Thinking of my Father, WWII and the 5th Army Air Corp

[Bigfoot]

Here is an e-mail I sent to the 5th. Army Air Corp museum a few minutes ago. It hit me pretty hard as my Father meant a great deal to me and it is very difficult for me to speak of him. But I know a few of you guys will also appreciate this the way I do.

_________________________________________________

My Father has passed and is buried in the National Cemetery in Riverside Ca. His name is/was **** ****** and he is a veteran and was stationed in New Guinea. He said that he loaded bombs onto planes and had a few other stories to tell me.

He was 5th Army Air Corps.

I have his photo album with quite a few black and white photos that he hand dated as to the year they were taken. The photos are of him and some of his buddies but there is also several nice photos of nose art that was painted on some of the bombers.

Let me know if you find this of interest and if you do you may phone me at *** *** **** if you wish and I will also respond to e-mail.

God bless all of you guys and gals.

With great respect,

*** ******

____________________________________

God bless.

 

[Redbone]

Here is an e-mail I sent to the 5th. Army Air Corp museum a few minutes ago. It hit me pretty hard as my Father meant a great deal to me and it is very difficult for me to speak of him. It makes me cry. But I know a few of you guys will also appreciate this the way I do.

_________________________________________________

My Father has passed and is buried in the National Cemetery in Riverside Ca. His name is/was **** ****** and he is a veteran and was stationed in New Guinea. He said that he loaded bombs onto planes and had a few other stories to tell me.

He was 5th Army Air Corps.

I have his photo album with quite a few black and white photos that he hand dated as to the year they were taken. The photos are of him and some of his buddies but there is also several nice photos of nose art that was painted on some of the bombers.

Let me know if you find this of interest and if you do you may phone me at *** *** **** if you wish and I will also respond to e-mail.

God bless all of you guys and gals.

With great respect,

*** ******

____________________________________

God bless.

It would be nice if more children/grandchildren of the World War Two veterans came forward and offered items of interest to the museum. The more information the better..

 

[Trajan]

Dick Bong was in the 5th. Oldest air corp unit.

 

[Caroljo]

Here is an e-mail I sent to the 5th. Army Air Corp museum a few minutes ago. It hit me pretty hard as my Father meant a great deal to me and it is very difficult for me to speak of him. It makes me cry. But I know a few of you guys will also appreciate this the way I do.

_________________________________________________

My Father has passed and is buried in the National Cemetery in Riverside Ca. His name is/was **** ****** and he is a veteran and was stationed in New Guinea. He said that he loaded bombs onto planes and had a few other stories to tell me.

He was 5th Army Air Corps.

I have his photo album with quite a few black and white photos that he hand dated as to the year they were taken. The photos are of him and some of his buddies but there is also several nice photos of nose art that was painted on some of the bombers.

Let me know if you find this of interest and if you do you may phone me at *** *** **** if you wish and I will also respond to e-mail.

God bless all of you guys and gals.

With great respect,

*** ******

____________________________________

God bless.

I wish i had more things that were my fathers...he was a Chief Petty Officer in the navy. All i have is pictures. My FIL was with the 101st Airborne in WWII and parachuted into Normandy. We have some of his medals, stripes, pins, etc. My husband was in VN and his X-wife threw all his stuff away, he has nothing left. It's nice that you can share this way.....

 

[bitterlyclingin]

An Uncle disappeared on New Guinea, MIA. Whether he made it into a native's stew pot or his bones simply melted into the jungle is unknown.

My father was Signal Corps with the Fourth Armored. He went in late, somewhere after Metz and Nancy, probably as a replacement for someone else who had been killed wounded or captured. My brother tells me he used to talk about hearing the German radio operators shouting "Achtung Thunderbolts!" over their radios. He allegedly traveled with a German speaking Jewish translator which meant there would have been no POW camp for him if captured, summarily shot instead. My mother said the only story he ever told her of the war was about how scared he was when some German soldiers surrendered to him.

A couple of years ago we were gathered at the house with the town's senior services agent to decide what to do with my mother, whether to put her in a home or let her expire at home in her own bed. Someone had found a set of black and white photographs from those years. The first photo was a side view of my father in light winter jacket, helmet, full pack, rifle slung over his shoulder standing in a snow covered field lined with evergreens on the perimeter. The back had a simple notation in pencil, Belgium, December 1944. The next was a picture of a roughly two to three year old girl standing barefoot in the snow in front of a small house, the back had just the notation, Belgium, January 1945. The next picture was of a teen age boy, thirteen or fourteen, standing in front of the same house notated 'Cigarettes for papa" Belgium, January, 1945. The last picture was of my father standing without helmet, jacket, rifle or backpack in the smallish entryway of a concrete structure, hands on his hips, smiling broadly, the concrete around the opening had been shot away revealing the reinforcing steel inside, comprising an exposed area totaling roughly equivalent to three 4x8 sheets of plywood around both sides and the top. German communications blockhouses were highly prized possessions at the time and the Americans had obviously poured a lot of fire into that opening as persuasion. The back of the photo was simply labeled in pencil Germany, April, 1945.

 

[Mr. H.]

That was a nice gesture on your part, Bfoot.

 

[regent]

Spent my free time in the infantry in New Guinea and the Fifth and Thirteenth Air Forces were part of our environment; I even forgive them for strafing us twice.
On Luzon, however, it was Marine aviation that gave us close air support. One miserable day in Feb, 1945 Marine SBD's gave fifteen of us desperately needed help. Later, I discovered the Marine unit involved, intending to thank them some day, but of course, never did.
Perhaps this is an opportunity: Thank you VSMSB-244, and Major John L Dexter, Captain H., L. Jacobi, and Lieut.'s H. W. Hambleton and F. D. Martin. You saved fifteen lives that day.

 

[Bigfoot]

Spent my free time in the infantry in New Guinea and the Fifth and Thirteenth Air Forces were part of our environment; I even forgive them for strafing us twice.
On Luzon, however, it was Marine aviation that gave us close air support. One miserable day in Feb, 1945 Marine SBD's gave fifteen of us desperately needed help. Later, I discovered the Marine unit involved, intending to thank them some day, but of course, never did.
Perhaps this is an opportunity: Thank you VSMSB-244, and Major John L Dexter, Captain H., L. Jacobi, and Lieut.'s H. W. Hambleton and F. D. Martin. You saved fifteen lives that day.

Thank you for the post. My father also served in the Philippines.

 

[tjvh]

I have to say, I certainly understand what some of you have gone through. My Dad served with the 11th Airborne fighting the Japanese, He was a paratrooper and had charge of an 82mm mortar team. He passed on in the mid eighties, over time the rest of his buddies he remained in contact with after the War passed on as well. He always made a point to attend the occasional reunions. As a ten year old, I made it to one of them (the only one I remember) and was very mystified at the time why a roomful of grown men would occasionally burst into tears. Before then, I had asked my father to tell me about the War, but he never did. After I attended that reunion I never asked again. It was years later when I realized that there are some experiences those men shared that were nobodies business but their own. I was lucky enough to have him witness when I graduated from Boot Camp several months before he passed. I think that was the closest we ever got. And recently when my Mom gave me his original discharge papers outlining the awards he received in combat and imagining the hell he went through, all I can say is what an honor it is that I could call him Dad.

 

[Bigfoot]

I have to say, I certainly understand what some of you have gone through. My Dad served with the 11th Airborne fighting the Japanese, He was a paratrooper and had charge of an 82mm mortar team. He passed on in the mid eighties, over time the rest of his buddies he remained in contact with after the War passed on as well. He always made a point to attend the occasional reunions. As a ten year old, I made it to one of them (the only one I remember) and was very mystified at the time why a roomful of grown men would occasionally burst into tears. Before then, I had asked my father to tell me about the War, but he never did. After I attended that reunion I never asked again. It was years later when I realized that there are some experiences those men shared that were nobodies business but their own. I was lucky enough to have him witness when I graduated from Boot Camp several months before he passed. I think that was the closest we ever got. And recently when my Mom gave me his original discharge papers outlining the awards he received in combat and imagining the hell he went through, all I can say is what an honor it is that I could call him Dad.

I know what you mean Thanks for the post.

 

[ProudOfMyDad]

Here is an e-mail I sent to the 5th. Army Air Corp museum a few minutes ago. It hit me pretty hard as my Father meant a great deal to me and it is very difficult for me to speak of him. But I know a few of you guys will also appreciate this the way I do.

_________________________________________________

My Father has passed and is buried in the National Cemetery in Riverside Ca. His name is/was **** ****** and he is a veteran and was stationed in New Guinea. He said that he loaded bombs onto planes and had a few other stories to tell me.

He was 5th Army Air Corps.

I have his photo album with quite a few black and white photos that he hand dated as to the year they were taken. The photos are of him and some of his buddies but there is also several nice photos of nose art that was painted on some of the bombers.

Let me know if you find this of interest and if you do you may phone me at *** *** **** if you wish and I will also respond to e-mail.

God bless all of you guys and gals.

With great respect,

*** ******

____________________________________

Your Dad probably met my dad. He was stationed in New Guinea and other places. I also have a photo album that my mother collected from my Dad's pictures in the Fifth Air Corps. The album has many pictures of the Corps. How do I contact the museum?

 

[jwoodie]

Dad was a B-17 pilot in the 8th Air Force. In 1943, he and the other pilot were seriously wounded over Wilhelmshaven from a head-on attack by an ME-109. (The B-17 was so hard to shoot down that they tried to kill the pilots instead.) They were the only ones injured in that attack, but it actually saved their lives. While they were recuperating, all the other members of their air crew were killed on subsequent missions. The 8th Air Force lost more men in combat than the entire Marine Corps in WW2.

 

[Blaise317]

Here is an e-mail I sent to the 5th. Army Air Corp museum a few minutes ago. It hit me pretty hard as my Father meant a great deal to me and it is very difficult for me to speak of him. But I know a few of you guys will also appreciate this the way I do.

_________________________________________________

My Father has passed and is buried in the National Cemetery in Riverside Ca. His name is/was **** ****** and he is a veteran and was stationed in New Guinea. He said that he loaded bombs onto planes and had a few other stories to tell me.

He was 5th Army Air Corps.

I have his photo album with quite a few black and white photos that he hand dated as to the year they were taken. The photos are of him and some of his buddies but there is also several nice photos of nose art that was painted on some of the bombers.

Let me know if you find this of interest and if you do you may phone me at *** *** **** if you wish and I will also respond to e-mail.

God bless all of you guys and gals.

With great respect,

*** ******

____________________________________

God bless.

Sorry so late to the party.

Thank you for all of the posts in this thread. They all reminded me of my grandfather. He served in the 5th from 1942-1945. He was a cook in New Guinea, Bismarck Arch and Luzon. The Army trained him for what would be his career for the next 50+ years.

I left for Basic days after my high school graduation and feel an additional kinship with my grandfather due to our shared military service and the fact that I too was trained by the Army for the career that I have been in for almost 30 years.

I chose to join the Army because of my grandfather.

Today I choose to honor my grandfather with the attached tattoo.

He will be missed.


1SG Blaise Martini