Korea--The Forgotten War: A Son Remembers. Post by Brian Flora.

US Troops, Korea. 

Brian Flora and his wife Kay retired to Oak Park in 2009 after serving at U.S. Embassies around the world during their thirty-plus year Foreign Service careers.  Brian, an Army brat who also served in the Army in Vietnam, quickly became involved in the planning and organization of Oak Park’s Veterans and Memorial Day ceremonies.  These are relatively small events but offer a traditional, thoughtful approach to the ceremonies with patriotic music provided by my husband John and I (aka the History Singers), meaningful historical commentary to honor our veterans, the Oak Park Police Honor Guard posting the Colors, prayers by a uniformed military chaplain, Taps played as wreaths are laid, etc.  In his remarks at the 2023 Veterans Day ceremony, Brian honored our Korean War veterans by describing the service of his father, Marvin Flora.  Marvin fought in Korea for three years with the Second Infantry Division, also known as the Indian Head Division.  In Korea it became the most bloodied U.S. Division since the Civil War era.  I found his comments poignant and felt they should be posted here:

“This year marks the 70th anniversary of the end of the Korean War.  Actually, it was technically not a war, but “just” a United Nations police action. On June 25, 1950, the United Nations authorized military action to, quote: “Repel the North Korean invasion of the Republic of South Korea and to restore peace and security to the area.” 

 Twenty-one United Nations members contributed combat forces and 55 others contributed non-lethal aid and assistance.  The United States provided by far the largest number of troops and was assigned operational command of the effort.  This “little” police action lasted three years and was a nasty, ugly affair for the 1.8 million U.S. service members who served there.  Around 33,000 were killed in action, another 7,500 have never been accounted for and are presumed to have been killed in action, and over 100,000 were wounded badly enough to require hospitalization. 

 The Korean conflict receives little attention these days and is viewed in contemporary history books more as a Cold War footnote than as a war in which major U.S. military units fought for three years. It is often called the America’s “Forgotten War” or the “Unknown War.” Forgotten, except by those who fought in Korea.  And their families. 

 In the Second World War my father served with distinction for three years with the First Infantry Division, the Big Red One. He made three amphibious landings, including with the first wave onto Omaha Beach.  He had dropped out of his junior year at the University of Illinois after Pearl Harbor so he could serve in the military, and after the war, he decided to stay in the Army and make it his career.  In the summer of 1950, he was an artillery captain stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.  Following the North Korean invasion, he was assigned to the Second Infantry Division, the first stateside unit deployed to Korea.  He commanded an artillery battalion n the Division artillery. 

 I was just shy of my fifth birthday, but I still remember the tearful departure from our home in Lawton, Oklahoma.  Mom and Dad and three little children cried.  For three years my Mom was left alone at home with three small children, and she took great care of us.  I was the oldest, aged five, and the man of the family.  

 My Father didn’t want to leave his family, but duty called, and he responded.  In my remarks today, I would like to remember his Korean War service as a way to honor our Korean War veterans, and, more broadly, the service of all our veterans.    

 A little background on Korea in 1950.  At the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union liberated it from Japanese occupation.  It had been one country but was then divided into two occupation zones at the 38^th parallel.  The U.S. helped establish the Republic of Korea in the south, and the Soviets set up the communist Peoples Republic of Korea in the north.

 In June, 1950, the North Korean People’s Army crossed the 38th parallel and attacked South Korea. Their plan was simple: to unify the Korean Peninsula under the communist rule of Kim Il Sung, grandfather of our current Kim.  As noted, the UN authorized the dispatch of forces to clear the North Korean army out of the south.  Korea had become the first hot battleground of the Cold War.  

United Nations forces under American command faced off against more than three million North Korean and Chinese troops, armed and backed by Soviet Russia.  It was a desperate, gruesome back-and-forth border war under terrible conditions, especially in winter.  The brutal weather inspired a book titled “America’s Coldest War.”  Soldiers froze to death in their foxholes.  Those who fought there would vividly remember the cold and the horror of the war for the rest of their lives.

Now, my Dad’s story.  As I said, hostilities began in June 1950 when the North Korean People’s Army launched a fierce invasion of the South.  They took the South Korean capital Seoul and quickly crushed the South Korean Army, which fled southward.  My Dad’s Second Infantry Division shipped out in July landed at Pusan, a besieged enclave on the southwestern tip of the Korean peninsula.  It was the only part of South Korea still controlled by UN forces. The Second Division was first American unit to reach Korea directly from the United States and was committed piecemeal to the defense of the shrinking Pusan perimeter. There was a good chance that they would be driven into the sea.

The Division’s first big test came when the North Korean People’s Army began a series of sixteen successive human wave night attacks in August. These attacks stretched the outnumbered Second Division to its limits. Dad said the Division’s cooks, clerks, band members and technical and supply personnel picked up M-1 rifles and joined in the fight to defend against the human wave assaults.    

He remembered that enemy would announce their attacks, which usually began around midnight, with eerie, spine-chilling noises.  The night erupted in a weird, crazy din of bugle calls, drums, whistles, gongs, and wild screaming as the North Koreans sought to unnerve the UN forces and disguise the target of their thrusts.  Dad admitted that he and his soldiers were definitely unnerved by the noise as they awaited the inevitable attacks. Nobody got a good night’s sleep, to say the least.

Anyway, in late September the reinforced UN forces counterattacked. The Second Division spearheaded the UN breakout from the Pusan Perimeter and headed north.  This was to support General Douglas MacArthur’s daring amphibious landing behind enemy lines at Inchon, on the northwest coast of Korea.  The Second Division led the Eighth Army’s general offensive all the way up the Korean Peninsula.  The North Korean army, hit from the north and south, crumbled. 

The UN offensive took back Seoul, South Korea’s capital, and continued across the 38th Parallel deep into North Korea.  It captured the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, and closed in on the Chinese border.  This proved to be a major strategic miscalculation on the part of the supreme allied commander, General Douglas MacArthur.  The advance toward the Chinese border provoked a massive, but undetected, Chinese military build-up along its border with North Korea.

Things began to go very wrong.  As fall segued into winter, North Korean army resistance unexpectedly stiffened, thanks to the growing, but somehow undetected, involvement of the Chinese People’s Army.  Finally, the Chinese launched a massive and very well implemented surprise attack in late November, and the outnumbered UN forces retreated in desperation toward South Korea. 

The Second Division was assigned the "mission impossible" of protecting the rear and flank of the Eighth Army as it retreated south in what is known as the Battle of the Ch'ongch'on River.  It was the last major unit to pull out of the line. To make matters worse, the battle was fought during one of the coldest Korean winters on record, with temperatures frequently dropping to as low as minus 30 F.  Because the UN planners had optimistically believed that the war would be over before winter, there was a severe shortage of winter clothing. The Division was hit from all sides. 

In what Dad said was his most harrowing memory of the war, they had to fight their way south through what came to be known as "The Gauntlet," a series of Chinese roadblocks, six miles long, where they were constantly mortared and machine-gunned from both sides of the withdrawal route.  Dad was a battalion commander in the Division’s 38th Field Artillery Regiment which was assigned to hold the line and cover the Division's pull-out with a massive barrage of artillery.  Surrounded on three sides, it suffered heavy casualties.  Some elements were overrun.  It was the last unit to try to break out through the Gauntlet and was butchered in the process.  One battalion lost every one of its guns and vehicles.  Survivors went out on foot.  In the process, the 38^th Field Artillery lost most of its guns and vehicles. Several batteries had all their gunners killed or captured.  But their sacrifices allowed the Second Division, and the rest of the Eighth Army to continue the retreat, during which the Second Division lost over 4,000 men, a full third of the force they had started with.  My Dad made it through the ordeal rattled, but unwounded. Many of his friends didn’t.

The Division, which was declared “unfit for combat,” received replacements and was refitted and re-equipped.  Meanwhile, the Chinese pressed their attack and recaptured Seoul.  The Second Division played a key role in blunting their advance.  The UN established a defensive line and counterattacked to reclaim lost South Korean territory and the capital.  Fighting raged throughout the winter and spring of 1951. 

In August, the Second Division was ordered to attack a series of ridges that were needed to consolidate the UN line. These actions would devolve into the furious battles, now largely forgotten, of Bloody Ridge, the Iron Triangle, Pork Chop Hill, Heartbreak Ridge, and Baldy Hill.  The Division again suffered heavy losses, but the ridges were taken.  An armed and bloody stalemate ensued for the next two years as cease-fire talks, which had begun in July 1950, dragged on.  Fighting continued, and the stalemate was constantly punctuated by aggressive patrols, surprise attacks, and counterattacks. 

Finally, the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed on July, 27 1953, and the Second Infantry Division withdrew to positions south of the Korean Demilitarized Zone.  It was redeployed to the United States in early 1954, more than three years after it had arrived.

For the record, at the beginning of its deployment to Korea, the Division started with around 16,000 effectives.  It suffered 7,094 combat deaths, the highest total among any U.S. Division since the Civil War.  No U.S. Infantry Division in either of the two World Wars suffered as many casualties.

For Dad, the Korean War was a tough, miserable, emotionally draining three years.  It took him away from Mom, me and my brother and sister.  During the war, I remember my mother crying at night when she didn’t think we were watching. It was a hard time for the whole family, including Dad.

On this Veterans Day, I lift my hat to our Korean War veterans, and to all of our veterans.  And their families.  Thank you for your service.” 

Brian Flora

"My dad being promoted to Major in Korea." 

The Story of World War II veteran Dugald Leitch. Post by John Rice

Author and newspaper man John Rice dedicated a recent column to Dugald Leitch: How do we treat our hometown heroes? - Forest Park Review. Below John's more detailed story on this WWII hero: 

Dugald “Bud” Leitch is an unsung hero from Forest Park, whose remarkable life story has just been uncovered. Like millions of Americans, he was a modest blue collar worker, who volunteered to fight in World War II. As pilot of a B-17, Leitch had the most harrowing adventures. After he was shot down on June 29, 1944, he and his crew endured hardships at Stalag Luft III. This POW camp was later immortalized in the 1963 film “The Great Escape.” All of this happened to a man who spent most of his life quietly living at 1514 Elgin.

This house was built in 1923 by Leitch's father, who was also named Dugald. He was quite a character. A native of Scotland, he journeyed to Canada during WWI, to join the famed 48th Highlander regiment. He returned from the battlefield, after being gassed and proudly showed his family a uniform button he had taken from a Prussian soldier. During WWII, he worked in an aircraft factory on the west side. He also served as a guard at the Amertorp plant in Forest Park. When his namesake told him he was enlisting, his only comment was, "You should have done it sooner." 

His mother, Jane, who also spoke with a Scottish burr, said that the Leitches had been patriots for generations. First fighting for the honor of Scotland, now defending the United States.

“Bud” grew up in Forest Park, with a brother and three sisters.  He followed the usual path to Betsy Ross, Middle School and Proviso East. After graduation, he got a job driving a truck at the Western Electric Hawthorne Plant, in Cicero. When the US entered WW II, Leitch happened to be the 2000^th Hawthorne employee to volunteer for the service.  This triggered massive hoopla.

On October 20, 1942, the Western Electric workers turned out for a lunchtime induction ceremony, as Leitch was sworn into the Army Air Corps.  79 cadets from Chanute AFB and a 51-piece band joined Army brass at the Cicero facility. The plant publication described Leitch as, “A big good-natured Scotch-American,” who was trading in his 15-mph truck for a 400-mph plane. Leitch proudly shared the stage with his wife, Alice.

Major Showalter congratulated Western Electric for their part in the war effort. “Not only have you given us 2,000 men, you are building the radios and telephones to guide our fighting men. When “Bud” goes up in a plane, he will depend on the equipment you make here to guide him safely to his target and safely home again.” Well, not always.

At 6’ 2”, 180 pound, Leitch was too tall to be a fighter pilot, so he trained to fly a four-engine B-17, dubbed the “Flying Fortress” for its ability to hold off attackers. He first met the other members of his ten-man crew, training in Salt Lake City. They continued to train in Texas, before heading to Europe. Leitch flew the plane they dubbed “I’ll Be Around” from Maine to Scotland to join the 8^th Air Force.

The crew flew their first combat mission in June 1944, with two sorties over the Normandy beachhead on D-Day. They flew bombing runs over Berlin. In his journal, “Remembrance and Afterthoughts,” Bombardier Walter “Woodie” C. Woodmansee wrote that it was an 8-10 hour flight to the German capital and danger was constant.

“On several missions, I witnessed disasters that I can never forget,” Woodie recalled. He saw B-17’s take direct hits, or go into steep dives, no parachutes emerging. “Woodie’s” own navigator was hit by flak and his radioman lost a leg. Sometimes their targets were military, other times civilian. They also made “milk runs” to drop supplies to resistance fighters. They flew 19 missions in all and returned from 18.

On June 29, 1944, they were assigned to bomb a synthetic oil factory in Leipzig. They were the last member of their group to take off and immediately developed engine trouble. The turret ball gunner reported that Engine 3 was leaking oil badly. “We were leading the low squadron and I didn’t want to turn back,” Leitch later wrote, “So, I let it go.” Leitch reported that the “Flak wasn’t too bad but it was fairly accurate.” He saw flak punch a “fair sized hole” in the main gas tank of plane ahead of him. Its left wing was blazing as it dropped from sight. “I found out later that he exploded.”

Flak was also finding Leitch’s plane but, “We got to the target okay.” “Woodie” dropped their payload and they headed for home. Suddenly, one of their engines started smoking. “Please don’t explode,” Woodie prayed. He saw Leitch and his co-pilot, Robert Johnson talking frantically. The young pilot nursed the wounded plane along, increasing power to the engines that still worked. He headed for the Swiss border.

As Engine 2 began to fail, Leitch gave the order for the crew to bail out. His crew members bailed out at 28,000 feet. Leitch was the last to leave his ship. He put the automatic pilot on glide, slipped into his chute and bailed out the front escape hatch at 16,000 feet. When his parachute opened, “It sure was a beautiful sight.” He could see rest of the crew below him, gliding to earth.

Then he looked up and saw “I’ll Be Around” heading directly toward him. “I felt a little panic but the ship passed over me at about 1,000 feet.” Meanwhile, “Woodie”, hanging in his chute, watched the B-17 circle, dive and explode in a forest. Soon, Leitch and his men would be descending into that same forest. “My chute got caught on top of a tree,” Leitch recalled warmly, “This kept me from getting a very good jar when I landed.”

“Woodie” also landed in a tree, suspended about two feet off the ground.  Seeing the crash, a band of men with rifles were scouring the woods with rifles. They found “Woodie” and locked him in a cellar with three other crew members. When he saw his mates, “They were bruised and bloody from a beating.” The authorities were notified and “Woodie” and his comrades were soon off to Frankfurt for interrogation.

Meanwhile, Leitch walked four miles until he encountered crew member Russel Unverzagt. They were two miles from where their plane went down. “We had a compass but no map. We were right in the center of Germany – 240 miles from any place we could get help.” As they edged their way around a large city, two citizens on bikes spotted them. They dove into a ditch but surrendered when the bicyclists displayed small revolvers. They herded the captured airmen into town.

The townspeople greeted them with unbridled hostility. A Hitler Youth punched Unverzagt in the jaw and a civilian tried to kick him in the stomach. A Luftwaffe ground crew were their unlikely rescuers. They walked them to a truck, where they greeted crewmembers Everett Huso, James Williams, Berton Swift and Colin Gerrels.  “They had been badly beaten by civilians and looked pretty sad,” Leitch wrote, “but I was sure glad to see them.” Johnson was there, too.

The truck also carried cargo. “They had a lot of parts of our B-17.” The Germans had salvaged guns and six of their wing tanks intact. But Leitch was pleased that, “The ship had burned down 2 acres of nice tinder.” Their captors took them to an airbase, where they ate for the first time in 24 hours. “They brought me two slices of black bread, jam and coffee. I’ve yet to see anything that tasted that good at the time.”

After being interrogated in Frankfurt, the crew was brought to Stalag Luft 3, in Sagan, eastern Germany. The camp held 10,000 POW’s divided into five compounds. Leitch and the others were assigned to the center compound, where the “Great Escape” had occurred a year before. 

On March 24, 1943, 76 prisoners escaped through an elaborate tunnel dubbed “Harry.” According to a first-hand account of the escape, by Paul Brickhill, in the book “Clipped Wings,” the movie version of the escape was extremely accurate. The three tunnels, the trolley, the air pump, the dirt disposal devices, even the rope to signal when it was safe to emerge from the tunnel.  (But no mention of a motorcycle chase). Most of the 76 were captured within a day or two. The Gestapo shot 50 of them.  

Because of this massacre, the Allied High Command sent a directive to all prisoners of war. “Urgent warning is given against making future escapes!” It explained that Germans were shooting POW’s and other suspected persons on sight. “In plain English: Stay in camp where you will be safe! Breaking out is now a damned dangerous act.” Leitch and his men made no attempt to escape. They had enough on their hands.

Starvation, homesickness and boredom were the enemies they fought.  “The diet was Spartan to say the least,” Woodie wrote. The Germans had barely enough to feed themselves, let alone POW’s.  Fortunately the Red Cross came to their rescue. “They gave us food, clothes, books, sports equipment and musical instruments,” wrote “Woodie.” He recalled the prisoners read, went to church services and played sports.

Leitch and the others were issued POW ID’s. His features a photograph of a handsome young man, wearing a somber expression. His occupation is listed as “Chauffeur” and his address as 1514 Elgin Avenue, Forest Park, IL.

To notify families, the Germans broadcast the names of POW’s in English on Sunday nights. After hearing the names, short wave operators sent cards and letters to the addresses of the families. Leitch’s mother received a stack of them from all over the country. She sent parcels and letters to Leitch at Stalag Luft 3. He finally received his first letter in December but none of the parcels came through.  

Leitch could have used the food. Breakfast was two slices of bread with syrup and water. Lunch could be pea soup, or stewed barley. Dinner was two slices of bread and butter. The men lived 12 to a block. They pooled their packages from home and Red Cross parcels to make meals. Leitch became the cook of the barracks. It was a satisfying job that ate up the empty hours. By this time, he was having food fantasies about a chocolate bar, a Hillman’s whipped cream puff and steak and eggs.

“Thank God for the Red Cross,” he wrote, “If it wasn’t for them we’d probably starve.” The extra food enabled Leitch to prepare a Thanksgiving feast on November 30, 1944. Following a “Turkey Bowl” football game, “Supper was served about 1600 hours and the table was all set with table cloth and napkins that Ollie got from home it really looked prima. Ollie said grace for supper. There was a full can of Spam, whipped spinach, peas and carrots and Macaroni and rice. For desert we had chocolate pie.”

Aside from avoiding starvation, the men had to keep their minds occupied. The POW’s produced a one-page newspaper, called “The Circuit.” The band played concerts and the men put on plays. Leitch started a sketch book, where he kept his theater tickets to “The Man Who Came to Dinner” and the “Front Page.” The man whose mates had nicknamed “Tiny Tim” was an adept artist. Leitch drew cartoons, wrote poems and even sheet music for original songs like “A Kreigie is Dreaming.” Kreigie was their slang for POW.

As much as he tried to keep his spirits up, the entries in his journal became briefer and gloomier. He reports spending entire days in his three-tier bunk. “Cold damp day. A good day to spend in the sack.” There were some highlights, though. “Won our first game of the season 3-2 in the last half of the 7^th. Woodie hit one over the barracks with two men on. Hollywood finish.” At Christmas, they dined on roast turkey with stuffing and mashed potatoes. They heard war news over smuggled radios. “Allies are making big gains in France. The Russians have started another drive. It can’t be too long now.”

It was the Russians who first approached the camp, prompting the Germans to move the POW’s. On January 27, 1945, they evacuated Stalag Luft 3. “We were forced to march in the snow for two weeks to Stalag 7,” Woodie wrote, “Some died before we got there. We were starving with no shelter. The Red Cross came to the rescue with food. We spent three months in a tent.”

On April 29, 1945, the German guards fled. General George C. Patton arrived in person, “With pearl-handled sidearms on each hip,” Woodie wrote, “He ordered the cooking and baking units to feed us. I’ll never forget the fresh-baked bread given to us.” Getting home proved to be tricky for the POW’s. “Woodie” traveled by car and truck to the coast. He boarded an Italian liner and landed in NJ.

Leitch returned to Forest Park and his job at Western Electric. It was if he had never left, because the company credited him for his war years. He and Alice had one child, Tom, who follow his dad’s path through Forest Park schools and Proviso East.  Leitch never talked about the war with his family. He only told Tom about bailing out, being attacked by Hitler Youth and how the Luftwaffe rescued them. Tom recalled his dad refused to watch the hit comedy, “Hogan’s Heroes,” which spoofed life in “Stalag 13.”

Leitch retired from Western Electric, after 37 years. He died in 1997, at the age of 76. Alice had preceded him in death. After his dad’s death, Tom found a treasure trove of memorabilia about his father’s war years. This included photos, journals and the issue of Western Electric’s newspaper, “The Microphone” with a photo of Dugald Leitch dominating the front page.

After the war, “Woodie” returned to upstate New York and attended Syracuse University on the GI Bill. He had displayed writing talent in the journal he kept at Stalag Luft 3 and wanted to study journalism. However, his future wife, Helen, “Converted him from journalism to geology.” The couple went to work for the Geologic Survey which sent them to western United States and to Australia for two years. They raised four kids.

After they retired, the couple restored an old farmhouse overlooking one of the Finger Lakes. Today, “Woodie” and Helen live in a retirement home in Rochester, NY. They have kept their sharp minds into their 90’s. In a recent phone conversation, “Woodie” sounded as chipper as ever and invited a reporter to visit them. He recalled playing softball in the camp but didn’t remember the game-winning home run he hit over the barracks. Hollywood finish.

(From John Rice: This story came about thanks to an inquiry by Robert Johnson’s son-in-law, Allen Odstdiek. He asked a reporter to find the ten members of his father-in-law’s B-17 crew. He found every one. Nine were gone and one remains very much alive.)

 

John's final tribute to his dad, Memorial Day 2020

We often point out that while Veterans Day was established to honor those who serve in our military, Memorial Day is dedicated to those who gave the last full measure of devotion, as Abraham Lincoln put it. 

That was not my father’s situation.  While he passed away just days ago, he did not do so in combat nor as a result of any harm he incurred while serving his country.  So in a way this is a bit awkward in its placement.

However, and not to take away the distinction of those who did in fact lay their lives down in the service of their country, the lines can be a bit blurry on this distinction. First of all, not every soldier, sailor or marine who died during a war died in combat.  The number of those who died during World War I for instance includes a large number who died of the influenza epidemic that broke out in 1918.  Some die by accidents. 

Second, you don’t have to be a combatant to die in a conflict.  It is often pointed out that for every front-line combatant, there are 9 others who are serving in support of them.  As Kathy pointed out, nurses, and women service pilots died in the course of the war.  No one who went overseas during that area was immune from the risk of being killed.  Just ask those who served in the merchant marine, which was not even considered a bona fide branch of the military. 

But there is another angle.  There is a saying I like that goes something like this.  What is a veteran?  It is someone who has written a blank check payable to the United States of America, for an amount up to and including his or her own life.  Everyone who serves during war time especially knows that the cost of their induction could go that far.  So in a sense every service person has a certain ‘devotion’ about them.

Also, the matter of who lives or dies in a war is not something amenable to management.  Not to downplay the role of good training, protocol and leadership in preserving the lives combatants, but there is always an element no one can control.  Depending on how you think the universe works, call it Chance or Fate or Predestination or “the bullet with your number on it”.  There are heroes who die, but there are also heroes who live, some without even a scratch.  There are ones who could be thought of as bad soldiers or cowards who live, but there are also those who die.  And in between is a great throng of men and women who are neither.  They simply do their jobs. And of those, again, some live, and some die.

My father was in the latter group from all I can tell.  He was not highly decorated, he just received the good conduct medal.  He was in some dangerous places, but was never even wounded.  He was good at what he did, and he did it. 

Another aspect of the devotion of a service man is that you don’t really get to pick your assignment.  You take an oath to obey the orders of those who are over you, and you go where you are sent.  So because someone ended up manning a desk, driving a truck, or working battlefield construction, your service was no less valuable or honorable than those who stormed the beaches.

My father had a great story he told that demonstrates this. He did not tell us any gruesome stories of what he saw in the South Pacific.  He told us the funny stories.  One was when he was inducted into the Army at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.  He graduated from High School in 1940, tried to join the Navy as a pilot, but was turned down because he had an overbite.  He was eventually drafted in mid-1942.  He was asked what he had done since graduation, and part of the answer was that he had spent some time at his older brothers welding shop in Mt. Carmel, Illinois, as a kind of errand boy.  The interviewer said, “Hmm” and pulled down a book off his shelf about welding.  He broke open the book to some random page and asked some really basic question that anyone would know who had ever spent an hour in a welding shop.  He went to another random page and asked a similar banal question, which Dad answered.  So he wrote on the induction form “Expert Welder."

Dad was exasperated by such silliness and a bit of a row ensured.  Dad said at this point a huge Master sergeant walked over and wanted to know what the trouble was.  Dad explained he felt the interview was a bit misguided (or something to that effect).  The Master sergeant said, “Well, OK, recruit, what do you want to do?”  Dad replied, “Well, I had hoped to be in the Air Corps, or perhaps in the Quartermaster Corp, but I don’t want to be in a tank.” The Master Sergeant wrote “AF” on Dad’s form and handed it back to the interview, basically ending the conversation and interview.  

As a result of this, Dad found himself on an overnight train to someplace further east.  He said when he woke the next morning he looked out of the window and saw a sign that said, “Welcome to Fort Knox, Kentucky.  Home of the Armored Force.”

He did his basic training there, and because he had grown up duck and pheasant hunting in central Kansas, and knew his way around guns, he was made gunnery instructor, and spent more time than he wanted at Fort Knox.  After lobbying hard to be given a chance to see action, he was eventually sent to the West coast, then to Pearl Harbor, and then to the South Pacific, where he was involved with the landing on Peleliu, the long fight to control the island.  His last activity was a little known invasion of a tiny island called Iheya shima, to the north of Okinawa, the last amphibious landing of the war.

But his life was not defined by having been a soldier.  He came home, and got on to normal life.  He married in 1950, had children, endeavored to make a living, did well at whatever he did. But he didn’t have a College degree, which limited his advancement, and many of the firms he served so well did not provide retirement benefits during that era.  So when he turned 65, the only thing he had was his Social Security check and whatever he could earn with his own hands.  He worked until well into his 80’s, ended up in the Southwest, finally settling in Reno Nevada, 1000 miles away from anyone else in the family. 

We were all kind of hard hit by the recession, and were not in any position to travel to see him, nor he to come see us. I began to be worried after he past 90 that he would pass way in poverty in Reno, and I would not even be able to afford to come to his funeral, much less pay for it.  But because he had grown up during the Depression, he knew how to be frugal, living off a $1,000 a month Social Security check, actually saving a little money.

In early 2019 he was diagnosed with severe dementia, so his savings came in handy to get me out to Reno and get him out of the VA Hospital there.  And the US also takes care of its Veterans.  I discovered that as a combat veteran, now disabled, he was entitled to strong support to live in a Veterans Home, one that could offer the kind of Memory care that he needed.  The closest one I could get him in was in King, Wisconsin, about 3 hours north of here.  He took up residence there in late March last year, and was well cared for.  To give you an idea, the facility in King has had exactly 0 incidents of COVID 19 to date.  So after 20 years of not seeing him face to face, I was able to visit him regularly over the past year.

He died peacefully in his sleep on May 12, not alone, not as a pauper, but surrounded by caregivers who loved him and near the largest remaining part of his family.  I was able to be at his bedside during his last hours. 

This country loses a lot as this World War II generation fades away.  As a child, my father lived in a world that was not too far removed from the days of the Pioneers.  Things like indoor bathrooms, electricity, the telephone, movies, the automobile and even the airplane were fairly new items at the beginning of his life.  But he lived to see television, computers, smartphones.  During the last few months he marveled as my wife and I were able to do Skype sessions with him.  We are losing their connection to our countries past, to the perspective they had on life in general and the American experience.  

In addition, as a Baby Boomer, the passing of the World War II Generation gives me a certain sense of misgiving.  While as a young person I touted the virtues of “My Generation”,but as I began to see my Father’s generation fade, I had a change of heart.  In fact, my reaction was almost, “oh my, we are losing all the adults”, with a sense of foreboding like one feels in reading Lord of the Flies.  I am not as confident now in my own generation.  While they had their shortcomings, I feel they had a lot to teach us, and I for one think we would be wise to attempt to gain all we can from their story.  I know I have tried in the few years to gain from my father's.  

A Son's Tribute to His Father and the Greatest Generation

Darrel Atwood

Darrel Atwood, far left, Okinawa

John Atwood, my husband, prepared this message several years ago in case one of the Pillars of Honor speakers failed to show. Although he didn't get a chance to share it in that setting, I thought it was such a moving tribute that it should at least see the light of day here on my blog.

            These speeches usually begin with an introduction describing the speaker’s credentials—and, since the speakers are usually military people, the credentials detail years of service, promotions in rank and areas of responsibility.  Well, I am not a military man, nor did I ever serve in the Armed forces.  My grandfather served in World War I, and my Father in World War II, and I grew up thinking I would probably do so as well.  But it didn’t turn out that way: I graduated from High School in 1970, during the final years of the Viet Nam War, and was exempted from the draft because I went to college. The War ended before I finished school. 

But then again, I believe it would be fair to say that most of the men who served during World War II were not military men either.  You may have been like my Father, who served his country during the War—and certainly that service had a profound impact on his life—but he went on to do other things.  I don’t know that he would want his epitaph to be “drove an Amtrac in the South Pacific during World War II.”  He was but a “Citizen Soldier”, like many of his contemporaries, who served not to pursue a career, but because the world, our nation and our very way of life were threatened by a great evil.

I think this an important notion to grasp.  For instance, since my wife and I started doing our History Singers programs, which involve many Veterans and Memorial Day performances, I have found myself being just a little—I don’t know, frustrated?--that for most Americans, Memorial Day is a day for picnics, barbecues, sporting events and maybe parades.  Little thought seems to be given to the fact that it is a day to remember those who gave their life serving their country.  But last May something hit me: in the Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War I, and especially World War II, did men—and women—respond to the call, and lay their lives on the line, so that there would be solemn memorials in their honor in the event of their death?  Or was it more about making sure America could go on having peaceful holidays and barbecues without worry or fear?  I think next Memorial Day I will make a special point of firing up the grill, after we get home from singing at the local ceremony, that is. 

Similarly, did you know the number-one selling song of all time in America came out of World War II, and it is not at all a military song?  It was on the air during that same difficult 1942 as “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition”.  The end of 1942 was the first Holiday season of the war when huge numbers of Americans were away from home, either overseas—in the deserts of North Africa, or the hot swelter of Guadalcanal—or  in training camps, many of which were on the southwest coast or in the south.  The song was White Christmas.  Originally written to express a New Yorker’s frustration at being in sunny southern California during Christmas, it came to symbolize the world these GI’s were out to preserve.  They are the ones who propelled it—then and after the war—to its stratospheric sales of records and sheet music.

No, my credentials today are not military, but simply the fact that I am the bona fide oldest son of a World War II veteran.  That makes me someone who is a beneficiary of what you veterans accomplished.  In fact, since my Father, an Army gunnery trainer and Amtrac driver, was on Okinawa at the end of the war preparing for the invasion of Japan, I know that if the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had not succeeded, I probably would never have been born. 

Here are the details. I was born in 1952.  I grew up watching Howdy Doody, Captain Kangaroo and Tom Terrific on Saturday morning cartoons.  My early heroes were Superman, the Lone Ranger and Davy Crockett (yes, I did own an authentic Davy Crockett coon-skin cap.)  I got polio shots in the butt, then in the arm, and finally by a sugar cube.  We practiced the Civil Defense “duck and cover” drill, talked about bomb shelters, worried about the Russians and The Bomb, and marveled at Elvis Presley, Roger Maris and Willie Mays, the US Space Program and then the Beatles.  I went on to do pretty much all of the things the baby boomers did, except drop acid and get into hard drugs.  I formed a rock and roll band that played at high school dances and sock hops.  I was one of millions of kids at the time who attended Woodstock “in spirit”, it was too far away from where I was to get to.  (I suppose I should also say that I missed the sexual revolution too.  I’m not bragging; some sins fail to materialize simply because one isn’t always successful.)

But the great backdrop of my formative years—the canvas upon which my story began to be painted--was the reality of World War II.  It was all around us when I was young.  Everyone had been in the war, or lived through the war, or talked about the war.  The movies were full of World War II.  The first drive-in movie I can recall, that I stayed awake for--I fell asleep during Old Yeller) was a submarine movie double feature: “Run Silent Run Deep” with Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster and “The Enemy Below” with Robert Mitchum and Kurt Jurgens.  I read a children’s version of Rise and Fall of the Third Reich in 5^th grade.

There were more tangible things as well.  My father brought back a Japanese rifle that we played with as kids.  He also brought back the nose of a 90mm armor piercing shell.  My brother and I admired it when we were very young, then used it to practice shot put when we got older.  And Dad had a lot of his GI gear—knife, mess kit, web belt, etc. that we used when we went camping and fishing.  I especially remember an army air corp vest loaded with pockets that Dad used as a fly- fishing jacket.

There were a couple of other things he brought back that we greatly admired, but which created a minor bit of trouble.  He had a short chain of live 50-caliber machine gun shells—the kind with the black metal links that would come apart when the shell ejected, as well as a short string of 30-caliber machine gun ammo, the kind that was held together in a kind of cloth belt.  The 50-cal ammo made a big impression on me as a kid—those bullets were so big.  I kind of had a sixth sense that when guys got hit with shells like that they didn’t just slowly slump over into the dirt or onto the deck of a ship like they did in the movies.  What happened with it really wasn’t a big deal.  My brother and I used to go down to the basement and grab it and bring it up into the yard to show and impress our friends.  One day the fuss-budget neighbor lady saw it and called the police.  They came and took the stuff away.  No reflection on my Dad however, women just don’t understand these things.

You see, for my brother and me, our favorite pastime, hands down, was to play Army, as we called it.  I remember when I was about 10 I got a really neato Mattel army set for Christmas or my birthday.  It had a toy Thompson submachine gun, a swell army helmet with camouflage netting, a canteen and a hand grenade you could put a cap in, pull the pin, throw it and it would go bang.  We played army all day long.  Why were we so fascinated with all that?  Well, I suppose because we were boys and boys tend to like that kind of thing.  But I think it was also because subconsciously we knew we were the sons of a hero—and all our friends were the sons of heroes.

That is the way things were supposed to be, after all. We took it all for granted—it was normal.  It was only a few years ago that I realized that that was how I felt.  And at the same time I realized that not all kids growing up are able to feel that way about their fathers.  Our dads answered the call, they, like Superman, the Lone Ranger and Davy Crocket were men who, when the situation called for it, would be there and save the day.  And we wanted to be just like them.

And at that time we had a President who was the collected symbol of all of our fathers.  He had been in the war, he wasn’t a dowdy grey old man, he had class, a kind of worldly wisdom and sense of humor.  He got us going to the moon, and encouraged us all to be physically fit.  He was all of our dads rolled into one perfect model.  Oh, I know, he had some problems—I am not saying he was a great president, just trying to tell you what he seemed like to a 9-year old boy.   

And being as fascinated as we were with our father, we always wanted to get Dad to talk about what he did in the War.  We would listen with rapt attention to any story he would tell us.  But the odd thing was, he didn’t like to talk about it that much.  He would tell more stories about quirky things that happened than he did about actual combat.  In fact, it often seemed that he would say things, almost under his breath like, “war isn’t what you guys want to think it is.”  He didn’t do it like he was trying to wet blanket our fun.  It was more like he was saying, “some day, when you are ready to understand, there are some things I probably need to tell you.”

One story I really remember is his story about the Army intake guy when he was drafted.  He graduated High School in 1940, and wanted to be a Navy Pilot.  But they wouldn’t take him because—get this—he had an overbite.  His older brother owned a welding shop down by Mount Carmel, IL, so he went over there from Kansas to hang around with him and wait to be drafted.  He helped out a little around the shop.  So, when he finally got called up, as he was ‘interviewed’ by the intake person—I think he said it was a corporal, but maybe it was a sergeant--the fellow asked him what he had been doing since he graduated, and my Dad mentioned his brother’s welding business.  The corporal said, “Welding, huh, hmmm.” and he grabbed a book about welding.  Opening up some page, he asked my dad what the difference was between an arc welder vs acetylene, which anyone who had hung around the shop and helped out would know.  Then he opened to another page in the book and asked some other equally inane question, which Dad knew the answer to.  He then closed the book and wrote on the page “Expert Welder”.  Dad couldn’t believe it, and endeavored to persuade the corporal that he was not a welder at all.  The conversation got a bit heated, at which point a “big sergeant” walked over and asked what was going on.  After one comment, then another, the sergeant tried to cut to the chase and said, “Look soldier, what do you want to do?”  Dad said, “Well, I’d like to be in the Air Corps, or I suppose in the Quartermaster Corp., but I don’t want to drive a tank.”  The sergeant said OK and wrote down AF on the page and that ended it.  Dad said they put him on an overnight train from there, and when he woke up in the morning and looked out the window he saw a sign that said, “Welcome to Fort Knox, Kentucky, home of the Armored Force.” 

Dad was there for an extended period of time.  Because he grew up pheasant and duck hunting in Kansas, he knew his way around a gun and was a fair shot.  He was promoted to the rank of corporal and spent some time at Fort Knox teaching other soldiers how to shoot.  But he wanted to see some action so finally, in 1944, he got shipped overseas.  He went to the Pacific Theater and his outfit got attached to the 81^st Infantry, and saw action that September at Anguar and Peleliu.  Though he was with the army, the 81^st was under the command of the Navy, and it seems that Dad may have driven an Amtrac for the Marines on the second day of Peleliu.  He always talked about driving off the LST in one of those open-backed Amtracs, loaded with Marines, and it went under the water a bit when it went in.  (His point being, looking out through the periscope he had up front, all he saw was water and counted the seconds before the scope rose above it.)  And he said his outfit had no supply line—they had to steal their food from the Marines.  He then stayed on Peliliu with the Army for the long, dragged out mopping up operation.  After that, he came down with jaundice and was hospitalized.  I remember him saying he spent time on Guam and Saipan and finally Okinawa, and was involved in the next to last Pacific landing, on a little island called Iheya Shima in the Ryukus.  He was discharged in 1946.

Actually, the first arguments we had about the Vietnam War were with me defending the US being there and him diametrically opposed.  I was the one who trotted out the domino theory, the one who asserted the need to resist Communism and not fall into the trap of appeasement.  But like I said, there was some insight Dad had about war—especially about wars in jungles and wars in Asia.  He often quoted General MacArthur’s comment that the US should never get involved in a land war in Asia.  I recall him being very disturbed as Vietnam began to escalate during the Johnson years.  I realize now that he understood where things were going, understood that he might have to watch his sons get fed into the same kind of horror that he had endured, and for what?  I always sensed that he understood that not everyone who held a high rank—even President of the United States—always had their head screwed on right.

But, of course, in time, our arguments about Viet Nam flipped around to the more traditional way, especially as he watched those who opposed the war seem to get weirder and weirder and I began to understand Dad’s earlier doubts.  In the end, things begin to divide along the generational lines—his world vs. my world, his music vs. my music, etc.  I don’t bring up this time to open old wounds—actually my desire now is to heal them.  The great grief that I have had is that the divide and disagreements of that era blocked out my memory of the early days for so long.  And I realized that I had never told my Dad that I viewed him with such admiration—in fact, despite any acrimony that arose, I know that deep in my heart I always did.  Like so many of my generation, it took all the force I had to keep from bawling like a baby at that scene in “Field of Dreams” when Ray says, “Hey, Dad…..you wanna have some catch?”

During the 80’s, I realized I needed to try to understand my Father better.  We were separated by many miles—he living in the Southwest and me in Chicagoland, and both of us without the resources to be able get together across those miles.  But when I contemplated where to start to try to understand his world, I immediately thought of the War years.  I have been reading about World War II since I was in grade school—including as a college History major, but in 80’s I set about it in earnest.  I began to read everything I could get my hands on—histories, photo collections, memoirs, etc.  In fact, during the early 90’s here in the Chicagoland area, there was an old time radio program on one of the classical music stations every Saturday afternoon, and beginning December 7 of 1991, 50 years after the start of the war, each Saturday that program played the music and programming that had been aired during the corresponding week 50 years earlier.  That lasted until August of 1995, so for that 3 and half year period we listened every Saturday.  I don’t think we missed a one.

And then in the new century, my wife started her music performance business, and she saw the need for a program about the music of World War I and World War II, music that so much of America was already forgetting.  As co-performer and accompanist, it gave me the chance to really explore my Father’s music—it was the next logical step.  You may wonder why we do the songs of that era accompanied by a guitar.  Well, for one thing, we didn’t have a “big band” in our pocket, and between that and piano, guitar is my best instrument.  But even more, the best way for me to get inside the music was to do it with the instrument I knew best, the instrument that became part of who I am back in the Sixties.

But as we have now been performing that program for about 10 years, I started to see another angle to the appropriateness of using the guitar.  I suppose if there was any topic that was more symbolic of the rift that developed between my Father and me during the ‘Generation Gap’ period, it was that of music.  We had the usual debates about new ideas and progress vs. the old tried and true, etc.  My position I now find a bit comic as a younger generation uses the same arguments to defend rap and hip-hop music.  So I suppose there is no better symbol of an intent to make peace on that point than for me to be playing my Father’s music using the very instrument that, frankly, was the symbol of the rift between us.  And though not all my opinions about our topics of discussion from that time have changed, I have to say that as a result of learning his generation’s music on the guitar, I have really grown to appreciate and love it.

But also over the years of performing the songs of World War II, something else began to become particularly clear to us: our parent’s generation is rapidly fading from the scene.  And though at one time there was this whole ‘gap’ thing going on, I have to admit that my first reaction to that realization was one of both fear and great loss.  The fear part I would explain like this.  We used to say in our callowness, “Never trust anyone over 30”, but truth be told, I am not so sure I trust my own generation.  Back in the day we liked to “talk about my Generation” as the song goes.  I am not sure there is much to talk about at this point.  Your generation saved the world.  We made a lot of noise at the outset, but I am not so sure we have accomplished very much. The thought of a world without your generation is, frankly, a bit unnerving.  And even though I am now 60 years old, I am not so sure my generation—much any that follow—is up to the task of handling our world.

But there is also a great loss that our country will experience as your generation finally passes on, your connection to important aspects of America’s past.  I was trying to explain this to a French pen pal a year or so ago.  I wrote, “We are losing that generation now.  In the US, that generation has its roots clear back to the 19^th Century.  Their grandparents were part of the pioneers who settled the West.  During their youth, there were still people alive who had fought in the American Civil War.  Yet they were also the first completely modern generation.  During their lifetime marvels like the automobile, the telephone, the airplane, the television and the computer became everyday items.  Add to all this, that they saved the world from the greatest evil it has ever seen.  We are losing their experience, their wisdom, their perspective and their connection to all these aspects of our history.  Without them, and given all the forces at work in our society, we may well be cut adrift from our past.”

I was at a motivational meeting one time and the speaker said something that made an impression which has stayed with me ever since.  He said, “Maturity is when you begin to understand what it was your parents were trying to form in your life, and you decide to take on that program and become responsible for it.”  I suppose if there is one thing I hope I could convey to my Father and his generation it is that you can take comfort that at least a few of us have some inkling of what you all were about, and respecting what that was, we are committed to do our best to take on that program and to pass it on to future generations.

This World War II Memorial is but a symbol of the many things your generation represented, and in presenting it as we do today, we are honoring the values that you all stood for.  Neither the sands of time nor the fickle forgetfulness of popular preoccupations, will be able make your legacy fade, diminish or be forgotten.  Future generations will be able to look at this memorial and be moved to understand what is was that your generation thought and did.

My father is still alive, and last Father’s Day I sent him the first draft of this talk.  I don’t think it will ever be possible for him to hear me give this, but I am thankful that I have had the opportunity to express these thoughts to him.  If your own children have not expressed something similar, it may not be because they don’t feel like I do, it is just that it may never have dawned on them what they felt when were younger and that that it might be good to express it.  So, if it is not too presumptuous, please allow me to speak on their behalf and say what we all should have said a long time ago. 

Thank you for your service, for your example, and for your steadfastness through all these years.  Please know that we will always be grateful for what you did and cherish your memory.