WW2 Veterans In Today's News, Please post stories you deem noteworthy Options

[homefront41]

It's been suggested we should have one place for stories we read every day about our aging veterans receiving honors, being feted and making appearances. We have a few places for these kinds of stories already:

D-Day in the News (in Picadilly Circus - the UK area in Local Colors of our Community) -- Andy started that and stocks it regularly with pieces he finds about NVA (Normandy Veterans Association) vets who are featured in stories. He's also added stories about other WW2 vets too.

Any stories about Easy Company should be in the Easy Alumni boards.

Those about the 101st should be posted in the 101st Airborne area.

Everything else can go right here.

Thanks, Sue, for the suggestion. BK

[hooper117]

http://news.inq7.net/nation/index.php?index=1&story_id=25987

Daring rescue of POWs during WWII recalled

Posted 03:33am (Mla time) Jan 31, 2005
By Anselmo Roque
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A7 of the Jan. 31, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

CABANATUAN CITY, Nueva Ecija, Philippines -- Though not as elaborate as the celebrations of other World War II events, the 60th anniversary of what was recognized as the "most daring and successful rescue mission in military history" was commemorated here yesterday.

The rescue mission, staged on Jan. 30, 1945, at the Cabanatuan concentration camp in Barangay Pangatian here, liberated 516 American prisoners of war.

Over 400 Filipino guerrilla fighters from Nueva Ecija participated in the rescue. Thousands of civilians from the province also participated in various ways.

The former camp, 10 km east of the city proper, was more than 4,000-sqm in size and surrounded by a barbed wire fence.

The camp -- the mobilization and training camp of the Philippine Army before the war -- was taken over by Japanese soldiers and used as a concentration camp for allied POWs.

It was said to be the biggest concentration camp of the Japanese Imperial Army at the time.

At least 3,000 POWs died there due to malnutrition, dysentery and other ailments, and from severe beatings by Japanese soldiers.

During the sunrise service attended by war veterans and their relatives yesterday, Nueva Ecija Governor Tomas Joson III said he was happy the liberation of Pangatian was being recognized not only in the Philippines but throughout the world.

One of those who participated in the rescue was Joson's father, the late Gov. Eduardo Joson. The older Joson, then a captain and leader of Squadron 213 of the guerrilla fighters, and Captain Juan Pajota, carried out the mission.

The current governor said he learned about the "great event" only through the book "Ghost Soldiers" by Hampton Sides. The American author was one of the guests during the program.

Joson said he hoped the rescue would be widely publicized through the Hollywood-produced movie "The Great Raid" which is expected to be shown soon in the Philippines.

In the movie, local actor Cesar Montano played the part of Pajota.

A museum showcasing the liberation of Pangatian and exhibiting memorabilia from the war and the struggles of the Filipino and allied forces was also unveiled here yesterday.

In 2003, the raid was given due recognition and was acknowledged as "one of the most daring and successful rescue missions of its type in the annals of military history."

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, who represented President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, was the guest of honor at yesterday's program.



I looked up "The Great Raid", has this movie been discussed? I seem to recall it being posted about here.
http://www.miramax.com/the_great_raid/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0326905/

Edited to say I searched for "The Great Raid" and found a few references to the book. I need to pick it up before the movie is released. (IMG:http://forums.wildbillguarnere.com/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

This post has been edited by hooper117: Feb 7 2005, 07:11 PM

[psumner]

Former US soldier says he delivered Goering's poison pill

Mon Feb 7,11:33 AM ET Entertainment - AFP

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - A former US Army private who was a guard at the Nuremberg trials says he gave convicted Nazi war criminal Hermann Goering the poison capsule that enabled him to commit suicide two hours before his scheduled execution.

Entire books have been written pondering how the heavily guarded Nazi leader managed to evade justice. And while Herbert Lee Stivers's story cannot be proven, several experts on the era have said it rings true, according to a story in the Los Angeles Times.

Stivers, 78, a retired sheet metal worker from southern California, was a 19-year-old army private assigned to an honor guard that escorted Nazi defendants in and out of the courtroom during the post-World War II war crimes trials.

Stivers said he agreed to take "medicine" to a supposedly ailing Goering to impress a flirtatious local girl who approached him one day on the street.

In their first conversation she asked to keep the autograph of one of the prisoners which he showed her to prove he was one of their guards. Another day, she introduced him to "a friend" who convinced him to take notes to Goering hidden inside a fountain pen on two occasions.

The third time, the man put a capsule in the pen.

"He said it was medication and that if it worked and Goering felt better, they'd send him some more," Stivers told the Times. He returned the pen to the young woman after delivering the capsule, and never saw her again.

"I guess she used me," Stivers said. "I would have never knowingly taken something in that I thought was going to be used to help someone cheat the gallows," he said.

Two weeks after the delivery, on October 15, 1946, Goering committed suicide and left a note bragging that he'd had a cyanide pill during his entire 11-month war crimes trial. An army investigation agreed and concluded the Nazi had hidden the pill on his body and in his cell.

Many historians remained skeptical, as did Stivers.

"I felt very bad after his suicide. I had a funny feeling. I didn't think there was any way he could have hidden it on his body," he said. He said nothing for 60 years, fearing he could face charges, until his daughter convinced him to go public to ease his conscience and reveal his part in history.

The statute of limitations has long since run out, so he cannot be prosecuted, the Times said

This post has been edited by psumner: Feb 7 2005, 09:02 PM

[homefront41]

You're kidding!! I've read so much speculation on who achieved this handoff of poison and the most educated guesses have always been one fellow. Is this the guy? I have to go digging for those references. BK

[homefront41]

http://news.inq7.net/nation/index.php?index=1&story_id=25987

Daring rescue of POWs during WWII recalled

Posted 03:33am (Mla time) Jan 31, 2005
By Anselmo Roque
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A7 of the Jan. 31, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

CABANATUAN CITY, Nueva Ecija, Philippines -- Though not as elaborate as the celebrations of other World War II events, the 60th anniversary of what was recognized as the "most daring and successful rescue mission in military history" was commemorated here yesterday.

The rescue mission, staged on Jan. 30, 1945, at the Cabanatuan concentration camp in Barangay Pangatian here, liberated 516 American prisoners of war.

Edited to say I searched for "The Great Raid" and found a few references to the book. I need to pick it up before the movie is released. (IMG:http://forums.wildbillguarnere.com/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Sue, nice start to the thread. We've had a few discussions about the Cabanatuan raid, books and films. Here's what the search brings up. I thought there would be a story or three in Unit Histories but maybe just URL addresses in these several posts.

http://forums.wildbillguarnere.com/index.p...lite=Cabanatuan

There are a few sites which cover the story in depth and the tale is certainly worth exploring. Should make an incredible flm. BK

EDIT: The publisher's blurb on the book will send you off the the library, for sure.

http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/p...0471037427.html

And here are some sites to read about it on the web:

http://www.sfps.k12.nm.us/academy/bataan/main.html I think this is one I've cruised through, just clicking on everything.

A further note, Andy did post the Unit History of the Alamo Scouts which will be one of the posts that comes up under that search URL above. The final paragraph credits this group of warriors with being forerunners of the Special Forces and the Alamo Scouts are included in the SF formal recitation of lineage. bk

This post has been edited by homefront41: Feb 7 2005, 11:37 PM

[hooper117]

Great, BK!! I love running across an interesting bit of information on a battle or vet that leads to more links, and more links, etc... I'm already planning on looking up the book and making it a top priority on the reading list.

Sue

PS...Paul, that's fascinating! All these years later, amazing information.

This post has been edited by hooper117: Feb 7 2005, 10:21 PM

[ham and jam]

From
http://www.capjournal.com/main.asp?Section...ArticleID=12208

Veteran revisits Battle of the Bulge

By CHUCK CLEMENT
Capital Journal Staff


Oliver Tveit, a U.S. Army veteran, holds a plaque he received from the residents of Manhay, Belgium during his trip to Europe to help commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. Tveit, a Williston, N.D., resident, returned to Belgium and Luxembourg in December 2004 with other U.S. veterans of the World War II battle. The veterans received medals, such as the ones laying on the table, from many of the communities. Tveit was also given the model of the tank that he served as a gunner by a museum curator. In the photo, the tank model rests on a spent 105-mm shell casing. (Capital Journal photo by Chuck Clement)



He had to wait 60 years, but Oliver Tveit, a U.S. Army veteran, was finally able to get a better look last December at the European Low Countries he helped liberate during World War II.

Tveit, a Williston, N.D., resident and and other members of the Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge were invited to Europe by the governments of Belgium and Luxembourg to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the battle with Belgium World War II veterans. Tveit and his son, Bill, spent about 12 days in the region where the elder Tveit and many other Allied and German soldiers fought one of the most determined battles of the war.

However, Tveit said his visit to many of the communities in Belgium and Luxembourg was a new experience, because during the winter of 1944-45, the only chance he had to see that part of Europe was through a tank peephole. Out of about 100 U.S. veterans who attended the 60th anniversary commemoration, Tveit and one or two other men were the only GIs from his old unit, the 7th Armored Division.

“But the minute we got there, it was like we were old acquaintances,” Tveit said. “It didn’t matter what unit you belonged to as long as you were there.”

Tveit, 83, spoke about his experiences as a war veteran and modern-day tourist in Europe during a recent stay in Pierre that he made to visit his other son and daughter-in-law, Tom and Mary Tveit, of Pierre.

During 1942, Tveit was drafted into the U.S. Army while he was working on farms in the Forbes, N.D., area. He was inducted into the service in November 1942 and received a military uniform as his 21st birthday present.

He eventually arrived in continental Europe during 1944 as a member of a five-man tank crew assigned to the 7th Armored Division. Tveit started as an assistant driver in an M4 Sherman tank that boasted a heavier cannon, a 105 mm howitzer, than the typical M4 tank. Most Shermans were medium tanks that were supposed to provide infantry support and carried either a 75 mm or 76 mm cannon.

Tveit served in one of the division’s assault gun platoons, a unit having four tanks and a couple of half-tracks that carried extra ammunition and equipment. He said the platoon was usually short one tank due to losses in battle or repairs and normally fought as a group of three M4s.

The 7th Armored landed on the Normandy peninsula and drove across France in a race to Germany with the Wehrmacht, or the German army, in retreat. Tveit recalls that his unit spent 18 days rolling through the French countryside trying to keep pace with the retreating enemy.

“Every so often, we’d get into a battle at some crossroad where they were trying to stop us,” Tveit said. “It was very disorganized with very little sleep for us.”

By the end of summer, the Allied offensive had liberated most of Western Europe, including France, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg. Tveit said the 7th Armored Division was stationed in southern Holland during the fall and its troops were resting and receiving supplies.

On Thanksgiving Day, his unit was placed on alert and later fought in the Roer River region. The Allies initiated the Roer River battles to take ground so the Americans and British could eventually cross the Rhine River and invade Germany. When the Roer offensive was finished, the 7th Armored Division was resting just across the Dutch-German border at Aachen, Germany.

By this time, Tveit had graduated from assistant tank driver to driver to gun loader to cannon gunner.

The conventional military wisdom among the Allies during the winter of 1944 was that Germany was finished and couldn’t put up much of a continued fight. The U.S. commanders thought that the next spring offensive would pull down the curtain on the Third Reich.

But Hitler had concocted plans for a winter counterattack on the Ardennes region in northern Europe. The attack would take advantage of poor weather that would nullify Allied air superiority and a weak spot in the American lines. Hitler wanted the Wehrmacht and SS forces to retake the Belgian cities of Liege, Brussels and Antwerp.

With the capture of Antwerp, the Allied armies would lose an important port and find the U.S. First and Ninth armies, Canadian First Army and British Second Army cut off in Holland. Hitler thought the victory would ruin the alliance between the United States and Great Britain and he could sue for peace with the Anglo-American partners.

Germany assembled 31 divisions and more than 800 tanks on the front lines near Belgium and Luxembourg. The Americans were protecting the Ardennes with two inexperienced infantry divisions and two other infantry divisions that needed rest.

The German forces hit the Americans on Dec. 16, 1944, taking advantage of weather that was foggy and overcast. Within the first three days, the Germans had advanced as far as 60 miles and caused the surrender of 422nd and 423rd infantry regiments of the U.S. 106th Infantry Division. The Wehrmacht’s advances caused a bulge in the Allied lines that gave the conflict its name, Battle of the Bulge.

The Germans also had to overcome several disadvantages related to their winter offensive. Their tanks had to depend on using roads because the Ardennes was a hilly, forested region. The Germans also had to capture intact many bridges across rivers that their tanks could not ford.

The 7th Armored moved south into Belgium on the second day of the attack to protect the town of St. Vith in Belgium, a community with a major road junction and a railroad. The Germans wanted to capture St. Vith by Dec. 17, but the 7th Armored and 106th Infantry divisions and parts of two other divisions held the town until Dec. 21.

After St. Vith, Tveit said his division later fought at the Belgian towns of Poteau, Vielsalm and Manhay. He remembered very little about the places where he and the other members of the 7th Armored fought, saying that the GIs were too busy trying to survive to pay attention to where they were fighting.

Tveit did remember that the Ardennes had some open areas with nearby forests and many rivers and ravines.

“I remember that we fought out on the open quite a bit during the day and pulled back into the the trees at night for cover,” Tveit said.

The Allies were able to halt the German attack and slowly push the Germans back to the east. The 7th Armored Division recaptured St. Vith on Jan. 25, 1944, and the Battle of the Bulge officially ended on Jan. 25, 1944.

Tveit returned to Europe on Dec. 7, 2004, as a guest of Belgium and Luxembourg. Instead of seeing the Low Countries through a tank periscope, Tveit was wined, dined and guided through Belgium and Luxembourg. The Belgians and Luxembourgers had not forgotten the terrible events of World War II and many communities had arranged receptions, ceremonies and tours to honor the veterans who fought at the Battle of the Bulge.

The first full day that Tveit spent in Belgium, he had a lunch at the Royal Military Academy that was hosted by Belgian World War II veterans. He also toured the Belgian royal palace and attended a reception hosted by the mayor of Brussels. During the next couple of days, he and son Bill visited the World War I battlefield at Ypres, also known in poetry as Flanders field, and visited the Royal Military Museum for a presentation about the Battle of the Bulge.

From Dec. 12-19, the group of U.S. veterans toured towns and sites in Belgium and Luxembourg that included Elsenborn Ridge, Malmedy, Poteaux, St. Vith, Wiltz, Clervaux and Bastogne.

“Every town had a memorial and about every town had a museum,” Tveit said. “Some (towns) had two or three museums.”

The U.S. veterans received medals from some of the towns and the country of Luxembourg. Tveit was given medals from communities such as Vielsalm and Bastogne and a small plaque from the residents of Manhay. He visited the crossroads at Poteaux and toured Manhay where his unit fought on Christmas Eve.

Tveit said more than 100 Manhay residents attended a reception for the veterans. He asked a Belgian how he could welcome the U.S. soldiers when the Americans tore up the town fighting 60 years ago.

“He said, ‘Well you know you can’t make an omelet without breaking the eggs first — you had to get rid of those Germans,’” Tveit said.

Tveit’s military service didn’t end after the Battle of the Bulge. He crossed the Rhine River the next spring with the rest of the 7th Armored Division and helped occupy the Ruhr region of Germany. Tveit’s unit later moved to the occupied region near the Danish peninsula. He also visited the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp one or two days after Franklin Roosevelt died on April 12.

He returned to North Dakota on Christmas Eve in 1945 with the rank of corporal. Tveit said he made it home in time for a lutefisk dinner. His three brothers — Myron, Alvin and Kenneth — also served during World War II.

Tveit’s son, Bill, later served during the Vietnam War. Currently, his granddaughter, Emily Tveit, is serving in Iraq with a National Guard unit from Seattle, and his grandson-in-law, Andrew Heymans, of Pierre, is stationed in Afghanistan with the S.D. National Guard’s 109th Engineer Group.

During his visit to Belgium, Tveit received one of his most-prized mementos related to the anniversary, an essay written by seventh-grade students from the city of Jumet and given to each of the U.S. veterans.

Part of the essay reads: “We cannot forget your will, your determination, your courage — and in one word — your heroism to give the world and, in particular, our continent (its) unity, broadmindedness and a future without war.

“We know that all these values which were obtained by your blood and pain are never definitely secured.

“Gandhi told people who forget the past are condemned to live that same life again.

“That is why we promise you to preserve for the next generations these values you fight for. Mankind will never know these painful events again because nobody will forget what you have done for all of us.”

[ham and jam]

Decorated WWII vet lived life to the fullest

By Rick Wills
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, February 9, 2005
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review...h/s_301789.html

In the last year of World War II, Thomas Martin served as a tail gunner in B-17 bombers during nearly every major European battle.
"It was pretty risky," said his son, Tommy Martin Jr. "I think he was just happy that he made it home. His experience there influenced how he lived the rest of his life."

Mr. Martin, a decorated Army veteran, died of cancer at his Clairton home on Monday, Feb. 7, 2005. He was 79.

Mr. Martin served as a staff sergeant aerial gunner with the Army's 546th Bomb Squadron of the 384th Bombardment Group. He was awarded five Bronze Stars for acts of bravery and a Purple Heart for a leg injury, his family said.



During his year in Europe, Mr. Martin fought in the Battle of Normandy, starting with the D-Day invasion, and the Battle of the Bulge, along with the battles of Northern France and the Rhineland.

His younger brother, Earl Martin, was killed on a battleship near the Philippines on the same day Mr. Martin was wounded, his wife said.

The 384th Bombardment Group, which was based in Grafton, England, flew 9,348 combat sorties in 316 missions, dropping 22,416 tons of bombs on enemy targets. The unit lost 159 aircraft and 1,625 men in combat, while destroying 165 enemy planes

In June 1944, the 384th supported the Normandy invasion with attacks along the French coast. It struck enemy communications lines and fortifications during the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944-45. In the spring, the 384th aided the Allied assault across the Rhine by cutting enemy supply lines.

In early 1945, Mr. Martin's plane was shot down over Karlstein, Germany, during a bombing mission. He and others were able to parachute to safety, his son said.

Mr. Martin was discharged from the Army in June 1945, shortly after the fall of Germany. He began work in 1949 at U.S. Steel's Irwin Works, retiring from there after 37 years.

[ham and jam]

Airport security zeros in on an 87-year-old 'threat'

By The Road Warrior



http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=e...2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk5

After squandering several hours in airports, David Smith spent several months trying to learn why he and his father - especially his father -have so much trouble getting boarding passes.

"They tell us we're on the no-fly list, but we're not terrorists," the River Edge man insisted. "It takes us forever to go through the lines and get things straightened out before they let us board."

Everybody complains about long waits at airports since 9/11. But for a 45-year-old construction engineer and his 87-year-old father, the delays for simple domestic flights have become chronically onerous.

I ask, "Why are we treated this way when we never gave an airline any trouble?" said David.

This question usually prompts airport personnel to send him to another line. Sometimes they just look at their shoes. Maybe that makes sense because they're not permitted to say much, and even if they could, it's probably best that they don't. That's because the list, the law that created it, and the reasons for getting on the list are all secret - points that have raised a host of First and Fourth Amendment issues now under debate in a federal appeals court.

For David and Harold, the issue is a constitutional Catch 22: How can they overcome the effects of a law they're not allowed to read? Especially in Harold's case, when the only threat he poses is to himself - for getting so burdened by the system that he might forget to take his medicine.

You see, Harold has a heart condition and a pacemaker. He's half blind and mostly deaf. When David takes him to the airport, things go easier if he reserves a wheelchair for his father.

As if these disabilities weren't enough to disqualify Harold as a terrorist, there's also the little matter of his patriotism. In June 1944, he was carrying a rifle on a bullet-laced beach in Normandy for his employer, the U.S. Army.

Here is how Harold's son describes the torturous way that personnel at Newark Liberty International Airport recently treated this handicapped veteran on his return trip to Florida:

"First, there's no wheelchair, so they had to get one. Then they tell us he's on the no-fly list. They make a phone call and take his luggage to a special screening area. We're on line five minutes, but he's got a pacemaker, so he has to submit to an electronic wand and be searched by hand. But that's in a separate area - a good distance away. So, we go there and get on another line. They treat us like cattle.

"My father had to open his belt buckle, take his shoes off, get out of the wheelchair and limp through this area while they passed a wand over his body. He wasn't the only one. These people are used to wheelchairs and a lot of them can't even get dressed on a good day. If I wasn't there, my father wouldn't be able to travel at all. Very frustrating."

Somewhere along the way, it was determined that partly blind Harold Smith, the war veteran with a pacemaker, posed no threat, and he was wheeled to a gate for takeoff.

David also is frequently delayed. While traveling during Thanksgiving week, his persistent questioning of airport personnel yielded some partial answers. Here's how he remembers the exchange:

"I was never involved in a crime. Why is this happening?"

"This is just the way it is. It even happens to Ted Kennedy."

"Yes, but he was involved in a fatal accident."

"Well, your name is Smith."

David took this to mean that criminals often use the name Smith as an alias.

Do most Smiths face no-fly list delays at airports?

No, said Ann Davis, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Safety Administration.

Presumably, common names like Smith appear frequently on the list just as they do on college admission waiting lists. That might explain why those with common names, like former child actor David Nelson and Donald Young, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, have been denied boarding passes.

"Personnel for the air carriers have to cross-check the names of passengers against the no-fly list we provide them from the FBI and other agencies," the TSA spokeswoman said. "Unfortunately, the software and the protocols used by each of the 70 carriers is different."

This lack of consistency breeds delays from airline to airline, especially when they do not update the lists, she noted. TSA is testing new protocols designed to make the system function better.

Travelers experiencing chronic delays for these reasons should call the TSA Contact Center in Arlington, Va., at (866) 289-9673 so they can provide personal information that can be included in the data used to help authenticate passenger identification at the boarding line. Passengers can also visit TSA's Web site at tsa.gov or send an e-mail to TSA-contactcenter@dhs.gov to obtain appropriate forms.

David Smith made the call a few weeks ago. He said he spent 20 minutes on hold. When his call was finally answered, he offered the required information. The process took about an hour, including more time on hold.

The time he spent on the phone didn't bother him, though. What did bother him was where he learned about this service - at an airport in Las Vegas.

"When I arrived, a skycap gave me this letter that explained everything," he said.

As with no-fly list protocols, policies for disseminating this information vary from airline to airline, according to representatives of the TSA and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

They shouldn't.

[ham and jam]

'Doc' delivers inspiration

BY ANGELIQUE SOENARIE

Staff Writer
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgere...er/10871005.htm

inspiration

The soldiers call him "Doc."

The spirit of being a soldier has never left Ralph Widener Jr., 82. He served with the 1st Infantry Division in 1944 when it landed on Omaha Beach during the Normandy Invasion. For 19 years the World War II veteran has visited the basic training soldiers of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 19th Infantry Regiment.

He even pays for his own flight from Dallas to visit the company, which was formerly known as the Delta Company, 6th Battalion of the 1st Infantry training brigade.

"I come back and I try to be an inspiration to them -- in other words, so they don't give up. If an old man can do it then they can, too. That's what I tell them."

Over the years, Widener has interacted with soldiers three times -- and now four times -- younger than he is, and he keeps them motivated by sharing his experiences as a soldier.

Widener has attended each 14-week course on Sand Hill since 1986, except for six training cycles. He visits each new group of soldiers during their third week of training and then returns to present his award a week before graduation. Just before soldiers graduate from the company, Widener presents the best soldier from each platoon an Audie Murphy award he sponsors and a $100 savings bond. Then he takes them to dinner at Golden Corral in Columbus.

During his visit, he eats meals with them, attends training and sometimes marches with them.

"I try to do the same thing they're doing. If they're road marching, I'll road march, too, with them," said Widener, who stands 6-foot-4.

"One of the guys told me one time: 'Doc, I was real tired, but I watched you walking and I made up my mind that I would never do anything but walk with you.' "

Pvt. Dustin Ridener, 21, of Kentucky agrees. "He keeps us motivated more. He helps keep our chin up. If he can do it 40 years later, then we can do it."

On Thursday, Widener did what he has done for years. He chatted with some of the young privates and walked up a hill with them during bayonet training. Some soldiers asked him how he was faring in the morning chill. He answered with the same question, letting them know he was fine.

"What keeps me coming? The soldiers," he said. "They're kind of like me because I was once a soldier, too."

For years when Widener visited the company, he was teaching history at the University of Texas at Arlington. "I had to get off from school to come here," he said.

Widener has a Ph.D. in history and another in petroleum engineering and has been a high school and college teacher.

"I keep in touch with 1,200 soldiers," he said.

By 8:30 a.m. Thursday, Widener had written and mailed letters to 14 soldiers in Iraq and 12 in Afghanistan.

Lt. Col. Thomas Brittain, the battalion commander, said Widener is a national treasure.

"He puts his heart into this," he said. "He doesn't just talk about it, he does it."

[ham and jam]

http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/l...10942782.htm?1c

Posted on Sat, Feb. 19, 2005

Remembering heroes, agony of Iwo Jima

By Chris Vaughn

Star-Telegram Staff Writer


FORT WORTH - Eight days is all Kenneth Phillips expected.

Raymond Rogers figured he'd be on another island, for another mission, in no time at all.

The men knew it would be a tough week, for sure. Every fight had been -- Guadalcanal, Saipan, Peleliu. But after eight days, they thought, Iwo Jima would be theirs.

The two Texans remember well the weeks of pre-invasion briefings that told them so.

But the rosy predictions came to a violent and abrupt end 60 years ago today, when two U.S. Marine divisions stormed the Japanese stronghold of Iwo Jima, a volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean not half as big as Manhattan.

The battle lasted 36 days. More than 6,800 American servicemen died -- one-third of all the Marines killed in World War II -- and an additional 19,000 were wounded in a fight that brought to mind the unforgettable savagery of Antietam or Gettysburg.

Iwo Jima, at least as much as the Normandy invasion of June 1944, defines World War II for the United States because of the extraordinary valor and sacrifice of the troops.

More Medals of Honor were earned on Iwo Jima -- 27 -- than in any other battle in U.S. history. And what is perhaps the war's most enduring photograph was taken on Mount Suribachi, the island's highest point, as six men struggled to raise the U.S. flag.

Their experiences resonate among the Marines of today.

"I have some sand from the island," said Gunnery Sgt. Robert Betlewicz, a 17-year veteran who serves with the 14th Marines in Fort Worth. "You want to try to grasp the past, to feel like you're closer to it.

"To know how hard they fought. ... On my best day, I couldn't be like them."

Sixty years is a long time, and a dwindling number of eyewitnesses remain.

Phillips, 86, is retired from Bell Helicopter and lives in Hurst. Rogers, 79, is a retired insurance executive with a house on Alvarado Lake.

Neither man is given to making much of a fuss about his role in World War II or his part in one of the most horrific battles of the 20th century.

Their wives said they had been married for decades before their husbands spoke of Iwo Jima.

"I'm proud of it," Phillips said. "But I don't want to do it again."

Questions remain about the human price of the battle, in which 70,000 Marines fought aboveground and 21,000 Japanese below.

The island, which reeked of sulfur, had hundreds of concrete pillboxes and was crisscrossed by miles of tunnels. Phillips and Rogers remember hearing the Japanese under their feet and shooting at an enemy that they rarely saw.

Iwo Jima is 4 miles long and 2 miles wide, yet it took three Marine divisions more than a month to gain control of it. They advanced methodically, yard by yard, pillbox by pillbox.

The battle ended when the Japanese ran out of men. Only 1,000 were taken prisoner.

Sometimes, the Texans' answers to questions about that month, though short and lacking flowery descriptions, provide a glimpse into the horrors they witnessed.

Asked about his combat experiences, Rogers said only, "I'm living."

That was enough.

First wave ashore

Before Rogers stepped onto Iwo Jima, he had to go through the rigors of amphibious-assault training on Saipan and Tinian.

It wasn't completely realistic, though, since those islands had been secured.

"We'd come ashore and have a beer party," he said.

He was just a kid, 19 years old. He'd only been out of Polytechnic High School a year and he'd never seen combat. He was a driver in the 11th Amphibious Tractor Battalion, attached to the 5th Marine Division.

He'd made it clear to everyone back home that his letters, any kind of bad news, any news about where he was, needed to go through his sister.

"I didn't want my mother to know any of that stuff," he said.

On the morning of Feb. 19, 1945, aboard a ship a few miles off the coast, Rogers and his crew watched as about 20 Marines climbed into the back of an amphibious tractor for the ride to Red Beach. Rogers was about to help take the first wave ashore.

"There wasn't anybody shooting at us," he said.

A few minutes later, as Rogers turned the tractor around to return to the ship, the Marines started to come under fire.

Farther down the beach, Phillips landed with the first wave on Yellow Beach, the designated point for B Company, 1st Battalion, 23rd Marines, 4th Marine Division.

As the men piled out of the tractors, the fighter planes laying cover disappeared, and the Navy guns off the beaches fell silent. The fight was the infantry's now.

Phillips had waited a month after the attack on Pearl Harbor to join the Marines. His regiment had invaded half the Kwajalein Atoll in January 1944 and, six months later, Saipan, in the Northern Marianas.

He had earned a Purple Heart on Saipan when artillery shrapnel tore into his back and sent him to a Pearl Harbor hospital for three months. Those were the memories he carried with him to Iwo Jima.

"I was nervous, never about being killed, though," Phillips said. "All I was worried about was being wounded. If you got killed, so what? Not much you could do about it anymore."

Flags and airfields

Rogers missed the famous flag raising on Feb. 23, a moment immortalized by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for that image.

But Rogers remembers the first flag that went up on Mount Suribachi a half-hour before the second, larger flag.

He had his tractor on the side of the mountain, hauling fresh troops up and the wounded down.

"I was also up there the day the first bomber came in from a Tokyo run," Rogers said. "He'd been shot up pretty good. He didn't have any wheels."

The airfields on Iwo Jima were the reason for the invasion. Bombers, even undamaged ones, could barely make it from Japan back to Saipan. Historians say the men who captured Iwo Jima saved the lives of 20,000 aerial crewmen.

For the first few days of battle, Rogers returned to a ship each night assuming that he'd pull out and get ready for the invasion of Okinawa. But on the fifth day, he stayed on the island.

By that time, everyone knew that the battle would drag on, that the Japanese were dug in. Their fields of fire were withering.

"I became infantry," Rogers said.

Many days, Rogers carried the wounded in his tractor from the front lines to the aid stations on the beaches or out to the hospital ship. Sometimes, he ferried able-bodied Marines from one point to the next.

One day, a mortar landed in the back, where the Marines sat.

"There was blood all over the place," Rogers said.

Farther east on the island, Phillips never knew what was happening in the larger battle. There was too much confusion and certainly no incentive to go exploring.

"If you weren't on patrol, you were in a hole," he said. "I only knew what happened right in front of me."

Phillips earned a Bronze Star for valor one day in early March as he tried to get his men to regroup and to treat the wounded while under ferocious fire.

The toll on Iwo Jima, even by the standards of World War II, is appalling. One company in the 23rd Marines, for example, lost seven commanders.

The 26th Marines, trying to seize a hill, took 500 casualties and had five men earn the Medal of Honor -- in one day.

Phillips can remember seeing only one man killed -- Sgt. Darrell Cole.

Cole, a machine gunner in Phillips' battalion, destroyed five pillboxes on invasion day, two of them while armed only with a pistol and hand grenades. A grenade explosion killed him near the beach with his men.

He was awarded a Medal of Honor, and years later, the Navy named a destroyer after him.

Whether he saw others die, Phillips cannot say.

"I try not to remember what I don't want to remember," he said.

Death, he said, couldn't be dwelled on, either on the island or afterward.

"People would tell me that someone from my platoon had been killed, but I never would go and look at them," he said. "By not seeing them, I didn't go crazy."

Promotion by default

Rogers left Iwo Jima on March 23, three days before the island was secured after a final suicide attack by the few remaining Japanese.

When he first went ashore, he bore the stripe of a private first class.

When he left, he wore a corporal's stripes, a jump of two ranks. In reality, as leaders fell around him, he had also served as an acting sergeant, a squad leader at 19.

"My unit suffered 112 percent casualties," counting replacement troops, he said.

He boarded a ship headed for Hawaii, where the men dreamed of a bed and a beer and an end to the sounds of gunfire. Rogers, like many, literally shook for days. Some men had the jitters for weeks.

On the ship, sailors and Marines talked of the death toll, though they had no official statistics.

"They were telling me that we had lost a terrific number of men," Rogers said. "But I didn't know how many until a long time later."

Phillips spent 37 days on the island, going from squad leader to acting platoon sergeant because of the casualties.

Twenty days in, his 40-man platoon had been reduced to 15. When he left the island, he took 12 men with him, including replacements shipped in.

"One day, I got five replacements," he said. "By noon, I had lost all of them. They would come in scared to death. I guess we were kind of immune to it by then."

Some of the men carried souvenirs off the island: swords, pistols, flags. Phillips found a few pictures of Japanese sailors and Marines and pocketed them.

But mostly, souvenir hunting didn't seem much of a priority.

"Just me was all I wanted," he said.

The battle for Iwo Jima

Iwo Jima was an 8-square-mile Japanese fortress. Three airfields on the island were crucial for continued U.S. B-29 raids on mainland Japan.

The first troops landed at about 8:30 a.m. Feb. 19, 1945. U.S. lines held at a cost of 2,321 casualties.

The first objective was capturing Mount Suribachi, on the southern tip of the island.

After taking Mount Suribachi, U.S. forces continued to advance; the island officially fell March 12.

IN THE KNOW

Uncommon valor

Why Iwo Jima? The allies needed an emergency airfield for the B-29s flying bombing runs to Japan. Iwo Jima is 650 miles from Tokyo.

The battle: The land battle for Iwo Jima began at 8:30 a.m. Feb. 19, 1945, when two divisions of U.S. Marines landed on the beaches. Unable to dig foxholes in the loose volcanic ash, they were sitting ducks. A third division was sent in later. For 36 days, 100,000 men fought on the island, not half as big as Manhattan. More than 6,800 Americans died.

Why so deadly? The Japanese fought from 1,500 subterranean rooms connected by 16 miles of tunnels. The Marines were always in range of the Japanese guns but rarely saw a live Japanese soldier. The Japanese strategy was to fight to the death; none of the Japanese soldiers expected to survive.

The flag raising: Three of the six men who raised the Stars and Stripes atop Mount Suribachi died soon afterward. Among them was a Texan, Cpl. Harlon H. Block of Yorktown, killed by a mortar blast March 1 at age 21.

The memorial: The flag raising is immortalized by the Marine Corps Memorial in Washington, D.C. The inscription says, "In honor and in memory of the men of the United States Marine Corps who have given their lives to their country since November 10, 1775." Also inscribed is Adm. Chester Nimitz's tribute to the Marines on Iwo Jima: "Uncommon Valor was a Common Virtue."

SOURCES: www.iwojima.com, National Parks Service

[ham and jam]

Sorry folks its me posting again (IMG:http://forums.wildbillguarnere.com/style_emoticons/default/ph34r.gif)

60 years later, Iwo Jima's impact haunts
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/con...ojima_0219.html

By Ron Hayes

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Saturday, February 19, 2005

PALM BEACH — In February 1995, on the 50th anniversary of the battle of Iwo Jima, Donald Mates brought out his World War II souvenirs — a small mahogany box with a little gold-plated Buddha and a pair of ivory chopsticks inside.

"That's his name, rank and hometown," he said, rubbing the Japanese characters scratched on the box. "I got it translated."

Yashio Osada. Hot Springs, Japan.

Mates was 69 then, and half a century after the war, you could still hear the bitterness in his voice. "I was thinking of sending it to his family,'' he said, "but the hell with them."

Now the 60th anniversary has arrived. Mates is 79, but he doesn't have those chopsticks anymore.

The memories are always with him, though.

"I spent 10 days on Iwo Jima," he said recently, "and a day doesn't go by that I don't think about it."

For most of us, Iwo Jima is a frozen moment: Joe Rosenthal's timeless photo of six Marines raising the American flag atop Mount Suribachi. The photograph captures the glory, but it doesn't begin to tell the story.

On Feb. 19, 1945, the Marines came ashore at 9:05 a.m., charged with taking the island's three strategic airfields from 20,000 Japanese soldiers concealed in natural and manmade caves and tunnels on the 8-square-mile island. By nightfall, only 150 of the 1,000 Marines who had landed that first day were still alive.

The flag-raising was photographed four days later, but the battle to take Iwo Jima would continue for another 31 days, and when it was over, 6,821 Americans would be dead and 19,217 wounded.

Cpl. Donald Mates hit the beach on Feb. 21. He had just turned 19.

"You know, there were no body bags back then," he recalled. "The wounded were lined up like railroad ties, and the dead were stacked like cordwood."

And yet he wasn't worried about joining the cordwood.

"The Marines train you so well that if they ask for 200 volunteers for a mission and say only two of you will survive, you're looking around trying to guess who the other lucky fellow is going to be," he said.

Mates' luck lasted until Feb. 28, when he was part of a night patrol searching for Japanese mortars. Two fellow Marines were in a foxhole up the side of a hill at the northern end of the island. Two others, Jim White and Lee Blanchard, were concealed about 70 feet below.

Mates was in the middle, hunkered in a shell hole with Pvt. Jimmy Trimble, who had given up a contract to pitch for the Washington Senators when he joined the Marines.

"Just before midnight, the Japs started to infiltrate, and we were right in their lines," Mates said. "I got a grenade between my legs, and a Jap with a mine strapped around him just embraced Jimmy and detonated it. Jimmy evaporated right in front of me."

The code words for help were the names of U.S. presidents.

"I yelled out every president I could think of and I was screaming and Blanchard got me into his hole and gave me first aid," Mates said.

On March 2, Mates was taken off Iwo Jima and awarded a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts. He went home to Cleveland, attended college in Arizona, then moved to Long Island, N.Y., and became a real estate developer.

In March 2000, he went back to Iwo Jima for a reunion of American and Japanese survivors of the battle. He brought Yashio Osada's mahogany box with him and gave it to the grandson of the man he killed.

"He just wanted to know how his grandfather died," Mates said. "And I told him he died a heroic death."

Every Friday, Mates picks up a friend, Harry Welch, 92, and they spend the day together at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Riviera Beach.

Welch enlisted at 32 and got his Purple Heart on March 12, 1945, when he was shot in the left leg.

"I came to a little bit of a gully, and I gave a leap rather than going down, and that's when I got hit," he recalls. If he hadn't jumped, he is convinced the bullet would have penetrated his heart rather than his sciatic nerve.

Welch came to West Palm Beach in 1955, Mates in 1985. Both Iwo Jima survivors are Cleveland natives.

"Remember Moriarty's Bar, Harry?" Mates asks.

"Oh, yeah," replies Welch, who doesn't remember as well as he used to. "They had good flavors."

At the VA hospital, they have breakfast with other vets, get their medical tests, then hit the 10 a.m. coffee hour and a diabetic support group. They eat lunch in the cafeteria, which they've nicknamed Chez VA.

Mates also attends a support group for recovering alcoholics.

"It took me until I was 63 to quit drinking," he said. "Then I got religion. Well, I didn't get religion, but I got smart. I was attending my son's graduation, and I looked in the mirror and said, 'Don, what are you doing to yourself?' I quit at 3:15 p.m. on March 26, 1989."

The battle of Iwo Jima ended on March 26, 1945.

"Oh," Mates said, momentarily flustered. "I never thought of that. ..."

At this year's Super Bowl, he was one of six Marines invited to participate in a salute to World War II veterans. This weekend, he's in Washington for a gathering of Iwo Jima veterans. But it was the March 2000 return to the island that took the bitterness out of his voice.

"Up until then, I hated them," he said of the Japanese. "But after I went back there, they were no longer ferocious fighting men. They were just as human as I was. I don't want to say I forgive them, but I was able to understand what they were doing. The average soldier — what the hell did he know?"

In his address book today, Mates keeps the business card of Kiyoshi Endoh, president of the Japanese Association of Iwo Jima Veterans.

[appell8]

Andy, it is most appropriate to give a thought to the Iwo vets this weekend.

Thank you for those posts, Doug

[BoBfan814]

GREENSBORO MAN WANTS TO ENSURE THAT NO ONE FORGETS WWII

By Tom Steadman, Staff Writer News & Record

GREENSBORO — At age 84, Doug Dickerson's days of battle are long past.
Sixty years ago, he came home to Greensboro from World War II after intense, dangerous months of behind-the-lines duty in Sicily, Italy, Holland, France, Germany and Belgium, where he and other paratroopers from the then-new 82nd Airborne Division helped hold the line in the Battle of the Bulge.

Dickerson, who later became a coach at Greensboro Senior High, now Grimsley, as well as at several other schools, was there on D-Day. Before D-Day, in fact, when he and other members of his select commando team were air-dropped into Normandy on June 5, 1944, to take out an enemy communications post and disrupt defenses for the landing.

"We were sneaky," says Dickerson. "We didn't make any noise. They taught us how to be sneaky."

And deadly. Dickerson's hand-picked unit, which started out at 40 men and ended the war with 12 survivors, was trained to kill guards silently in three-man teams.

"One would grab him from behind around the neck, another would grab his rifle, and the third would stick what looked like an ice pick between his ribs," Dickerson said.

"It worked every time."

Dickerson didn't set out to be a war hero, to meet legends-in-the-making such as Gen. George Patton, or even to go to college.

He grew up in Greensboro in humble beginnings.

"We were the poorest of the poor," Dickerson said.

But in high school, his football skills attracted the attention of coaches at N.C. State, who offered him a scholarship. Dickerson went to State, where he played quarterback for three years before war broke out.

His was an athletic family; his brothers, Glenn, Fred and Herman, all played football and other sports in high school and college. Fred became a college coach, and Herman was an All-America fullback at Virginia Tech before playing pro football with the St. Louis Cardinals. Fred and Herman served in the war as well.

Doug "Curly" Dickerson began his Army career in an ordnance unit and was training at Fort Lewis, Wash., when he got a phone call from Col. James Gavin seeking athletic recruits for his secret commando unit.

"He asked me if I would go into paratrooper training," Dickerson said. "I told him I'd never been in an airplane, much less jumped out of one."

Nevertheless, he signed up and was sent to Fort Bragg for training. Sure enough, he never finished his first plane ride; he parachuted out.

Thus began Dickerson's wartime adventures, which earned him a Bronze Star medal and a Purple Heart.

Both are now displayed on his apartment walls, where Dickerson has assembled a veritable museum of the 82nd Airborne, World War II and the Dickerson family.

Like many returning World War II vets, Dickerson spent years saying little or nothing about the war.

"I didn't talk about it for years," he said. "I never even told my wife."

But these days, with his wife, Lee, deceased, Dickerson lives alone and spends much of his time talking to clubs and civic groups about the war.

And he's constantly adding to his collection of memorabilia, which literally overflows from his apartment.

Some of the material he has donated to the Greensboro Historical Museum and other museums.

He'd like to leave the rest to a museum or group that would put it on display.

"I want it to be shown," he said. "We went through a lot back then, for people to just put it away.''

Dickerson hasn't forgotten the war days; he wants to make sure no one else does.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.news-record.com/news/local/gso/...n_020905_gr.htm

We have invited Coach Dickerson to speak at our school and are very excited about his upcoming visit.

Beth

[PaulV]

A Meeting of Aces

Aviation aces meet in Yountville and share their tales of WWII battles
Monday, February 28, 2005

By CARLOS VILLATORO
Register Staff Writer

The year was 1943 and U.S. Marines were heavily involved in fighting Japanese forces in the South Pacific. On April 7, Col. James Swett soared into battle over Tulagi Harbor in a F4F Wildcat.

He shot down seven Japanese Val dive-bombers before being shot down himself and getting pulled out of the sea by a passing U.S. Coast Guard ship. It was the first time he had seen combat.

"We were baptized in the fire right off the bat," he said. "All eight of us got shot down, except my wing man. We didn't lose anybody, all eight of us got picked up."

Swett won a Congressional Medal of Honor for his acts during the battle and was at the Veterans Home of California at Yountville sharing his experiences, along with four fellow Marine aces, during Northern California Friends of the Aces' USMC Corsair Aces symposium Sunday afternoon.

"You're looking at history sitting on both sides of me," Lt. Col. Robert McClurg told the crowd of about 250 people.

McClurg was assigned to squadron VMF-213, the Black Sheep, when he first saw aerial combat on Sept. 16, 1943. He was escorting a group of dive-bombers in a F4U Corsair over Ballale when he engaged the enemy.

"Here comes a guy turning his lights on and off," he said. "I turned his lights off and it was the first airplane I got."

Col. Archie Donahue became an ace, a pilot who has shot down at least five enemy aircraft, in one day. On May 13, 1943, Donahue destroyed five Japanese Zeros while flying a Corsair.

Donahue is credited with 14 aerial victories and told the crowd about the time he took on nine Zeros. He flew in a cloud along with his squadron and when he came out of it he was no longer with them, but he wasn't alone. A group of nine enemy aircraft was waiting for him.

"They were in a bad position, but it developed into a problem," he said.

"What happened next?" asked moderator Pete Newell.

"They missed," replied Donahue, as a wave of laughter erupted among the crowd of air combat enthusiasts. "They unbalanced my engine. It was too many (to fight)."

He got shot down and had to land on a nearby beach, which was under fire by the Japanese. Donahue quickly scrambled from his Corsair and dove into a foxhole, where he inadvertently collided into a fellow Marine who turned out to be dating his girlfriend's sister.

Lt. Col. Roger Conant shot down six enemy aircraft during his missions over Rabaul and the Solomon Islands. He told the crowd about the time he was chasing a Zero along with his wing man and narrowly escaped getting shot down.

"I was shooting at him and my wing man was also shooting at him," he said. "Bullets were going over my wing and head."

Conant escaped the bullets and, after landing, yelled at his wing man. He then realized that his fellow pilot never fired his guns, he said. It was a Japanese pilot with bad aim who was shooting at him.

Col. Bruce Porter first learned how to fly a Corsair by reading a manual, he said.

"We learned tactics real fast," he said.

Those tactics aided him in shooting down six enemy aircraft. He specialized in flying night missions and helped form a group of F6F Hell Cat night flyers.

"I had 24 night landings (on an aircraft carrier)," he said. "And I can remember all of them."

Phil Schasker, NCFA president, said most pilots never saw combat.

"Only about 25 percent of them were ever asked to be fighter pilots," he said. "One percent had opportunity to see combat (and) 5 percent of ... (those pilots) became aces. It's a very rare community, rare birds."

The organization was formed to give people the opportunity to share the experiences of those remaining aces, Schasker said. Col. Herb Ross, a P-38 Lighting ace, and Col. Jim Morehead, a P-40 Warhawk ace, joined the Marine aces at Sunday's event.