The German Resistance: The WWII Story of Otto and Hanna Kiep

 

Dr. Otto Kiep and his wife, Hanna, circa 1920s.  Private, undated photograph; Commemoration of German Resistance.

 

“He was never famous, and hardly anyone now remembers his name, but he was a very special kind of man ….  It was his honesty which led to his death.  He refused to tell lies to his friends at a time when telling the truth was a crime.”  From Ice Set Free: The Story of Otto Kiep by Bruce Clements.

 

Otto Carl Kiep was born on July 7, 1886, in Saltcoats, Ayrshire, Scotland, to the Imperial German Consul for Glasgow and Western Scotland Johannes and Charlotte Kiep.  His father and uncle had a timber importing business in Glasgow.  Otto had three brothers and one sister.  By 1909 the family had moved back to Germany and lived in Ballenstedt in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt.  

Otto Kiep earned a Bachelor of Law degree in London, England, and a Doctor of Law degree from the University of Leipzig in Germany. 

In 1925 when he met his future wife, Hanna Alves, Dr. Kiep was the Reich Chief Press Officer of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933).

Hanna Alves was born February 10, 1904, in Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, Germany.  She studied law and political science in Berlin, Germany; Geneva, Switzerland; and Oxford, England.

Otto and Hanna met at a party in Berlin in February 1925 at the home of a mutual friend.  They were married December 14, 1925, at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin.  

On December 20, 1926, Hanna gave birth to their first child, a son, they named Nikolaus Friedrich Albrecht Kiep.  They called him Albrecht.

 

Portrait of Hanna Kiep in 1928 with her two year old son, Albrecht.  Photograph credit ullstein bild/GRANGER.

 

From December 1926 to 1929 Otto served as Counselor to the German Embassy in Washington, District of Columbia (D.C.), in the United States (US).  It would be the first of his two German government postings there.  

The Kiep family returned to Germany in 1929, and their second child, Hildegard, was born August 10, 1929, in Berlin-Dahlem.

In 1932 Dr. Kiep was in New York City, New York, serving as the German Consul General.  

 

Photograph caption: German literary genius honored at City Hall. Dr. Gerhart Hauptmann, the most distinguished figure in the literature of Germany across a generation, was formally honored today, Feb. 26, with a reception at New York City Hall. Left to right [first row], on the steps of City Hall, during the ceremonies, are: Dr. O.C. Kiep, German Consul General; Major William Deegan; Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University; Mrs. Gerhart Hauptmann; Gerhart Hauptmann; Mayor Walker and Victor Ridder, Publisher of a German newspaper in New York.  Photograph taken at New York City Hall on February 26, 1932, by ACME Newspictures, Inc. 

 

Eleven months after the above photograph was taken Adolph Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933.  The Weimar Republic had ended, and so began the rise of the Third Reich which lasted until May 1945.

On March 16, 1933, Dr. Kiep spoke at a dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City in honor of German mathematician Dr. Albert Einstein.  He made complimentary remarks about the United States and Dr. Einstein in the speech.  The comments were brought to the attention of the German government and Chancellor Hitler.  Dr. Kiep was summoned back to Germany and had a personal meeting with Hitler.  In the Bruce Clements’ book From Ice Set Free: The Story of Otto Kiep Otto told of being lectured for ten minutes by Adolph Hitler on the future of the Third Reich.  He also observed that Hitler did not just look at you, but he “watched you.”

Their third child, Hanna Charlotte, was born in New York City on June 2, 1933.

After continuing pressure from the National Socialist Party,  Otto wrote a letter of resignation as German Consul General on July 15, 1933.

From 1934 to early 1936 Dr. Kiep represented the German Foreign Ministry in business negotiations in South America and East Asia.  In 1936 he was chosen as the German representative to the International Committee on Non-Intervention in London, England.  He and Hanna would return to Germany in August 1939.

On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland.  WWII began.

The Abwehr … a secret nest of German Resistance.  By the end of September 1939 Otto had been drafted into the German military counter-intelligence service, the Abwehr, and worked for Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, Chief of the Abwehr, and Wehrmacht General Hans Oster.  Shortly before the start of WWII, Hans Oster recruited Hans von Dohnányi, a German jurist into the Abwehr.  

[Hans von Dohnányi was the brother-in-law of German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  In 1941 he brought Dietrich into the Abwehr under the pretense that his “ecumenical contacts” would be of assistance to Germany.  Dietrich would become a courier within the German Resistance movement.

Admiral Canaris, initially supported Hitler, but by 1939 he and other anti-Nazis were working secretly to subvert the Nazi government.  He and many other resisters would eventually be arrested for treason and executed.]

The Solf Circle.  Dr. Kiep and others had social connections to resistance groups.  One such group was the Solf Circle.  Hanna Solf, the widow of Dr. Wilhelm Solf who had served in the Weimar Republic, would bring together German intellectuals to discuss the war.  A member of the Solf Circle, Elizabeth von Thadden, on September 10, 1943, hosted a birthday party and invited Dr. Paul Reckzeh who claimed to be a Swiss physician and sympathetic to the German Resistance.  He was in reality a Gestapo spy.  Many of the guests at the party would later be arrested.  [Dr. Reckzeh would be the main witness at Otto Kiep’s trial that began on July 1, 1944.  He took the witness stand wearing his SS uniform.]

Dr. Otto Kiep was arrested at his home at Taubertstrasse 15, Berlin-Grunewald on January 16, 1944, at four o’clock in the morning.  Hanna Kiep was arrested later that month.  

Ravensbrück Concentration Camp.  After days of interrogation Otto was transported to the German concentration camp of Ravensbrück 56 miles (90 kilometers) north of Berlin.  He was put in a cell below ground in the cell building.  Hanna was also taken to Ravensbrück and imprisoned on the top floor of the cell building.  Neither knew the other was there until they caught a glimpse of one another in late February when both were being moved within the building; they knew to give no sign of recognition of each other.

[Ravensbrück concentration camp was established as a women’s camp in 1939, but in 1944 the “Lange Special Commission” of the Gestapo, which had moved from Berlin because of Allied air raids, used the Ravensbrück cell building to hold and interrogate “special prisoners” such as those involved with the Solf Circle and those later arrested in connection with the 20 July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler.

Nina Schenk Countess von Stauffenberg, wife of 20 July failed assassin Colonel (Oberst) Claus von Stauffenberg, was one of the “special prisoners” held at Ravensbrück.]

Some of the “special prisoners” managed to write letters and keep a diary during their incarceration and had added privileges as compared to other prisoners in the main camp.  Being able to secretly communicate with one another through letters and notes was a way Otto and Hanna provided each other solace.  Otto knew he would be executed, and while in Ravensbrück he wrote his memoir for his children.

In their communications with each other at Ravensbrück Otto and Hanna would recall past times in their lives.  Before Christmas of 1944 they had read aloud the novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder.  In a note to Hanna, Otto recalled a passage from the book:  “… soon we shall die and … be loved for a while and forgotten.  But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them.  Even memory is not necessary for love.  There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”  He wrote a poem to her “The Bridge of Love.”  While walking in the yard of the cell building compound during an allowed prison exercise period, Otto looked up at the window of the cell that he knew was hers.  Hanna had written the word BRIDGE on a note card and held it up to the glass window.

In June 1944, on a Sunday afternoon, Otto and Hanna were allowed to meet for a short time.  The SS guards were not on duty on weekends.  Another guard, knowing Otto would soon be moved to Berlin for his trial, allowed them a visit.  

Both Otto and Hanna had shared a love of the play Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.  In the play Faust, the protagonist, speaks of spring and Easter.  He goes on an Easter Walk (Osterspaziergang) and during the walk in nature, begins to feel that Easter is a time symbolic of a personal rebirth.  This is a sentence of Faust’s speech as quoted in Bruce Clements’ book:

“From ice set free are brooks and river,

Touched by spring’s fair, life-giving glance,

And in the valley new hope blooms.”

As Otto Kiep walked out of Ravensbrück concentration camp for the last time to be put on trial in Berlin, he glanced up at Hanna’s cell window and saw cards with the words “From ice set free…”

 

Dr. Otto Carl Kiep.  Photograph German Resistance Memorial Center, Berlin, Germany.

 

Dr. Otto Carl Kiep’s trial began in Berlin on July 1, 1944.  He was convicted and sentenced to death.

Hanna Kiep was released from Ravensbrück on July 6, 1944.

On August 26, 1944, Dr. Kiep was hanged at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin.

 

After WWII Hanna Kiep worked in the American occupation zone to establish a civil administration.  While working with the Americans she recognized one of her interrogators at Ravensbrück.  Her testimony led to his arrest.

In 1946 Hanna was Vice-President of the Bavarian Red Cross in Munich.

From 1951-1969 Mrs. Hanna Kiep was the Women’s Affairs Secretary of the German Embassy in Washington, D.C.

 

Mrs. Hanna Kiep Women’s Affairs Secretary of the German Embassy in Washington, D.C.  Official portrait German Embassy.

 

Hanna Kiep died in Pullach, Germany, on August 22, 1979.

She was survived by her daughters, Hildegard and Hanna.  Her son, Albrecht, was killed on the Eastern Front in WWII.

 

 

 

The personal accounts of the lives of Otto and Hanna Kiep used in this story are found in the book From Ice Set Free: The Story of Otto Kiep written by Bruce Clements.  Mr. Clements was the son-in-law of Hanna Kiep and the husband of Hanna’s daughter, Hanna Charlotte.

Thank you to German historian Dr. Susanne Meinl for assistance in locating information sources and in the research for this story about Otto and Hanna Kiep.

Thank you to Dr. Insa Eschebach, Director, and Cordula Hundertmark, Deputy Director and Head of Scientific Services Department of the Ravensbrück Memorial Museum, for their assistance in my research for this story. 

Thank you to G. L. Lamborn for his research assistance.

Thank you to Professor Charles Hansen for the translation of German documents used in this story.

In August 1971 on a trip with my uncle, US Congressman Alvin E. O’Konski and his wife, Bonnie, I met Mrs. Kiep at a luncheon in Munich, Germany.  They had become friends in Washington, D.C., when Hanna was posted there with the German Embassy.  I remember her as a gracious lady.  Little then did I know of her life and losses in WWII.

 

 

S. R. O’Konski, Author
World War 2 History Short Stories
Website: ww2history.org
© All Rights Reserved

WWII Japanese “Hell Ships”: And the Story of US Army Private First Class Albert Deets

US Army Private First Class Albert Donaldson Deets.

 

Albert “Ab” Donaldson Deets was born September 22, 1919, in Dodd City, Fannin County, Texas.  He was the last of eleven children born to John and Mary Deets who farmed in the area.  He was delivered by Doctor J. M. Donaldson, and Ab received his middle name from the physician.

Ab graduated from Ector (Texas) High School.  He was tall for his day at 6 feet 4 inches.  On December 2, 1939, he enlisted in the United States (US) Army.  He already had two brothers in the US military.

 

Photograph given by US Army Sergeant John Deets (L) and US Navy Petty Officer Clifford Deets to their mother for her birthday.

 

Ab’s brother John Deets enlisted in the US Army in 1935.  His skill in baseball was noticed by a baseball scout, and the Cincinnati Reds bought out John’s US Army contract in 1937.  “Tex Deets” would spend the next three years pitching with several Cincinnati minor league teams including the Durham Bulls.  On September 27, 1940, he reenlisted in the US Army.  After the US entered WWII John transferred to the US Army Air Force and became a gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress.  He flew with the 8th Air Force, 306th Bombardment Group (BG), 369th Bombardment Squadron (BS) based at Thurleigh, Bedfordshire, England.  He completed the required 25 missions over Europe and was sent back to the US in December 1943.  In November 1944 John volunteered to fly again with a combat crew and was assigned to the 15th Air Force, 2nd BG, 429th BS, and flew 31 combat missions from Amendola Airbase near Foggia, Italy.

Clifford Deets, another of Ab’s brothers, enlisted in the US Navy on September 8, 1935.  He served on a number of ships and was temporarily attached to the United States Ship (USS) Drayton in July 1937 to search for Amelia Earhart after her plane disappeared on a flight over the Pacific Ocean.  During the Battle of Okinawa (April 1 – June 22, 1945) Clifford was assigned to the USS Neshoba that landed the US Army 96th Infantry Division in the first wave of beach landings on the island.  By the end of WWII he had attained the US Navy rank of Lieutenant.

In WWII many families had more than one child in the conflict.  John and Clifford Deets returned home after the war.

Ab did not come home.  His grave site is officially recorded as latitude 20 degrees and 41 minutes north and longitude 118 degrees 27 minutes east in the Bashi Straits of the South China Sea.

Ab’s story.

After Ab trained at Fort D. A. Russell located in Marfa, Texas, he was sent to Fort Mills a US Army post located on the island of Corregidor in the Philippine Islands.  Private First Class (PFC) Albert Deets was assigned to the US Army 60th Coast Artillery Regiment, Battery K.

[The Philippines were part of the Spanish Colonial Empire for over 300 years until Spain’s defeat in the 1898 Spanish – American War.  After the war the Philippines became a territory of the US.

The Japanese attacked the Philippines nine hours after the December 7, 1941, surprise attack at Pearl Harbor on the Hawaiian island of Oahu.  

As the Japanese advanced through the Philippines General Douglas A. MacArthur, Commander of the US Army Forces in the Far East, consolidated US and Filipino forces in a defensive position on the Bataan Peninsula.  The Battle of Bataan (January 7 – April 9, 1942) ended with the surrender of approximately 75,000 Filipino and American defenders.  The prisoners were marched an estimated 65 miles (104 kilometers) in what became known as the Bataan Death March. Estimates of casualties and losses during the march range from 5,650 to 18,000 Filipinos and Americans.

Corregidor was the largest of four fortified islands guarding the entrance to Manila Bay and was the last stronghold in the Philippines to fall to the Japanese in 1942.  It is from this island that General MacArthur escaped to Australia in March 1942 and famously vowed “I shall return” to the Philippines.  The final battle for Corregidor (May 5 – 6, 1942) ended with the capitulation of approximately 11,000 Filipinos and Americans including US Army and US Navy nurses.] 

PFC Deets was one of the 11,000 who became a Japanese prisoner of war (POW) when Corregidor fell.  He was sent to POW Camp Cabanatuan near Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija, Philippines.

Cabanatuan was the largest Japanese POW camp in the Far East.  At its peak it held 8,000 prisoners.  Most prisoners were Americans, but some Allies and civilians were imprisoned there also.  On May 26, 1941, the first captured Americans from the Bataan Death March arrived.  On May 29, 6,000 POWs captured at Corregidor arrived.  More followed.  The camp had poor sanitation, limited water and food, and primitive medical care.  Dysentery, malaria, and cholera were common.  Reports from prisoners noted mistreatment and torture.  Ab was a prisoner there for almost 2 1/2 years.

 [Japan signed but did not ratify the Geneva Convention of 1929 so was not bound by the laws.]

In May 1942 the Japanese started transferring POWs by sea to places such as Japan, Manchuria, and other locations to be used as slave labor.  The ships had no markings or flag indicating they were carrying POWs.  Many ships were sunk unknowingly by US submarines and military aircraft.  It is estimated that over 21,000 Allied POWs died at sea during transport by the Japanese.

POW survivors report being shoulder to shoulder in the extremely hot cargo holds of “Hell Ships” without adequate water, food, and ventilation while standing in their excrement.  Some men died, and others lost their sanity.

In October 1944 1,600 POWs including PFC Albert Deets were taken from Cabanatuan to be transported and then to be used as slave labor in industries needed to meet Imperial Japan’s war demands for things such as coal and zinc.

On October 24, 1944, the Japanese freighter Arisan Maru carrying nearly 1,800 POWs was sunk by a US submarine.  According to US Navy records, the USS Shark II or the USS Snook may have been responsible for the sinking of the Arisan Maru in the Bashi Straits of the South China Sea.  Only nine POWs survived the sinking.

 

6,886-ton Japanese freighter Arisan Maru.

 

The Arisan Maru was torpedoed at approximately 5 pm and sank about two hours later.  Japanese destroyers picked up Japanese survivors, but no attempt was made to rescue the POWs.  The official grave site of PFC Albert Deets and the others lost in the sinking became latitude 20 degrees and 41 miles north and 118 degrees and 27 miles east in the South China Sea.  Ab was 25 years old.

Three months after Ab and the other POWs were taken from Cabanatuan US Army soldiers from the 6th Ranger Battalion and Alamo Scouts with 250 – 280 Filipino guerrillas liberated the remaining prisoners at the POW camp on January 30, 1945.

General Douglas MacArthur waded ashore on the Philippine island of Leyte on October 20, 1944, fulfilling his vow “I shall return.”

 

 

 

 

A memorial to those lost in the sinking of the Arisan Maru was dedicated on October, 24, 1999, in the Memorial Courtyard at the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas.

 

The National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas, currently has an exhibit “Prisoners Under the Rising Sun.”  Link to information on the exhibit which ends September 3, 2018, is http://www.pacificwarmuseum.org/news-events/.

Thank you to Clifford Deets, nephew of Albert “Ab” Deets, for sharing the story of his uncles and father.  Family photographs are used with his permission.

The story of the WWII liberation of Cabanatuan was the plot of a 2005 movie The Great Raid.

 

 

S. R. O’Konski, Author
World War 2 History Short Stories
Website: ww2history.org
© All Rights Reserved

 

A “Rosie” at Willow Run: The WWII Story of Katherine Sakalay Brown

Katherine Sakalay.   

 

“Rosie the Riveter” became a cultural icon in WWII history.  But not all “Rosies” used rivet guns.  During WWII women went to work in factories, shipyards, and munitions plants.  They made war supplies and did industrial work when the men went off to war.  This story is about a “Rosie” named Katherine (Kay) Sakalay who worked (without a rivet gun) at Willow Run in Ypsilanti, Michigan, where Consolidated  B-24 Liberator heavy bombers were produced during WWII.

 

In 1942 artist  J. Howard Miller was commissioned by the Westinghouse Company War Production Coordination Committee to make posters for the war effort.  This is one of his posters.  The poster itself was not known as “Rosie the Riveter” until after WWII.  Canada had a similar poster called “Ronnie, the Bren Gun Girl.”

 

Consolidated B-24 Liberator.

 

Willow Run is remembered as one of the major manufacturers of the WWII Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber.  The first B-24 rolled off the assembly line in September 1942.  By the end of WWII, 8,685 B-24s were produced at the Willow Run location.

 

In 2013 Kay wrote of her working life at Willow Run during WWII.  

 

March 9, 2013

I am Katherine Sakaly Brown.  I will be 90 years old this August and now live in San Antonio, Texas.

My parents George and Eva Sakaly immigrated from Greece, my father from Bergama (then Greece, not Turkey) in late 1910 and my mother from the island of Lesbos in the early 1920s, both coming through Ellis Island on a quota.  They met and married in 1921, and I was born in 1923 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where the stadium for the University of Michigan is now located.  They [the State of Michigan] declared my parents’ property eminent domain, and they had to move.  I was told I was born on the 40 yard line.

My parents moved to Petersburg, Michigan, about 60 miles north of Ann Arbor, built a home and grocery store with a gas station.  I went to school in Petersburg from 1st grade to high school graduation in 1941.

I was hired for my first job at Willow Run (Ypsilanti, Michigan) I believe in February 1942.  This plant was to build the B-24 bomber known as the Liberator.  At the time I started working only part of the structure was built, only the tool and dye shop was completed, and the remainder of the plant was wide open with construction.  We were given uniforms in about a year, and our name badges designated the area which you were supposed to be working.  The plant worked 3 shifts a day non-stop until 1945.  I believe it numbered something like 40,000 employees, trains were sent to the south to hire people to staff the factory, most of them never returned to their hometown.  All employees had to punch a time clock, in and out, and if you were a minute late you were docked 15 minutes of time.

Henry Ford was instrumental in building the factory, staffing, and producing the B-24 Bomber.  I remember seeing him walking through the plant at various times with a couple of his staff.  He was reported to be a stern, non-smoking, non-drinking, non-union individual.  There was no smoking in the factory at any time.  He did not live to see the final plane leave the plant, however, Henry Ford II was there when it was towed from the plant to the hangar.  There was a picture of this event, and I was seen in it, my rear view that is.

I first worked at a crib, which was a small station within the factory, keeping inventory of parts used and parts to be ordered.  From there I became something like a runner, taking small parts where they were needed.  Our lunch period was 15 minutes, and they would bring in caterers in portable chuck wagon types of structures.  You ate wherever you were standing or sitting.  The food was typical GI food in the military, served on metal trays; it was this or bring your own meals.  We had lockers on the second floor; these were located around the sides of the plant also the laboratories, etc. were on the balconies.

The parking lots were a nightmare.  You had to remember where your car was and which side of the plant you had parked or you would be there for hours looking for your transportation.  Car pooling was a must.  I had a 1940 Buick that we used when it was my turn to drive.  We changed cars, each passenger taking their turn, and we paid the driver when we were passengers.  I don’t remember how much we paid.  We had gas rationing; when you worked for a defense plant you had ample gas for your trips.  The coupons were a must for us.  During the first 2-3 years, most employees had to work all 3 shifts when their turn came.  Later on, when I was transferred out to the hangars, my shift remained on the day shift.

I wish I could remember when the first plane was finished and taken out to the hangar, but it was a great day for all of us.  The plant itself was a mile long in size, not counting the hangars and the administration building which were separate buildings.  From the parking lots one had to climb a very tall staircase to cross over to the factory itself, you could not walk in from the parking lot to the plant.  Your ID was checked when you got to the inside of the plant.  Badges were part of your anatomy, pictures, and IDs as to which part of the plant you had to access.

Underneath the balcony were offices for different officers to conduct their operations.  I wound up in one of them for quite some time.  There were offices up on the balconies also as well as a cafeteria later on.  If you did not have the proper identification you could not walk through the plant to look around.  You stayed in the area where you were assigned to work.  I never had anything to do with putting the airplane together;  I was always in a clerical type of job.  I never got inside of the B-24 until I was assigned to the hangar areas and then only to stow the confidential information aboard and get off.

There was an altitude chamber in the hangar which dropped the oxygen, temperature, etc. ranging from the ground level to several thousand feet in a very short time.  I got in it when it went up to 12,500 feet, and it was a light-headed feeling.  You were told to talk a bit when you were in various stages of rising altitude.  It was rather large, capable of holding several people at one time.

There was a huge mound on the grounds where they practiced shooting all the [B-24] guns.

When the planes were finished a factory pilot had to pre-flight the plane to make sure it was good enough to pass on to the United States Army Air Force.  When the weather was bad, this was Michigan, and we had a lot of nasty weather, the planes would stack up on the aprons until weather cleared up for a pre-flight.  When the planes were OK’ed by the crew, etc. they were turned over to the military that came in to ferry the aircraft where they were designated to go.  The pre-flight crew consisted of four men: a pilot, co-pilot, radio man, and flight engineer.  When they completed their check, then the plane was turned over to military pilots.  [Willow Run had 1,300 cots for military crews to sleep while they waited for their assigned B-24 to roll off the assembly line.]

 

B-24 Liberator Check List.

 

When it was no longer necessary for them to manufacture the B-24, the plant was shut down.  Their goal was to make a B-24 every hour.  I don’t know if that goal was ever reached by the end of WWII, I am sure it was.  [At its peak in 1944 a B-24 rolled off the Willow Run assembly line every 63 minutes.]

Over 8,600 aircraft were manufactured and an equal amount of parts manufactured for planes already in service.

 

In one of Kay’s great stories about Willow Run she tells of attending a meeting there with B-24 pilot James Stewart who was visiting the plant.  She said Hollywood actor Jimmy Stewart was a friendly, down-to-earth man who was very tall. 

In the late 1940s Kay accepted a job with the United States (US) State Department and worked for a time in post WWII Germany.  From Germany she relocated to Paris, France, and worked on special assignment to the US Ambassador.  For her entire life Kay had a special place in her heart for Paris.

In the 1950s Kay moved to Texas and became an assistant to then US Senator and future President of the US Lyndon B. Johnson.  

Kay married Harold Brown, a Texas businessman, in 1965 and spent the rest of her life in Texas.

Kay Sakaly Brown died on July 24, 2017, in San Antonio, Texas.  In August of that year she would have been 94 years old.

 

 

I knew Kay to be a wise and spirited lady.  She was a woman ahead of her time and a wonderful friend.

 

Certificate American Rosie the Riveter Association.

 

The Yankee Air Museum located in Belleville, Michigan, at the Willow Run Airport tells the story of the WWII Willow Run B-24 Bomber Plant.  The museum’s collections span the history of aviation from WWI to present day.  For more information about the Yankee Air Museum see http://yankeeairmuseum.org/.

 

 

S. R. O’Konski, Author
World War 2 History Short Stories
Website: ww2history.org
© All Rights Reserved

In Memory Of … WWII Nun Sister Emeldine

Sister Emeldine in Holland in March 1946.  Photograph courtesy of Josephine Pescatore Reaves. 

 

This story is in recognition of Dutch citizens who helped the Allies in WWII.

 

The United States (US) Army 24th Evacuation Hospital landed on Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, on June 12, 1944, six days after D-Day.  The unit followed Allied military operations through France, Belgium, and then to Holland in support of Operation Market Garden in September of 1944.  

From October 28 to December 2, 1944, the 24th Evacuation Hospital occupied the Saint Maarten Kliniek (Clinic) in Nijmegen, Holland.  This was their first hospital set up in an already existing building.  Prior to that the unit worked in a tent hospital setting.  The Kliniek had been used by the Germans when they occupied Holland.  

The Saint Maarten Kliniek is where this story takes place.

 

Top photograph of the front of Saint Maarten Kliniek in 1944.  Bottom photograph shows the back of the building damaged after nearby military operations.  Photographs courtesy of Josephine Pescatore Reaves. 

 

In a 2011 oral history interview 24th Evacuation Hospital nurse Lieutenant Josephine Pescatore Reaves tells of meeting Sister Emeldine and other nuns who cared for patients at the Kliniek.  

 

Photograph of Sister Emeldine and Lieutenant Josephine Pescatore Reaves taken at the back of the war damaged Saint Maarten Kliniek in 1944.  Photograph courtesy of Josephine Pescatore Reaves.  

 

Josephine shared a story in her interview about a US Army 101st Airborne Division soldier who was dying.  His name was John Kubinski.  She, Sister Emeldine, and a Catholic priest endangered their lives to grant John’s last request.

 

    

 

If the families of those lost in WWII had known that their loved ones did not die alone but were in the hands of caring people, it may have offered them some solace in their grief.

John Kubinski and Nick Patino were buried in US Temporary Cemetery 4655 at Molenhoek, Holland.  Their bodies were repatriated to the US after WWII ended.

 

Unfortunately I could not find further information about Sister Emeldine.  She did survive WWII as is attested by the 1946 photograph of her above.

On November 19, 1944, a German shell hit the hospital.  US Army physician Guy A. Myers and nurse First Lieutenant Katherine L. Foster were seriously wounded.

The photographs in this story are used with the permission of Josephine Pescatore Reaves.  The oral history video is used with the permission of the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas. 

A valuable website with extensive information on many of the US medical support units in WWII is WW2 US Medical Research Centre

There are three other stories on this website about the US Army 24th Evacuation Hospital.  The stories are WWII Camp Shanks, New York: And a Visit by Archbishop Spellman,  An Afternoon in Paris after Liberation: And a Letter from a Parisian Lady,  and The Medics: Those Who Took Care of the Wounded and the Dying in WWII .

 

 

S. R. O’Konski, Author
World War 2 History Short Stories
Website: ww2history.org
© All Rights Reserved

 

In Memory Of … Don Jones WWII US 2nd Marine Division

MARINE[1]
Private First Class James Donald Jones, US Marine Corps.

 

On a 2005 WWII in the Pacific cruise I met many WWII veterans who shared their personal experiences in conversations, lectures, and veteran round table discussions.  The trip began in Honolulu, Hawaii, made stops at Midway Island, Majuro, Guadalcanal, Rabaul, Guam, Saipan, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Nagasaki, and ended in China.  This post is about one of the WWII veterans I met on that trip.

 

James Donald “Don” Jones was born in Eastland County, Texas, on November 14, 1923.  He enlisted in the United States (US) Marine Corps days after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941.  By the end of WWII Don was a veteran of Tulagi (August 7- 9, 1942), Guadalcanal (August 7, 1942 – February 9, 1943), Tarawa (November 20-23, 1943), Saipan (June 15 – July 9, 1944), and Tinian (July 24 – August 1, 1944).

These are some of the stories Don shared on the trip.  

 

Tulagi, Guadalcanal, and Savo Island, Solomon Islands

Background.  On August 9, 1942, in the aftermath of the catastrophic defeat of the US Navy at the Battle of Savo Island, US transport ships carrying men, rations, ammunition, gasoline, and other supplies left for safer waters to protect US carriers.  Supply lines to US troops on Guadalcanal were cut off for months as a result.

After first landing on the island of Tulagi, Don and the 2nd Marine Division were sent to Guadalcanal to defend a ridge perimeter around the airfield. 

Don spoke of the hardships on Guadalcanal due to malaria, dysentery, tropical diseases, jungle rot, and malnutrition.  The Marines nicknamed the island “Survival Island.”  Before US supplies began arriving again, they were surviving on rice stolen from the Japanese and native island food sources such as heart of palm.  Don said he never ate heart of palm again after that.  

Don spent much of his time on Guadalcanal in a foxhole on Bloody Ridge (also known as Edson’s Ridge) overlooking the airfield (Henderson Field).  The extreme heat and humidity resulted in leather boots rotting off the feet of some Marines.  While in his foxhole Don made a promise to himself;  if he lived through the war, one day he would return to Guadalcanal and smoke a cigar on Bloody Ridge.

 

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June 9, 2005, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands. Don smokes a cigar on Bloody Ridge.

 

Saipan, Mariana Islands 

 

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June 16, 2005, Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Don and his daughter, Nancy, at the American Memorial Park. During the stop in Saipan there was a program at the Memorial honoring WWII veterans. Don spoke at the ceremony and afterwards was interviewed by a Japanese news crew.

 

On June 15, 1944, Don landed with the 2nd Marine Division on “Green Beach” along the southwest coast of Saipan.

When moving up the west side of the island, while crawling on his stomach across a field, Don found a watermelon.  He ate the entire thing while bullets flew overhead.  His thought at the time was, “Nothing ever tasted so good.”

Continuing north Don saw the overwhelming aftermath of the largest Japanese Banzai charge (suicide attack) of WWII on July 7, 1944.  He said there were thousands of dead Japanese soldiers.  The flies there were so thick that a plane had to spray DDT over the area.  

On the northern tip of Saipan at Marpi Point Don witnessed civilian men, women, and children commit suicide jumping off the cliffs.

 

Tinian, Mariana Islands

The island of Tinian is visible from Saipan.  Don landed there in July 1944.

When Don landed on Tinian, he had three 2nd Marine Division replacements with him.  He told them, “Don’t get out of the sugar cane. Cross the field in the cane.”  Two of the replacements were killed by Japanese machine gun fire when they stepped out on a road.  At a Marine reunion years later the third replacement told Don, “For days I only followed you.  You knew what to do.”

Don was wounded on Tinian and evacuated to a battalion aid station.  He said the flies were so bad there that he asked to return to the front lines.

By the time Don left Saipan and Tinian, he had seen civilians jump to their deaths on both the northern cliffs of Saipan and the southern cliffs of Tinian.

 

Back in the US 

After three years in the Pacific Theater, Don was stationed in Washington, DC, standing guard outside the office of Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations in WWII.  Don was in Washington, DC, when the war ended. 

Nancy, Don’s daughter, wrote, “James D. Jones was discharged in October 1945.  On his way to the bus stop he nearly cried.  He had only been a Marine.  For the last four years it wasn’t easy, but everything you needed, they provided.  He had a wife and baby waiting in Texas.  What would he do now?”  It was a shared sentiment felt by many who survived the war and were returning to the challenge of reentering civilian life.

 

A Last Tour in the Pacific

Don Jones went on a second WWII in the Pacific cruise in 2008 with his son-in-law, Joe.  Nancy wrote, “For my dad it is more a matter of saying goodbye this time to memories he has lived with for 60 years.  Last time it was an emotional reliving of his war experiences.”

 

James Donald “Don” Jones died in 2008 and is buried in his hometown of Eastland, Texas.  He was a proud Marine his entire life.

Semper Fi, Marine.

 

 

“Midway Atoll:  WWII and Present Day,” a story about the first stop on a 2005 WWII in the Pacific cruise, was posted on this website in November 2015.  Story link is https://www.ww2history.org/war-in-the-pacific/midway-atoll-wwii-and-present-day/ .

 

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Our Valor Tours group at dinner table 32 on the Pacific Princess cruise ship. We were strangers when we started the trip in Honolulu, Hawaii, and family when we disembarked in China. 

 

 

S. R. O’Konski, Author
World War 2 History Short Stories
Website: ww2history.org
© All Rights Reserved

In Memory Of … Sara Elizabeth Clarke Anderson

 

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Sara Elizabeth Clarke Anderson

 

Sara Elizabeth Clarke Anderson, known to family and friends as Betty, was 22 years old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941.

Betty was working as a photographer’s model for a modeling agency in Chicago, Illinois, and was featured in advertisements for companies such as Sears, Roebuck, and Company and Folgers Coffee. She posed for the cover of several detective magazines of the day and for one cover she told of being photographed in the Chicago River pretending she was about to drown. She was also involved in radio and television broadcast media in Chicago. Betty worked at radio station WAAF which broadcast from the top floor of the Palmer House. On Mondays at 2 pm she had her own radio show and sang songs. Her beauty and talent opened the door for her early television work at Zenith Experimental Studios. She appeared in various television productions.

During WWII new product development was limited, and rationing affected product availability. When the use of advertising and broadcast media temporarily changed its focus during wartime, Betty moved to Arkansas and was employed at the Arkansas Ordnance Plant (AOP) as an Inspector. Her starting salary was 56 cents an hour.

The AOP was located in Jacksonville, Arkansas. In 1942 the contract to build and operate the plant was awarded to Ford, Bacon, and Davis of New York. The plant was one of the first of its kind in the United States (US). It assembled military munitions fuses, boosters, detonators, and primers. The first assembly line was completed in March of 1942 and approximately 75% of the employees were women.

Betty worked in the Percussion Element Division and made relay and delay fuses for bombs. Components of the fuses included the potentially unstable elements of lead azide and mercury fulminate. She told of assembly line workers taking extra precautions as fuses were moved within the AOP as it was thought even human body heat may cause a fuse to explode.

The AOP shut down production in August of 1945 a few weeks after the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. WWII was over.

After WWII, those on the Homefront and veterans returning home from the war started a new chapter in their life. Betty married “the love of her life” E. M. (Tex) Anderson and raised six children. She had a lifelong interest in broadcast media. Betty became a television personality for San Antonio, Texas, public television station KLRN and was elected to the Alamo Public Telecommunications Council. 

Betty passed away on January 16, 2016, at the age of 96. Her love for her family and her contribution to her country, her community, and her work in broadcasting will be remembered.

 

 

Betty’s son, Jeffrey, found this AOP employee award card among her belongings after her death.

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Meritorious Work Award Card and Pin
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A Message from US President Franklin D. Roosevelt on back of Meritorious Work Award Card

 

In  November 2010 I did an oral history interview with Betty for the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas. She was representative of the citizens on the Homefront during WWII who wanted to “do their bit” and were themselves sometimes placed in potentially dangerous jobs.

I knew Betty for over 20 years. She was a “classy lady.”  I will miss her friendship. 

Photographs for this story are used with the permission of the Anderson family.

 

 

S. R. O’Konski, Author
World War 2 History Short Stories
Website: ww2history.org
© All Rights Reserved