hangar, he changed strategy. The World War II fighters dropped bombs on the airfield and then skipped-bombed the field (skip bombs have delayed fuses). During the raid, a piece of shrapnel pierced the side of Clem’s plane and disconnected his microphone near his throat. It landed in his cockpit. “It was about this long,” Clem recalled, indicating about a 12-inch span between his two hands. The for-
mer World War II fighter pilot keeps the piece of shrapnel at his Klamath Falls home as a reminder. “That was a close call,” he said. Clem, 90, volunteered for the Air Force in 1941, shortly after the war started. He flew between 80 and 90 combat missions. He started out as a mechanic, but later was trained as a fighter pilot and volunteered to head overseas. He did combat training in Karachi, India, and flew missions in Spain, Italy, North Africa and Burma. He finally ended up in Xi’an in northern China.
See CLEM, page 7
A dramatic picture of the City of London skyline is lit up by a great blaze started by incendiary bombs dropped by a lone Nazi raider, Aug. 26, 1940. The Dome of St. Paul’s, right, some famous city churches and the statue of Justice on Old Bailey, left, are clearly outlined against the glowing orange sky. A historic church and a number of commercial buildings were damaged by the flames. AP photo
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CLEM, continued from page 6
His job was to dive bomb airfields, destroying enemy supplies and planes. The fighters also escorted bombers toward Japan. In addition to the shrapnel incident, Clem experienced a couple of other close calls. “On one mission, we were strafing locomotives,” he said. “We came down and hit with our guns, saw steam coming up and decided to pull away. My plane dropped down and I thought I was going to hit that locomotive, but I just went through the steam.” Another story chronicles the tragic death of a pilot who had to bail out after his plane was crippled by the Japanese. In the one-seat fighters, the parachutes were the pilot’s seat cushion, which were attached by straps hooked onto their legs. “The pilot forgot to fasten his straps and when he bailed out, he went out of the harness and died,” Clem said. Clem made first lieutenant and was a captain by the time the war ended. He returned to Klamath Falls — where he had lived as a youth — after the war and worked at area mills. He met his wife, Velma at a logging camp. They married and raised two children. She died last January. He worked at mills along Upper Klamath Lake, did a stint as a log truck driver and finally went to work for Modoc Lumber Co. running a log stacker and green chain. Clem hasn’t shared much about his war experiences, though he does keep a framed photograph of his P-51 Mustang fighter on his wall. “I haven’t talked about it all,” he said. “I guess there’s no one to
Photo by Marcia McGonigle
Don Clem, 90, relaxes in his Klamath Falls home as he talks about his war experiences.
WORLD WAR II: A TIMELINE Continued from page 6
world, known as the Axis powers, Germany, Japan, Italy, Romania, Hungary, Finland and Bulgaria, and the Allies, made up of Great Britain, France, the United States, Soviet Union, China, Poland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa, Yugoslavia, Greece, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Brazil and the Philippines. Key events during the war include the Battle of Britain, in which the British were able to prevent a German invasion of England, the Japa-
nese bombing of Pearl Harbor and destruction of the U.S. Naval fleet in the Philippines, resulting in the U.S. declaration of war on Japan, and atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Various sources estimate between 40 million to 75 million fatalities occurred during World War II, making it the deadliest conflict in history.
1939
September: Germany invades Poland. England, France declare war on Germany.
November: Soviet Union invades Finland and occupies Poland and takes over Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia. April-May: Germany invades and conquers France, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.
1940
July: Japan occupies French colony of Indo-
china. The U.S. cuts off oil exports to Japan.
Continued on page 8
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WORLD WAR II: A TIMELINE
AFTER PEARL HARBOR: A SALUTE TO WORLD WAR II VETERANS
IRENE CURRIN, surgical nurse, Army, 1942-45
Love battlefield on the
A Red Cross worker examines two men from a concentration camp at an unknown location in Germany. Date is unknown. AP photo Continued from page 7
September: German warplanes bomb London for 57 nights. Attacks continue through May 1941. Germany, Italy, and Japan sign a treaty, aligning the three countries against England and France.
October: Nazi campaign against the Jews — the Holocaust — begins in earnest. By the end of the war more than 6 million Jews are killed as well as hundreds of thousands of other minorities. Italy invades Greece.
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hey fell in love while operating on dying and injured soldiers during World War II.
Hugh and Irene Currin spent the war together. He a physician and surgeon, she a surgical nurse. They were in the hospital tent during the infamous Battle of the Bulge, and spent time in Algers and North Africa. “It sounded a lot like M*A*S*H, but without the helicopters,” said son Hugh Currin Jr., the couple’s only child. “It was a major event in both of their lives.” His mother, Irene Currin, at 101 is the oldest known living war veteran in Klamath
County. His father, Hugh Currin, died in 1988 after spending his career as an urologist and surgeon in Klamath Falls (The Hugh Currin House near the Cancer Treatment Center is named for him). Currin, a mechanical engineering professor at Oregon Institute of Technology, recently helped his mother recall the war as the two thumbed through a photo album containing snapshots from the medical ward in North See CURRIN, page 9
1941
March: U.S. agrees to send ammunition and other war supplies to England. It stops short of going to war. April: Germany takes over Greece and Yugoslavia. June: German troops invade the Soviet Union. Dec. 7: Japan bombs Pearl
Harbor.
Dec. 8: The U.S. declares war on Japan. Japanese troops land in the Philippines, French Indochina and Singapore. By April 1942, all three are occupied by Japan. Dec. 11: Nazi Germany and its Axis partners declare war on the U.S. Continued on page 9
Submitted photo
ABOVE: Irene Currin poses for a photograph with a fellow nurse at an Army hospital camp in North Africa. TOP: Hugh Currin, 1944; Irene Currin, 1944.
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world War II: a timeline Continued from page 8
1942
June: British and U.S. navies halt Japan in the central Pacific at Midway. August-November: U.S. halts Japan’s advance toward Australia at Guadalcanal in the Soloman Islands. November: U.S. and British troops land on the beaches of Algeria and Morocco in North Africa, and move to the western border of Tunisia. This triggers the German occupation of Southern France.
Photo by Marcia McGonigle
At 101, Irene Currin is the oldest known Klamath County veteran. She is photographed here in her Klamath Falls home with son Hugh Currin Jr. The two are browsing through a scrapbook from her war years.
CURRIN, continued from page 8 Africa as well as tourist-like photos of Paris, Switzerland, the French Alps and Geneva. Irene suffered a stroke a few years ago and has a hard time speaking clearly. Currin knows the love story and he’s heard others — mostly entertaining anecdotes. There was the Jeep that a friend of his parents built from spare parts. “They used that Jeep and a can of gasoline and would go for a couple of days around France, trading for food and lodging,” he said. “They were among the first to get into Switzerland after the border reopened.” Irene enlisted as an Army nurse with the 46th General after answering an advertisement. She grew up in Pasco, Wash., where she attended nursing school, and later moved to Portland. Hugh Currin Sr. was a general practice physician in Klamath Falls before he joined the war effort. “They had mixed feelings,” their son said. “There was all the horrible stuff, but then it was basically a three-year honeymoon.” One of the stories their son doesn’t hear is his parents’ experiences at Battle of the Bulge. “They weren’t on the front lines getting shot at, but they were just slammed with injured
soldiers in France,” Currin said. “There were a lot of deaths.” His mother with the 46th traveled by boat to North Africa — it had to zig zag to avoid submarines. The return trip was a bit more relaxing — black-and-white snapshots show an informally dressed Irene lazing on deck. After the war, the couple married and returned to Klamath Falls. His mother has never been traditional, Currin said, smiling, and she was adventurous until her health slowed her down. But that wasn’t until recently. In her 80s, Irene and a friend took a multiday hiking trip along the Rogue River, camping in tents. She asked for — and received — snow shoes for her 90th birthday. Currin remembers his mom learning to downhill ski in her 50s and getting her pilot’s license when she was 60. The couple owned a motor glider (a motorized sail plane). As Irene looked through her World War II scrapbook, she smiled at photos taken during a two-week excursion she and her future husband took through Europe before returning to the U.S. The Currins traveled later in life to Alaska, Hawaii and the Caribbean. But they never returned to the war zone where they fell in love. “They never did go back to Europe,” Currin said. “I’m not sure if they wanted to.”
ABOVE: German Afrika Korps soldiers surrender to South African infantrymen in a captured village near Bardia, Libya, in January 1942. Allied forces captured the Axis base at Bardia on Jan. 2. BELOW: Standing on a snow-covered battlefield, these American infantrymen of the 4th Armored Division fire at German troops, in an advance to relieve pressure on surrounded U.S. airborne units, near Bastogne, Belgium, on Dec. 27, 1944. AP photos
1943
May: Axis forces in Tunisia surrender to the Allies, ending the North African campaign. September: Allied troops land on beaches of Salerno near Naples. November: Soviet troops
liberate Kiev.
Continued on page 11
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AFTER PEARL HARBOR: A SALUTE TO WORLD WAR II VETERANS
RALPH KESLING, ball turret gunner, B-17, POW, June 1942-May 1945
‘I WAS THINKING ABOUT SURVIVING’ Shot down over Germany, ball turret gunner Ralph Kesling spends 19 months as a POW
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alph Kesling had 40 open sores the size of quarters on his calves and shins, some so deep he could see bone. He had been a German prisoner of war for six months, and the sores wouldn’t heal. Instead, more developed and infection set in. “I became a bit depressed and began to think perhaps I may not make it home,” Kesling wrote in a first-person story about his World War II experiences published in a 1988 edition of the Herald and News. But a package from home — sent by his wife, Kay — likely saved his life. In it were vitamin and mineral pills. Within a month, his sores started healing. Kesling, now 94, considers himself lucky. “People died, some went crazy,” he said during an interview from his Klamath Falls home. “It was an unpleasant experience for all of us. You can’t imagine.” Kesling was a prisoner for 19 months, spending most of that time in the prison camp, Stalag 17B in Krems, Austria. In the winter, the barracks were not heated and the wind blew through cracks in the walls. They had little clothing and inadequate food. “The cold was intense and constant,” Kelsing wrote. “My hands and feet swelled up from the cold … my fingers stiffened and turned white as the blood stopped circulating.” It had been about six months since the B-17 manned by Kesling and his crew was shot down June 22, 1943, on a mission over Germany’s Ruhu Valley. The day’s target was a synthetic rubber plant. Kesling was a ball turret gunner and he bailed out when the plane was hit.
Submitted photo
Ralph Kesling was a ball turret gunner in a B-17, flying bombing missions over Germany.
“I was thinking about surviving. I remember we were 5 miles up … I had to leave my oxygen behind.” Once he jumped, it took about 15 minutes to get to the ground. He landed in a potato patch and was greeted by a young German soldier, who pointed a cocked pistol at his nose and yelled: “Hande hoch.” Kesling was taken prisoner and shipped to Frankfurt, where he was locked alone in a small cell for three days. He eventually was taken by train to Stalag 7A, a prisoner of war camp in Moosburg, Germany, and then to Stalag 17B. He was given a dirty blanket, a French overcoat with a bullet hole in its back and a cap. These clothes, along with his coveralls he was wearing when he was shot down, were all he had for the next year. The prisoners were given a loaf of bread a day to share among four men as well as thin cabbage soup and potatoes. Kesling, who grew up on a farm in Ohio, had been married a week when he was drafted into the Army and was assigned to the Army Air Corps. It was 1942 and within a year he was flying bombing missions over Germany in a B-17. In May 1945, Kesling and his fellow prisoners were liberated and taken to an abandoned aluminum factory. See KESLING, page 11
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WORLD WAR II: A TIMELINE
‘People died. Some went crazy. It was an unpleasant experience for all of us’ — Ralph Kesling, POW
American soldiers escort three German prisoners captured during fighting for the French port of Brest, France, on Sept. 16, 1944, during World War II. AP photo Continued from page 9
1944
June: Allied troops liberate Rome, allowing American bombers to hit targets in eastern Germany for the first time. Stalag 17B: A black and white photograph depicts the prison camp, Stalag 17B, in Krems, Austria, where Ralph Kesling was held for nearly 19 months during World War II. The man in the center was Kesling’s bunkmate. Submitted photo
June 6: British and U.S. troops land on beaches of Normandy, France.
KESLING, continued from page 10
Aug. 15: Allies forces land in southern France near Nice and advance towards the Rhine River.
From there, they were moved to France. He arrived back in the U.S. June 11, 1945. After the war, Kesling worked as a civilian for the U.S. Air Defense Command, first on the East Coast and later on the West Coast. He wound up his career at Kingsley Field. “I was just lucky,” he said. “I had a good life. I made the right decisions.” The Keslings had two children, son Bruce who lives in Klamath Falls, and daughter Judy who lives in Las Vegas. Today, Kesling is still willing to talk about his experiences. He wears a purple-and-yellow shirt with the inscription: “Ex-POW, Stalag XVII-B, Krems, Austria,” as he shares a scrapbook put together by his late wife. In it are numerous medals and awards from the war and stories written about his capture. “I think it’s good to have other people look at it,” he said.
Ralph Kesling, a former POW during World War II, shows off a Quilt of Valor made for him this year by his first cousin, Janie Crawford. It has what is called an Army Block Center and pictures of Kesling in his Army Air Corps uniform and with his wife, Kay. It is inscribed, “PFC U.S. Army POW, Stalag 17B World War II.” Photo by Marcia McGonigle
Aug. 20: Allies troops reach
Paris.
Oct. 20: U.S. troops land in the Philippines. Dec. 16: The Germans launch an attack in France and Italy, known as Battle of the Bulge,
2nd Battallion infantrymen of the 1st U.S. Division, clad in winter camouflage, march along a snow-covered road near Faymonville, Belgium, on Jan. 16, 1945, during the Battle of the Bulge. AP photo Continued on page 16
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AFTER PEARL HARBOR: A SALUTE TO WORLD WAR II VETERANS
RAY DAFFER, Navy, USS Whitley, 1943-45
‘There are things I wish I wouldn’t have seen ... things that still hurt’
See DAFFER, page 13
Submitted photo
ABOVE: Marines and Navy Seabees watch during the U.S. attack on Iwo Jima near Mount Suribachi. BELOW: Marines on Iwo Jima.
Navy seaman in the battle of Iwo Jima
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n the beach were dead bodies — Marines. Men that Ray Daffer and his fellow seamen had transported to the shores of Iwo Jima for one of the major battles in the South Pacific during World War II. “There are things I wish I wouldn’t have seen,” the 96-yearold World War II veteran said as he looked at a snapshot taken during the battle. “These are the
things that still hurt.” The goal of the five-week campaign for Iwo Jima in February 1945 was to take over the island and its three airfields to provide a staging area for attacks on Japan’s mainland. The Japanese, heavily armed, holed up in miles of underground tunnels in Mount Suribachi, a pumice volcano on the island, Daffer said. See DAFFER, page 13
AFTER PEARL HARBOR: A SALUTE TO WORLD WAR II VETERANS
Photo by Marcia McGonigle
Ray Daffer, 96, is a veteran of the U.S. Naval Amphibious Forces and was on the USS Whitley during the U.S. attack on Iwo Jima.
DAFFER, continued from page 12 Daffer was with the 5th Amphibious attached to the 5th Marines. Their ship, the USS Whitley, stayed at Iwo Jima for 23 days, eventually leaving to take 300 injured men to Guam for treatment. (Iwo Jima was the location of an iconic World War II image, a photograph taken Feb. 23, 1945, by Joe Rosenthal. It shows Marines and a Navy corpsman raising an American flag atop Mount Suribachi.) Daffer was 25 when he enlisted in the Navy, joining the Naval Amphibious Forces. “They called him the ‘old man,’ ” his wife Ruby said laughing. The couple had been married five years by then. His two younger brothers had already enlisted and were fighting overseas. “I felt it was as much my scrap as it was theirs,” he said. “Patriotism, they stressed it back then.”
He shipped out in September 1944 on the USS Whitley, a 460-foot ammunition supply vessel that carried 330 enlisted personnel and 36 officers. The ship carried landing craft that were used to transport Marines ashore during the South Pacific campaign. Daffer’s job aboard ship was security but he did what he had to. “You obey the last order first,” he said. Was he scared? “I don’t remember being scared.” Ruby agreed, saying her husband never talked about fear. “He was busy doing what he had to do,” she said. “He didn’t have time.” After the USS Whitley transported injured soldiers to Guam, it traveled to the Philippines to pick up 1,000 men, taking them to the island of Ulithi as part of the American force getting ready to invade Japan, Daffer said. Daffer was in Pearl Harbor when the atomic bombs were dropped on
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Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Aug. 6 and 9, 1045, respectively, soon ending the war. “We didn’t hear about it for several days,” he said. “We were two days out of Pearl Harbor heading for the Philippines when the war ended.” Daffer, who was in China and the Philippines after the Japanese left, said the aftermath of war was tragic. “They were left with nothing, no money, no food. They had stores, but the shelves were bare,” he said. “Seeing the innocent people who were hurt by the war is one of the things that haunts me.” He was honorably discharged as a shipfitter second class Dec. 17, 1945. When he returned home, he worked construction, using electrician and welding skills from his stint in the Navy. The Daffers moved to the Klamath Falls area after Daffer was hired to help build the John C. Boyle Dam on the Klamath River. He eventually took a job with Eastside Electric in Klamath Falls, where he worked for 23 years before retiring in 1980. Ruby spent Daffer’s war years clerking in a convenience store and waiting for her husband’s letters. “I didn’t ever know where he was,” the 93-year-old said during an interview at the couple’s Klamath Falls home. Daffer has a scrapbook and photo album with black-and-white snapshots of the USS Whitley and the battle on Iwo Jima. He declined to talk much about the photos. “You wouldn’t want to hear the gruesome details,” he said quietly. “I would say there ought to be a better way than war. In a war, everybody loses.”
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AFTER PEARL HARBOR: A SALUTE TO WORLD WAR II VETERANS
DON ARNOLD, mechanic, Navy, 1943-45
Wrong boat saves his life
Instead of Aleutian Islands, he ends up in Okinawa
D Don Arnold, 90, talks about his experiences as a Navy mechanic in World War II. Instead of getting on a ship to the Aleutian Islands, he instead ended up on a ship to Okinawa. The Aleutian Island-bound ship was sunk by the Russians, and Arnold, along with the rest of the crew, was listed as deceased. Photo by Marcia McGonigle
on Arnold was supposed to die.
But the Navy mechanic ended up on the wrong ship. He was packed for his tour on the Aleutian Islands — fur boots, warm jacket — but ended up in Okinawa. No one thought much about it — including Arnold — until World War II ended and Arnold’s base commander couldn’t locate his records to send him home. He wasn’t only stuck in Okinawa but, according to information his commander finally located, dead. “He finally found me (listed) in the deceased,” Arnold said. “They had put me on the wrong ship. I was supposed to go the Aleutian Islands, and the Russians sank the ship I was supposed to be on. My See ARNOLD, page 15
IMAGES FROM WAR
Dick Howard
Thanks for your sacrifice that gave us rty. life and libe
LEFT: In this Aug. 14, 1945, photo, a sailor and a nurse kiss in Manhattan’s Times Square during celebrations for the end of World War II. The celebration followed the official announcement that Japan had accepted the terms of the aPotsdam conference and surrendered. AP photo/U.S. Navy, Victor Jorgensen
5717 South 6th 541-884-8430
ABOVE: Hawaii residents comb through wreckage on Dec. 17, 1941 after Japanese bombing raids on Dec. 7. AP photo
AFTER PEARL HARBOR: A SALUTE TO WORLD WAR II VETERANS
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ARNOLD, continued from page 14 records went down with the ship.” How did he end up on the wrong ship? Arnold doesn’t know exactly. “When you’re in the service, they tell you to do something, you do it,” he said. Arnold, 90, recalled the incident — pulling details bit by bit from his memory — as he petted his active chihuahua, Lucky, in his south suburban Klamath Falls home. “I was lucky,” he added. “I’ve always been lucky at things.” Arnold was drafted into the Navy and went to boot camp in Farragut, Idaho. From there, he shipped out to Okinawa, where he worked as a mechanic in the motor pool for 2-1/2 years until the war ended. The Japanese would sneak onto the base and steal K-rations, Arnold recalled. “They were hungry,” he said. “They carried hand grenades, and we were told by the guards not to bother them.” At one point, Arnold installed a bigger seat in his base commander’s Jeep — “made him a happy man,” he laughed. In return, the commander gave Arnold a hat that would get him into the officers’ quarters. “I never went, though,” he said, shrugging.
‘I was lucky. I’ve always been lucky at things.’ — Don Arnold
Don Arnold as an enlisted Navy seaman. He was a mechanic in Okinawa during World War II. Photo
courtesy of Don Arnold
“I wanted to stay with my buddies.” Arnold was born on a farm in Iowa, one of 13 children. His father died when he was still a child and he spent four years in an orphanage before he was given to a farmer named Mr. Ford. “I was with him ’til I graduated from high school,” Arnold said. He was drafted a short time later. After the war, he met his wife on a “blind walk.” They had a daughter and two sons and were married 63 years. She died several years ago. He worked for Pacific Press Printing in Lynwood, Calif., for 32 years before retiring and moving to Klamath Falls about 30 years ago. Today he plays poker twice a week and occasionally visits Kla-Mo-Ya Casino to try his luck there. “It was a good life,” he said. “I can’t complain.”
IMAGES FROM WAR
We honor our Nation’s Heroes. A Uniq u e Thrift Store
1229 East Main Open Mon-Sat 10am-4pm All proceeds benefit Klamath Hospice patients and their families. LEFT: Most of these prisoners are Russian and Polish Jews. Just a few manage to raise themselves for the photographer on April 25, 1945, at Buchenwald concentration camp, Germany. RIGHT: This April 16, 1945, U.S. Army file photo shows prisoners of the German Buchenwald concentration camp inside their barracks a few
days after U.S. troops liberated the camp near Weimar, Germany. The young man seventh from left in the middle row bunk is Elie Wiesel, who would later become an author and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Wiesel, a 1986 Nobel Peace Prize winner, accompanied President Barack Obama on a tour of Buchenwald, June 5, 2009. AP photos
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AFTER PEARL HARBOR: A SALUTE TO WORLD WAR II VETERANS
CHARLES ‘CHUCK’ GLIDDEN, navigator, B-24 bomber, 110 combat missions
Defying the odds, and a vendetta Pilot flies 110 combat missions before taking honorable discharge to protect his crew
C
harles “Chuck” Glidden survived 110 combat missions as a navigator on a B-24 bomber during World War II despite an officer’s vendetta and promise: “If I have my way you are not going home alive.” Glidden told the officer it was unacceptable to endanger his crew just to get even. But the officer tried to keep that promise, sending Glidden’s crew on skip bomb missions in the B-24, a particular dangerGlidden ous endeavor for that type of bomber. “To protect his crew, Dad stayed drunk until he was relieved and sent home,” writes Glidden’s oldest son, Charles “Corky” Glidden. Glidden was honorably discharged — 110 missions were more than twice the amount bomber crews usually did before they were transferred home, Corky Glidden writes. “I don’t know of any other officers who sacrificed their careers to save those who served under them.” Glidden and his wife, Pauline, settled in Klamath Falls after the war, where they raised eight children. Pauline died in 1992 and Glidden in 1999. Their children — Charles “Corky” F. Glidden, Cathy Glidden, Dennis Glidden, Nancy Erickson, Julie Bruce, Joe Glidden, Paul Glidden and Carol Coker — say their father didn’t talk much about the war, but they did recall a couple of colorful stories from their
Submitted photo
Charles “Chuck” Glidden poses in front of his B-24 bomber.
father’s tour of duty in the China Burma Theater — including the officer with the vendetta. Corky Glidden, an Army veteran living in Portland, recalled two versions of the reason why the officer had a vendetta against his father. The first involved a woman, his father’s future wife who he met while he was attending military school in Wendover, Nev. Son Corky Glidden writes: “The story goes on that he created an adversary out of
a superior officer when mom chose dad over this officer. A second version goes that dad beat this officer at poker. In any case, dad created an adversary … This officer was a car salesman from New York who thought that dad was nothing more than a dumb hillbilly from California.” Glidden ended up in the same unit as that officer, who was on the headquarter command staff. See GLIDDEN, page 17
WORLD WAR II: A TIMELINE Continued from page 11
in an attempt to split the Allied forces along the German border. By Jan. 1, 1945, the Germans begin retreating. Nearly all of France, most of Belgium, and part of the Netherlands are liberated.
1945
Mamoru Shigemitsu signs unconditional surrender papers for Emperor Hirohito, Aug. 14, 1945. AP photo
April 30: Adolf Hitler commits suicide. May 7: Germany surrenders. May: Allied troops conquer Okinawa.
Aug. 6: The U.S. drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Aug. 9: The U.S. drops an atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
Aug. 14: Japan indicates it will surrender.
Sept. 2: Japan formally surrenders, ending the war. Sources: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum/www.ushmm.org, Associated Press
AFTER PEARL HARBOR: A SALUTE TO WORLD WAR II VETERANS
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GLIDDEN, continued from page 16
‘I don’t know any other officers who sacrificed their careers to save those who served under them.’ — Charles ‘Corky’ Glidden about his father, Chuck Glidden “During one particular bombing run,” Corky Glidden writes, “the unit lost most of its command staff, leaving dad’s adversary as the commander.” Glidden’s youngest son, Paul, recalled the reason his father was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross from the Army Air Force and a medal from Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party and China’s head of state from 1928 to 1949. Paul Glidden writes: “Dad’s plane fell under attack. He didn’t have a weapon, but someone else did. This person was shot, and Dad used his gun to hit an incoming Zero — inflicting serious damage. The pilot of the stricken plane made another pass and attempted to ram Dad’s plane. But the Zero was too severely damaged, and fell short. “I believe Dad was the only navigator in that theater to kill a Zero.” (Zeros were strategic fighter planes used by the Japanese in World War II.) After the war, Glidden worked for a time as a forester in North Carolina before he and
Glidden also served on the Society of American Foresters.
Charles Glidden shot down a Zero, a strategic Japanese fighter plane used in World War II. Zeros were used in the attack on Pearl Harbor.
U.S. Navy photo
Pauline moved to Alturas and then to Klamath Falls in 1949. In Klamath Falls, Glidden worked as a timber manager for DG Shelter and then as chief forester for Columbia Plywood. He was a lieutenant colonel in the reserves. He also served on the Klamath County Roads Advisory Board and was a member of Sacred Heart’s Knights of Columbus and on its Parish Council.
His daughter, Julie Bruce, recalled when she realized that her father was a hero. “One of my most moving memories of Dad was in the years just before he passed ... He was an old shuffling man in his 80s at this point and although treated with kindness by the public, it wasn’t until I took him out to Kingsley Field to go to the BX that I saw the respect shown to him that was his due,” she writes. There was a young sentry at the gate, who took her father’s identification. His response to Glidden’s World War II veteran status was immediate. “It was all, ‘Yes, sir! What can we do for you sir!’ ” Bruce writes. And then the sentry saluted and stood at attention. “My dad was a quiet man who never boasted of his war experiences and who took everything in stride. But I was totally blown away as I learned by this sentry’s action I had a real World War II hero in my car.”
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AFTER PEARL HARBOR: A SALUTE TO WORLD WAR II VETERANS
TOM HILL, Army, European Theater, 1941-45
war treasures
When Gerry Hill’s uncle died, he left memorabilia Gerry Hill’s uncle never talked much about Another find was a hand-drawn map indicathis experiences in the Army during World War ing where his uncle — with the 13th Armored II. (Black Cat) Division — between January and May 1945 marched from the English Hill knows his uncle — Tom Hill — was Channel to the Danube River in Gerdrafted into the Army and drove a commany. munications Jeep in Germany from 1941 to 1945. After he returned, he worked as “It shows their movements in France a civilian accountant at Kingsley Field. and Germany from the day they He belonged to the Sportsmans Park in marched down the gang plank at Le Keno and was an avid gun collector. Havre until the bright May day when the Gerry Hill German High Command surrendered It wasn’t until Tom Hill died in 1997 unconditionally,” Gerry Hill said. that his family found his memorabilia from the war — German money, a U.S. flag Gerry Hill, a Klamath Falls resident and Vietflown on the Jeep, a pair of binoculars, an nam veteran, said he didn’t realize his uncle Army song book, a knife made in occupied had kept the memorabilia. Japan and a cloth emblem with a green The Army Song Book was published by eagle and black Nazi order of the Secretary of War in 1941 and has symbol that was songs including “Pop! Goes the Weasel,” likely worn by “God Bless America,” “Old King Cole,” and a German offi“Let Me Call You Sweetheart.” cer. “I doubt there’s another one,” he said.
AFTER PEARL HARBOR: A SALUTE TO WORLD WAR II VETERANS
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IMAGES FROM WAR: D-Day, the Normandy invasion Commonly called D-Day, the Normandy invasion during World War II started June 6, 1944. The landings were done in two phases: an airborne assault that landed 24,000 British, American and Canadian troops shortly after midnight and an amphibious landing on the coast of France. It was a key battle in the war to retake France for the Western Allies.
Clockwise from left: American assault troops move onto a beachhead during the D-Day invasion. A group of wounded American assault troops take time out for some food and a cigarette. U.S. reinforcements wade through the surf as they land at Normandy. AP photos
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AFTER PEARL HARBOR: A SALUTE TO WORLD WAR II VETERANS
Memories PEARL HARBOR ATTACK CHANGES DAILY LIFE
‘... the defining time in our lives’
Guitar is family’s last Pearl Harbor survivor
By RICHARD EASTMAN On Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, I was with my family at the Swedish Covenant Church (in Klamath Falls), now the Gospel Mission, when the pastor announced that Pearl Harbor had been bombed by the Japanese. Most of us had no idea who they were or where Japan was. Although the U.S. had started rearming due to the war in Europe, it was not on serious war footing as there was strong sentiment not to get involved in foreign wars. So the talk was that on Monday morning, Japan would pay a heavy price when our bombers leveled it. Most of us had no idea how vast the Pacific and the logistics involved, or did I, then a freshman in high school, think that the war would last nearly four years and long enough for me to spend 29 days on a troop ship staring at the blue Pacific and getting a sample of its vastness. Like most of us of that era, the Great Depression and World War II was the defining time in our lives as one prepared us for the other. Eastman is a Tulelake resident
By MICHELE RUSTON My grandfather, Arthur J. H. Theiss, joined the Navy in the early 1930s. He went on to become master printer aboard the USS West Virginia. He also played clarinet in the Navy band and was an avid guitar player. He bought a Martin parlor-style guitar that was small enough to keep onboard ship. Just prior to Dec. 7, 1941, my grandfather had been temporarily moved over to the USS Maryland for a special printing job; however, all his belongings remained on the West Virginia. During the attack on Pearl Harbor, the West Virginia suffered severe damage and eventually sunk from seven torpedo hits. My grandfather lost all his belongings, including his beloved musical instruments. Or, so he thought. Sometime after the battle, he found his guitar floating in the harbor and was able to retrieve it. It had quite a bit of water damage, but he was able to patch things up enough to have a playable instrument. When I started playing guitar as a teenager, my grandfather gave me his old patched up guitar and asked that I someday have it restored. He died of Alzheimer’s disease in the 1980s, long before I was able to afford the necessary repairs. The guitar is currently with someone who is working to restore this special heirloom, the last Pearl Harbor survivor of the family. Rushton is a Klamath Falls resident
‘Take cover. We are being bombed’ By CYNTHIA DeROSIER I was a 10-year-old growing up in one of the districts of Honolulu. It was about 8:30 in the morning when the phone rang. (We had heard explosions but thought it was just one of the services practicing or on maneuvers.) My aunt called to tell us that we were to take cover. The two radio stations: KGU and KGMB had announcers on telling people “It is the real McCoy. Take cover. We are being bombed.” We stayed in the house for a while and then curiosity got the better of us. We ran out to see puffs of black smoke and airplanes firing their machine guns. We were near the Japanese Consulate and looked over to see black smoke from the chimney of the building: papers were being burned. A bomb exploded not too far away. It was only later that we discovered that a cousin and his boys had heard the message and were driving to Pearl Harbor to see if they could help in any way. All were killed. There were convoys filled with Army and Navy families who lived near Pearl Harbor. Schools were opened for them so they would be out of harm’s way. Some of the island families opened their homes to provide shelter for those who were displaced. We were immediately under martial law. No lights could show, so windows were painted with black paint or heavy curtains were used to shut out the light. No one was allowed out after dark without reason. As soon as possible people in the neighborhoods were lined up to receive various shots to prevent diseases. We all were fingerprinted and given identity cards that we were to carry at all times. In addition we were all issued gas masks which had to be carried at all times. I remember a Japanese neighbor crying to her mother: “Mama, how are they going to tell us from them?” Schools were closed until January. DeRosier of Klamath Falls is a retired school administrator
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‘It was quite an event to be in … you don’t realize how it’s going to go down in history.’ — 100-year-old Louise Cordonier
Tulelake man’s parents were at Pearl Harbor Scrapbook chronicles life after the attack
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t was 4 a.m. Dec. 7, 1941, and Louise and her husband Joe Cordonier had just gotten home from a night on the town. About 30 minutes later, Louise awoke to what sounded like pilots buzzing planes over Pearl Harbor. “I kept asking my husband, ‘What’s that noise?’ ” she recalled. About 20 minutes later, someone was banging on their door and they turned on the radio. In five minutes, Joe Cordonier was in his full Navy uniform and on his way to his ship. Louise didn’t see him for two weeks. The couple’s son, Joe, longtime clerk for the city of Tulelake, said his parents rarely talked about their experiences at Pearl Harbor. But last year, Cordonier’s mother gave him her scrapbook. In it are newspaper headlines declaring war and articles and photographs depicting life at the time. One photo chronicled American soldiers and sailors burying a Japanese lieutenant who crashed his plane during the Dec. 7 attack. “The stories don’t come out unless you ask the questions,” he said. His mother, Louise, recalled the events of that morning when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor during an interview from her home in Kansas. She turned 100 in March. Her husband, Joe, died in 1997 after spending his career with the Navy. The senior Cordonier ended up in the hospital for medical issues from the attack. Louise — along with the rest of Pearl Harbor — spent the next several weeks under “blackout.” “You couldn’t have a twinkle (of light from your windows),” she said. “You had to put blue cellophane over your flashlights. Block wardens enforced the rules. Rationing also went into effect. Louise stayed for nearly a year, and was among those on the last ship used to evacuate civilians. “Sure I was scared. Anyone who told me they weren’t, they were lying,” she said. “It was quite an event to be in … you don’t realize how it’s going to go down in history.”
Joe Cordonier shares newspapers and other souvenirs from his mother’s scrapbook. Louise Cordonier, now 100, was a Navy wife living in Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked.
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AFTER PEARL HARBOR: A SALUTE TO WORLD WAR II VETERANS
ROBERT ‘BOB’ PURKHISER, Navy seaman first class, 1944-47
Taking the islands
Submitted photos
On Samar Island: Native troops walk down a road on Samar in the Philippines. A young Filipino guerilla soldier poses for a photograph.
Navy seaman participates in three invasions during South Pacific battles
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s bullets flew around him, Seaman Robert “Bob” Purkhiser kept going.
His job was to transport Marines to the shores of Peleui in the Palau islands so they could capture an airstrip and take the island from the Japanese. It was September 1944, and the first of three invasions the 18-year-old seaman would survive in the next several months as Allied Forces fought to take control of the Pacific Theater in the last years of World War II. It was a bloody battle. “They were shooting at us,” Purkhiser of Klamath Falls recalled. “There were dead Marines all over the beach. “I never got scratched. I had friends killed on both sides of me, boats blown up around me. I was lucky.” After Marines secured the islands, Purkhiser and his unit would transport and unload supplies and establish a U.S.
military base. After Peleui, Purkhiser’s unit participated in the October invasion of Leyte and the November invasion of Samar. The battle for Leyte Island in the Philippines has been called by historians one of the bloodiest of the Pacific Theater. It also is said to have signaled the beginning of the end for the Japanese. Purkhiser was among those who helped transport more than 100,000 U.S. soldiers to the island. He saw his last major action July 1, 1945, during a final amphibious assault on Balikpapan, Borneo. “It was the last armed invasion of World War II and I was a part of it,” the 87-year-old said. In Borneo, the seaman transported U.S. and Australian troops ashore during the battle. “We finally drove the (Japanese) back several miles, started unloading supplies and setting up a base,” he said.
But the island was attacked a short time later. “I was on patrol duty — at a point above the boat pool, just talking — when all of a sudden a bomb landed 100 feet in front of us,” he said. “Then we heard the airplane. We were under attack.” They sounded the alarm as the Japanese bomber flew over the area — the Allied troops were enjoying an outdoor movie. The enemy bomber was followed by a Dutch fighter, which was shooting at the Japanese plane. “It finally knocked the (enemy) plane down,” Purkhiser said. After that night, the rest of his days were fairly routine. The U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Aug. 6 and Aug. 9 and Japan surrendered Aug. 14, 1945. Purkhiser moved to Klamath Falls after the war and worked for Pacific Bell for See PURKHISER, page 23
AFTER PEARL HARBOR: A SALUTE TO WORLD WAR II VETERANS
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BROTHERS IN WAR Seaman Robert Purkhiser never expected to see his brother between invasions in the South Pacific Theater. But a two-beer liberty on Ulithi, the smallest island in the Mariannas, ended with a reunion between the seaman and his older brother, Ross, a pharmacist mate with the 51st Seabees. While on the island, Purkhiser saw a truck carrying 51st Seabees. So he asked his superiors if he could go find his brother. The 51st was stationed on a nearby island and the two brothers spent a half day together before Purkhiser was ordered to immediately return to his ship. During that trip, he traveled with a group of captains who had been meeting to plan what he later learned was the invasion of the Philippines, a major Pacific Theater battle. Ross and Robert Purkhiser pose together after a chance meeting in the South Pacific during World War II. Submitted photo
PURKHISER, continued from page 22 35 years before retiring. He and his late wife, Rose Marie, raised four children. She died June 2011. He grew up on a ranch outside of Roseburg and moved to Oregon City with his mother after his parents divorced. His mother never remarried and supported her family by typing. Times were hard. “During the Depression you had to live by your wits,” he said. Purkhiser left school at the age of 15 and at the age of 17 went to work in Portland, Ore., shipyards as a welder. He also worked for the Forest Service at Diamond Lake, caddied golf and worked on a ranch. He was still 17 when he and a friend decided to join the Navy. It took about a week to get through the paperwork. By Jan. 11, 1944, he was an enlisted man and off to boot camp in Farragut, Idaho. “I was patriotic. I had a place to sleep, three meals a day and a payday,” he said. “If I hadn’t gone into the Navy, I think I would have ended up a hoodlum.” He remembers that first night at boot camp. “We had supper, bunked down and they played Taps …” By March, he was one of 6,000 troops on the USS George Oliver Squire heading from San Francisco to the Pacific Theater. The ship traveled unescorted for 14
Photo by Marcia McGonigle
Robert “Bob” Purkhiser joined the Navy at the age of 17 and was a seaman in the South Pacific Theater.
days through Japanese submarine patrolled waters, eventually ending up in the Russell Islands just north of Guadalcanal. The Guadalcanal — one of the major battles in the Pacific The-
ater — had just been secured by the Allies. His unit was assigned to guard the island’s supply dump. The island also had an airfield and Purkhiser liked watching the
P-38 bombers come and go. After the war ended, Purkhiser stayed on working base security in Borneo. A short time later, Purkhiser and an Australian officer were traveling up a Borneo river when they saw a man on shore waving to them. “It was a Japanese (soldier). He handed us a note proposing a surrender for Borneo.” In February 1945, the U.S. closed the Borneo base. Purkhiser went to New Guinea and eventually Sydney, Australia, before returning to Pearl Harbor for a 30-day leave. He spent his last year on Guam, refueling ships. He was discharged in May 1947. His awards include the Asiatic Pacific Ribbon, a Bronze Star, Philippine Liberation Ribbon, the World War II Victory Medal and the America Area Ribbon. His war stories are mostly entertaining — using dump trucks to knock coconuts off trees, eating canned lamb’s tongue provided by Australian troops and seeing fish jump from the trees in Borneo (Purkhiser, referencing a National Geographic article, claims the tree-jumping fish are not a sea story). But, if asked, he admits he still has nightmares about the not-soentertaining experiences. “I didn’t like the Japanese,” he said. “I still don’t like them.”
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AFTER PEARL HARBOR: A SALUTE TO WORLD WAR II VETERANS
WARD FRIEDMAN, Radio operator, Army Air Transport Command, 1943-46
Precious cargo
As the war ended, C-54 supply planes flew released POWs to safety for medical care
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uring his four-year tour overseas during World War II, radio operator Ward Friedman transported dignitaries and kings as well as supplies for U.S. bombers in China. But the most important cargo he flew was soldiers released from POW camps and needing transport to the U.S. for medical care. “Those guys were in bad shape,” the 91-year-old recalled nearly 70 years later from his home in Klamath Falls. “After they opened up the camps, we’d pick up a whole plane load of POWs in China and take them to Casablanca. From there they went to Washington, D.C.” Friedman enlisted in the Army Air Corps Sept. 21, 1943. He was 21. He did his basic training in Sioux Falls, S.D. and then spent three months in Reno before heading overseas assigned to the Army Air Transport Command. (The Air Transport Command was activated in 1942 and was deactivated after the war ended in 1945). He was a radio operator on two-engine C-46 Commando and four-engine C-54 Sky Master air transports. The crew trained in India and was stationed in Iran, Pakistan and Cairo. Its primary mission was troop and logistic support. Friedman flew supplies and dignitaries — he transported Egypt’s King Farouk to Turkey, Greece, Italy and eventually France. He also supplied bombers in Benghazi in North Africa. As the war ended, the crew used its supply planes to transport released war prisoners. Litter cases — beds — were set up and used for the injured and ill soldiers. Friedman wasn’t in direct combat, but had some life threatening experiences. “Was I ever scared? Yes, a couple of times when we cracked up,” he said. One of those “crack ups” was caused by a gas leak that caught an engine on fire while Friedman’s C-46 was flying over the Persian Gulf. “We put it out, but when we got to 500 feet, there was fire in the engine again. When we came down, the wing fell off and we spun 360s down the runway. All that was left was the compartment we were in.” See FRIEDMAN, page 25
Photo by Marcia McGonigle
Ward Friedman, 91, of Klamath Falls talks about his experiences in the Army during World War II. Friedman served as a radio operator in the Army Air Transport Command from 1943 to 1946.
AFTER PEARL HARBOR: A SALUTE TO WORLD WAR II VETERANS
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Submitted photos
Ward Friedman was a radio operate in World War II cargo planes, including the C-54, pictured far left.
Friedman was discharged in March 1946 and went into the Reserves. A year later, he was working as a furniture, appliance and carpet salesman at Sears on Eighth and Klamath in downtown Klamath Falls. He retired 30 years later. He met his future wife, Jo, in 1948, when she waited on him at a Klamath Falls jewelry store. They were married 30 years before she died in 2003. Friedman is still active in the Shriners. His home at Crystal Terrace is decorated with awards, including the Hiram Award, the highest honor given to a mason. Other photos include a black-and-white snapshot of a C-54, the plane Friedman’s crew used to help transport POWs home from war camps. Physically, the war left him hard of hearing in his left ear — “sat next to big engines, 12 to 13 hours a day.” Nowadays, his health isn’t what it used to be — he turned 91 in October — but overall, he considers himself lucky. “I can thank the man upstairs,” he said.
While in North Africa, Ward Friedman had a chance to tour the Egyptian pyramids on horseback. Friedman served as a radio operator in the Army Air Transport Command from 1943 to 1946.
IMAGES FROM WAR: Pearl Harbor attack The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor began at 7:55 a.m. Dec. 7, 1941. The attack came in two waves. The first included 40 torpedo planes, 49 bombers, 51 dive bombers and 43 fighters. The second wave included 170 bombers and fighter planes. By the end of the day, more than 2,000 men lost their lives. Source: U.S. Navy Museum AP photos
FAR LEFT: This Dec. 7, 1941, image provided by the U.S. War Department made from a Japanese newsreel shows Japanese planes over Hawaii during the attack on Pearl Harbor. LEFT: Sailors stand among wrecked airplanes at Ford Island Naval Air Station as they watch the explosion of the USS Shaw in the background.
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AFTER PEARL HARBOR: A SALUTE TO WORLD WAR II VETERANS
GLENN LEWIS, Navy, 96th Seabees, Philippines, China, 1944-48
He ran away from home to join the war: ‘I couldn’t wait.’
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lenn Lewis was only 13 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, but he wanted to go to war.
“I couldn’t wait. I wanted to kill the (Japanese),” said the World War II veteran during an interview from his Klamath Falls home. Now 86, he recalled how in the fall 1943 he ran away from home, traveling by bus from Salem to Portland, so he could enlist in the Merchant Marines. His parents called the authorities, and the 17-year-old Lewis was met by Portland police officers when he got off the bus. Once he returned to Salem, his mother took him to a recruiting station so he could join the Navy. He never finished high school. By the time he turned 18 in January 1944, Lewis was finally an enlisted man with the 96th Seabees. The 96th shipped out in early 1945, heading for the Philippines. Lewis was in the Headquarters Company and his main job was storekeeper. He was tasked with making sure food shipments arrived, were accounted for and stored properly in the galley. The 96th arrived at Manicani, 10 miles off the southern tip of Samar, and started building docks and infrastructure on the forested island. In March, the 96th was sent to Tsingtao, China, to build an airfield, where the unit stayed until November. The war had ended in August. Lewis said he didn’t see much combat and considers himself lucky. But he did see plans for the invasion of Japan. “Instead of taking Tokyo, they were going to See LEWIS, page 27
Milly Lewis remembers the day Pearl Harbor was bombed. She was 7. The attack, she said, impacted everyone. “We were all very patriotic back then.” Photo by Marcia McGonigle
Glenn Lewis joined the Navy when he was 17. He dropped out of high school and didn’t receive his diploma until a few years ago when Oregon’s governor granted high school diplomas to World War II veterans.
‘We all cried and told her we’d pray’ Milly Lewis was 7, living on Fargo Street in Klamath Falls when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, signaling the U.S. entry into World War II. “We were on the city bus and this young woman started weeping,” she recalled. “We had just heard about Pearl Harbor being bombed. The woman told bus passengers that her brother was on a ship in Pearl Harbor. “We all cried and told her we’d pray.”
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IMAGES FROM WAR
Glenn Lewis. 86, of Klamath Falls looks through a book about the Navy Seabees during World War II. LEWIS, continued from page 26
take a southern island,” he said. “They planned for a loss of 1 million lives for that invasion.” It was an invasion that didn’t happen. The U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, effectively ending the war. After the war, Lewis tried to finish his senior year of high school, but dropped out after three months. He bought a logging truck and a horse and started a logging business in Blodgett, Ore. A short time later, he married his first wife. She worked nights at a restaurant and eventually ran off with another man. Lewis then moved to Klamath Falls, picking up automotive classes at Oregon Technological Institute (now OIT). He met his wife, Milly, when she was a senior at Klamath Union High School. She was 17, he was 24, and everyone said it wouldn’t last. That was 62 years ago. Lewis eventually landed a job with the Klamath County Road Department, where he worked for 32 years before retiring. That was when he finally received his high school diploma from the state of Oregon. “The governor stated that anyone in World War II could have a diploma,” he said. His is from Salem High School, where he attended until he joined the Navy. He’s considered returning to China, where he spent some time in Peking, now Beijing. But, he said, he isn’t sure he wants to see the modern-day Beijing. “In 1945, there were two walls — inner and outer — and they’re gone now. Back then, Tiananmen Square was filled with bikes. Now, it’s filled with cars.”
U.S. Marines of the 28th Regiment, 5th Division, raise the American flag atop Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima, on Feb. 23, 1945. Strategically located only 660 miles from Tokyo, the Pacific island became the site of one of the bloodiest, most famous battles of World War II against Japan. AP Photo/Joe Rosenthal A giant column of smoke rises more than 60,000 feet into the air, after the second atomic bomb ever used in warfare explodes over the Japanese port town of Nagasaki, on Aug. 9, 1945. Dropped by the U.S. Army Air Forces B-29 plane “Bockscar,” the bomb killed more than 70,000 people instantly, with tens of thousands dying later from effects of the radioactive fallout. AP photo
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AFTER PEARL HARBOR: A SALUTE TO WORLD WAR II VETERANS
BUSTER NEWLUN, Army private first class 1944-45
Paralyzed for life
Soldier shot in back at battle of Okinawa; younger brother quits school to join Navy
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uster Newlun never talked about the invasion of Okinawa that left him paralyzed from the waist down. He was 19. The Sprague River area native lived his life from a wheelchair, but he still went hunting with his younger brother, Vernon. The two were deer hunting when Buster started talking. “He said, ‘This reminds me a lot of Okinawa,’ ” Vernon recalled. “Then he told me a little bit about what happened.” It was May 1945, and Newlun, an Army private first class, was in a fox hole on Okinawa surrounded by mortar fire. “It blew them out of the fox holes,” Vernon said. “They lost their guns. His sergeant told him to go behind a concrete building, and then motioned for him to come out. Something hit him, and from then on he had no feeling in his legs.” Buster was evacuated and spent the next several months in VA hospitals on the West Coast. He never did walk again. Buster never married, but he spent a lot of time with his nieces and nephews. He died in 2009 at the age of 83. “He had a good sense of humor,” said niece Linda Culp of Klamath Falls. “He never wanted a big fuss over (his injury).” His nephew and Vernon’s son, Ken Newlun, recalled playing basketball with his uncle. “He would always go out and shoot baskets with me from his wheelchair,” he said.
Buster Newlun in his Army uniform. The private first class was injured in the battle of Okinawa in May 1945 in the U.S. offensive push against Japan. He died in 2009 at the age of 83.
After Buster was wounded, Vernon dropped out of high school and enlisted in the Navy. “A kid has these ideas you know,” he said.
“Your brother is wounded so you have to go do things.” Buster was drafted shortly after he graduated from Sprague River High School. Vernon, who was two years younger, got his general equivalency diploma after the war. The war was over by the time Vernon got out of basic training. He was stationed in Guam, and spent his Navy years on ships traveling to and from the Aleutian Islands. The Navy ship crews were on the lookout for mines that traveled on the ocean currents from Japan. “We were just off the Oregon coast — we had sunk a couple of the mines coming down from the Aleutian Islands — when I saw it. I called the lookout and we shot at it. It never did explode,” Vernon said. “It was kind of an awful looking thing. Horns sticking out,” he added. “If ships hit those horns, (the mine) would explode.” After the war, he returned to Klamath County and worked in the mills. He married and eventually got a job on the railroad, where he worked for 38 years before retiring in 1989. The Newlun brothers had three sisters and a brother who was about 20 years younger than Buster, the oldest. That brother, Bill, is a Vietnam veteran. Vernon said Buster was always positive about his life — and injury. “He’d say, ‘Oh, there’s always someone in worse shape than me,’ ” he said. “He had the use of his hands and arms, and there were a lot of guys who didn’t.”
IMAGES FROM WAR: Okinawa a key battle The U.S. attacked Okinawa in April 1945. Its strategic importance included four airfields that the U.S. needed to control. By April 20, Japanese resistance in the north of the island had been eradicated and the battle for Okinawa turned to the south. Okinawa was declared secure July 2, 1945. AP photos
FAR LEFT: A U.S. Marine comforts a comrade, who witnessed the death of his buddy, on a hillside in the vicinity of Shuri, in May 1945, during the invasion of Okinawa. LEFT: Pfc. Paul Ison from the 6th Marine Division dashes forward through Japanese machine-gun fire while crossing a draw on Okinawa, May 10, 1945. After the Marines sustained more than 125 casualties in eight hours in the attempt to cross this draw, the men named the location “Death Valley.”
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