US Navy Pier, Chicago, Illinois, during WWII. USS Wolverine (on left) alongside the USS Sable.
With possible threats posed by German and Japanese submarines along the United States (US) Atlantic and Pacific coastlines, US Navy Commander Richard L. Whitehead had the idea to train Navy pilots in takeoffs and landings on aircraft carriers in the North American Great Lakes. Ingenuity was necessary to make this happen since there were no US Navy aircraft carriers in the Great Lakes.
Two paddlewheel passenger steamers already operating on the Great Lakes were converted to “sweetwater” aircraft carriers. “Sweetwater” was a Navy slang word of the time used to describe freshwater versus saltwater ships.
One of the two ships converted to an aircraft carrier was the Steam Ship (SS) Seeandbee which was commissioned the United States Ship (USS) Wolverine on August 12, 1942. The other ship, originally the SS Greater Buffalo, was renamed and commissioned the USS Sable on May 8, 1943. Basically, their superstructures were removed, and a flight deck was added.
SS Greater Buffalo before conversion to USS Sable
SS Greater Buffalo during conversion
USS Sable in Lake Michigan with Grumman Wildcat taking off
The homeport for these two “makeshift” aircraft carriers was the Chicago, Illinois, US Navy Pier located on Lake Michigan. Pilots attempting to qualify for aircraft carrier duty flew from US Naval Air Station Glenview, Illinois, to train on these ships.
Over 17,000 pilots were trained in takeoffs and landings. One US Navy aviator who trained on the USS Sable was a future President of the United States, George H. W. Bush.
After WWII, some planes that were lost during training were brought up from the bottom of Lake Michigan. Recovered fighter planes have included a F4U-1 Corsair and a FM-2 Wildcat.
In 1917 Maria Dickin founded an animal charity People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA) in the United Kingdom. During WWII she introduced the Dickin Medal which honors the bravery and devotion to duty of animals in wartime. The medal is considered to be the animal equivalent of the British Victoria Cross. Recipients of the award have included pigeons, dogs, horses, and a cat. Below are the stories of three of the animal heroes.
Rip wikipedia.org 1941
Southill Street Air Raid Warden Mr. E. King found a stray dog in the Poplar area of East London in 1940. It was discovered that Rip had an instinctive ability to find people buried beneath the rubble of buildings bombed by the German Luftwaffe during the London Blitz (1940-1941). He is credited with saving the lives of over 100 people. Rip was London’s first “search and rescue” dog.
Rip’s Dickin Award Citation: “For locating many air-raid victims during the Blitz of 1940.”
William of Orange
Pigeon, William of Orange, served with the British Army Pigeon Service (APS) in WWII. When elements of the British 1st Airborne Division and the 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade were surrounded by German forces near the town of Arnhem, Netherlands, during Operation Market Garden (September 17-25, 1944), the pigeon was released with a message to carry back to England. He flew over 250 miles through bad weather in 4 hours and 25 minutes to his home loft there. His flying speed was calculated at nearly 60 miles per hour or 1,740 yards per minute. The information in the message was used to develop a troop withdrawal plan (called Operation Berlin) which resulted in over 2,000 British and Polish soldiers escaping through German lines.
William of Orange Dickin Medal Citation: “For delivering a message from the Arnhem Airborne Operation in record time for any single pigeon, while serving with the APS in September 1944.”
Judy on the deck of HMS Grasshopper
Judy was an English Pointer born in Shanghai, China, in 1936 and became a British Royal Navy ship mascot on His Majesty’s Ship (HMS) Gnat and later on the gunboat HMS Grasshopper.
The HMS Grasshopper was sunk February 14, 1942, during the Malaya-Singapore Campaign (1941-1942). Judy, with surviving HMS Grasshopper crew members, was marooned for a time on an uninhabited island off of Sumatra. She was able to locate fresh water on the island for them to drink. They eventually made their way to Sumatra, and after trekking 200 miles through the jungle, they were captured by the Japanese and became prisoners of war (POW). The crew members smuggled Judy into the POW camp with them.
It was at the Medan, Indonesia, Gloergoer POW camp that Judy met Royal Air Force Leading Aircraftsman Frank Williams in 1942. In the POW camp Judy would snarl and growl at Japanese guards who were beating POWs. Frank Williams knew this kind of behavior would probably result in Judy being killed. He convinced the camp commandant to register the dog as a POW hoping that would save her life. It worked. Judy became POW #81A.
In 1944, Medan camp POWs, including Judy, were put on the Steam Ship (SS) Van Waryck which was to transport them to Singapore. A torpedo from the British submarine HMS Truculent sank the ship on June 26. Judy, Frank Williams, and other POWs survived the sinking. While they were in the water, it is said Judy would swim over to drowning men, let them grab hold of her, and then swim with them to some debris or wreckage that would help them stay afloat. All were again captured by the Japanese and spent the rest of the war in a POW camp in Sumatra.
In 1945 WWII ended. Being hidden yet another time, Judy was smuggled back to Britain on the SS Atenor with Frank Williams and other released POWs. Frank Williams credited Judy with saving his life. He said she lifted his morale and gave him a reason to live in order to protect her.
Judy’s Dickin Medal Citation: “For magnificent courage and endurance in Japanese prison camps, which helped to maintain morale among her fellow prisoners and also for saving many lives through her intelligence and watchfulness.”
The award of the Dickin Medal continues today.
Sir William Proctor Smith of Cheshire, England, the original owner and breeder of William of Orange, bought the pigeon from the APS after WWII ended. Smith commented, some 10 years later, that William of Orange was “the grandfather of many outstanding racing pigeons.”
Judy was the only dog registered as a POW in WWII. She spent the rest of her life with Frank Williams after the war.
Thank you to W. O’Konski for his assistance in writing this story.
Alfred Lubojacky. Photograph courtesy of Lubojacky Family.
Sergeant Lubojacky’s body was found near the Czechoslovakian village of Merboltice on February 15, 1945. A partially opened parachute lay next to him. Where the Germans buried him remains a mystery.
Alfred S. Lubojacky, known to his family as Buddy, was born January 29, 1924, in Texas. He was one of eight children born to Joseph and Louise Lubojacky. Both his paternal and maternal grandparents had immigrated to the United States (US) from Czechoslovakia in the late 1800s. Alfred grew up working on the family farm and spoke both English and Czech.
In 1944 Alfred joined the US Army Air Corps and was trained as a B-17 “Flying Fortress” gunner. His brother, Roman, was already serving in the US Army in Europe. Before Alfred left the US for England in November of 1944, he travelled home to Texas for a visit with his family and his girlfriend, Katherine.
In England Alfred was assigned as a B-17 ball turret* gunner with the 8th Air Force, 306th Bomb Group, 369th Bomb Squadron, based at Thurleigh.
On February 14, 1945, the bombing target was the marshalling (railroad) yards at Dresden, Germany. After dropping the bombs, the B-17s were attacked by German Fockewulf (FW)-190 fighter planes. Machine gun and cannon fire from a FW-190 hit the right wing and fuselage of Sergeant (SGT) Lubojacky’s plane. SGT McDonough, the waist gunner, SGT Nahmias, the tail gunner, and SGT Lubojacky were wounded. The damaged B-17 was forced to drop out of flying formation.
Captain (CPT) Lewis, the pilot, knew the plane would not make it back to England. He decided to fly into Czechoslovakia and try to land behind the Russian ally front line there.
The situation in the B-17 worsened. Fires were burning in the fuselage and the Number 3 engine. CPT Lewis gave the order to bail out. While preparing to leave the plane, SGT McDonough saw SGT Lubojacky’s head above the ball turret escape hatch. He was conscious, but there was blood on his head. Lieutenant (LT) Whitelaw, the co-pilot, also saw SGT Lubojacky when he was climbing out of the ball turret. What happened to him after that is unknown.
CPT Lewis was the last to bail out. He set the plane to fly in a specific direction hoping it would come down in a unpopulated area. The B-17 crashed in a field near the Czechoslovakian village of Hridelec.
All the crew managed to bail out. Eight of the nine crew members became prisoners of war. SGT Lubojacky was killed.
SGT Lubojacky’s body was found on February 15, 1945, by the local police near the Czechoslovakian village of Merboltice (called Mertendorf by the Germans). A document has been found indicating that he may have been buried in the Czechoslovakian village of Vernerice cemetery.
In the early hours of February 14, 1945, and around the same time the B-17 crashed in Czechoslovakia, Alfred’s mother in Texas had a dream. In the dream he was crying, and she asked him what was wrong. He said, “I’ll never get to see Katherine again.”
A Western Union telegram dated March 3, 1945, informed the Lubojacky family that Alfred was missing in action.
Telegram to Lubojacky family reporting Alfred S. Lubojacky is missing in action. Photograph of telegram courtesy of the Lubojacky Family.
Alfred’s family has never given up hope that they will someday locate his grave. And then they will bring him home.
Czech Republic historian, Milos Podzimek, wrote, “Alfred died on 14 February 1945 for our freedom in the country of his ancestors, but he will live forever in our hearts.” Milos and his son have done extensive and detailed research on Alfred’s plane. Their information has been invaluable in putting together the story of the fate of the B-17 and its crew.
Story as told to me by Walter Lubojacky, Alfred’s brother. The photographs and story are posted with his permission.
After no further information was found indicating that he was alive, SGT Alfred S. Lubojacky was officially declared killed in action a year later on February 15, 1946.
Katherine married after WWII. In later years she sometimes attended Lubojacky family reunions. Katherine died in 2008.
All of Alfred’s B-17 crew members and his brother, Roman, returned to the US after WWII ended.
B-17 crew members:
CPT Boylston Lewis, Jr., Pilot LT Robert Whitelaw, Co-Pilot LT Lester Harrison, Navigator LT Joseph Sicard, Bombardier Technical SGT James Standlee, Jr., Flight Engineer SGT Hardin McChesney, Jr., Radio Operator SGT Frank McDonough, Waist Gunner SGT Leon Nahmias, Tail Gunner SGT Alfred Lubojacky, Ball Turret Gunner
In 1993, Czechoslovakia formally separated into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
* Ball turret — a rotating, manned, gun turret mounted on the underside of a US B-17 “Flying Fortress.”
Camp Shanks Historical Marker in Rockland County, New York. Photograph The Historical Society of Rockland County.
Camp Shanks was located in Orangeburg, New York, about 30 miles up the Hudson River from New York City. It served as a staging area to equip United States (US) military units in preparation for their embarkation to the European Theater of Operations in WWII.
US Army bombardment groups, infantry divisions, armoured divisions, medical groups, and other military units passed through Camp Shanks. The average stay was 12 days. It is estimated that 75% of those who took part in the Normandy, France, D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944, had been billeted there. One unit that was in transit at Camp Shanks was the 101st Airborne Division, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, E (Easy) Company. Easy Company later became well-known in the Stephen E. Ambrose book Band of Brothers and a HBO miniseries by the same name.
Camp Shanks, nicknamed “Last Stop, USA,” was a large military installation that had its own newspaper, orchestra, and baseball team. Celebrities of the time, Frank Sinatra, Jack Benny, the Andrews Sisters, and Jimmy Durante were among those who entertained the troops there.
One visitor to Camp Shanks was Archbishop Francis J. Spellman. He had been named Vicar for the US Armed Forces by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939. On one of the Archbishop’s visits there in 1943, a young US Army nurse, Lieutenant Josephine Pescatore, was in the audience.
Lieutenant Pescatore remembers the audience, of about 1,000 people, included individuals from various religious denominations. She says there was an atmosphere of apprehension in the air as those in attendance prepared for war and did not know if they would return home someday.
Archbishop Spellman gave everyone a prayer, the Act of Contrition, that he said was specially written for those in wartime.* There were many questions from those attending the gathering, such as “What do I do if I am wounded and dying and there is no priest there to say the prayer for me?” The Archbishop told them that someone other than a priest could say it for them, or they could say it themselves.
On June 12, 1944, Lieutenant Josephine Pescatore landed on Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, as a nurse with the US Army 24th Evacuation Hospital. The evacuation hospital treated and cared for the wounded and dying as it followed the troops through Europe. As a nurse, it was important to Lieutenant Pescatore to let dying men know they were not alone. When she knew a man was dying, she would go to his bedside, touch him gently, and say the Act of Contrition for him. She once told me … she didn’t know if a dying man had been able to say the prayer for himself, so she said it for him.
Act of Contrition
Forgive me my sins, O Lord, forgive me my sins; the sins of my youth, the sins of my age, the sins of my soul, the sins of my body; my idle sins, my serious voluntary sins, the sins I know, the sins I do not know; the sins I have concealed so long, and which are now hidden from my memory. I am truly sorry for every sin, mortal and venial, for all the sins of my childhood up to the present hour. I know my sins have wounded Thy tender Heart. O my Saviour, let me be freed from the bonds of evil through the most bitter Passion of my Redeemer. Amen
O my Jesus, forget and forgive what I have been.
Nihil Obstat:–Arthur J. Scanlan, S.T.D.
Imprimatur:–Francis J. Spellman, D.D.
April 8, 1941
* The Act of Contrition is a prayer to make peace with God.
Story as told to me by Lieutenant Josephine Pescatore Reaves. For her service in WWII, she was awarded the Bronze Star with Battle Citations for Normandy, Northern France, the Rhineland, and Central Europe.
The US Army 24th Evacuation Hospital admitted and treated 19,313 patients in WWII. The survival rate at the evacuation hospital was 98.39%.
In the future there will be more stories about the US Army 24th Evacuation Hospital and its people.
201st Fighter Squadron pilots after their first combat mission in the Philippines. Photograph Dr. Mario Longoria Collection.
After Germany declared war on the United States (US) on December 11, 1941, the German Navy expanded the area patrolled by its submarines and increased their activity along the Canadian and US Atlantic Ocean coastline and in the Gulf of Mexico. In May 1942 a German submarine sank two Mexican oil tankers, the Potrero del Llano and the Faja de Oro, which were carrying crude oil to the US. After those two incidents, Mexico President Manuel Avila Camacho formally declared war on Germany, Italy, and Japan on May 22, 1942.
President Camacho, after meeting with US President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Monterrey, Mexico, in April 1943, formed the 201st Mexican Expeditionary Air Force Fighter Squadron which became part of the Allied war effort. It was thought that the historical and cultural connections between the Philippines and Mexico, with the sharing of the Spanish language, would make the unit valuable in the Pacific Theater of Operations.
The 201st Fighter Squadron (FS) was composed of pilots and ground crew. Over 300 men volunteered to be part of the unit. Training of the FS and equipping it for combat operations was accomplished under provisions in the US Lend-Lease Agreement of June 11, 1942.
Formation of the 201st Mexican Fighter Squadron at Randolph Field, Texas.Photograph Dr. Mario Longoria Collection.
The 201st FS arrived at Randolph Field, San Antonio, Texas, in July 1944 for their initial phase of training.
Pilots were sent for flight training to Foster Field in Victoria, Texas, Pocatello Army Air Field, Idaho, and Majors Field in Greenville, Texas. They were trained in various aircraft including the T-6 trainer, P-40 Warhawk, and the P-47 Thunderbolt. Training for the ground crew took place at a number of military installations across the US.
It was during training in the US that the 201st FS got the nickname “Aztec Eagles.”
The 201st FS graduated at Majors Field, Greenville, Texas, on February 20, 1945, and was presented with its battle flag. Colonel Antonio Cardenas Rodriguez was the unit commander. Captain First Class Radames Gaxiola Andrade served as squadron commander.
In March 1945 the 201st FS left San Francisco, California, by ship and arrived in Manila, Philippines, on April 30, 1945. The unit was assigned to the US 5th Army Air Force, 58th Fighter Group, based at Porac near the Clark Field complex on the island of Luzon. After initially flying borrowed P-47 Thunderbolts, the 201st received 25 P-47s painted with both the insignia of the US and Mexico.
The 201st FS fought in the Battle of Luzon with the bombing of Japanese targets in Luzon and Formosa and provided ground support for the US Army 25th Infantry Division. The unit flew an estimated 59 combat missions between June and August 1945.
The 201st Mexican Expeditionary Air Force Fighter Squadron returned to Mexico November 18, 1945. They were welcomed back with a parade in Constitution Square in Mexico City. During the parade, Mexico President Manuel Avila Camacho was presented with their battle flag.
Thank you to Dr. Mario Longoria for his invaluable assistance in providing information for this post. The photographs are from his Mexico’s 201st Fighter Squadron Collection and are used with his permission.
Wojtek with a Polish Soldier. Photograph pinterest.com.
In September 1939 Germany and the Soviet Union invaded and divided Poland. Approximately two million Polish citizens were deported by the Soviets to labor camps or imprisoned. After Germany attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, with the subsequent Sikorski-Mayski Agreement of July 30, 1941, and the Polish-Soviet Military Agreement of August 14, 1941, the Soviets released thousands of Poles to fight with the Allies. Under the command of General Wladyslaw Anders, the Poles left the Soviet Union and made their way to the Middle East. Once there, the Poles formed the Polish II Corps and fought under British command.
A brown bear first became part of Polish WWII history in 1942. When the Poles reached Persia (Iran), they met a young boy who sold them a orphaned bear cub. The bear became a mascot for the Polish II Corps. The Polish soldiers named him Wojtek (Voytek in English). As the bear grew he became more than a mascot and fit very well into army life. He learned how to smoke, enjoy a beer, wrestle and relax with his fellow soldiers, eat army food, go on guard duty, salute, nod his head when addressed, and liked riding in trucks. Wojtek and his fellow soldiers developed a camaraderie that would last a lifetime.
Wojtek moved with the soldiers from Persia, to Palestine, to Iraq, and then to Egypt. When the Poles were preparing to sail from Egypt to Italy, a problem arose. The ship would only transport soldiers and supplies. It is said by some that General Anders officially “enlisted” Wojtek into the Polish Army at that time. Corporal Wojtek was listed as a soldier and left for Italy.
In Italy the Poles fought with other Allied countries in the famous Battle of Monte Cassino. In the fourth battle to capture the Benedictine monastery, the Poles reached the top of the mountain and raised the Polish flag on May 18, 1944.
Among the Polish units at Monte Cassino was the 22nd Transport Company. It was their responsibility to transport and distribute munitions, food, and fuel to the heavy artillery regiments. During the battle, one of the soldiers carrying munition boxes was Corporal Wojtek. Wojtek carrying a shell became the emblem of the company.
Emblem of Polish 22nd Transport Company. Photograph pinterest.com.
After WWII ended, the Polish II Corps sailed from Italy to Scotland and was demobilized. WWII had ended, but Poland was not an independent, free country again. Many Poles felt they were left homeless and chose not to return to Poland after the war.
But what would become of Corporal Wojtek?
It was decided to send Wojtek to the Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland. He had a new home, but like the Poles he was not free. There are stories of Poles who visited Wojtek at the zoo, threw him cigarettes which he ate, and proclaimed he still understood Polish. A touching story is told of a man who brought a violin to the zoo and played a Polish mazurka for Wojtek. It is said Wojtek “danced” with the music. Wojtek had the look of a bear but, indeed, had the heart of a Pole.
Wojtek was a popular resident at the Edinburgh Zoo but never again had his freedom or the camaraderie of his Polish friends. Wojtek died at the zoo on December 2, 1963. He was about 21 years old.
In a newspaper Letters to the Editor section after Wojtek died, a Londoner, Michael George Olizar wrote, “He left his bones, like many other Polish veterans, on British soil.”
Wojtek, the soldier bear, is still remembered and celebrated today. His story has been told in books, a BBC documentary, and there are statues and plaques dedicated in his memory around the world.
