TFH 4/30: Major William Martin, RM goes to war

My regular readers know that I've told many stories here of men who gave their lives in battle to save others. Seventy years ago today on April 30, 1943, a man already dead went to war, and undoubtedly saved hundreds if not thousands of American and British soldiers from becoming casualties both in July and August 1943 and beyond.

Glyndwr Michael was born in Aberbargoed, Wales on January 4, 1909. His father, a coal miner, committed suicide in 1924. His mother died in 1940, leaving the Welshman alone, depressed or suffering from additional mental illness, and homeless. His corpse was discovered on January 24, 1943 in a London warehouse. Michael's death was caused by ingesting rat poison, and it's unknown whether he committed suicide or his death was an accident because he was scrounging for food.

Society often looks past the deaths of derelicts, of the unwanted. With no family surviving to claim his remains, Michael's body would become the centerpiece of the greatest wartime deception since the perhaps mythical Trojan Horse, and would ultimately be buried with military honors befitting a man killed in battle.

TFH 4/28: Private Nicholas Minue, USA

Nicholas Minue was born to ethnic Ukrainian parents in Sedden, Poland on March 13, 1905. He emigrated with his family to the United States, where they settled in Carteret, New Jersey. In 1926 at age 21, he volunteered and enlisted in the United States Army. Minue made the Army his home, and by 1942 with sixteen years of service held the rank of Sergeant. Then 37 years old, he requested assignment to any of the hundreds of combat units being assembled for war in either Europe or the Pacific. His request was denied, as he was thought to be too old or too senior.

Fighting for his adopted homeland, fighting for the liberation of his birth land from Nazi tyranny; no order saying "no" would keep Nicholas Minue from fulfilling the soldier's duty of going to war. He voluntarily gave up his rank, reverted to the status and pay of a mere Private, and went to combat with the 6th Armored Infantry Regiment of the 1st Armored Division.

Reflections on the Tsarnaev manhunt, one week after

On April 18, Americans residing around the city of Boston were alerted by their neighbors that an imminent threat to their safety was in their midst. Throughout the night, they were warned about the danger to their property and their families.

As April 19 dawned, those Bostonians who were willing, along with many others from surrounding communities, armed themselves and took to the streets and fields in defense of their homes, communities, and fellow citizens...

...wait, WHAT?

TFH 4/24: Sergeant William L. Nelson, USA

William Lloyd Nelson was born on February 22, 1918 in Dover, Delaware. He was drafted into the United States Army in January, 1941 before the United States' entry into World War II. By 1943, he was a Sergeant with the 9th Infantry Division's 60th Infantry Regiment and was a mortar section leader.

On March 23, 1943, the US II Corps, Lieutenant General George S. Patton commanding, launched their final assault in Tunisia to force the last Nazis in North Africa to surrender or be annihilated. The next day, 70 years ago exactly, Sergeant Nelson risked everything and gave his life to the cause of liberty to see that the fires of his section's mortars would fall catastrophically on enemy forces. He was posthumously decorated with the Medal of Honor.

TFH 4/9: Private Robert D. Booker, USA

The United States Army's 34th Infantry Division was the first division deployed to Europe for World War II, departing New York for Ireland in January, 1942. They saw their first action in North Africa beginning in November, 1942. The "Red Bull" division, as they were known, also fought throughout the Italian campaign.

At some point in its history, the 34th division gained the motto, "Attack, attack, attack!" Perhaps they got their motto from the events of seventy years ago this day when Private Robert D. Booker, a 22 year-old machine gunner from Callaway, Nebraska with the division's 133rd Infantry Regiment, charged forward alone over open ground to silence enemy machine guns and mortars and earned his Nation's highest honor.

Margaret Thatcher, 1925-2013

The debt the free peoples of Europe owe to [the United States], generous with its bounty, willing to share its strength, seeking to protect the week, is incalculable. We thank and salute you! ...

We do not aim at domination, at hegemony, in any part of the world. Even against those who oppose and who would destroy our ideas, we plot no aggression. Of course, we are ready to fight the battle of ideas with all the vigour at our command, but we do not try to impose our system on others. We do not believe that force should be the final arbiter in human affairs. We threaten no-one. Indeed, the Alliance has given a solemn assurance to the world—none of our weapons will be used except in response to attack...

Distinguished Members of Congress, our two countries have a common heritage as well as a common language. It is no mere figure of speech to say that many of your most enduring traditions—representative government, habeas corpus, trial by jury, a system of constitutional checks and balances—stem from our own small islands. But they are as much your lawful inheritance as ours. You did not borrow these traditions—you took them with you, because they were already your own.

Human progress is not automatic. Civilisation has its ebbs and flows, but if we look at the history of the last five hundred years, whether in the field of art, science, technology, religious tolerance or in the practise of politics, the conscious inspiration of it all has been the belief and practise of freedom under law; freedom disciplined by morality, under the law perceived to be just.

 -- Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, to a joint session of the United States Congress, February 20, 1985.

Thank you, madam, for your service to humanity's quest for freedom and liberty. The world in which my children are being raised is better for your iron presence having been such a stalwart feature of much of my growing up. As with the Lion who came before you at Downing Street, you will be greatly missed for the rest of days.

Defeat—I do not recognise the meaning of the word!

-- during the Falklands crisis, 1982

TFH 4/7: First Lieutenant James E. Swett, USMCR

James Elms Swett was born in Seattle, Washington on June 15, 1920. He grew up in San Mateo, California. Before his enlistment in the United States Naval Reserve on August 26, 1941, Swett had already obtained a civilian pilot's license and was placed into training as a Naval Aviator.

When he completed primary flight instruction in early 1942, his Nation was at war and he was given the option to stay with the Navy or instead accept a commission with the Marine Corps. Swett chose the latter, and became a Second Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps Reserve. After completing his full training as a Grumman F4F Wildcat pilot and earning his Wings of Gold as a Naval Aviator, he joined Marine Fighting Squadron 221 (VMF-221) in the Solomon Islands.

Seventy years ago today - April 7, 1943 - then-First Lieutenant Swett flew his very first combat mission. He led a section of Marine fighters against a large Japanese bomber force. The Marine flyers were outnumbered, but following Swett's leadership they pressed their attacks. Swett's Wildcat was severely damaged by both enemy and friendly fire during the battle, and he personally destroyed at least five, possibly seven, enemy aircraft. His incredible heroism was recognized with the Medal of Honor.

TFH 3/19: HM2 David R. Ray, USN

David Robert Ray, known familiarly as "Bobby", was born on February 14, 1945 in McMinnville, Tennessee. He graduated from City High School in his hometown in 1963, and also attended the University of Tennessee from 1963-1966. On March 28, 1966, Bobby Ray volunteered to enlist in the United States Navy. After recruit training in San Diego, he received further training as a hospital corpsman.

Through May of 1968, Ray served at Long Beach, California both aboard the hospital ship USS Haven (AH-12), moored as a static hospital platform, and at the Naval Hospital. In that month, he volunteered for corpsman duty with the United States Marine Corps and was sent to Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton for field medical training. After completing the course, he was deployed to Vietnam with a Marine unit at war.

TFH 3/18: 1st Lt. Jack W. Mathis, USAAF

Jack Warren Mathis was born on September 25, 1921 in San Angelo, Texas. He enlisted in the United States Army on June 12, 1940 and was trained and served as an artilleryman. He was serving in that capacity when he found out that his younger brother, Mark, had joined the United States Army Air Forces, forerunner of today's United States Air Force. Jack joined his brother in aviation cadet training, and both men became bombardiers.

The two brothers weren't assigned to the same unit, although both were stationed in the United Kingdom to fly combat missions over occupied Europe and Nazi Germany. Jack Mathis was posted to the 359th Bombardment Squadron of the 303rd Bombardment Group (Heavy), stationed at RAF Molesworth in Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom. They were one of the first units of the VIII Bomber Command (later becoming the famed Eighth Air Force) to arrive in Europe for daring, daylight precision bombing raids that would change the course of the war. They were equipped with the Boeing B-17F Flying Fortress.

TFH 3/13: LTJG Joseph Feeney, USNR

After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, thousands of Americans answered their nation's call to arms and volunteered for military service. Many were too old to be drafted. A lot of them were assigned to stateside non-combat roles, to free up younger men for combat service. Some did see action overseas, or as in the case of today's honoree, on the seas.

Joseph Feeney was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania on May 28, 1909. About all I know about him is that at some point, he wound up with an officer's commission in the United States Naval Reserve. I'm guessing he was one of the thousands of volunteers who decided the best way they could help the United States in war was with the United States Navy.

Many civilian transport ships were armed for self-defense from aircraft, and to a lesser extent submarines; the weapons themselves were manned by US Navy sailors. On March 13, 1943, Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Joseph Feeney was the naval armed guard commander aboard the tanker SS Cities Service Missouri. They were en route to Curaçao, Venezuela through the Caribbean Sea in a convoy when the ship was hit by two torpedoes fired by a Nazi German U-Boat in the early morning hours.

TFH 3/11: Chief Master Sergeant Richard L. Etchberger, USAF

In the 1960s, aerial navigation and accurate, conventional weapons-based, air attacks on enemy targets relied heavily on ground-based navigation aids like Tactical Air Navigation, or TACAN, systems. Today's Global Positioning System (GPS), on which most modern precision-guided munitions rely, was just a dream for the future.

Another such system was the AN/TSQ-81 ground-based bomb direction radar, a development of the AN/MSQ-77 bomb range scoring system. Instead of predicting where a bomb would land after being dropped in practice, the TSQ-81 would predict where an attacking aircraft should drop its ordnance to hit a particular target.

American attack and bombing missions over North Vietnam often faced foul weather and other problems we take for granted in combat today, like simple darkness. They needed additional ground-based TACAN and radar targeting assistance to hit their targets reliably. Their problem? The best location for such a site in 1966-67 was in neutral Laos.

TFH 3/10: Three sailors on the USS Eberle

The USS Eberle (DD-430) was a Gleaves-class destroyer commissioned into the United States Navy on December 4, 1940. The ship served in the Atlantic Fleet and escorted convoys in the North Atlantic and also participated in the November 1942 invasion of North Africa. On December 26, 1942, Eberle sortied from Naval Station Norfolk for Recife, Brazil to assume patrol duties in the South Atlantic.

The South Atlantic may seem to have been "out of the action" for the war raging in Europe, but that wasn't the case. Nazi German ships attempted to run Allied blockades to get essential war materials. On March 10, 1943, Eberle on patrol encountered one such blockade runner, the Karin. After firing on the enemy ship and forcing her to stop, Eberle dispatched a boarding party. As the Americans boarded the German vessel, the enemy crew detonated demolition charges.

Three of the Americans on the boarding party were decorated with the Navy Cross for their heroism. They were Seaman First Class Alexander J. Bisheimer, Lieutenant Frederick L. Edwards, Jr., and Signalman Third Class William J. Pattison.

TFH 3/9: CPT Jack H. Jacobs, USA

Jack Howard Jacobs was born just days before the end of World War II on August 2, 1945 in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up in Woodbridge Township, New Jersey and attended Rutgers University where he was a member of Army Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC). After graduation in 1966, he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army.

Less than two years later, then First Lieutenant Jacobs was assigned as a military advisor to the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). While assigned to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam's 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment of the 9th Infantry Division on March 9, 1968, Jacobs took command of one Vietnamese company when its command group was devastated by casualties and even though he was wounded himself, single-handedly ventured repeatedly into the line of fire to evacuate casualties and counter-attack the enemy.

Afterwards, he was promoted to Captain, and then later he received our Nation's highest honor.

TFH 3/8: Private George Watson, USA

George Watson was born in 1915 in Birmingham, Alabama. He graduated from Colorado A&M, today Colorado State University, in 1942 and on September 1 of that year enlisted in the United States Army to serve his country during World War II.

African-American soldiers during World War II faced a segregated Army, just as they faced a segregated society. As was true with many African-American soldiers, Watson was assigned to a support unit, the 29th Quartermaster Regiment. Watson was aboard the requisitioned Dutch ship SS s'Jacob when the ship was bombed by the Japanese in Porloch Bay, New Guinea on March 8, 1943. He gave his life trying to save his fellow soldiers in the water and was, at the time, awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

In the late 1990s, the service records of minority DSC recipients from World War II were reviewed to determine if racial prejudice and discrimination had precluded the award of the Medal of Honor. On January 13, 1997, Watson's heroism received the recognition it truly deserved from President Clinton at the White House.

TFH 3/5: PFC Robert H. Jenkins, Jr., USMC

Robert Henry Jenkins, Jr. was born on June 1, 1948 in Interlachen, Florida. He enlisted in the United States Marine Corps on February 2, 1968, about four months before his twentieth birthday. After completing recruit training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island in South Carolina, he received advanced training as an infantryman.

Jenkins arrived in Vietnam to enter combat with the 3rd Marine Division's 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion on July 17, 1968. On March 5, 1969, he was part of a 12-man recon team assigned to Fire Support Base Argonne near the Vietnam DMZ. The base came under attack, and when an enemy soldier threw a hand grenade into the fighting position Jenkins occupied with a fellow Marine, he made a singularly heroic decision that saw him posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

TFH 3/1: PFC Dan L. Neely, USA

During the Vietnam War, the United States Army's 1st Cavalry Division was equipped for and tasked with airmobile combat using helicopters. One of their light infantry units, the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, ran up against both North Vietnamese Army regulars and Viet Cong guerillias in fighting near Hue on March 1, 1968.

One trooper with 2-7 Cav's Company B, Private First Class Dan Lee Neely, a radioman from Alabama, rushed forward hurling grenades to cover and care for his wounded comrades after the company's medics themselves became casualties. His devotion to duty and extraordinary valor in attempting to save his comrades ultimately cost PFC Neely his life, and a grateful and admiring Army and nation bestowed upon him the second-highest honor they could have: the Distinguished Service Cross.

TFH 2/28: SFC Matthew Leonard, USA

Matthew Leonard was born in Eutaw, Alabama on November 26, 1929. He enlisted in the United States Army in 1949 and served in combat during the Korean War. Leonard served both his civilian family - a wive and five children - and his military family for his entire adult life.

Leonard had reached the rank of Sergeant First Class by February of 1967 and was then serving during war again in Vietnam with the 1st Infantry Division's 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment (the "Iron Rangers"). On February 28, 1967, SFC Leonard was a platoon sergeant in 1-16's Company B when an enemy attack took out many of the unit's leaders. He swept into action and rallied the defense until he was himself cut down by the enemy. For his "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity...above and beyond the call of duty", Leonard was posthumously decorated with our Nation's highest honor.

TFH 2/27: Lieutenant Otto F. Kolb, Jr., USN

Otto Ferdinand Kolb, Jr. was born in Savannah, Georgia on June 3, 1914 and was commissioned in the United States Navy after graduating from the United States Naval Academy with the Class of 1936. He served in the Far East prior to World War II.

Kolb was an officer aboard the cruiser USS Houston (CA-30) under eventual Medal of Honor recipient Captain Albert H. Rooks when on January 1, 1942 he was assigned as a liaison officer to the free Dutch light cruiser HNLMS De Ruyter. On February 27, 1942 during the Battle of the Java Sea, the De Ruyter was torpedoed by a Japanese cruiser and sank with the loss of 345 of her crew, including a Dutch admiral, the ship's captain, and one brave American.

TFH 2/26: Corporal Einar H. Ingman, Jr., USA

Einar Harold Ingman, Jr. was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on October 6, 1929. He enlisted in the United States Army in November, 1949 hoping to become an equipment operator, but was assigned for service as an infantryman.

On February 26, 1951 while fighting in Korea with the 2nd Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, now Corporal Ingman took command of two squads whose leaders had become casualties. While rallying the two beleaguered groups of men, he single-handedly knocked out two enemy machine gun positions, the second after being shot through his face and becoming dazed from a grenade blast. His courage was recognized with the award of the Medal of Honor.

TFH 2/22: SP4 George C. Lang, USA

George Charles Lang was born on April 20, 1947 in Flushing, Queens, New York. His father passed away when he was seven years old, and while he was growing up, he worked after school to help support himself and his mother. He enlisted in the United States Army after high school and by early 1969 was fighting in Vietnam with the 4th Battalion, 47th Infantry Regiment, then part of the 9th Infantry Division. They were tasked with riverine warfare along the Mekong River and delta as part of the Mobile Riverine Force.

On February 22, 1969, Lang was leading an infantry squad during a reconnaissance-in-force when they came under fire from an enemy bunker complex. He led his men in the assault on the enemy positions, and despite suffering grievous wounds from an enemy rocket, he steadfastly remained in charge until his evacuation for care was ordered. Lang later received our Nation's highest honor.