Keep the Greatest Generation Alive!

Build your bridge to the veteran experience here. Preserve their legacy and receive a connection to living history.
Please feel free to share those exeriences of WWII, Korea, and Viet Nam era veterans here.

At this time, please send an email using this link.
YOU MUST INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING IN THE EMAIL:
1) Your name
2) Veteran's name
3) Branch of Service
4) Time period of event
5) Experience

In the near future, I will be modifying this site to have a form that can be filled out, but in order to expedite the availablity of this site, email will be used and I will post the information on this site.

Submitted by: Bob Fulleman
Veteran: Ed Loebs
Branch of Service: US Navy
Time Period: WWII (Oct1944)

Experience: (As told by Ed Loebs) While serving aboard the Menominee (ATF-73) as Gunner's Mate 3c in October 1944, we were tied up to the USS Honolulu while the USS Chowanoc (ATF-100) was setting smoke screening around the USS Honolulu after it had been torpedoed during the invasion of Leyte in the Philippine Islands.  I remember that day well. We had our smoke generators going full blast as we were pumping the water out of the ship and helping to do repairs.  It all happened not far from the beach itself and I was at my gunnery station.  Our ship was facing the shore as was the Honolulu when I saw a lone Japanese plane coming out from the hills onshore and very low.  We were not authorized to shoot as we would be firing towards our troops making the landing a short distance away.  The plane was closer now and I could see it was a torpedo plane as it made a turn right towards us.  It then flew past us (I could see the pilot) and dropped lower as it approached the Honolulu and dropped its payload.  Raising up after the drop, it continued to climb as it turned away from the land scrambling for dear life.
    The torpedo hit the Honolulu on the port side and raised it up as it exploded only to rock back and forth afterwards.  The plane continued to climb as all hell broke loose with anti-aircraft fire.  The sky looked like a screen door with all the tracers and shells exploding near and around the plane.  The plane continued to make its get away until it was far out beyond the many ships firing at it…until a round from one ship far away from shore exploded it in the air. 
   Just on the other side of the USS Honolulu was the Flagship of the assault, …the USS Nashville and on it was none other than General Douglas MacArthur.  The next day (I think) was the day I was on the flying bridge with the range finding binoculars and watched him as he made his way ashore in a landing craft do his famous "I have returned"! 
   There were several bombing runs on us in the evenings and one took place that evening as we were pumping out the Honolulu.  Yes, there was much smoke generated and as the planes were being fired upon, I could see a tracer coming towards our ship.  It continued and went right through our A frame and hit one of the 4 round ammo clips in the quad 40mm guns on the Honolulu.  It blew up the gun and killed several of the sailors.  I could hear them readily as they were right next to us and I could hear one yelling he lost a leg.  It was sad but it was war.  I still think it was friendly fire.

Submitted by: Mike Mair- Author- “Oil, Fire & Fate”
Veteran: John “Jack” Mair (F2c, USS Mississinewa (AO-59)
Branch of Service: US Navy
Time Period: WW-II (20 Nov. 1944)

Experience: Several engineering sailors were asleep on the Mississinewa port well deck between the bridge and stern deckhouse. The well deck was a comfortable place to sleep on hot Pacific nights at Halsey’s forward staging anchorage, Ulithi. The kaiten explosion slammed my Dad, Fireman Second Class John Mair to the deck, eliciting a groan. Dressed only in skivvies, my nineteen-year-old Dad leapt to his feet, heart pounding, sensing the ship shudder from stem to stern. Flame engulfed the entire bow area. Droplets of hot oil rained down, causing him to duck under the raised cargo deck momentarily for shelter. “Some fool’s been smoking over the AV gas tanks again,” he thought. Seeking refuge from the encroaching heat and flames, my Dad barely had time to slip into his dungaree trousers and shoes after a short scramble to his footlocker in the aft crew’s quarters.

”I have to get my life jacket,” Dad told himself. The life jacket was kept only a few paces away, stashed inside the engine room hatch. Wasting no time, he reached inside, groping for his life jacket he left on top of a ventilator after his last engine room watch. It was gone. Someone escaping the engine room must have taken it. “Abandon ship. Abandon ship,” as panic-stricken sailors pushed and shoved each other at the rear compartment ladder, seeking safety. Men gathered on the poop deck above to await their turn jumping off next to the five-inch thirty-eight mount. Dad nervously anticipated the plunge to the water below. “Can I swim well enough without my life jacket? This can’t be happening.”

Hot oil droplets and debris continued to pelt my Dad’s naked back. He wheeled about to face forward for a few seconds to peer through a gap in the smoke and flames, only to see the entire forward section of the ship ablaze. Looking over the starboard rail, he was repelled by the sight of flaming water already closing in on the stern. He was somewhat relieved to see that the water was ablaze only to amidships on the port side, but for how long? Sailors who had managed to escape the stricken tanker moments before manned two work party boats that had been tied to the fantail. Finally, he jumped the twenty-foot distance to the water below, swimming to the nearest boat. Once aboard, Dad and others hauled exhausted and frightened shipmates out of the water as quickly as they could. Fireman First Class Harold “Bootie” Boutiette was struggling to stay afloat after slipping below the surface of the water several times. Mair mustered the strength to manhandle the Massachusetts man over the gunwale and the pair collapsed into a heap in the bottom of the boat.

An officer ordered my Dad, only a few days before, to move his footlocker and gear from the stern to the crew’s berthing quarters under the bridge. Always the procrastinator, my Dad asked the officer if he could wait until Mississinewa returned to sea for the next fueling operation? The officer reluctantly agreed. I would not be writing this today if my Dad had immediately complied with the order. Most of the sailors in forward berthing died when the kaiten exploded against the starboard side.

Submitted by: Ron Fulleman
Veteran: Ray Fulleman (WT2c, USS Mississinewa (AO-59)
Branch of Service: US Navy
Time Period: WWII (20Nov1944)

Experience: While serving aboard the USS Mississinewa AO-59 in WWII, my father was a Water Tender, Second Class. He had served aboard the combat vessel USS Mobile CL-63 for a year. Because of that experience, he always slept with his clothes on (in case of flash fires from explosions). When the Mississinewa was hit by a suicide submarine on 20Nov1944, my father was just getting to his assigned bunk, after having slept out on the cargo deck to avoid the heat of the aft berthing quarters. When the Kaiten hit, he could see a red sky through the forward hatchway. Thinking it was an accidental explosion up forward, he immediately went to his battle station in the fireroom, just a few feet away from his bunk. The ship had a steam smothering system that needed all the boilers on line in order to operate.

Once in the fireroom, he tried to help the other men there start up the boilers that were not yet lit. "Red" Foster and Howard Bochow were on watch. Shortly after my father arrived, Chief Water Tender Edmund "Smitty" Smith arrived in the boiler room. My dad got back onto the level where the water feed control valve was and manned that while the others were working on the boilers.

While on the water valve, Fred Schafus, a machinist mate who was just told my Captain Beck to abandon ship, stopped at the hatch and told my father that everyone was abandoning the ship and they should get off.

My father yelled down to the others that everyone was abandoning the ship and they worked at shutting down all the boilers, while leaving one on line as an auxiliary boiler, in case it was needed. Approximately 15 minutes had passed since the initial explosion. Then, all the men tried leaving the boiler room through the starboard hatch, but there was too much thick, black smoke that poured in. They shut the hatch and went up a level, port side. This let them out on the Chief's level. As they exited the fireroom and started down the smoke filled corridor, aft, Smitty asked if anyone had seen Bochow. Smitty ordered my dad to check the boiler room to make sure Bochow wasn't still left inside. Smitty and Foster proceeded aft.

My father went to the fireroom hatch and called in, but only thick black smoke came out of the hatchway, so he figured no one could still be alive in that smoke and turned to leave. During all this my father heard someone yell out, "You can't go aft. The ammunition is going off."

As my father turned, in the smoke filled corridor, the thought came to him, "Oh, Jesus! My mom's going to get a telegram (that her son is dead)." As he thought this, he caught the glimpse of someone running through the smoke at the forward end of the corridor. He thought to himself, "if that guy can make it, maybe I can too." So he went that way, and was able to get down to the Well Deck (the lowest outside deck on the ship, only about four feet from the water).

Since the flames on the water had not yet closed in that area of the ship, he was able to swim out through the Bunker "C" oil, about 6"-8" thick, and beyond to a waiting boat, who picked him up out of the water.

It turned out that Foster and Bochow were in the boat (somewhere in the confusion, Bochow had been sent out of the fireroom), but Smitty was never found. Only in the early 2000's was it found out that Smitty, while in the water, had been hit by an oil drum blown into the air and landing on him in the water, killing him instantly.