My War

By Richard W. Whinfield

As a non-combatant member of the Army Air Force, young Dick Whinfield from the small town of Sheboygan, Wisconsin was among the first twenty-five Control Tower operators to be sent to the war in the Pacific. His experiences in five different control towers in fearsome combat areas were frightening, frequently boring and very educational. In his book My War he tells tales of excitement, tragedy and often of amusing antics. While he was living through a most distressing time, he tells of the great comradery he had with the crews with whom he worked.

The book starts with his life just before entering the service and then takes him all the way through his exhilarating experiences in the armed service. It ends with his return to his high school sweetheart and a happy marriage.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 13, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453543924

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Copyright © 2010 by Richard W. Whinfield.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Contents

FOREWORD

I

JOINING THE SERVICE

II

ON BEING PREPARED

III

A Few Are Chosen

IV

OVERSEAS

V

TO AUSTRALIA

VI

INTO THE FRAY

VII

THE WAR HEATS UP FOR ME

VIII

A REST AT LAST

IX

RIGHT TO THE END

X

HOME

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my loving wife, who has preceded me in leaving this world and to my five children, their spouses and my six grandchildren who have made life worth living.

FOREWORD

I started writing this as a little story of remembrance in September of 1988. It started one day as I was adding a porch to our new house. As I worked I heard a memorable sound; a propeller driven WWII airplane. It was so distinctive that I knew it was a B-17 before I even looked up. It was flying low over our house; out of Oshkosh where they were holding the annual Experimental Aircraft Association fly-in.

That night I had vivid dreams of the war. I saw faces of men I’d forgotten I’d ever known. I saw the jungle and my tent at Aitape. And I re-experienced my actions in a control tower when I was able, at the last second, to divert two airplanes that seemed on a collision course while landing at one of the airstrips at which I had worked.

The next day I sat down and started this. But the little story kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger, now, I’ve finally finished it.

I’ve no illusion of its grandeur. I’m not an accomplished writer and the story isn’t that great, either. All I was trying to do was recall some of the interesting things that had happened to me in WWII. Why? I guess I want my children and their children to know that I had a very unusual experience, and I suspect that I’ve been searching for a way to give some meaning to the experience. Did it really mean anything in the long run? Now that I’ve finished, I don’t think I’ve really found that out.

What I did find was that the memories are still very precious to me, for it was a period of my life when I was very impressionable. I could have ended up hating the world, despising myself and full of guilt if I’d been assigned to be a killer, but I was extremely fortunate in getting the assignment I did. I sat on the fifty yard line watching the war but never really participated. For the most part I was more a civilian than a soldier. I was not bothered by officers, I worked regular schedules; I seldom had KP, or ‘police’ the grounds and never had guard duty. I spent my free time with amusements of my choosing. I was always with a fine bunch of men who were serious in their work and who usually enjoyed the same amusements I enjoyed.

My memory of the war is still vivid, particularly for the events that had the most meaning to me. There are, though, lots of things I don’t remember well and some not at all. Though I ate in mess halls three times a day, I can barely remember some of them and others not at all. I know I read a lot of books but recall only a few. I was surprised to find that I had forgotten the names of some of my dearest friends. I was startled to realize that though I’d spent months with them, living in great intimacy and that on leaving the service I had almost no contact with them. On one occasion I got a call from one of my friends who was with me on the island of Mindoro in the Philippines; Pete Peterson. He had made contact with five of our crew. One, Ralph Wilson, lived in Cooke City Montana and he invited us to visit. Jeanne and I spent three days with three of the gang and their wives and had a wonderful time. The fellows had all been modestly successful and each had a family. They had not changed much over time; they still had their same idiosyncrasies, their same way of talking, and their same senses of humor. We had a wonderful time reminiscing, but on leaving, I didn’t feel the need to repeat the event.

How did I remember so much after fifty years? I wrote home often and my mother kept every one of those letters. They didn’t say very much because all our letters were censored—no places could be named, no actions reported and no names of officers allowed. But each letter was dated and had my APO (army post office) number. From them I could reconstruct where I had been and when. I also had, periodically, written a summary of what I had seen and done; things I couldn’t put in letters, and I sent those to my parents as soon as censorship was lifted. Mother had saved those, too, so what I have reported is quite accurate,

The drawing on the cover was done by a soldier while we were in a bar-room in Sydney Australia. He charged me a buck. That drawing, my dog tags, my discharge papers and some snapshots are about the only tangible evidence of my having been in the service.

The experience was incredible. I witnessed first hand some of the most exotic places in the world and had some experiences that were singular, quite aside from the more direct war experiences

Still, going to war was not the greatest accomplishment of my life. In fact, I did nothing of significance in the war. I helped keep a little order on some air strips, perhaps. Maybe I even saving a few lives, but I was involved in nothing of any consequence. Much more important in my life was teaching boys and girls about the wonders of the world through biology, physics and chemistry and how to solve algebraic equations. Teaching other teachers how to teach, organize and administer educational programs was also more of a contribution. Playing a key roll in designing and implementing the Wisconsin Technical College system was a very satisfying and useful thing to do, but the most important thing I did with my life was to marry Jeanne and raise a family of five wonderful children. That is my greatest satisfaction.

I

JOINING THE SERVICE

Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die

Herbert Hoover

Speech, Republican National Convention,

Chicago, June 27, 1944

The world should be my oyster. It’s Tuesday June sixteenth, 1940. I graduated from North High School, Sheboygan, Wisconsin ten days ago. I had a wonderful time there. I’m healthy, reasonably bright and enthusiastic. I should be optimistic, but the future doesn’t look so bright. WWII is well under way and though we aren’t involved, I wouldn’t be surprised if we became a participant in the not too distant future.

While I was having fun in high school, Hitler was blizkrieging Austria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and Poland. Mussolini had occupied Ethiopia and Albania. Stalin signed a pact of non-aggression with Germany and has just entered Finland and the Baltic Republics. Japan was ravaging Manchuria and some part of China. The world has never been in such a chaotic state.

United States is staying out of it though. There’s a very strong isolationist feeling across the country that started immediately after WWI. We wouldn’t join the League of Nations following that war, even though President Wilson was one of the prime initiators of the idea. Memories of WWI are still too vivid in the minds of our parents to let them want to send their sons into battle. For us kids there are a lot of sad, frightening tales about that war that makes war appear horrible.

Last year, on the third of September, two days after Hitler invaded Poland, England and France finally declared war on Germany and Italy. They had done nothing while Hitler’s troops had seized the other European countries. Poland was the last straw.

*     *     *

Now, in June, 1940, the Nazis have driven the British out of France, Belgium and the Netherlands. The Germans had out-flanked the French Maginot line, which the French had acclaimed as an impenetrable defense. The Germans then swept across the northern part of France, routing both the British and French troops, who retreated to Dunkirk, on the coasts of France. The British struggled to get out of Dunkirk. Some four-hundred thousand British troops lay pinned against the coast of Flanders and the British called for all available boats to help remove them. Hundreds of boats responded. Within ten days three-hundred, thirty-eight thousand men had been saved. It was one of the greatest rescues of all times.

The newsreel pictures of Dunkirk are awful to see.

This event has stunned Americans. Just a few weeks ago, President Roosevelt presented to Congress a Lend-Lease program and it passed almost unanimously. We’re going to lend Great Britain and France arms and machines. In return, we get to lease air and naval bases on some islands in the Atlantic. This will extend our defenses along the Atlantic coast. There is some fear that Hitler’s forces might occupy some islands such as the Bahamas, which would give them a place from which they could bomb our east coast. Lend-lease is our way of supporting the war without providing troops.

The country is getting into full-time arms and armament production, something that’s been neglected in the past twenty years.

*     *     *

Now it’s Sunday, December first, 1940. I spent the summer as a waterfront director at Gardner Dam, a Boy Scout Camp in Northern Wisconsin. I enrolled in Mission House College, just outside of Sheboygan in September. My major is music. I’d like to become a professional singer, or a music teacher. Since I was ten I’ve been doing a lot of singing in choirs, and as a soloist around town. In the past two years I’ve earned almost enough money, singing at weddings, funerals and a variety of civic functions, to pay my first years tuition.

Things have been going well here at Mission House. Both fraternities on campus invited me to join. I chose Zeta Chi, for its a little more prestigious than Sigma Alpha, in my opinion. I’ve just gone through a week long initiation. I felt a fool much of that week, but now I’m a member and I’m really not sure what that means.

I’m having a little trouble with my course in German, some trouble with learning to play the piano, but everything else is going great. I’m living in the dorm with a pleasant roommate from Wausaukee, Wisconsin. We don’t have a lot in common, but we get along well. I’ve been dating two women on campus and often spend evenings in nearby bars. The beer is good, as is life.

The war in Europe has become very one-sided. On June twenty-second France surrendered to Germany. There are no allied troops fighting in Europe. The British Royal Air Force is bombing Germany, while some British, Australian and some renegade French troops are fighting in Africa. What’s left of the British and French Army’s is having a very hard time holding off the Germans there. Great Britain is fighting almost alone.

The United States keeps getting caught up on the war. Some of our ships with the war materials we’re sending to Great Briton are being attacked by German U-Boats. Our ships have even fired on some U-Boats.

Just after school started this fall, the middle of September of 1940, Congress passed Selective Service Act, a clear sign that we may soon be at war. That’s thrown the campus into a tizzy. We suddenly realized that we, the men on campus, might actually be involved as combatants. The Act calls for all males between twenty-one and thirty-five to register for the draft. I’m just eighteen (nineteen in a few weeks) so figure I still have a little time.

Mission House College, besides being a four year college is also a seminary for the German Reform Church. There are about thirty men studying for the ministry, most are over twenty-one. They’re faced with a real dilemma, not just concerns about being drafted, but about the moral and ethical question of the Church’s involvement in war. We have become very introspective about the whole issue of war and Christianity. There are some terribly ambiguous feelings. We understand the need for a country to defend itself from aggression, but there are mixed feelings about fighting a country that’s not threatening us directly. There is agreement that killing is wrong, but is it, if that’s the only way to stop another country from killing? The philosophies of Idealism and Realism are in direct opposition on that issue.

There is disagreement, too, on what role the Church should play in any war effort. It is particularly difficult for this Church because its roots are very deep in Germany. Still, I haven’t heard a word of support for the policies of Hitler.

All this hangs as kind of a cloud over the festive atmosphere of the campus. It hasn’t interfered with football (we’re having a bad season), dramatics (I have a minor part in the first play, Madam Bovary), choir (we’re singing a recital just before Christmas), or dances (this is the first year a dance has ever been allowed on campus) and I took Jeanne. But I’m also seeing two other women on campus. One, Irene Ernest, is the daughter of one of the professors. We’ve had several dates, ending up on some very romantic spots. The other woman is the daughter of the college president, Rubin  Groshaus. He and his wife have a regular appointment each Sunday night, and when her parents leave, Ruth calls me on the phone and invites me over for popcorn, and we get quite friendly.

*     *     *

It’s Friday, September eleventh, 1942. A lot has happened since I left Mission House over a year ago. I’m sitting on an army bunk in Fort Sheridan, just outside of Chicago. When I left Mission House, the war still seemed some way off, but now the United States is involved in not one war, but two. As a consequence I’m outfitted with army clothes and a GI haircut. I’m in a hot, temporary barracks with a bunch of strangers all around me. I’ve been in the Army actively just six days and it’s been a learning experience. For the past year and a half I’ve been sitting on needles and pins, wondering what was going to happen to me. Now I know.

I finished my year at Mission House College. It had been a happy experience. I was even happy with the grade of D in German; I was sure I’d flunked the final. I spent the 1941 summer at Rokilio, as the Director of the Waterfront. It’s a Boy Scout camp run by my Dad. The uncertainty of our country’s involvement in the war, and thus about my own future, made me change my college goals. I found out I wasn’t really a musician. I can sing well enough, but there’s no way I can learn to play an instrument. I’d have to be better than just a good singer to make an adequate living from music. Besides, music wouldn’t be of much help to me if we went to war, so I enrolled in the University of Wisconsin Extension Division in Sheboygan, taking a Liberal Arts program. In a way it was a kind of delaying tactic until I went into service.

Uncertainty turned to reality on Sunday, December seventh, 1941. The bombing of Pearl Harbor came as a complete surprise. We’d been following the news that a Japanese Ambassador had arrived to seek solutions to several differences between Japan and the U. S., giving the illusion there was still hope for averting a confrontation. Only hours after his arrival, Pearl Harbor was attacked.

I was at home with my family that December evening when we heard the news. It was while we were eating dinner and getting ready to listen to our favorite Sunday radio broadcasts of the Jack Benny show, the Phil Harris Show and the Edgar Bergen Show. We couldn’t believe it. How could this happen? What ever possessed the Japanese to do that?

The next day we listened anxiously to the radio as President Franklin Roosevelt declared the event,  . . . . a day which will live in infamy. He immediately asked Congress for a declaration of war against Japan, Germany and Italy. Congress gave it to him, the Senate voting unanimously, the House voted three-hundred and thirty-eight to one, only Jeannette Rankin of Montana voted against it.

Not only did the President get strong backing from Congress, but the nation’s people rallied behind the declaration without hesitation. Even most of the isolationists supported the Declaration of War and there was no doubt in our minds that we would win.

I was no acceptation. I got caught up in the hysteria as much as anyone; perhaps more. Ten days after the bombing, on December seventeenth, 1941, I sent off an application to the United States Maritime Service for admission to their Resident Radio School. I waited over a month before I heard from them. When I did, I learned they had so many applications that I’d have to wait several months before they could even act on mine.

Mom and Dad had little to say to me about entering the service. They knew I was planning to go some time but they left it up to me to decide how I would serve. They were concerned, though. They asked frequently what I’d heard about that application or of any other plans I was making. They must have had ambivalent feelings. They were strong supporters of the war effort, but the thought of their son going to war must have been hard to deal with.

It didn’t make matters any easier that just about the time I enrolled at the Extension, September, 1941; the Thirty-second Division, known as the Red Arrow Division, was activated. It’s made up of National Guardsmen from Wisconsin and Michigan. Several very good friends from North High School, Sheboygan, the school from which I’d graduated, were in that division. They were sent to Louisiana for six months training and are now in Australia, getting ready to fight the Japs.

While I waited to hear from the radio school, I completed my year at the Center. The war, though, was a terrible distraction. I had a hard time attending to my studies. I spent a lot of time at a little bistro on Indiana Avenue, Vince’s. It was owned by a good friend, Frankie Zalodi[1]. Night after night I’d meet a bunch of guys in the same boat as me. We’d sit at the bar and drink ale; not beer—ale—we thought it more potent than beer. The conversation was often on the war.

Besides spending a lot of time with the guys, I also dated several young women. One was a pert young lady, a senior at North High School, Eleanor Wilson. We had a lot of good times. One