Dem
47
GOP
53
Today, a memory from M.B.T. in Bay Village, OH:
This is a story our Dad told us late in life. I didn't have a recorder, but after he told us, I went off and jotted down a few notes. This is how he told it in his own words as best I can recall:After the war, when I was stationed in Japan, my job was to fly fighter escort for [an unpronounceable Japanese name that I cannot remember], who commuted from where he was in prison to his trial for war crimes. He'd leave in a PBY and we'd meet up and then hang on the propeller with full flaps to fly slow enough to stay with him. It was hard flying [a P-51] that slowly.The reason I believe this story is because he never bragged about anything he did. My brother and I had to get him to talk. He wouldn't do it on his own.
One day, some Russian fighters buzzed by us, which they weren't supposed to do because it was our air space and they weren't allowed. Back at the base, I confronted one of the Russians there [probably some sort of liaison?], a captain or a major, I forget, but he outranked me. He knew all about it. I told him if his people did it again, I'd shoot 'em down. He just laughed at me.
The next day, as we were getting ready to take off, I made sure they saw my flight crew loading my guns. Then I had them shoot off a few test rounds, the way we did it during the war. Remember, the war's over and this is the Occupation and we're not supposed to have any need for loaded guns anymore. I did it on my own and didn't get permission, but I wanted to show those Russian sons-of-bitches I meant business.
That Russian officer was madder'n hell, but he must have sent word because they stayed out of our air space from that day on.
They launched a formal protest about the insult and the threat I'd made to them and it made its way through the hierarchy of the Air Corps. I was told it eventually landed on George Marshall's desk. I'm not sure it did, but it might have. So here's this 22-year-old second lieutenant causing an international incident with our Russian allies.
In a few days, I was punished by being relieved of my duties for 2 weeks. What they did was send me and my CO on a furlough. I'm sure they told the Russians I'd been thoroughly disciplined, but the CO thought it was great and we had a grand time in Tokyo and everybody thought I was really something. It made me a hero for a while.
(Dad, would you have really shot him down?)
I don't know, maybe.
He never shot down any Japanese because his assignment overseas was delayed by 6 months from pneumonia, a disease he contracted several times more during my childhood and adolescence. He didn't ship out with his unit from flight training, which might have saved his life. Several of the cadets he'd trained with were shot down in combat, but the air war was pretty much over by the time he went. He never saw a Japanese plane in the air the whole time he was in the Pacific. All he did was "strafe and bomb the jungle in places that looked like any other part of the jungle."
Once, he told us, he was dropping bombs from a P-38 and hit an ammo dump, but didn't even know it. His flight leader saw it, but Dad was "too busy pulling up" to notice. It was just a lucky accident as far as he was concerned, and the closest he ever came to doing anything that could be called active wartime combat. As far as he knows, nobody ever fired a shot at him. So that's why I believe the Russian story.
Besides the pneumonia, Dad credited the two atomic bombs with helping save his life. He and his group were training for the invasion of the Japanese mainland when the bombs were dropped and the Japanese surrendered.
He always admired the Japanese because of the way they picked themselves up and rebuilt their country after the war. He didn't think very highly of the Russians, however.
Thanks, M.B.T. (Z)