Category: We Remember

Marine_7002 sends us the sad news that Joe Hosteen Kellwood, a Navajo code talker, has passed at the tender age of 95. He served with the 1st Marine Division at Cape Gloucester, Peleliu and Okinawa.

The Marine Corps tweeted out a video of Kellwood singing the Marine Corps’ Hymn in his native language;

Honor the Fallen

Yesterday, one of the last remaining Navajo Code Talkers passed away at 95 years old. pic.twitter.com/0og0yxKnDf

— U.S. Marines (@USMC) September 7, 2016

From Arizona Central;

In 1942, at age 21, he joined the Marines leaving behind the Navajo Nation and the dusty trails of home.

He told his sister, Da’ahijigaagoo deya, or, “I’m going to war.”

Kellwood passed just three days after his brother, Ron, passed at 101 years old.

The sad news comes to us that Hugh O’Brian, the actor who played Wyatt Earp on the television during my youngest days, has passed at the age of 91. He was a homeboy of mine, too, born in Rochester, New York as Hugh Charles Krampe. Like most of his generation, he was a veteran, according to Wiki;

O’Brian dropped out of the University of Cincinnati after one semester to enlist in the United States Marine Corps during World War II. At seventeen, he became the youngest Marine drill instructor.

After World War II ended, O’Brian moved to Los Angeles. He planned on becoming a lawyer and had been accepted at Yale University in the fall of 1947. He was dating an actress and attending her rehearsals of the Somerset Maugham’s play Home and Beauty when the the lead actor failed to show up. Director Ida Lupino asked him to read the lines. He got the part and the play received a tremendous review. An agent offered to sign O’Brian.

He changed his name after the show’s playbill misspelled his name as “Hugh Krape.” “I decided right then I didn’t want to go through life being known as Huge Krape, so I decided to take my mother’s family name,

HMC Ret sends us the link to the story of Marine Private First Class George Traver whose earthly remains will be laid next to his parents on August 28th in Chatham, New York after being buried in a mass grave with 35 other Marines on the island chain of Tarawa where he fell on November 20, 1943. His mother sent him a boy scout knife in 1942 while he was serving and that’s how his remains were identified initially;

Among the things in a report issued to the family was a Boy Scout knife found with the Marine’s body. His mother sent him a care package after he joined the service. In a letter to his mom, he said he would find good use for it and was glad to have it.

“When we got the report back from the recovery team one of the artifacts that they found on him was a knife,” nephew George Traver tells us. “And the description of it was a 3″ or a 4″ knife blade, bone case covering and a boy scout emblem on it. So it was almost like he carried something that meant something to him so much and mentioned about being home.”

As we’ve read so often this year, History Flight is responsible for the recovery of PFC Traver and many others on Tarawa where 1000 Americans were killed and another 2000 were wounded.

“There’s nothing sweeter than home,” said George Traver. “I don’t care where you are or what you do, home is important.”

Hondo told us that he’d been identified last month.

A few months ago, Hondo told us that Ensign John Charles England’s earthly remains had been identified by DPAA, now we hear that he’s finally on his way to his family. He lost his life aboard the USS Oklahoma during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. According to Wiki;

On the morning of December 7, 1941, just four days from his 21st birthday John C. England volunteered to work in the ship’s radio room for a friend so that he might have more time with his family when they arrived. That morning the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the USS Oklahoma was one of their first targets. Oklahoma was moored at Battleship Row 7, outboard alongside Maryland. USS Oklahoma took 3 torpedo hits almost immediately after the first Japanese bombs fell. As she began to capsize, 2 more torpedoes struck home, and her men were strafed as they abandoned ship. Within 20 minutes after the attack began, she had swung over until halted by her masts touching bottom, her starboard side above water, and a part of her keel clear.

Ensign England survived the initial attack and escaped topside as the ship was capsizing. He remembered the men still in the radio room. He returned three times to the radio room, each time guiding a man to safety. He left to go back below decks for the fourth time and was never seen again. He was one of twenty officers and 395 enlisted men who were killed on board USS Oklahoma that morning. Ensign England’s gallant effort saved three men, but cost him his life.

Today, he’s being laid to rest beside his parents by his granddaughter in Colorado Springs.

“Nobody loved him more than his mom and dad,” said Glenn. Her grandfather’s remains arrive in Colorado Springs on Friday and will be transported by formal procession to The Springs Funeral Services. The 10 a.m. graveside service at 1005 S. Hancock Ave. will be followed by a themed reception, with reenactors from the Evergreen Cemetery Benevolent Society, Colorado WWII Living Historians and autos from the Pikes Peak Chapter Veteran Motor Car Club of America.

“We’re stepping back in time and setting up the area around the chapel as if it was Dec. 6, 1941 – the day before Pearl Harbor,” said society director and reception organizer Dianne Hartshorn.

“I just wanted something special, not only for the people who come but for Bethany and her family. He’s a Pearl Harbor hero.”

The article also says that he was awarded the Medal of Honor, but not according to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.

Bobo sends us a link to DPAA which reports that Marine Corps 1st Lt. Stanley Johnson is on his way home after his earthly remains were identified dating from an aircraft crash in December, 1965;

On Dec. 3, 1965, Johnson was the co-pilot of an UH-34D helicopter assigned to Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 364, Marine Aircraft Group 36, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, tasked to insert Army of the Republic of Viet Nam troops into South Vietnam. Johnson’s aircraft, with three other Americans and nine Vietnamese soldiers onboard, was hit by enemy fire. At 100 to 200 feet above the ground with the entire cargo compartment in flames, the helicopter lost one of its main rotor blades, and crashed approximately 30 kilometers west of Tam Ky Town. Everyone onboard the aircraft was killed in the crash.

From the Virtual Wall;

Another pilot in the flight recalls what happened:

“We tried to go in as high as possible, though we were limited by somewhat low ceilings, which may have placed us approximately 2000 feet above ground level. The flight was in normal cruise when we reached the vicinity of UTM grid coordinates BY031273 where the Viet Cong fired on us with time delay fused mortars. Unfortunately Capt. Riley’s aircraft received a direct hit in the belly, where the fuel tanks were located, and they never stood a chance. Capt. Riley tried desperately to get the aircraft on the ground, but it was burning so fiercely he appeared to lose control and the aircraft rolled inverted and crashed. No one survived”
Kenneth L. Gross, Major USMC (Ret)

All thirteen men aboard died in the crash:

Capt Kirk Irwin Riley, pilot;
1st Lt Stanley Garwood Johnson, copilot;
Cpl Warren Leigh Dempsey, gunner;
Cpl Robert Henry White, crew chief; and
nine unknown South Vietnamese soldiers.

The remains of Captain Kirk, Corporal Dempsey, and Corporal White were recovered and identified, but the remains of 1st Lt Johnson could not be individually identified and he still is carried as “Body not Recovered”.

HMC Ret sends us the news that Dale Robert Geddes is coming home to Grand Island, Nebraska from his time on Betio Island after more than 70 years. He was killed in the battle in November 20-23, 1943 about a year after he enlisted in the Marine Corps;

Geddes’ casualty report, which was dated Oct. 18, 1949, said recovery of his remains was “improbable, if not impossible.” One reason is that his remains were buried along with others in an unmarked cemetery on the island, his family was told.

[…]

Geddes’ surviving family members were notified last year that his remains might finally be identified. Linda Elliott, of Aurora, Colorado, a great-niece of Geddes’, called the news of his identification “an unexpected gift.”

From the Omaha World-Herald;

A March 17, 1944, story in the Grand Island Independent said Geddes “had removed first-aid materials from his kit and was about to bandage his buddy’s wounds when he was hit … probably by the same sniper who wounded his buddy.”

[…]

Geddes’ closest relatives on Dale Geddes’ father’s side who still live in Hall County are the granddaughters of William G. Geddes’ siblings. They are John Robert Geddes’ granddaughters, Judy (Geddes) Arends of Grand Island, Jane (Geddes) Allan of Wood River and Carol Bryant of Grand Island.

The recovery of Mr. Geddes’ earthly remains was the result of the efforts of History Flight the organization that has taken on the task of identifying the remains of more than a thousand sets of remains on Betio.

Poetrooper writes to remind us that today marks five years since the Boeing CH-47 Chinook, call sign Extortion 17, was shot down in Wardak province, west of Kabul, Afghanistan with all hands; 25 American special operations personnel, five United States Army National Guard and Army Reserve crewmen, seven Afghan commandos, one Afghan interpreter and a US working dog named “Bart”. They were on their way to reinforce a group of Army Rangers who stepped in some shit while they were looking for a senior Taliban commander, Qari Tahir.

SGT Alexander J. Bennett
SPC Spencer Duncan
CWO Bryan J. Nichols
CWO David R. Carter
SSG Patrick D. Hamburger
TSgt John W. Brown
SSgt Andrew W. Harvell
TSgt Daniel L. Zerbe
PO1 (SEAL) Darrick C. Benson
CPO (SEAL) Brian R. Bill
PO1 (SEAL) Christopher G. Campbell
PO1 Jared W. Day
PO1 John Douangdara
CPO (SEAL) John W. Faas
CPO (SEAL) Kevin A. Houston
Lt. Cmdr. (SEAL) Jonas B. Kelsall
MCPO (SEAL) Louis J. Langlais
CPO (SEAL) Matthew D. Mason
CPO (SEAL) Stephen M. Mills
CPO Nicholas H. Null
PO1 (SEAL) Jesse D. Pittman
SCPO (SEAL) Thomas A. Ratzlaff
CPO (SEAL) Robert J. Reeves
CPO (SEAL) Heath M. Robinson
PO2 (SEAL) Nicholas P. Spehar
PO1 Michael J. Strange
PO1 (SEAL) Jon T. Tumilson
PO1 (SEAL) Aaron C. Vaughn
SCPO Kraig M. Vickers
PO1 (SEAL) Jason R. Workman
Navy SEAL Dog “Bart”

Our buddy, LD Jefferies sends this picture he took;

Could you please post this picture I took at Pararescueman Tsgt John Browns interment in Arlington. I think it speaks so powerfully of the pain and loss of one of this country’s greatest assets. The picture is of John’s casket after all the attendees pounded their Pararescue, CCT and SEAL flashes into John’s casket. His bride, Tabitha, is standing at his casket as the men send their comrade to Valhalla.