Category: We Remember

A former workmate and Mick send links to the story of Marvin Strombo who, as a young Marine fighting his way across the Pacific, happened to liberate a Rising Sun flag from it’s deceased owner, Sadao Yasue, on the island of Saipan. This week, he returned the flag to the soldier’s brother;

Sadao’s younger brother, Tatsuya Yasue, said his brother was a young man with a future to live. When Sadao was called upon to go to war, his family gave him this flag as a symbol of good fortune to bring him back to them. Getting this flag back means more to them than just receiving an heirloom. It’s like bringing Sadao’s spirit back home.

Tatsuya was accompanied by his elder sister Sayoko Furuta and younger sister Miyako Yasue to formally accept the flag. As Tatsuya spoke about what his brother meant to not only his family but the other members of the community, he reminisced over the last moments he had with him before his departure.

Tatsuya said his family received permission to see Sadao one last time, so they went to him. He came down from his living quarters and sat with them in the grass, just talking. When they were told they had five more minutes, Sadao turned to his family and told them that it seemed like they were sending him to somewhere in the Pacific. He told them he probably wasn’t coming back and to make sure they took good care of their parents. That was the last time Tatsuya ever spoke to his brother.

As Strombo and Yasue exchanged this simple piece of cloth from one pair of hands to the next, Strombo said he felt a sense of relief knowing that after all these years, he was able to keep the promise he made on the battlegrounds of Saipan.

I remember the stories that my great-uncle told me about his war in the Pacific, which is why, to this day, I won’t own a Japanese car (Mitsubishi operated a POW Camp which used the labor of US POWs for manufacturing). But, good on Mr Strombo getting past the war.

Someone sent us a link to the story of Staff Sergeant William Turner who made the journey home to Tennessee from the Netherlands after his B-26 bomber, nicknamed “Hell’s Fury”, went down on December 13, 1943 on a bombing run from Essex, England to Amsterdam.

Only the plane’s pilot, Ray Sanford, survived the crash, but spent the remainder of the war in a POW camp.

From The Tennessean;

The remains of six crew members were recovered, but only two crew members were able to be identified between 1946 and 1949, according to a release from the state. Unidentifiable remains from that crash and another crash were buried at Arlington National Cemetery on Jan. 29, 1951.

Turner’s earthly remains will be interred on Tuesday, August 22nd;

[Tennessee Governor, Bill] Haslam has declared a day of mourning and ordered flags at half-staff from sunrise to sunset on Tuesday, Aug. 22 in Turner’s honor.

Graveside service will be at the Nashville National Cemetery at 1420 Gallatin Pike S, Madison, at 10 a.m. (CDT) on Aug. 22.

Turner is survived by his cousins Linda Tinsley of Murfreesboro, Jeff Kemper of Smithville, and Rita Williams of Cottontown.

From Stars & Stripes;

The Purple Heart is the oldest military decoration granted in the United States. It was established by Gen. George Washington on Aug. 7, 1782, at Newburgh, New York, during the Revolutionary War.

• Forbidden by the Continental Congress from granting commissions and promotions in rank to recognize merit, Washington created what was then called the Badge of Military Merit.

• The practice of awarding the badge fell dormant after the war until it was revived on May 28, 1932, and awarded to U.S. Army and Air Corps veterans of World War I. By this time, it was known as the Purple Heart.

• In 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt extended the award to members of the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard. It was also approved to be granted posthumously.

• The website for the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor is thepurpleheart.com.

• The website for the Military Order of the Purple Heart is purpleheart.org.

I’m proud and humbled that some members of this blog community are also Purple Heart recipients.

Radioman 2nd Class Quentin Gifford was aboard the USS Oklahoma on Battleship Row at Pearl Harbor when it was struck by five Japanese torpedoes on December 7th, 1941 and he went down with ship along with four hundred and twenty nine of his shipmates. He’s been listed as missing all of these years. Until now. His siblings gave DNA samples to DPAA earlier this year. DPAA used the samples to positively identify Quentin’s earthly remains. Now he’s finally on his way to the bosom of his family, his 80-year-old sister June Shoen and his brother, 93-year-old Harold Gifford.

June Shoen, 80, said she cried when she received the news.

“Seventy-five years ago I was 6 years old at the time. I vaguely remember a Mass was held at the Catholic Church in Mankato,” said Shoen, who grew up in Mankato and lives in Angle Inlet now. Her only specific memory of Quentin is of sitting on his lap as he played a guitar.

[…]

“Quentin deserves to be honored with a ceremony,” said Harold, who also served in World War II. He credits success in life to advice from his brother, who was four years his senior.

“He is the reason I joined the Air Corps,” Harold said, referring to the predecessor to the Air Force.

Thanks to Sgt K for the link.

According to KTVT, Howard Banks, a 92-year-old veteran who was blinded at the battle for Iwo Jima was assaulted when he tried to prevent criminals from defacing his flag at his home in Kaufman, Texas.

“I walked out, hanging onto the railing, and stepped down. That must’ve startled them,” Banks said.

Banks said the first time this happened, about a year ago, someone shredded his American flag and ripped his Marine flag. He was determined not to let that happen again.

“They could see me. I couldn’t see them. I turned and looked in the other direction, and about then – wham! One of them knocked me down,” Banks said.

Whoever did it took off. Neighbors rushed in to help Banks up. His knee was left a little twisted, he said, and he suffered bumps and bruises.

Some Marines at Honor Flight Austin heard about the incident and went to visit with him according to the Washington Times;

On Sunday, he was paid a visit by fellow Marine veterans from Honor Flight Austin, who offered him a free trip to Washington, D.C. to see the National World War II Memorial.

“You know, first, you start messing with the American flag, I get real hot under the collar. And then, when I found out that they yanked the Marine Corps flag down, that made my bottom spicy,” Michael Jernigan, a Marine corporal with the Blinded American Veterans Foundation, told Fox.

“This guy is living history. He’s a national treasure. People should be lined up on his porch to talk to him, not ripping his flags down,” added Honor Flight Austin Director Kory Ryan.

Stars & Stripes reports the sad news that Dawn Seymour has passed at the tender age of 100 years.

Seymour was one of the 1,102 women who served as a WASP during World War II and among a small number of Women’s Airforce Service Pilots to complete training on the four-engine B-17 bomber. Seymour and her fellow WASPs flew bombers and other warplanes in the U.S. to free up male pilots for combat service overseas.

“There were two motivations of the WASPs,” Seymour told the Daily Messenger in 2015 from her home above Canandaigua Lake. “To serve our country and to help win the war.”

Ms. Seymour was from my neck of the woods in the Finger Lakes area of New York, and she’s been featured in several venues related to her war-time service as she worked tirelessly to remember those women who served with her. According to S&S, she was honored just last week at the National Warplane Museum air show in Geneseo, NY.

A memorial service to celebrate her life will be held Monday, July 24, at 4:30 p.m. at Third Presbyterian Church, corner of Meigs St. & East Ave., Rochester. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the National WASP WWII Museum, P.O. Box 456, Sweetwater, TX 79556. Arrangements are by Johnson-Kennedy Funeral Home, Inc., Canandaigua. Condolences may be offered at www.johnsonkennedy.com.

Military.com reports that Rear Admiral Jon C. Kreitz has been assigned as the deputy director for operations of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA);

The Pentagon has tapped Navy Rear Adm. Jon C. Kreitz to be the next deputy director for operations of the agency that searches for, recovers and identifies missing American war dead from around the world.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, with a budget of $112 million, has the bulk of its operations based out of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, with about 400 personnel in Hawaii.

According to the Navy, Admiral Kreitz initially enlisted in the Navy as a machinist mate and rose through the ranks from there, commissioned through the Navy’s Reserve Officer Training Corps program at Georgia Institute of Technology.

DPAA ha been doing an outstanding job of returning the earthly remains of our brothers to their bereaved families in the last few years. We hope that continues under Rear Admiral Kreitz.

Chief Tango sends us links to the news that Corporal Edward Lee Borders will be returned to his family in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 66 years after he died as a POW in Korea;

Borders was a member of D Battery, 82nd Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion (Automatic Weapons), 2nd Infantry Division, at the time when American units began supporting South Korean Army attacks against units of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Forces (CPVF) in an area known as the Central Corridor in North Korea.

D Battery was part of a group known as Support Force 21 (SF21) and provided artillery fire support for the South Korean Army during its attack north on Hongch’on.

On the evening of Feb. 11, 1951, the CPVF launched a massive counter offensive against the South Koreans, who were forced to withdraw, leaving Borders’ unit and the rest of SF21 behind at Changbong-ni.

The SF 21 marched south along Route 29, fighting through ambushes and roadblocks, to Hoengsong and eventually to the city of Wonju. Borders was reported missing in action as of Feb. 13, 1951, when he did not report with his unit in Wonju.

A list provided by the CPVF and Korean People’s Army (KPA) on Dec. 26, 1951, reported Borders died while a prisoner of war.

His niece, Phyllis Walker, will be on hand when his remains arrive from Hawaii next Saturday;

“I wish it could have been sooner. I wish my dad and his two brothers could have seen this. I wish my mother, who always kept his picture next to my dad’s picture, could have seen this day. But he is coming home, and I am touched by how this all came to be.”

Walker said at least Borders’ nieces and nephews, Linda Becker, Cindy Easterlin, Fred Borders and Rusty Borders will all be together again to see Edward Lee laid to rest.

Services for U.S. Army Reserve Cpl Edward Lee Borders will take place at 11 a.m. Saturday, July 29, at J.M. Weirauch Funeral Home in Harrisburg, with the Rev. Chris Winkleman officiating.

Internment with full military honors will follow at Cottage Grove Cemetery. Visitation will be 9 a.m. Saturday, July 29 at the funeral home.