Category: War in Europe

Animals In WWI and WWII, Part 1 (of 4): Camels and Elephants

 

Camel-mounted Infantry, Imperial Camel Corps Brigade, active from January 1916 – May 1919. Posed photo left to right: Australian, British, New Zealand, and Indian troops. Photograph wikipedia.org.

 

[Since ancient times, animals have been involved in the lives of men — and their wars.  They are “drafted” into a war, have no choice and no voice, but serve loyally.  Animals in wartime have the ability to fight the enemy, transport men and equipment, contribute to the success of military operations, save lives, and boost morale.

These are their stories.]

 

CAMELS

Camels have been called the “Ships of the Desert” as they thrive and work in a sea of sand, not water.  The first documented use of camel cavalries in warfare was 853 BC.  They were also used to transport people, goods, and freight as was the case in their use on the Silk Road (second century BCE – 15th century) which was a Eurasian system of trade routes from China and the Far East to Europe and the Middle East, a span of 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers).  A caravan on the Silk Road could consist of 500 – 12,000 camels.  For hundreds of years they were the only means of transportation in the deserts of Australia, Africa, and Asia.

The two most common camels are the Bactrian (two-humped) and Dromedary (one-humped).  Sometime before 1200 BC Bactrian camels could be ridden and saddles for them were developed.

A camel’s unique characteristics make them a valuable asset for use in the desert or other arid and unfriendly environments:  (a) able to carry a 600 pound load (270 kilograms) over 60 miles (95 kilometers) per day and can walk 12 hours straight for over 15 days without water, (b) thick, padded feet and long legs allow easy movement over sand and rough terrain, (c) voluntary closure of nostrils in sandstorms and thick, long eyelashes protect the eyes, (d) withstand body temperature changes (hot days and cold nights in the desert) that would kill other animals, and (e) can eat almost all plants including cacti because of their protective leathery, thick mouth lining.  It is said that a thirsty camel can drink over 20 gallons of water (75 liters) in a couple minutes.

On the downside, it was noted that horses do not like the smell of camels, and horses could become disoriented and alarmed when near them.  Depending on what side you are on, the camel could be an effective horse anti-cavalry weapon.

And since camels move so slowly, they are perfect targets for the enemy.

 

The United States Army (USA) Camel Corps Experiment

As the United States (US) expanded westward, some military officers as early as the 1830s expressed an interest in using camels in a military capacity in the desert areas of the American Southwest.

In 1855 then US Secretary of War Jefferson F. Davis secured from the US Congress an appropriation of $30,000 to purchase camels in the Mediterranean area.  Jefferson, a West Point graduate and former Senator from Mississippi, had served during the Mexican-American War (1846 – 1848) in Mexico and in the Southwest and was familiar with the proposal of camels being used by the USA.

That same year Major Henry C. Wayne of the US Quartermasters Corps and David Dixon Porter who commanded the USS (United States Steamship) Supply set sail to the Mediterranean to purchase camels.  In February 1856 the Supply set sail for Texas after purchasing 33 camels in Egypt, Tunisia, and Turkey.  On May 14, 1856, the ship arrived in Indianola, Texas, a then port town on the Gulf of Mexico.  The camels were moved approximately 60 miles (97 kilometers) north of San Antonio, Texas, to Camp Verde, Texas, which was designated a camel station.  It was there that the camels were evaluated for military use.

The camels excelled as pack animals, but soldiers had difficulty with them agitating horses, spitting, biting, and the smell.  Then Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee who led a small caravan of camels in 1860 had a positive view of the camels as effective military pack animals.  They maneuvered well in the climate and terrain.  Some of the camels were moved to a USA post in California.

The start of the American Civil War in 1861 essentially ended the experiment.  A dedicated use for the camels was never established, and the war took place mostly in the eastern US with different climate and environment issues than the American West.

Confederate troops occupied Camp Verde in February 1861.  One of the camels there, “Old Douglas,” became the mascot of the Civil War 43rd Mississippi Infantry.

In the end, some of the camels escaped, some were sold to circuses and gold prospectors, or simply abandoned.  After the Civil War the government sold the remaining camels.  There were camel sightings in the American Southwest as late as the 1940s; some of the escaped camels had acclimated to the area and made it home.

 

Camels in World War I 

“World War I [WWI] or the First World War (July 28, 1914 – November 11, 1918), also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions:  the Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers.  Fighting took place mainly in Europe and the Middle East … [and] was characterized by trench warfare and the use of artillery, machine guns, and chemical weapons (gas).”  Source wikipedia.org.

The principal Allied powers were France, United Kingdom, Empire of Japan, Kingdom of Italy, Russian Empire (until 1917) and the United States (from 1917) against the Central Powers of Germany, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria.  Between 1914 and 1918 30 global nations declared war and joined either the Allies or Central Powers.

Camel cavalry units were already in the Middle East before the start of WWI.  France created a camel corps in 1912 as part of the Armée d’Afrique and was used mostly in the Sahara Desert region.  The Somaliland Camel Corps was established by the British in 1912.  The Bulgarian military was using camel caravans in 1912 during the First Balkan War.

During WW1 the British Army formed the Egyptian Camel Transport Corps comprised of Egyptian camel drivers and their camels and was used to transport supplies for the British to Syria, Palestine, and Sinai.  A British Indian Army unit, Bikaner Camel Corps of British India, fought with the British in WW1 and World War II (WWII).

In 1916 the British created the Imperial Camel Corps (ICC).  It conducted long-range patrols in the Sinai Desert and around the Suez Canal.  The ICC was a part of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) which in WWI had engagements in the Palestine and Sinai campaign.  The ICC was disbanded in 1919.

 

Australian Army Service Corps transport camels during WWI at Deiran, Israel, 1914 – 1918. Photograph OM77-14 2nd Light Horse Association Records.
Cacolets Carrying Wounded Soldiers being Loaded, One Each Side, Onto a Camel for Transport to a Medical Facility for Treatment, 1916 – 1917. Photograph Collection, Australian War Memorial.
A memorial to the WWI Imperial Camel Corps was unveiled at Victoria Gardens, Thames Embankment, London, England, in 1921. Photograph remueraheritage.org.nz.

 

It is estimated that in WWI alone over 100,000 camels died during combat, as well as harsh conditions, neglect, exhaustion, and disease.

 

Camels in World War II

As in WWI, the military in WWII from a number of nations used camels in warfare notably Britain, France, Russia, Germany on the Eastern Front (camels were also being used in the Germany North African campaign), Romania, Bulgaria, and Italy.

British Imperial units using camels were the Sudan Defense Force, Egyptian Camel Corps, the Indian Bikaner Camel Corps, the Arab Legion, and the British organized Druze Regiment.

The Free French Camel Corps was active in northern Africa and successfully repelled the Italian Army in December 1942 at the Tunisia-Tripoli border.

The use of camels on the Eastern Front by Russia and Germany is a lesser known story.

 

German soldier from a Gebirgsiäger (Mountain) unit rides a Bactrian camel in a Russian corn field on the Kuban sector of the Russian front in 1942. A number of camels were used by the Wehrmacht in this area south of Rostov where the Germans were fighting toward the Caucasus oil fields. Photograph ww2images.blogspot.com.

 

The Battle of Stalingrad (July 17, 1942 – February 2, 1943) was a Soviet victory commonly considered the turning point of WWII in the European Theater.  Military and civilian losses are estimated at over one million.  The German 6th Army surrendered on February 2, 1943, the 4th Panzer Army was decimated, and Army Group B was routed.

The city of Stalingrad was the largest industrial center of the Soviet Union, the Volga River served as a transport hub, and controlling the city meant having a strategic location to access the Caucasus oil fields.

Getting military, medical, and food supplies into Stalingrad during the siege was critical to the eventual Soviet victory.  And that is when a Bactrian camel named Kuznechik (meaning “grasshopper”) helped support the Soviet effort.

The Soviet 308th Rifle Division formed in March 1942 (later renamed the 120th Guards Rifle Division) had been using a Bactrian camel from Kazakhstan named Kuznechik to transport ammunition, food, fuel, other supplies, and wounded soldiers.  The 120th Guards Rifle Division helped defend the Barrikaddy [arms] factory during the Stalingrad siege.

After the Battle of Stalingrad many Soviet military units started using camels.  Camels were able to carry heavy loads of cargo long distances over difficult terrain with little food or water.  They were especially useful navigating the Russian Kalmyk steppes’ (an area northwest of the Caspian Sea consisting of 24,710,538 square acres (100,000 square kilometers) in the southern theater of the war which was a difficult, open terrain for horses and trucks due in part to primitive roads and lack of water.

The eventual fate of Kuznechik is unknown.  One story is that he followed the Soviet troops all the way to Berlin and when led to the Reischtag he spit on it.  Another story is that he was killed near the Baltic Sea in 1945 during a German air raid.

 

No reliable statistics were found on the number of camels killed or lost due harsh conditions, neglect, exhaustion, and disease during WWII.  But the count may be equal to or surpass the numbers in WWI.

 

 

ELEPHANTS

Elephants were first used by humans in India about 4,000 years ago.  Initially used in agriculture but because of their trainability and strength, the elephant was later incorporated into military use.  Sanskrit sources cite that the use of elephants for warfare took place around 1100 BC.  The type of elephant used, Asian or African, was generally based on geography.

Elephants provided transportation and moved heavy equipment and supplies.  Because of their sheer size and ability to charge at a great speed while trumpeting and roaring, they were used as an “elephant cavalry.”  The sight of such a cavalry scared the enemy horses and men of an opposing army, especially if they had not encountered military elephants before then.

The military use of elephants is probably best remembered in the story of the Carthaginian military commander Hannibal who crossed the Alps in 218 BC during the Second Punic War between Carthage and Rome.

But working with war elephants uncovered some weaknesses or vulnerabilities in their use.  An elephant worked best with a mahout (a person who works with, tends to them, and rides them); the enemy would try to kill the mahout to render the animal useless in warfare.  The foot pad of the elephant is its “Achilles heel,” so to speak;  when barbed planks or spiked devices are put into the path of elephants, the wounding could make them lame.  And the elephants trunk was often attacked and damaged, so the elephant was not able to lift up troops to ride them.

 

Elephants in World War I and World War II

During WWI  horses were conscripted (military horses as well as privately owned horses) and sent to the Western Front.  This was true in Allied countries, as well as the Central Powers.  Germany sent horses to the Western Front but also used them on the Eastern Front.  WWI in the Balkans and the Middle East used horses.  In WWI military vehicles were not yet in mass use, so animals were used and needed for various purposes.

The shortage of animals for farm work, heavy labor, and other trades created a problem.  Elephants, usually from circuses and zoos, as well as camels, were recruited to fill the loss.

Elephants also played a role in WWII  and is noted later in this story.

 

An elephant used to plow a field in England in WWI. Photograph warhistoryonline.com.
Berlin, Germany, 1917, elephants used by German Army. Photograph rarehistoricalphotos.com.
Elephants Mary from Burma and Kieri from Ceylon (present day Sri Lanka) had originally been brought to the Hamburg Zoo in Germany to train for the circus. They would be used to clean up the city after Allied bombings in WWII. Photograph warhistoryonline.com.
Elephant loads a gasoline drum into a military supply plane in India in 1945. Photograph nationalgeographic.com.
Elephant pulls Corsair airplane on an airfield in India WWII. Photograph rarehistoricalphotos.com.
Japanese Army Using Elephants in Burma, 1942. Photograph flickr.com.
British Lanchester armoured cars in Burma camouflaged as elephants in WWII. Photograph militaryimages.net.

 

Elephant Heroes

Gyles Mackrell (October 9, 1888 – February 20, 1959) was a British tea planter and representative for tea agents Octavius Steel & Company in Assam, India (a northeastern state in India along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys and south of the eastern Himalayas mountain range), and he owned a Burmese elephant transport business.

The Japanese were advancing from Burma (present day Myanmar) towards India which resulted in refugees fleeing ahead of the Japanese advance.  Mackrell received an urgent message on June 4, 1942, that refugees were stranded near the monsoon swollen Dapha River and Chaukan Pass area near the Burma-India border.

After a near 100 mile (160 kilometer) trek through jungles, the elephants arrived at the Dapha River on June 9.  The next day when the river calmed, Mackrell rescued 68 members of the Burma Rifles and Burma Frontier Force who had been stranded on an island in the river.

Mackrell set up a camp there and continued to rescue refugees, mainly British and Indian soldiers.  By September it is estimated they rescued about 200 people.

 

Gyles Mackrell’s elephants carrying refugees during the rescue at the Dapha River in 1942. Photograph bbc.com.

 

James Howard “Billy” Williams (November 15, 1897 – July 30, 1958), the “Elephant Whisperer,”  who later in life would also be known as Elephant Bill, was born in St Just, Cornwall, England.  His love of animals would be a theme throughout his life.

In WWI Williams served with the Devonshire Regiment, or the “Bloody Eleventh.”  His wartime duties would take him to Africa, the Middle East, and Afghanistan.  While in Africa he served with the ICC.

In 1920, after the end of WWI, Jim secured a job as a forester with a teak logging company in Burma.  While living there he learned the Burmese language and developed his lifelong love of elephants.

In caring for the “fleet” of elephants that he managed in his job, Jim became educated in the medical care and treatment of sick and injured elephants.  His close contact with the elephants and his advanced knowledge of animal behavior, along with the love of the species, he would become known as the “elephant whisperer.”

It was assumed in WWII that when the Japanese invaded the Far East and Burma in 1942, they would not advance beyond Malaya and Singapore which was not the case.  Being protective the Bombay Burma Corporation decided to evacuate European women and children to India from Burma.  While in Burma, Jim had gotten married and had two children.  He accompanied one evacuation party with his family but then returned to Burma to help fight the war.

Jim became a member of Force 136, a British intelligence organization, which was a branch of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE).  Operating behind enemy lines, Jim’s Elephant Company at its peak numbered 1,600 elephants.  The elephants built bridges, carried supplies, smuggled weapons, clean cut trees to create emergency airfields, transported people escaping the Japanese over treacherous mountain terrain, and were used for other needed war efforts.  At one point the Japanese “put a price” on Jim’s head.

And this brings us to a main character in this story, an elephant named Bandoola.  Bandoola was born November 3, 1897 in Burma.  Po Toke, a master mahout, had raised him “gently” without any sort of violence which can often be part of raising and taming an elephant.  After Jim met Bandoola, they developed a unique human-animal bond.

In March 1944 Jim was ordered to take his elephants out of Burma to India to prevent their capture by the Japanese and to keep them far from the raging fighting.  The wartime actions of Elephant Company was recognized as being indispensable to the Allied effort in Burma, and their protection was vital.

Jim’s trek to safety would be a journey of 120 miles (193 kilometers) on foot through jungle, heavy terrain, and mountainous areas.  It was during this journey, which also included 64 refugees, that Jim’s and Bondoola’s bond was put to the test when they encountered one of the five mountain ranges on their flight from Burma.

On the 9th day of the journey to India at the Kabaw Valley, with roads being cut off, the only way to continue their trek was to climb a 270 foot sheer cliff.  The issue — climbing is not a natural behavior for an elephant.  The cliff was composed of porous sandstone.  An “elephant stairway” was needed.  So steps were created by sawing steps out of the sandstone to accommodate the size of an elephant’s foot.  Vegetation was cut back and so the seemingly impossible journey up the cliff began.

Bandoola led the way up the cliff stairway followed by a line of the other elephants.  In total there were 45 adult elephants and eight baby elephants.  It took three hours for each elephant to ascend the stairway, and they were all successful.

In April 1944 with the Japanese retreating, it was deemed safe to have the elephants return to Burma.  The elephants returned and continued their work helping the Allies.

When Jim returned to the elephant camp at a later date, he could not find Bandoola.  After five days of searching he returned to Po Toke’s camp and was told Bandoola was dead.  He went immediately to the meadow where he was told he could find the body of his friend.  Bandoola had been shot in the head, and his right ivory tusk had been removed.  Jim’s investigation pointed to Po Toke as the one who killed Bandoola. Bandoola’s killing haunted Jim for the rest of his life.

Jim had Bandoola buried on the Burma-India border.  Carved on a giant teak tree there are the words:  BANDOOLA BORN 1897, KILLED IN ACTION 1944.

 

 

Part 2 of Animals in WWI and WWII will be about horses.

The story of Bandoola and James Howard “Billy” Williams, the “Elephant Whisperer,” is examined and told in the book Elephant Company by Vicki Constantine Croke.

The tale of Gyles Mackrell’s daring rescue using elephants in WWII can be found in the book Flight by Elephant written by Andrew Martin.  Gyles Mackrell filmed part of the rescue; the video can be viewed at BBC News .

A good friend of mine and fellow WWII historian, Floyd Cecil Cox, Jr., passed away in 2023.  He encouraged me to start this website and to write the stories of WWII.  One of his books that I was given as a remembrance of him was the book Elephant Company.  It inspired this story.  This story is for you, Floyd.

Floyd Cecil Cox, Jr., 1932 – 2023. A Korean War and US Air Force veteran. Photograph Cox Family Collection.

 

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

 

The USAAF 55th Fighter Group in WWII: And the Story of P-51 Pilot Jim McCutcheon

 

55th Fighter Group P-51 Mustang pilot Jim McCutcheon 1944. Photograph courtesy of the McCutcheon family.

 

The 55th Pursuit Group was formed at Hamilton Field in California in 1940.  After several reorganizations and being renamed the 55th Fighter Group (FG), which consisted of the 38th, 338th, and 343rd Fighter Squadron (FS), it left for England in September 1943 with Lieutenant Colonel Frank B. Jones in command.  At that point in the war there were only six fighter groups already attached to the United States (US) Eighth Air Force in England. The 55th was the first fighter group flying the P-38 Lightning.

 

The Lockheed P-38 Lightning. Photograph wikimedia.org.

 

A single-seat, fighter aircraft it performed many aerial combat roles: fighter-bomber, long-range escort fighter, night fighter, bomber-pathfinder, and aerial reconnaissance.  Of all the aerial film captured over Europe in WWII, the P-38 accounted for 90% of it.

In July 1944 the 55th FG converted to flying the P-51 Mustang.

 

North American Aviation P-51D Mustang, 55th FG, 343rd FS, England, 1944. Pilot Lt. Richard G. Gibbs. Photograph asisbiz.com.

 

The P-51 was a single-seat, high speed, long-range escort fighter, and fighter-bomber with six .50 caliber M2 Browning machine guns and capable of carrying 1,000 pounds of bombs and rockets.  It was integral in winning the air war over Europe in WWII.

The 55th FG flew from Station 131 in Nuthampstead, Hertfordshire, until April 1944 and moved to make way for the 398th Bombardment Group of the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) which flew B-17 Flying Fortresses.  The 55th moved to Station 159 at Wormingford, Essex.

The missions of the 55th FG included escorting bombers as well as the bombing and strafing of marshalling yards, locomotives and railroad tracks, industrial buildings/sites, military transport cars and trucks, enemy aircraft on the ground and dogfights in the air, bridges, oil depots, and other targets of opportunity. 

Pilots losses were estimated to be above 50% in 1944.

 

P-51 Pilot Jim McCutcheon

James Ragsdale McCutcheon was born September 13, 1923, in Fort Davis, Texas.  His parents Bennett Brazil McCutcheon, Sr., and Celeste (nee Holt) McCutcheon owned a large ranch about 16 miles from Fort Davis.  He was the youngest of five children.

As a child Jim built and flew balsa wood model airplanes which might have been a predictor of his future love of planes and flight.

Jim is remembered in family stories as a capable, strong, and sometimes opinionated young man.  At over six feet, he was very tall for those times.  

In 1939 Jim’s mother passed away; his father died in 1940.  At 16 years of age he was an orphan and moved to Victoria, Texas, to live with an uncle, Jim W. Ragsdale.

After high school Jim attended Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.  He would leave school to enlist in the USAAF.

After training as a P-51 fighter pilot, in 1944 Second Lieutenant (2 Lt.) Jim McCutcheon arrived in Wormingford, England, as a replacement pilot in the 55th FG, 338th FS.  His over six foot height earned him the nickname “Big Stoop” by his fellow pilots.

Jim joined the 55th FG in England on August 3, 1944.  That same month he would be killed in action (KIA).

The 55th FG mission objective the day he died was to dive-bomb and strafe the oil tank cars at the Ars (southwest of Metz), France, marshalling yards.  

Another P-51 pilot on that mission, Captain Lanoy D. Anderson, reported his account of what happened that day:

“Lt. McCutcheon was flying No. 2 position on my wing. The flight was carrying two 500lb. bombs against targets of rail transportation. My flight selected a marshalling yard at Ars, France, with 25 to 30 oil tank cars and miscellaneous stock. We started the bomb pass from 7,000 feet parallel with the tracks from north to south. I recovered from the bottom of my dive at 2,500 feet, broke sharply to the left and up, and then back to the right. Lt. McCutcheon followed me down on the dive, but I nor my three and four man saw him after that. He was not seen to crash in the vicinity of our target, and it was assumed that he finished bombing and started strafing targets of his own. In endeavouring to reassemble the flights, I called to him twice receiving no reply. As there was quite a bit of R/T [radio traffic] conversation at the time, I believe he had become confused and just failed to answer. On course back home he was called again and was then definitely known to be missing, cause is unknown as is the place.”

A German report, J-1950, stated “aircraft was 99% destroyed, downed by antiaircraft fire at 1330, pilot dead, 1 kilometer (km) east of Revigny, south of Ornain.  Lt. McCutcheon buried in Revigny Cemetery.”

2 Lt. Jim McCutcheon was 20 years old.  His Missing Air Crew Report (MACR) Number was 07770.

 

The McCutcheon Family

The memory of Jim McCutcheon is still in the minds and hearts of the McCutcheon family even though 80 years have passed since his loss in WWII.  Copies of MACR documents were not declassified until 1978.  Jim’s great-nephew, Dominick McCutcheon, and his family continue to search for more information about Jim and what happened to him.  

Dominick recounted his journey to a French town near where Jim’s P-51 crashed in WWII in an article he wrote in 2023:

“This year marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of France. This year also marks the 80thanniversary of the death of my great-uncle — a man from Texas whom I never met, yet a man whom my family, Texas, and the French, will always remember.

Second Lieutenant Jim Ragsdale McCutcheon was killed in action August 12, 1944, while flying his P-51D Mustang over German-occupied France. Jim had arrived at his base in Wormingford, England, only nine days earlier, as a replacement pilot in the 55th Fighter Group — an arm of the 8th Air Force. At that stage of the war pilot losses for the 55th were high, estimated at about 52%.

Besides flying bomber escort missions far into Germany, the 55th and other fighter groups flew across the English Channel into France to engage in dangerous, low-level interdiction missions. 55th pilots called these missions “Railroad Rodeos,” a shoot-‘em-up Western term used to describe their relentless bombing and strafing attacks upon enemy railroad yards, locomotives, oil cars, ammunition cars, troop carriers, and other targets of opportunity on or alongside the railroads.

For its part, the 55th Fighter Group — identified by green/yellow checkerboard patterns on their engine cowlings — earned a formal Distinguished Unit Citation, and the informal moniker of “Loco Busters,” after destroying or “busting” more locomotives than any other fighter group in the 8th Air Force.

On August 12, 1944, a raiding force of 26 Loco Busters was sent to engage in a Railroad Rodeo near Metz, France. Jim rode with this outfit assigned to a new Mustang whose tail the U.S. Government had branded number 44-13744.

Jim was last seen at the target area trailing his flight leader, diving towards oil cars and miscellaneous stock. After dropping his two 500-pound bombs, and for reasons unknown, Jim became separated from his flight. Radio calls to him went unanswered.

Seventy-three years later, I’m standing beside my idling rental car, 60 miles west of Metz, on the outskirts of the sleepy and picturesque commune of Revigny-sur-Ornain. During the war this town held strategic significance, especially because of its railway yards. Today this town holds personal significance, especially for my family. Jim was shot down here by anti-aircraft flak.

Gazing down from atop a small hill, I imagined Jim leaning in beside me when he stood 6’1” tall, and in his West Texas cowboy drawl, quietly pointing out the verdant terrain, winding Ornain River, canals, bridges, railways and quaint town structures. The scene framed in Jim’s hands like a peaceful, colorful pastel painting or postcard.

Then, I imagined Jim fighting here during the war, when things weren’t so peaceful or colorful. Like historical newsreel footage from that era, Revigny-sur-Ornain was mechanized, dangerous and gray. Hostile uniformed troops were rooted here like weeds aside their locomotives, rail cars, tanks, trucks, stores of munitions, gasoline and materials.

Targets of opportunity, as aforementioned. Jim must’ve come upon these targets perhaps while lost, or while prowling a roundabout course back towards England.

He weighed up the situation. Although his Mustang was out of bombs, its six Browning machine guns still held ammunition, and Jim still held fight — a potent combination. For a Loco Buster trying to bolster his group’s reputation, or a replacement pilot trying to prove his own reputation, the opportunity to strafe was tempting, albeit very dangerous.

The occupiers heard the distinctive purr of a Merlin engine drawing nearer, cluing them that a P-51D Mustang, the newest and most beautiful fighter aircraft of the war, was headed their way. They also knew that the Mustang was much more lethal than beautiful.

An air raid siren screamed and warned of the approaching aircraft. Nervous ground troops stirred into action. Orders were barked. Anti-aircraft guns were made ready. Helmeted heads tracked the sky and listened, watched, and waited.

Saddled up in his cockpit, Jim stepped up the gait of his eager Mustang, finger ready on the trigger of his six guns.

The encounter began in the waning hour of 1 p.m., when the occupiers opened fire on the Mustang. In return, Jim let loose with his machine guns, and from behind his bubble canopy watched as the tracers hit their marks. The Mustang’s bare aluminum skin glistened as its engine sucked fuel, sweated oil and snorted out its exhaust. Jim reined, twisted and spurred his Mustang as the massive 11-foot propellor pulled Jim above the melee he had so eagerly created –– pilot and aircraft in their youthful and fighting prime, very much alive and in harmony, doing their jobs of loco busting.

The duration of the encounter, and how many strafing runs Jim made at his targets, will remain a mystery. But Jim lived up to the 55th’s reputation, as any Loco Buster worth his salt should’ve done. Indeed, Jim put up a good and spectacular fight, until at 1:50 p.m. the occupiers finally got lucky, and their flak put down Jim’s powerful and beautiful Mustang.

I wondered about that moment. While riding his way down, would Jim have thought of offering his opponents the final gesture of an upturned middle finger, or that of a respectful, crisp salute?

Jim’s Mustang crashed one kilometer east of Revigny-sur-Ornain, along the railroad tracks by the woods. A sickening thump reverberated throughout town, punctuating the obliteration of fighter plane and fighter pilot, much to the delight of the occupiers, and much to the dismay of the French for whom Jim — aged 20 –– had just died.

A French child who was witness that day wrote of the aftermath of the fight. A rough translation recalls, “At the Maginot Quarter, where the [occupying] troops are stationed, chaos ensues. Farmers with horses and carts are requisitioned to transport whatever can be salvaged. On the Market Square, it’s a hellish scene as Tiger tanks and others seek refuge under the chestnut trees. Some are still on fire, and water from the canal is a welcome relief. I can still see a soldier brandishing a rifle with a burnt stock.”

“Towards late afternoon, the children of that time had defied their parents’ prohibitions and gone to the rail yard to witness the flames. It seemed the entire rail yard was ablaze. The sky was dark with smoke, stretching over a kilometer, reflecting various colors. [Enemy] voices echoed everywhere. Unrestrained engines still struggled to move away from the inferno even two hours after the attack.”

“The horses of the requisitioned farmers were stamping their hooves, neighing in convoys loaded with whatever could be salvaged, and heading towards the Maginot Quarter via the Connissiere road. Meanwhile we young ones scavenged tobacco cartridges here and there, not forgetting the sweets.”

The French took possession of Jim’s badly broken body. Police issued his death certificate and recorded an identification bracelet found on his right wrist. Townspeople wrapped Jim in a mattress cover. A funeral was officiated at the town military cemetery, where the American was buried alongside French heroes. Colorful flowers adorned the American’s grave marker, until the occupiers caused those too, to be destroyed.

My family had only recently learned this incredible history, which compelled me to travel to Revigny-sur-Ornain. So here I was, overlooking the town, unsure of what to do, or how or to whom to express my family’s long overdue appreciation for the respectful and honorable manner in which the French treated my great-uncle.

I got back in my rental car, drove into town, and parked along the quiet main street. I had no overall plan, and I couldn’t speak French. However, I came prepared with duplicate photos of Jim posed in front of his Mustang, and translated handouts that explained my purpose. “Dear Sir or Madame: I am the great-nephew of James Ragsdale McCutcheon, an American P-51 pilot who was shot down and killed nearby here…”

As I slid the photos and handouts into mailboxes, and under windshield wiper blades, I estimated my odds of finding anyone who appreciated the significance of August 12, 1944, to be about 1 in 2,700-ish –– which represented the unfavorable ratio of me to the town’s population. I prepared myself for failure. Too much time had passed since 1944.

I came upon a small café and allowed its aromas to lure me inside. Feeling a bit hopeless, I plopped the photos and handouts atop my table, and ordered something by pointing to the menu, revealing myself as a tourist.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned, and was somewhat stunned to find sitting behind me a pretty, middle-aged French woman motioning towards one of the handouts. I gave her a photo as well. In silence, her eyes alternated between the handout, and the photo of Jim, who was known to be very handsome. And then, as if she might’ve been realizing the death of her own son, her eyes began to water. She swallowed hard, then held up her forefinger. Wait. The woman flipped open her cellphone. Other diners gathered around her conversation, and the café came alive with whispers and accented chatter.

Something was happening. The woman had connections.

Moments later, and in through the door came the town vice-mayor, Alain Fisnot. Through his broken English, and between his friendly gestures and flattering excitement, I was able to understand that Revigny-sur-Ornain did appreciate the significance of August 12, 1944. There was much to discuss. Could I meet tomorrow at the town hall? Yes!

The next day I was greeted at the same town hall that had been occupied during the war. I was led to an upstairs room. The wooden stairs beneath me creaked. Did they creak like this on August 12, 1944? Who else had looked out these same windows, when different banners hung from them?

The upstairs room felt stately and historic. A stoic portrait of Andre Maginot overlooked a large wooden table where Mayor Pierre Burgain, Vice-Mayor Fisnot, translator Mickael Mathieu, and a small contingent of others, including the local press, stood respectfully waiting. These good people knew the significance of August 12, 1944, all of them gathered here by a man from Texas whom none of them had met, yet whom they all honored, and wanted to remember.

Vice-Mayor Fisnot showed me Jim’s death certificate, and a copy of his Missing Air Crew Report #7770. (MACR’s from WWII weren’t declassified until 1978.) He provided me with a copy of the child’s narrative of the aftermath of the fight. We compared notes and dates.

We thumbed through Jim’s squadron records, the 338th, self-described as “Earthquake McGoon’s Flying Circus.” One photo showed the Flying Circus posing in front of their Quonset hut at their August 11th chicken fry “having a jolly good time” while “celebrating nothing in particular.” They were all so young, jovial, and seemingly invincible.

Little did they know that the next day, two other pilots in addition to Jim would be lost elsewhere in France — 2nd Lt. William E. McMillan was KIA when he pulled up too late while strafing a locomotive, and 1st Lt. Richard J. Keough, who was taken prisoner of war after he bailed out of his Mustang, damaged by the explosion of a locomotive he’d been strafing.

I shared family lore about how Jim had been a cowboy and that he’d occasionally venture into Mexico for the night to return at dawn still a bit tipsy, disheveled, and covered in lipstick. He’d then retire to his bunkhouse, and from inside be heard lazily strumming his guitar while dramatically singing (yelling), an obnoxious version of “Home on the Range,” a classic folk song that romances the working life of an American cowboy.

Mayor Burgain pushed the town journal in front of me and offered a pen, inviting me to record my thoughts. At times like this, words seem inadequate. I wrote, and pronounced to all present, and as best I could, my family’s appreciation for the manner in which Revigny-sur-Ornain honored Jim’s sacrifice and kept his memory alive.

Then, much to my surprise, on behalf of the town of Revigny-sur-Ornain, Mayor Burgain used my physical presence to formally and posthumously present to 2nd Lieutenant James Ragsdale McCutcheon the great honor of their town medal. (I later gave the town medal to my father, Bennett Browning McCutcheon Sr., who knew and admired Jim, especially for his sacrifice to the greater good.) Mayor Burgain’s La Bise kisses to both sides of my cheeks ended the heartfelt presentation.

In the quiet that followed, all of us in that room realized that no stories, words, documents, gestures, or gifts could ever express what we all felt for Jim. I think we could all feel his presence, and we hoped he felt ours. Even the ghosts of the occupiers would’ve been touched by the ceremony. None of us in body or spirit left that room feeling unchanged.

Two weeks after I said goodbye and left for home, the town rededicated a monument to allied airmen killed in action during WWII.

 

On this 80th anniversary of the liberation of France, the French do indeed recognize the significance of August 12, 1944, and other dates that memorialize the sacrifice of eight other allied airmen killed in action before Revigny-sur-Ornain was liberated August 31, 1944.

October 14, 1943 – Charles Malcomb Baer (United States Army Air Forces), killed in his parachute after being rammed by an enemy aircraft.

July 19, 1944 – John Charles Broughton Boydell (Royal Australian Air Force), Alan Wesley Giles Fripp (RAAF), Beverly Hudson Gifford (RAAF), Harold Newall (Royal Air Force), Philip John Pierce (RAAF), Raymond George Shipway (RAAF), Frank George Spencer (RAAF), all killed in action after their RAAF Lancaster was shot down by a night fighter aircraft.”

 

Epinal American Cemetery and Memorial

 

WWII Epinal American Battle Monuments Commission Cemetery and Memorial in Dinozé, France. Photograph thisdayinaviation.com.

 

On September 21, 1944, the US Army (USA) 45th Infantry Division liberated the Epinal area.  In October 1944 a cemetery was established there by the USA 46th Quartermaster Company, Graves Registration Service, of the Seventh Army.  There are over 5,250 graves and 424 names of the missing at Epinal American Cemetery and Memorial.

After WWII ended the USA Quartermaster Graves Registration Service disinterred the bodies of fallen American military members from temporary cemeteries and graves and, with the permission of the families, would rebury them in an American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) cemetery or send the remains back to the US.

The body of 2 Lt. Jim McCutcheon was moved from the Revigny-sur-Ornain cemetery to the Epinal American Cemetery and Memorial.  He rests in peace among his WWII comrades in arms.

 

Epinal American Cemetery and Memorial. The grave of 2 Lt. Jim McCutcheon. Photograph findagrave.com.

 

 

Thank you to the McCutcheon and Ragsdale families for their assistance in the writing of this story.  The link to Dominick McCutcheon’s article is Pilot from Fort Davis remembered in touching French liberation story.

Two books recounting the history of the 55th FG in WWII are The 55th Fighter Group vs The Luftwaffe by John M. Gray and Double Nickel – Double Trouble by Lieutenant Colonel Robert M. Littlefield.

 

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

 

The American Battle Monuments Commission: And the Sons of Kewaunee County, Wisconsin, Lost in WWII

 

The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in France adjacent to Omaha Beach on the English Channel was one of the landing beaches of US forces on June 6, 1944. It is probably the best known of the ABMC cemeteries overseas.  Photograph warhistoryonline.com.

 

The motto of the American Battle Monuments Commission is, “Time will not dim the glory of their deeds.”

 

The American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) was established in 1923 by the United States (US) Congress. It is an independent government agency with the duty of administering, maintaining, and operating permanent US military cemeteries, monuments, and memorials principally outside of the US in 17 foreign countries, the British Dependency of Gibraltar, and the US Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.  There are four memorials in the US.

The ABMC cares for 26 American military cemeteries and 31 federal monuments, memorials, and markers. Over 140,000 American military are interred in these cemeteries. On the cemeteries Wall of the Missing are the names of over 94,000 Missing In Action (MIA) and those lost or buried at sea.

The headstones of those buried in these cemeteries are a Christian cross, a Star of David, or one designating an Unknown which states, “Here Rests In Honored Glory A Comrade In Arms Known But To God.”  When the body of a serviceman named on the Wall of the Missing is found and identified, a rosette is placed beside their name on the Wall.

 

I have visited six of the WWII ABMC cemeteries in Europe and one in the Philippines.  Walking through the cemeteries one feels as if you are walking on sacred ground.  I would sometimes see a solitary headstone with gold lettering; those are the graves of men awarded the Medal of Honor.  Also on the Wall or Tablets of the Missing, a man awarded the Medal of Honor had his name in gold.

One day I had this thought … the thousands of men and women in these graves died before the war ended and never knew who won.

 

Kewaunee County, Wisconsin, in WWII.

Kewaunee County, Wisconsin. Map wikipedia.org.
Kewaunee County Courthouse in Kewaunee, Wisconsin.  Photograph S. R. O’Konski.
Kewaunee County Courthouse Memorial with the names of those Kewaunee County sons lost in wars.  Photograph S. R. O’Konski.

 

Kewaunee County was typical of every county in the US that experienced WWII.  Young men and women left their communities and said their goodbyes to family and friends not knowing when or if they would return.  Some families would later receive telegrams that their loved one was killed in action (KIA), missing in action (MIA), or had become a prisoner of war (POW).  It was a time communities pulled together to support each other, and some families would mourn.  

The US WWII generation had already experienced the Great Depression (1929 – 1939) and then became involved in WWII on December 7, 1941, when Pearl Harbor, Oahu, the US Territory of Hawaii, was attacked by the Japanese.  Four years of US involvement in WWII and the stresses of war would take a toll on communities. 

During WWII Kewaunee Shipbuilding and Engineering on the shore of Lake Michigan was one of the shipbuilding locations on the Great Lakes that received a government contract to build military ships.  Eighty vessels, cargo ships and tugboats, were built in Kewaunee between 1941 and 1946.  [It is at Kewaunee Shipbuilding and Engineering that FP-344, a cargo ship, was built for the US Army.  It was launched in April 1944 and survived WWII.  By 1967, then a US Navy ship, it was refitted for intelligence gathering and sent to the Pacific.  The US Navy renamed FP-344 the USS (United States Ship) Pueblo.  The ship was captured by North Korea January 23, 1968, and the action is known as the Pueblo Incident. The USS Pueblo is still in North Korea.  The US Navy has never decommissioned the ship.]

I was born and grew up in Kewaunee, Wisconsin, one of many small communities in Kewaunee County.  My generation was born after WWII, but I went to school with many of the relatives of those named on the war memorial at the Kewaunee Courthouse.  Every name on the memorial represents a life story; the following are six of those stories.

 

Joe Muhofski. Photograph Kewaunee County Historical Society.

Joseph A. Muhofski, US Navy (USN), Radio Man 3rd Class.

Joe was a 1936 graduate of Kewaunee High School.  In the 1940 US Census he was listed as a member of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) with an occupation of radio operator and was living with his parents on Wisconsin Avenue in Kewaunee.  He enlisted in the US Navy March 26, 1940.

[The CCC was a voluntary work relief program during the Depression for unemployed men ages 18 – 25.  It existed from 1933 – 1942.]

On December 7, 1941, Joe, then assigned to the USS Pennsylvania, was KIA during the surprise Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor.  He was 23 years old.

Joe’s remains were never found.  A memorial marker remembering his service to his country in WWII was placed in Holy Rosary Cemetery in Kewaunee, and his name is also on the tombstone of his parents Joseph and Lucy Muhofski.

The Muhofski family was the first Gold Star family in Kewaunee County in WWII.

[May 28, 1918, US President Woodrow Wilson approved the use of a Gold Star Service Flag that could be hung in homes, businesses, schools, churches, etc., to indicate that a military member had died in service to the country.]

 

Gold Star Service flag. Wikipedia.org.

 

Perry Drossart. Photograph Kewaunee County Historical Society.

Perry W. Drossart, USN, Aviation Machinist’s Mate 3rd Class.

Perry was born June 3, 1923, in Casco, Kewaunee County, Wisconsin.  He enlisted in the US Navy on November 5, 1940.  Perry was assigned to the USS Quincy, a New Orleans-class heavy cruiser (CA-39) which was sunk in the Battle of Savo Island.  Perry was 19 years old.

[The Battle of Savo Island (August 8 – 9, 1942) was the first major naval battle of the Guadalcanal campaign (August 7, 1942 – February 9, 1943) in the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean.  The USS Quincy was one of the ships sunk after being hit by three torpedos; there were 370 men KIA and 167 wounded.

That naval battle was a Japanese victory.  But the Guadalcanal campaign, an eventual Allied victory, would mark an important turning point in the Pacific Theater as it would be the first offensive campaign mounted by the Allies against the Japanese in WWII.]

Perry Drossart’s name is inscribed on the Tablets of the Missing at the ABMC Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines.  There is also a memorial marker in Holy Trinity Cemetery in Casco.

 

The ABMC Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines.  The circular structure contains the names of over 36,000 MIAs.  Perry Drossart’s name is inscribed there.  Photograph wikipedia.org.

 

Ralph Lietz, Jr. Photograph Kewaunee County Historical Society.

Ralph F. Lietz, Jr., US Coast Guard (USCG), Seaman 1st Class.

Ralph was born February 16, 1922.  He played football and basketball for four years in high school and was captain of the basketball team his senior year.  “Bud,” as his friends called him, graduated from Kewaunee High School in 1940.  

In the 1940s US Census Ralph was living with his parents Ralph and Clara Lietz on Rose Street in Kewaunee.

Ralph joined the USCG September 6, 1940.  He was assigned to the US Coast Guard Cutter (USCGC) Escanaba (WPG-77).

[The USCGC Escanaba was originally stationed on the Great Lakes, but with the outbreak of WWII it was redeployed to the Atlantic Ocean and participated in the Battle of the Atlantic.  In WWII the Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous military campaign running from the start of the war in 1939 to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.]

The Escanaba’s home port was Boston.  The ship was assigned to the Greenland Patrol performing search and rescue and convoy escort duty in the North Atlantic.  Serving as an escort for convoy GS-24, sailing from Greenland to Newfoundland, USCGC Escanaba was hit by a German U-boat torpedo or a drifting mine on June 13, 1943, at 0510. The ship sunk in three minutes.  Thirteen officers and 92 enlisted crew members were lost.

Ralph Lietz’s name is inscribed on the ABMC East Coast Memorial in New York City, New York.  There is a memorial marker in the Kewaunee Riverside Cemetery, and Ralph’s name is on the tombstone of his parents in the cemetery.

Ralph was 21 years old when he was KIA.  He was an only child.

 

The ABMC East Coast Memorial in New York City, New York.  Four granite pylons list the names of over 4,600 of those MIA who lost their lives in the western waters of the Atlantic Ocean.  Photograph walkaboutny.com.

 

Milo Bunda.  Photograph findagrave.com.

Milo J. Bunda, US Army (USA), Technician fifth grade (Tec 5), 127th Infantry, 32nd Division.

Milo was born June 14, 1918, in Kewaunee.  He graduated from Kewaunee High School in 1936 where he was a star athlete in basketball and football.  

On March 20, 1941, Milo was inducted into the military with other Kewaunee County men.  While serving in the Pacific he was hospitalized for a time with malaria which is common in that part of the world.

Milo was KIA on July 26, 1944, in Papua New Guinea located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean.  He was 26 years old.

For his heroism in battle trying to save his fellow soldiers, Milo Bunda was awarded the Bronze Star.

Milo Bunda is buried in the ABMC Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines.

 

The ABMC Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines.  There are more than 17,000 burials in the cemetery.  The number of graves represent the largest number of burials in any WWII ABMC cemetery.  Photograph wikipedia.org.

 

Ray Christenson. Photograph findagrave.com.

Raymond B. Christenson, US Army Air Force (USAAF), First Lieutenant.

Ray was born December 17, 1916, in Casco.  In the 1940  US Census his occupation was noted as a teacher in the public school system.

On Friday, November 20, 1942, Ray was married to Eunice Thiry of Algoma, Kewaunee County, Wisconsin, by Justice of the Peace A. J. Westerbeck in Kewaunee.

After joining the military, Ray trained as a bombardier in a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber.  While flying over Brownsville, Haywood County, Tennessee, on September 17, 1944, he was killed when two B-17s collided in the air.  Of his crew he was the only one killed; the other members of his crew parachuted to safety.  Out of the nine crew members in the other B-17, eight died.  The death of these men was classified as Died Non-Battle (DNB).

[When determining casualties of war, one does not usually think of military deaths in terms of those that happened stateside or outside of a combat area.  During WWII in the USAAF alone, over 15,000 men were killed or lost their lives in non-combat circumstances.]

Ray Christenson is buried in Algoma at Evergreen Cemetery.  He was 27 years old.

 

Arnold Malvitz. Photograph findagrave.com.

Arnold E. Malvitz, USA, Private, 638th Tank Destroyer Battalion, Company B.

Arnold was born December 3, 1921, in Door County but moved to the town of Luxemburg in Kewaunee County.  He was one of six children.  At 20 years old his draft card noted he worked on the farm of John Wech, Route 2, in the town of West Kewaunee.

He enlisted in the USA on October 20, 1942.

On April 10, 1943, Arnold married Harriet Siegmund of Door County.  They would have a son before he left with his unit for Europe.

Arnold Malvitz was KIA on December 1, 1944, near the German town of Gereonsweiler, northeast of Aachen, Germany.  He was two days short of his 23rd birthday.

He had a second son who was born five months after Arnold was KIA.

Arnold Malvitz is buried in the ABMC Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial.

 

The WWII ABMC Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial, located in the village of Margraten.  Over 8,200 US military service members are buried there, and more than 1,700 names are inscribed on the Wall of the Missing.  Photograph wikipedia.org.

 

[The Dutch in 1945 originated a unique program at this cemetery.  It is the Grave Adoption Program which honors the legacy of their American liberators.  Local people adopt the grave of a service member or a name on the Wall of the Missing, visit during the year, and bring flowers. They may also try to contact family members to gather more information or obtain a photograph of the service member.

 

The Faces of Margraten.  This is a program to collect photos of those buried and those named on the Wall of the Missing.  Photograph abmc.gov.

 

The Grave Adoption Program continues to this day; there is a list of those waiting to become part of this special commemoration to those who lost their lives liberating the Netherlands.]

 

Exact figures are unknown, but it is estimated that over 400,000 US military men and women were killed in WWII.

Roughly 320,000 Wisconsin men and women served in the military during WWII.  More that 8,000 of the US WWII dead were from Wisconsin.

The Memorial at the Kewaunee Courthouse has 41 names inscribed remembering those killed in WWII.

The 1947 Kewaunee County Atlas lists over 1,400 men and women who served their country during the war.

The US military men and women of Kewaunee County served around the world in WWII.  Most of them came home.  

Remembering those lives lost in war is a way of honoring their sacrifice. 

 

 

Thank you to the Kewaunee County Historical Society for the time and effort assisting with the researching of this story and providing photographs of those men mentioned in the story.

I would also like to recognize a past president of the Kewaunee County Historical Society Thomas Schuller  (1950 – 2023) who became a member of the Board of Directors in 1989 and served as its president from 2001 – 2023.  His love of Kewaunee and its history contributed greatly to what the organization is today.

 

 

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

 

The US Coast Guard in WWII: And MOH Recipient Douglas A. Munro

 

WWII US Coast Guard recruiting poster. Poster EveryCRSReport.com.

 

“Adaptability is synonymous with the operations of the United States Coast Guard. …. (the Coast Guard) sometimes lost its identity because it was grouped with the ‘Navy.’ …. recognition of the thousands upon thousands of Coast Guardsmen … is long overdue. …. I know of no instance wherein they did not acquit themselves in the highest traditions of their Service, or prove themselves worthy of their Service motto, ‘Semper Paratus’ — ‘Always Ready’.”  C. W. Nimitz, Fleet Admiral, USN

 

The United States Coast Guard (USCG) was established by the United States (US) Congress on January 28, 1915.  It became the fourth branch of the US military which then consisted of the US Army, the US Navy, and the US Marine Corps.  The new military branch combined the US Revenue Cutter Service founded August 4, 1790 (which is considered the birthday of the USCG), with the US Life-Saving Service founded in 1878.

On July 1, 1939, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt merged the US Lighthouse Service, founded in 1789, with the USCG as part of his Reorganization Plan No 11.

The early mission of the newly formed USCG was dedicated to the safety of life at sea and enforcing the nation’s maritime laws.  The mission, duties, and responsibilities of the USCG would greatly expand during WWII and took the USCG to locations around the world. The purview of the USCG was transferred from the Department of the Treasury to the Department of the Navy during WWII.

The book The U.S. Coast Guard in World War II by Malcolm F. Willoughby is a detailed account of the role of the USCG in WWII and its contribution to the war effort around the world.

These are a number of the roles, duties, and responsibilities of the US Coast Guard in WWII:

— provided operational support for every major amphibious landing in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Mediterranean during the war, often landing troops under fire on invasion beaches

— supported combat missions 

— provided troop transport

— delivered thousands of tons of supplies to Allied military forces

— took part in convoy escort duty

— manned weather stations at sea collecting information for such operational planning as the Battle of the Atlantic 

— hunted enemy submarines

— saved lives carrying out air and sea rescue

— manned US Navy ships and aided Navy personnel at times when Navy manpower was limited

— guarded the US coastline and beaches with dog and horse patrols

— protected newly captured enemy beachheads while also searching for hidden enemy snipers.

 

Map of Greenland, the largest island in the world. Thule Air Base, noted on the northwest Greenland land mass, built in 1943 during WWII is still in use today. Map wikipedia.org.

 

[A Greenland WWII historical overview.  WWII began September 1, 1939, with the German attack on Poland.  On April 9, 1940, Germany invaded Denmark.  Greenland, a Danish colony, was subsequently under Nazi influence and posed a threat to Canada, Britain, and the US.  Germany was interested in Greenland’s cryolite mine (a mineral used to process aluminum) and sought to establish weather stations on Greenland to provide information for Germany’s North Atlantic and Arctic Ocean submarine campaign and to predict weather in the WWII European Theater. Germany would continue to try to establish weather stations on Greenland between 1942 and 1944.

From 1941 to 1945 the US established weather stations, radio stations and beacons, ports and depots, search-and-rescue stations, and extensive facilities for air and sea traffic in Greenland.  In WWII Greenland also played an important role in military planning for the routing of convoys and ships and as a stopping/refueling point for military aircraft flying between the US and England.

Meteorological intelligence was essentially a “weather war” between the Allies and Germany.]

 

The Buskoe Incident

The US had established a defensive treaty with Greenland before the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii, on December 7, 1941.

Almost three months before the attack on Pearl Harbor the United States Coast Guard Cutter (USCGC) Northland (a fast, light coastal patrol boat) investigated a suspicious fishing vessel near the Greenland Franz Joseph Fjord on September 12, 1941.  The boat was identified as the Norwegian trawler Buskoe which was servicing a radio station in Greenland and controlled by German interests.  

The next day a Coast Guard landing party went ashore, found and captured the radio station, and seized papers that the Nazis were attempting to burn.  The papers, of considerable value to the Coast Guard, were confidential instructions addressing Hitler’s plans to establish radio stations in the far north.

The trawler and the Buskoe crew and those arrested at the radio station were taken to Boston, Massachusetts, for internment.

The Coast Guard was credited with “the first naval capture by the United States during the period of emergency”  before officially entering the war on December 8, 1941.

 

The USCG Cutter Muskeget

The United States Ship (USS) Muskeget (AG-48) was transferred to the USCG on June 30, 1942, for use as a weather ship the USCGC Muskeget (WAG-48).  Boston, Massachusetts, was her home port with a duty assignment to the North Atlantic Weather Patrol.  Weather ships gathered data on winds, temperatures, humidity, and pressure to make weather forecasts that supported Allied military operations.  It was dangerous duty.  A ship was at sea and cruising in a small radius with no naval protection for a month while evading enemy submarines and being caught in storms. 

 

USS Muskeget before conversion to weather ship USCGC Muskeget. Photograph en.wikipedia.org.

 

On August 24, 1942, Muskeget departed Boston on her second weather patrol to Weather Station No. 2 off the southern tip of Greenland. After issuing a weather report on September 9, 1942, the ship and its crew of 121 were not heard from again.

It later became known that German Navy submarine U-755 commanded by Kapitänleutnant Walter Göing fired two torpedoes at 2:54 pm on September 9, 1942, sinking the Muskeget.  He would claim the ship had been misidentified as a merchant cruiser.  The submarine surfaced after the initial sinking and found a life raft with survivors.  U-755 departed the area but returned hours later finding eight men and two life rafts tied together.  Göing would say he thought the survivors shouted they were from an American ship.  No survivors were rescued.

 

Kapitänleutnant Walter Göing, submarine Commander U-755. The submarine was sunk May 28, 1943, near Toulon, France, in the Mediterranean Sea by a British Lockheed Hudson (a light bomber/patrol aircraft). Photograph u-boat.net.

 

The USCGC Muskeget was the only weather ship lost in WWII.

 

The Normandy Invasion, June 6, 1944

One of the major roles the USCG played on D-Day, June 6, 1944, in the Allied invasion of Normandy, France, was rescuing troops in the water along the invasion beaches.

Operation Overlord planners for the June 6 invasion knew rescue craft would be needed for those troops on sinking invasion craft and those needing a water rescue after being wounded or falling into the English Channel during the battle.  Prior to the invasion 60 83-foot USCG cutters, patrolling along the East Coast of the US for enemy submarines, were transported to England piggy-back on freighters and modified for use as rescue craft.

The 60 cutters would be known as US Coast Guard Rescue Flotilla One [and the only flotilla]  and nicknamed the “Matchbook Fleet.” Thirty of the rescue craft were assigned to the American invasion beach sectors of Utah and Omaha, and the other 30 were off the British and Canadian beaches of Gold, Juno, and Sword.

The USCG cutters followed the first Allied landing wave to the beaches on June 6.  During the invasion they made 1,438 rescues from the English Channel.

A photograph taken by Coast Guard Chief Photographer’s Mate Robert R. Sargent on June 6, 1944, would come to represent the Normandy Invasion.  He took the photograph, titled “Into the Jaws of Death,” from his landing craft around 7:40 am at the American Omaha Beach sector “Easy Red.”

 

“Into the Jaws of Death” photograph. USCG Records, National Archives.

 

Fifteen Coast Guardsmen would lose their lives that day.

 

USCG Medal of Honor Recipient Douglas A. Munro

Douglas Albert Munro was born in Canada on October 11, 1919, to an American father and British mother.  The family moved to the small town of South Cle Elum in the State of Washington when he was a child.

Doug was attending the Central Washington College of Education when in the summer of 1939, aware that war might be imminent, he decided to enlist in the US Coast Guard.  Doug worked hard to gain weight to meet the minimum enlistment requirement.

Doug told his sister, Patricia, that he chose the Coast Guard because its primary mission was to save lives.  

While processing into the Coast Guard in Seattle, Washington, Munro met a fellow recruit, Raymond J. Evans, Jr.  They became very good friends and were assigned to the same ships except for one assignment.  Their shipmates gave them the nickname the “Gold Dust Twins.”  

 

Douglas Munro had achieved the rank of Signalman Third Class in this photo circa 1940. Photograph courtesy of the US Coast Guard.
Douglas Munro aboard a ship circa 1939 – 1942. Photograph courtesy of US Coast Guard.

 

It was at the Battle of Guadalcanal that Signalman First Class Douglas A. Munro lost his life on September 27, 1942.  

His bravery and sacrifice were recognized with the award of the Medal Of Honor (MOH).  The MOH Citation:

“For extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry in action above and beyond the call of duty as Petty Officer in Charge of a group of 24 Higgins boats, engaged in the evacuation of a battalion of marines trapped by enemy Japanese forces at Point Cruz Guadalcanal, on 27 September 1942. After making preliminary plans for the evacuation of nearly 500 beleaguered marines, Munro, under constant strafing by enemy machine guns on the island, and at great risk of his life, daringly led 5 of his small craft toward the shore. As he closed the beach, he signaled the others to land, and then in order to draw the enemy’s fire and protect the heavily loaded boats, he valiantly placed his craft with its 2 small guns as a shield between the beachhead and the Japanese. When the perilous task of evacuation was nearly completed, Munro was killed by enemy fire, but his crew, 2 of whom were wounded, carried on until the last boat had loaded and cleared the beach. By his outstanding leadership, expert planning, and dauntless devotion to duty, he and his courageous comrades undoubtedly saved the lives of many who otherwise would have perished. He gallantly gave his life for his country.”

It was his friend Ray Evans who would hear Munro’s dying words. According to Evans, Doug asked, “Did they (the Marines) get off?” Evans said that he nodded in the affirmative to Munro’s question, and then he was gone.

Munro was weeks away from his 23rd birthday.  

Doug had achieved his purpose in joining the US Coast Guard in 1939.  He had saved lives.

Douglas Munro was buried in a temporary cemetery on Guadalcanal on the next day, September 28th.  US Marine Master Sergeant James Hurlbut in a letter to Doug’s father said Ray Evans had constructed the wooden cross marking his grave.

[Battle of Guadalcanal WWII brief historical overview.  The battle was fought August 7, 1942 — February 9, 1943.  

 

The Battle of Guadalcanal in the Pacific Ocean Solomon Islands. Guadalcanal bottom right on map. Map wikimedia.org.

 

The Allied victory marked the transition from defensive to offensive operations against the Empire of Japan in the Pacific Theater of Operations.]

The Medal of Honor was presented to Doug’s parents, James and Edith Munro, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the White House on May 24, 1943.

Edith Munro, at her insistence, joined the USCG Women’s Reserve (SPARS — an acronym for “Semper Paratus—Always Ready”) at the age of 48 to serve her country and to honor her son’s legacy.  She completed basic training with other Coast Guard recruits at her request and was commissioned a Lieutenant Junior Grade.

 

Official portrait of Edith Munro. Photograph naval history.org.

 

Douglas A. Munro’s remains were returned to the US in 1947 and interred in his hometown of Cle Elum, instead of Arlington National Cemetery, at his family’s request because they wanted to be able to visit his grave.  His parents would eventually be buried on either side of him at Laurel Hill Memorial Park.  Following her death in 1983, Edith was buried next to her son with full military honors. The Munro graves are designated a State of Washington Historical Site.

 

1939 USCG enlistment photo of Raymond J. Evans, Jr. Photograph wikipedia.org.

 

Raymond J. Evans, Jr. received the Navy Cross for his “extraordinary heroism” at Guadalcanal fighting alongside his good friend Doug Munro.  He remained in the USCG after WWII, received a commission, and retired in 1962 at the rank of Commander.  He died in 2013 at the age of 92.

Patricia Edith Munro, Doug’s sister, tried to join the USCG after Doug’s death but had the same problem her brother initially had when he tried to enlist; she couldn’t meet the minimum weight requirement.  But later in life her son Douglas Sheehan (named after her brother) joined the USCG and retired in the rank of Commander.

 

 

The U.S. Coast Guard in World War II by Malcolm F. Willoughby gives an comprehensive, in-depth account of the role of the USCG in WWII.

 

 

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

 

WWII Italy: And the Story of 1938 Winner of the Tour de France Gino Bartali

 

Gino Bartali, winner of the 1938 Tour de France.  Photograph July 19, 1938.  Wikimedia Commons.

 

“Good is something you do, not something you talk about.  Some medals are pinned to your soul, not to your jacket.”  Gino Bartali

 

Overview of historical events in the WWII history of Fascist Italy as related to this story:

Benito Mussolini was dictator of Italy from 1925 – 1943.  He was known as  “Il Duce” (translated “the Leader”).

In 1938 German dictator Adolph Hitler visited Mussolini in Italy.  It was after this visit that Mussolini adopted anti-Jewish laws in Italy based upon Germany’s antisemitic and racist 1935 Nuremberg Laws which excluded Jews from many aspects of daily life. 

Hitler and Mussolini signed a military and political alliance on May 22, 1939, called the “Pact of Steel” (known formally as the “Pact of Friendship and Alliance”).

On September 1, 1939, WWII began with the German invasion of Poland.

Italy would join the WWII Axis countries of Germany and Japan on June 10, 1940.

Following the Allied successful invasion of Sicily in July 1943, the King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III, had Mussolini arrested on July 25, 1943, after the Grand Council of Fascism voted a motion of “no confidence” in him.  Mussolini was replaced by Marshal Pietro Badoglio.  

On September 8, 1943, at 5:30 p.m. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces, from his location in Algiers, Algeria, announced a military armistice and termination of hostilities with Italy.

With the 1943 surrender of Italy, Hitler moved increasing numbers of German troops into Italy to seize control of the country and to fight the Allies.  With German occupation of the country Italian and refugee Jews received increased scrutiny and were rounded up and deported to German labor or concentration camps for likely extermination.  

Between 1939 and 1947 an organization the Delegation for the Assistance of Jewish Emigrants (DELASEM), composed of Italian and Jewish resistance groups, aided refugees and foreigners who were interned in Italy and provided support and avenues of emigration for them.  Their headquarters were in Genoa, Italy.  Main funding came through the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society as well as monetary collections within Italy. The organization was legal in Italy until the September 8, 1943, surrender to the Allies.  Although illegal after that date, it continued to operate with the support of the Catholic Church. Between 1939 and 1943, DELASEM helped 9,000 Jewish refugees of which 5,000 were helped to leave Italy.

After Mussolini’s arrest he was confined to the island of Ponza, the largest island of the Italian Pontine Islands archipelago, in the Tyrrhenian Sea. He was moved to different locations the last of which was the Hotel Campo Imperatore located on a remote mountain plateau in northern Italy.  On September 12, 1943, Hitler sent a special team of German paratroopers and Waffen-SS commandos to rescue Mussolini.  The rescue was known as the Grand Sasso raid. With Hitler’s support Mussolini was set up in a puppet government, the Italian Social Republic, in Salò, Italy, which existed until the German surrender in May 1945.  On April 28, 1945, Mussolini and his mistress were caught trying to escape capture by the Allies and were executed by Italian partisans in the Piazzale Loreto, Milan, Italy.

WWII in Europe ended on May 8, 1945.

 

Gino Bartali. Photograph capovelo.com.

 

Gino Bartali was an integral part of an Italian network in WWII that worked to save and protect Jews and war refugees.  His story is representative of the many Italian citizens, resistance and partisan members, and Catholic clergy who risked their own lives in those very dangerous times.

Gino Bartali was born July 18, 1914, in Ponte a Ema, Florence, Italy. He got a job in a bicycle shop and started bicycle racing when he was 13 years old.  After racing successfully as an amateur Gino turned professional at age 21 in 1935.

In 1936 and 1937 Gino won Italy’s top bicycle race the Giro d’ Italia (Tour of Italy).  In 1938 he won his first Tour de France.  He was under pressure to dedicate his victory in the Tour de France to Italy’s Fascist leader Benito Mussolini.  When Gino refused, Mussolini forbad any celebration of his victory in Italy.

Italy joined the WWII Axis countries of Germany and Japan on June 10, 1940.  On October 9, 1940,  Gino was called to active military duty. Surprisingly, because of an irregular heartbeat which he knew about, the military doctor declared him unfit for duty as a regular soldier; Gino was assigned as an Italian Army messenger, and he rode a bicycle. 

Gino Bartali married Adrianna Bani in Florence on November 14, 1940.  Cardinal Elia Dalla Costa, the Archbishop of Florence, celebrated the wedding mass. Cardinal Dalla Costa was also an integral member of the network in WWII to save, protect, and hide Jews and other refugees from capture, possible execution, and deportation to a concentration camp such as Auschwitz where they would meet their death.

After the September 8, 1943, surrender of Italy to the Allies, Gino and thousands of other Italian men submitted paperwork and were discharged from the Italian Army.  

The hope of returning to a prewar life in Italy was not to be for two primary reasons:  (1) with the end of the country’s hostilities with the Allies, the German military increased its presence in Italy and took control of the areas previously controlled by Mussolini’s Fascist Army, and (2) after the American and British invaded Calabria and Salerno in southern Italy in September 1943, intense German resistance slowed and delayed the advance of the Allies northward.

 

Map of the WWII Italian Campaign, 1943 – 1945. Note dates of battles as the Allies progressed northward.  Map medium.com.

 

In September 1943 Cardinal Elia Dalla Costa requested a meeting with Gino. He asked Gino to become part of an underground group known as the Assisi Network.  The group protected and hid Italian and non-Italian Jews, refugees, and partisans trying to escape capture by the Germans.  

What Gino provided the Assisi Network was a means to transport documents and photographs for false identity cards.  False identity cards were necessary for those in hiding to move around within Italy.  

On October 16, 1943, the Germans occupied Rome and began rounding up Jews.

Using his fame as a sports figure in Italy and Europe, Gino Bartali cycled around Italy on his bicycle with documents stuffed inside the frame and handlebars of his racing bicycle.  He wore his racing jersey with his name on it.  When he was recognized or questioned by those who saw him on the roads, Gino said he was “training” for races. Government officials had even given him a special permit for his movement through the Italian countryside.

 

Map to locate Gino Bartali’s routes through Italy as he delivered false identification paperwork.  Map explo-re.com.

 

Gino would leave his home in Florence and might be gone for days at a time while he “trained.”  He sometimes cycled 250 miles a day and travelled as far as Genoa and Rome delivering needed documents for those in hiding. 

In Tuscany alone there were 26 Catholic monasteries and convents, some of them cloistered, that sheltered Jews and refugees.  The Assisi Network was only one of the networks in Italy providing protection.  The networks tried to operate independently so as not to put each other in danger should they be discovered.

 

Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, Assisi, Italy. Photograph everipedia.org.

 

The Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi in Italy’s Umbria region played a major role in the rescue effort.  It provided a hiding place for more than 300 Jews.  Father Rufino Niccacci, the Father Guardian of the Franciscan Monastery of San Damiano in Assisi, organized the effort to hide Jews fleeing from the Germans and to provide them with false identity cards.

Of importance in Assisi was a print shop next to the Basilica.  Luigi Brizi and his son, Trento, printed false identification papers at great danger to themselves.

Some false identification papers intentionally used the real first letters of a person’s first and last name.  The reason — if asked to write their name on a document at some point, it could protect and remind them of their false identity if they nervously and automatically started to write their true name.

But not all attempts to rescue Jews and other refugees ended well. On September 1, 1944, German troops of the 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division stormed into a Carthusian monastery, the Certosa di Farneta, in Tuscany.  One hundred and fifty clergy and others were arrested.  Forty-nine of the prisoners were killed by firing squad.  The others were sent to labor camps.  Six monks and six lay brothers were shot.  Among those killed was Father Gabriele Maria Costa;  he was a friend of Gino Bartali.  

Gino Bartali’s fame was also used in different situations.  Approximately half way between Florence and Rome is a town called Terontola.  The town train station was important during WWII as it provided a railway connection between north and south Italy.  It was heavily guarded by the Germans.  It was also an important point where Jews and refugees traveling to the liberated south of Italy would change trains.  Gino knew partisans in the area, and they developed a plan. Gino would go to the railway station and boldly make it known that a “great cycling champion” was there.  He attracted crowds of people who wanted to see him and get his autograph.  The commotion caught the attention of the German guards who left their posts to disperse the crowd.  With the distraction in place, refugees were able to transfer trains without the Germans seeing them.

[After the long and hard fought battle at Monte Cassino (January 17 – May 18, 1944), the Americans moved north and liberated Rome on June 5, 1944.  The celebration of the liberation of Rome was short lived in the press since the next day, June 6, the Allies landed at Normandy, France.]

After almost a year of  his secret activities and with many bicycle races being cancelled, his excuse for “training” was questioned by some people.  In July 1944 Gino was interrogated at Florence’s Villa Triste (“House of Sorrow”) where Fascist agents would question and torture their prisoners.   A former Italian Army commander of Gino’s vouched for his innocence, and he was released.

[On August 11, 1944, the Allies liberated Florence and moved northward.  The WWII Italian Campaign ended on May 2, 1945.]

Gino Bartali is recognized for saving about 800 Jews during WWII. Four of the Jews he saved were friends hidden in the cellar of his home.  

 

Gino Bartali’s Jewish friend Giacomo Goldenberg with his wife, Elvira, and their two children Giorgio and Tea hid in the cellar of Gino’s home in Florence.  Photograph Road to Valor book.

 

After WWII Gino Bartali resumed bicycle racing.  In 1948 he won the Tour de France for the second time.

 

Gino Bartali doing a victory lap after winning the 1948 Tour de France.  Photograph disraeligears.co.uk.

 

Gino Bartali died on May 5, 2000, in Florence.  He didn’t talk about his exploits in WWII until later in life when he began to slowly and quietly share his WWII experiences with his son, Andrea.

On July 7, 2013, Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance Center, in Jerusalem, Israel, recognized Gino Bartali as one of the Righteous Among the Nations for his work to save Jews in WWII.   

Gino Bartali remained humble about his WWII work with the Assisi Network.  If he was called a hero, he would say, “Real heroes are … those who have suffered in their soul, in their heart, in their spirit, in their mind, for their loved ones.  Those are the real heroes.  I’m just a cyclist.”

 

 

Others mentioned in this story who received recognition as Righteous Among the Nations were Cardinal Elia Dalla Costa in 2012, Father Rufino Niccacci in 1974, and Luigi and Trento Brizi in 1997.

Excellent sources for more in-depth information about the life of Gino Bartali include the book Road to Valor by Aili and Andres McConnon and the documentary My Italian Secret: The Forgotten Heroes of the Holocaust.  An informative book for younger readers is Bartali’s Bicycle by Megan Hoyt and Iacopo Bruno.

 

 

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

The Unsung Heroes of the US Merchant Marine in WWII: And the Story of Convoy PQ-17

 

Life-Line of Freedom – the Merchant Marine poster. Artist: Paul Sample. National Archives.

 

 

The United States (US) Merchant Marine Act of 1936 stated, “It is necessary for the national defense… that the United States shall have a merchant marine of the best equipped and most suitable types of vessels sufficient to carry the greater portion of its commerce and serve as a naval or military auxiliary in time of war or national emergency…”

In the late 1930s with the US foreseeing an approaching involvement in WWII, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered US shipyards to build ships that would be needed in the conflict and established the US Maritime Service which was responsible for training merchant mariners and the men of the US Army Transport Service.

The Merchant Marine was a commercial, non-military fleet of ships that was effectively nationalized by the US government in WWII. The men of the Merchant Marine were civilian volunteers. 

The Merchant Marine ships had limited defensive capabilities. Guns, to provide a defense for the ships and crews, were placed onboard merchant ships and manned by the US Navy Armed Guard which was a special unit of Navy military personnel at that time.  

On March 11, 1941, President Roosevelt signed into law An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States, more commonly known as the Lend-Lease Act, which was a program through which the US sent food, oil and fuel, supplies, equipment, and war materiel to England, countries of the British Commonwealth, China, the Free French, other Allied nations, and the Soviet Union.  

On December 8, 1941, President Roosevelt declared war on Japan after the surprise attack December 7, 1941, on Pearl Harbor, Oahu, US Territory of Hawaii.  

The ships of the US Merchant Marine in WWII sailed around the world to deliver troops, supplies, food, aircraft, gasoline, oil, guns, shells, vehicles, tanks, bombs, ammunition, medicine, equipment, and needed materiel for war.  It played a critical, logistical role in the war. 

In addition to enemy warships, aircraft, and submarine attacks, the Merchant Marine vessels faced the perils of weather, icebergs, rough seas, mines, sharks, and in the Pacific Theater Japanese “kamikaze” attacks.

 

Battle of the Atlantic (September 3, 1939 – May 8, 1945).

After Italy joined the Axis countries on June 10, 1940, submarines of the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina) worked with Germany to interrupt and stop the Allied flow of supplies to areas of conflict.

The Allied forces of the US, Canada, Britain, Norway, and Brazil would fight against the warships, submarines, and aircraft of the German Navy (Kriegsmarine), the German Air Force (Luftwaffe), and the Italian Royal Navy. 

The most dangerous time during this campaign was from 1940 to the end of 1943 with resulting staggering losses of merchant vessels and other convoy ships.  

It was the longest military campaign of WWII.  

 

Ship Convoys.

The convoy system was intended to protect Allied merchant ships sailing during wartime.  Before the US entered WWII, convoys bound for British ports were escorted from convoy assembly points at Halifax and Sydney,  Nova Scotia, Canada, by the Royal Canadian Navy to a location in the mid-Atlantic Ocean where the British Royal Navy would meet and escort the convoy to its destination.  The US Navy provided convoy escorts after December 7, 1941. 

Merchant ships were grouped in the center of a convoy formation with warships, aircraft, and submarines surrounding and guarding the ships. During WWII there were over 300 convoy routes around the world.  Each convoy would have a two or three letter code indicating destination and convoy speed.  A convoy could only go as fast as the slowest ship in the convoy.  

 

The Arctic Convoys (August 1941 – May 1945). 

After Germany attacked Russia on June 22, 1941, the Soviet Union joined the Allies.  Joseph Stalin, the ruler of the Soviet Union, was in desperate need of military equipment and supplies to fight the Nazis.  The British began sending supplies and war materiel to the Soviet ports of Murmansk and Archangelsk.  The first convoy from England would arrive in Archangelsk on August 31, 1941.  Convoys to Russia would continue until the end of the war.

 

Allied Arctic Sea convoy routes WWII. Map dailymail.co.uk.

 

Three primary routes used to send supplies from the US to Russia in WWII. Map US Department of State November 28, 1945.

 

The shortest and fastest route for convoys to Russia was the Arctic Sea route.

 

Besides the dangers of Axis submarines, warships, and aircraft there were rough seas, frigid temperatures, icebergs, and ice sheets, and ice buildup on the ships. Ice buildup on ships could make the ships “top heavy” and prone to rolling over. Photograph dailymail.co.uk.

 

Also making the Arctic route dangerous was the German military occupation of Norway on April 9, 1940, which provided close proximity to Allied convoys in the Atlantic Ocean, Arctic Sea, and the Barents Sea.

 

Arctic Convoy PQ-17.

PQ-17 was the first combined Anglo-American naval operation of WWII under British command.

 

Convoy PQ-17 escort and merchant ships assembling at Hvalfjörður, Iceland. Photograph Naval History and Heritage Command.

 

Convoy PQ-17 under the command of British Commodore John Dowding set sail on June 27, 1942, from Hvalfjörður, Iceland, with a destination of Archangelsk, Russia.  

[One of the ships providing PQ-17 protection was an American destroyer the United States Ship (USS) Wichita.  Hollywood actor and US Navy Reserve Officer Douglas Fairbanks, Junior, was a member of the crew.]

 

A German Luftwaffe BV 138 reconnaissance plane photograph of PQ-17 on or about July 1, 1942. Photograph Naval History and Heritage Command.

 

A German submarine U-456 sighted and would follow convoy PQ-17 shortly after it left Iceland on June 27, 1942.

The first merchant ship, the Liberty ship Steamship (SS) Christopher Newport, was sunk on the morning of July 4 by a German torpedo bomber Heinkel HE 115.  On that same day, a US destroyer the USS Wainwright, part of the covering force for PQ-17, repulsed an attack on the convoy by German torpedo bombers.  On July 4 German torpedo bombers also sank the Liberty ship SS William Hooper.  

Back in London, England, on July 4, a decision was made that would decide the fate of PQ-17.

The First Sea Lord and Admiral of the Fleet Sir Alfred Dudley Pound was notified by Swedish intelligence that German ships including the battleship Tirpitz had left Norway to intercept Convoy PQ-17.  He consulted with Lieutenant Commander Norman Denning, an intelligence analyst with the Operational Intelligence Center for the Royal Navy, who did not detect any German ship movements at that time nor did he find any radio traffic, messages from the Norwegian Resistance, or any other threat to support the rumor of the sailing of the Tirpitz.  

Despite conflicting information about the Tirpitz, Admiral Pound ordered PQ-17 protection  ships to withdraw at high speed westward (to repulse the German ships?) and ordered the remaining ships in the convoy to “scatter” and make their own way to Russian ports.

Convoy PQ-17 was abandoned when the close and distant Allied convoy protection ships were ordered to detach from the convoy.  The merchant ships were left to plan their individual routes to Russia with ship compasses that were sometimes inaccurate in that part of the world.  It was summer in the Arctic; there was no place to “hide in the dark” because there was no darkness at that time of the year. And the ships had limited defensive capabilities.

The Germans, surprised at what happened, took advantage of every opportunity to sink the merchant vessels.  The Tirpitz did leave Norway on July 5 to intercept PQ-17 but returned to port that same day because German bombers and submarines had already been very successful in destroying the convoy.

 

PQ-17 ship losses. Map forum.worldofwarships.com.

 

Of the 35 merchant ships that left Iceland, only 11 would eventually reach a port in Russia.  One hundred and fifty-three merchant mariners were lost.

In addition to men and ships, it was reported that war materiel, equipment, and supplies lost included 200 aircraft, 3,300 trucks, 435 tanks, and other war supplies that could equip 50,000 men.  

Stalin was said to be angry and unable to understand how such a disaster could happen and questioned why convoy protection was removed.  This incident would drive a wedge of distrust between the Soviet Union and the Allies.

The Arctic supply route was halted temporarily as convoy plans were studied.  On September 2, 1942, Convoy PQ-18 left Loch Ewe, Scotland, and sailed with additional escort ships to provide protection.

 

Story of WWII Merchant Mariner Frank E. Scott. 

Frank Edward Scott.  Oral History Interview for the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas, on October 25, 2010. He was interviewed in San Antonio, Texas.

 

Merchant mariner Frank E. Scott, circa 1943. Photograph courtesy  of the Frank Scott family.

 

Frank Scott was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, on May 9, 1925. He had two brothers, Dale and Quincy.  In 1936 his family moved to San Antonio, Texas.  He was playing touch football on December 7, 1941, when he heard about the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  

After graduating from Brackenridge High School in San Antonio in 1943 Frank went to the Merchant Marine Recruiting Office in the city to volunteer for service.  

Frank travelled to a Maritime Service base in St. Petersburg, Florida, for basic merchant seaman training in August 1943.  The training staff at the base found out he had taught swimming in San Antonio and asked him to stay on and teach survival swimming to recruits.  There was no pool at the school at the time so Frank taught new recruits survival skills in the Gulf of Mexico.  Two of the survival skills he taught were how to make a life jacket from trousers and how to jump off a tower into the water which simulated jumping from a ship.

January 3, 1944, the SS Washita.  Frank’s first assignment at sea was on the oil tanker SS Washita.  The tanker travelled in a convoy of about 200 ships to Swansea in Wales, England.  The convoy was not attacked, but at that time in the war the Atlantic route was less threatened by German submarines.  The Washita travelled back to the US, and Frank was discharged on February 2, 1944, upon fulfillment of his contract.      

[At this period of time in WWII troops and supplies were being stockpiled in England in preparation for the closely guarded secret of the Normandy, France, invasion planned for June of 1944.]

[The Merchant Marine being a non-military organization had different requirements regarding its crews.  A merchant seaman signed a contract to serve on a specific ship which may make one or more trips to various destinations.  Upon completion of the contract he had the choice to sign  another contact.  If he did not sign another contract within 30 days, he became eligible for the military draft.]

April 20, 1944, the Liberty ship SS Samuel Mcintyre.  After a visit with his family in San Antonio, Frank signed his second contract and sailed on a cargo ship the Liberty ship SS Samuel Mcintyre.  He would serve almost 9 months on this ship. The ship’s captain who Frank estimated to be around 65 years old was from Scotland and had been called back into service out of retirement. 

Job responsibilities and life aboard a merchant ship.

In his interview Frank spoke of his job and duties on a ship.

–  A  seaman’s duties included deck work, painting, standing watch, steering the ship, among other responsibilities.

–  Schedules for standing watch were midnight to 4 am, 4 am – 8 am, 8 am – 12 noon, and so forth.  One third of the crew would be on watch at any one time; a watch schedule was four hours on and eight hours off.  It was difficult to sleep between standing watch duties when traveling in the Northern Atlantic because of the long periods of daylight.

–  Tankers took about three days to unload, and cargo ships could take two to four weeks to unload.  When unloading in port, they may work for 24 hours straight. 

–  Weather was always a factor.  Storms could reek havoc on ships and convoys.

–  Crews could average around 40 – 50 merchant mariners and about 35 Navy Armed Guard.

–  Typical gun placements on merchant ships were five inch guns on the bow, eight inch long range guns on the stern, and a dozen or so anti-aircraft guns.  

–  Barrage balloons were sometimes used to deter German aircraft from attacking a ship.

–  When leaving the US the crew didn’t always know the ship’s destination.  If the destination was the Arctic or Northern Atlantic, cold weather gear and clothing was handed out after about 24 hours at sea.

–  If ships in a convoy were sunk, destroyers or dedicated rescue ships would pick up survivors, if possible.

Frank’s experiences on the SS Samuel Mcintyre.

Frank would sometimes take over steering the ship when a particular seaman got shaky or nervous in rough seas.  That seaman had survived the sinking of five ships.

On a voyage to Cardiff, England, the ship had a closely guarded P-51 Mustang fighter plane on the deck, along with tanks, and in preparation for the invasion of Normandy hundreds of full five gallon gas cans cabled to the deck.  

After the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, the Samuel Mcintyre did “shuttle runs” from Cardiff to Omaha Beach with needed supplies and equipment.  

From July 15 – August 31, 1944, the Samuel Mcintyre was anchored off Omaha Beach with a loaded ship awaiting the Allied capture of Cherbourg, France. 

[As the Allies advanced towards Germany additional ports and supply lines were needed.  The focus was on the port of Antwerp, Belgium, and the Scheldt River.  Antwerp was captured by the British on September 4, 1944.  The West and East Scheldt Estuary were still held by the Germans.  The Battle of the Scheldt (October – November 1944) fought by Canadian, Polish, and British units resulted in an Allied victory on November 8.

 

Battle of the Scheldt October – November 1944. Map US Army.

 

After the Scheldt was swept for mines, the first convoy carrying Allied supplies unloaded in Antwerp on November 29, 1944.]

The SS Samuel McIntyre was one of the first ships to arrive in Antwerp.  Frank said it took about four weeks to unload the ship. While on watch he would sometimes see flares from German artillery being fired into Antwerp as the Germans were still in the area.

[Cine Rex, De Keyserlei 15, Antwerp, Belgium.  On December 16, 1944, (the first day of the Battle of the Bulge) a V-2 rocket was fired from the German SS Werfer Battery in Hellendoorn, The Netherlands. The rocket landed on the roof of the Cine Rex movie theater at 3:20 pm. Of the over 1,000 people inside, 567 people including 296 Allied servicemen were killed in the explosion.  It was the highest death toll in WWII from a single rocket.

The American movie The Plainsman was playing at the theater that day.]

The Samuel McIntyre left Antwerp and sailed back to the US in late December.  Frank was discharged January 11, 1945.

The Scott family Christmas card for 1944 celebrated the military service of the three Scott brothers and Quincy’s wife, Dottie.  They would all return home after WWII.

 

Left to right: Dale Scott, Frank Scott, and Quincy Scott with Dottie Scott in the foreground. Photograph courtesy of the Frank Scott family.

 

March 6, 1945, the SS Emile N. Vidal, one of the concrete ships of WWII.  Frank signed on the SS Emile N. Vidal in New Orleans, Louisiana.  He would have back-to-back sailings on this ship.  The ship would sail in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico to ports which included Cuba and Puerto Rico.  One of the supplies transported on this ship was sugar.

[The US government in WWII contracted with McCloskey and Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to construct 24 self-propelled concrete ships at a time when steel resources for shipbuilding were scarce.  The ships were built in Tampa, Florida, starting in July 1943 at the Hookers Point shipyard at a rate of one per month.  They were named after pioneers in the development and science of concrete.  

The government also contracted the building of concrete barges with companies in California.  The barges lacked engines to propel them and had to be towed.]

Merchant mariner Alfred “Al” G. Booth, a good friend of Frank’s from San Antonio, Texas, was also a crew member on this voyage. 

 

Merchant mariner Alfred G. Booth, circa 1943. Al had a twin brother, Walter, who was in the US Navy in WWII. Photograph courtesy of the Al Booth family.
Frank, on left, with Al Booth. When back in San Antonio between contracts Frank and Al would meet and exchange stories. Photograph courtesy of the Al Booth family.

 

Frank was discharged on April 9, 1945.

April 10, 1945, the SS Emile N. Vidal.  Frank and Al would sail a second time on this ship and were discharged May 21, 1945.

July 21,1945, the Liberty ship SS Beckley Seam.  Frank, Al, and another fellow San Antonio native, merchant mariner William McCollough, were members of the crew.

The Beckley Seam delivered coal to Savona, Italy, and was still in the Mediterranean Sea when it was announced that WWII had ended.

During Frank’s interview with the National Museum of the Pacific War he proudly showed me a photograph he had taken of the American flag on the SS Beckley Seam. 

 

Frank Scott’s photograph caption: STARS AND STRIPES ON THE US MERCHANT VESSEL “BECKLEY SEAM” SOMEWHERE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA, AUGUST 1945.  We three were there.  Al Booth, Bill McCollough, and Frank Scott. Photograph courtesy of Frank Scott.

 

 

The US Merchant Marine did not have a centralized record-keeping system in WWII, and because of that, the estimates of merchant seamen losses vary significantly.  During WWII there were about 250,000 civilian merchant mariners.  A total estimate of merchant seamen and officers that went missing or were killed varies from 5,662 to over 9,000.  An estimated 12,000 men were wounded, and over 600 became prisoners of war.  

A total of 1,554 merchant ships were sunk in WWII according to the War Shipping Administration.  

Merchant seamen were not included in the postwar Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, also known as the GI Bill, nor did they qualify to receive other military benefits due to their civilian status. It wasn’t until 1988 that WWII merchant seamen were recognized officially as veterans.

 

 

 

Frank Scott commented during his interview that the 1943 movie Action in the Atlantic was close to his actual wartime experiences.

Frank Scott’s brother, Quincy, came home from WWII with his own war story while assigned to the US Navy destroyer USS Borie in the Atlantic.  On November 1, 1943, the Borie rammed German submarine U-405, which had surfaced.  The two ships were locked together with the bow of the Borie resting on the foredeck of the submarine.  Until the two ships were able to separate, the Borie and U-405 exchanged small arms fire at close range.  Both the Borie and U-405 would be lost in this incident.  Survivors of the Borie were rescued by the escort carrier USS Card.

Four WWII merchant mariners that went into acting after the war were James Garner, Peter Falk, Carroll O’Connor, and Jack Lord.

A very special thank you to Frank Scott’s wife, Helen, and to Al Booth’s wife, Maureen, for providing photographs and documents related to this story.

Thank you to the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas, and museum archivist Chris McDougal for providing information related to this story.  The oral history interview of Frank Scott is in the museum archive.

 

 

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