Veteran's Day and a Little Bit of England

At the beginning of World War II the Brits were running short of fuel, training aircraft, pilots, and airfields on which to train new pilots. They did have an abundance of lousy weather, which was not helpful for pilot training. Churchill asked Roosevelt if the United States could help by providing training fields, fuel and aircraft on which to train pilots. Roosevelt agreed and as a result six fields were established in the United States, called British Flying Training Schools(BFTS). BFTS No. 4 was built east of Mesa, Arizona and called Falcon Field, at the Brits request. The first cadets reported in September 1941. BTFS No. 4 operated until the end of the war in 1945. Some 2500 cadets went through flight training at Falcon Field. Of this number 23 were killed in training accidents and are buried in  a small section of the Mesa Cemetery. Six Americans also died during this time.

Every year a memorial ceremony is held at this site on the Sunday before Veteran's Day. We have attended several and always found them very moving Yesterday was no exception.

The photo below shows the area where the Brits are buried with the wreaths in place. This section is maintained extremely well.

This monument is at the south end of the section, next to the road. The names of the 23 cadets are on  a plaque on one side of the stone.

The Mesa Caledonian Pipe Band marched down the road before the start and took their place just east of the section, as shown below.

 There were several speakers but my favorite was the man shown below, a British cadet who attended BTFS No. 4.

There were several flyovers of vintage aircraft. The first photo below is of Stearman PT-17 biplanes in which the cadets at Falcon Field trained. The second photo is of  North American Aviation AT-6s, also used by cadets at Falcon Field. One of these groups flew over in the "missing man' formation.

I do not know what the aircraft are in the next two photos.

The first photo below is of a B-17  and the second photo shows a B-25. The Commemorative Air Force, based at Falcon Field is now the sponsor of this memorial event and supplied the aircraft, pilots and the flyovers.

 There were a number of wreaths placed during the memorial. The first photo below shows the wreath of Her Majesty's Government being placed by a Royal Navy Officer and a member of the British Consulate's office from Los Angeles, followed by a closeup of the wreath after placement.

The photo below shows the wreath of the Daughters of the British Empire, Arizona Chapter, being placed.

I am not sure to whom the wreath in the first photo below belongs. The wreath in the second photo is from Active Duty RAF Personnel, and is being placed by an RAF officer.

The laying of the wreaths was followed by a 21 gun salute by an American Legion squad, shown in the first photo below, and then by a bugler playing the British Tatoo(Last Post) followed by Taps, shown in the second photo below. I did okay until Taps; in a setting like this Taps always makes me teary eyed.

Following a benediction, the colors were retired, shown below.

We went back to the cemetery today and looked more closely at the inscriptions on the individual head stones. This one really got to me. Their only son killed and buried 5000+ miles from home.

We also visited my Father and Mother's graves, not far from this section in the same cemetery. Somehow it's fitting that as allies they should be buried nearby.

Christmas 1942

For many years now my family has had a tradition of having a celebration on Boxing Day. We have a dinner complete with crackers and plum pudding. This year's plum pudding is shown in the picture below. After dinner everyone must perform a party piece. You can sing a song, play an instrument, show some of your handiwork or tell a story.


A few years before he died my father wrote out in long hand and told the story I am about to relate on Boxing Day for his party piece. This year while we were preparing for Boxing Day my daughter found the story he had written in a drawer with some other things we often use on Boxing Day. The story follows with a little editing on my part.

In November,1942 my father made the invasion of North Africa as part of an automatic weapons battalion. By Christmas they were still in the Casablanca area, charged with the antiaircraft defense of the harbor and the airfield. What follows is his story:

“After leaving one of our 40mm gun crews at about 10 PM I was traveling to my bivouac area to go to bed. No lights on the Jeep-war time-no-no at night. We did not need the lights. The moon was putting on a bright, bright show. It was Christmas Eve. As we were slowly moving on, we came to a scene out of Biblical times. There in a field on the side of the road was an Arab guiding a plow pulled by a camel and a donkey. We, of course, stopped to look and watch. With the Christmas star so close and the moon so bright, with an Arab, donkey and camel performing the same as in the days before Christ, I felt very close to what the birth of Christ should mean to all people. We sat and watched the three plow the field for a few minutes. About midnight German bombers operating from Seville, Spain sprinkled the harbor and airfield with bombs. One gun crew was mud splattered from an exploding bomb but there were no injuries.

I continue to recall the North Africa scene and believe more than ever the wonderful message and meaning of the birth of our Savior.”

I am so glad to have found this. He was not a person who expressed his religious beliefs vocally very often, so it is doubly good to have this written in his own hand. Thanks Dad.

Mud, Mules, and Mountains

My father was called to active duty in January 1941 and remained on active duty until January 1 1946. He was overseas in combat for three and one half years(see blog entry of June 19, 2009). I was three and one half years old when he left and six years old when he returned. While he was gone I looked forward to every letter, photograph, etc that he sent home. One day a long wooden box arrived, which I opened, with help. I pulled out a long cavalry saber which he had acquired from a French army warehouse in North Africa. I was four years old at the time. I could barely get it off the floor with two hands and all my strength, but since it came from my dad, I was thrilled. I said “Oh boy, just what I've always wanted!”

Dad would send home postcards and pamphlets that he thought we might find interesting, and sometimes cartoons done by Bill Mauldin. Bill Mauldin was a young GI in the 45th Division who had joined the Army by way of the Arizona National Guard in 1940. Bill was a cartoonist who did some cartoons for the 45th Division newspaper and then later was picked up by Stars and Stripes, the Army newspaper. Eventually he was pulled out of line, given his own Jeep and did cartooning full time. He was a combat infantryman before being pulled out and after being pulled out spent three days out of 10 at the front. He was wounded by mortar rounds at Monte Casino in Italy. Since he covered much of the same ground as my father(Sicily, Italy, Southern France)I was very interested in his cartoons.

Bill Mauldin received the Pulitzer Prize in 1945 for his cartoons. Shortly after the war he published a book of his cartoons, along with his comments on the war. The book is called Up Front. As a kid I read and re-read that book so many times I practically wore it out. Mauldin became an editorial cartoonist for the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the Chicago Sun Times and won a second Pulitzer in 1958 or 1959.
Below is a typical Bill Mauldin cartoon, with Willie and Joe, his usual GIs, dog faces, grunts,also known as combat infantry enlisted men, in a pile of rubble.


A few months ago we sold my dad's house and finished cleaning it out. As we were going through his books, there were two copies of Up Front, and in one of them was a 6 x 9 inch paper pamphlet entitled Mud, Mules, and Mountains by Bill Mauldin, with “Mike” written on the outside cover in my mother's hand writing. It's about 40 pages long, with cartoons from the Italian campaign, and an introduction by Ernie Pyle. Ernie Pyle was probably the most famous war correspondent of WWII. Like Bill Mauldin he went to the front with the infantry and told their story. Ernie went to the Pacific theatre before the war ended and was killed there.


I was quite pleased to find this and I do not remember seeing it before. I suspect that I saw it when we first got it and then my mother put it away for safe keeping. I had looked through it once when we found it, and was looking through it again at home when I noticed something bleeding through the fly leaf. The fly leaf was clinging to the front cover. I pulled it away and saw the inscription shown below.


I think that dad got this at an Italian naval base. His outfit was in line near Florence and was pulled out and sent back to refit for the invasion of Southern France. The date on the inscription is August 5. D-day for Southern France was August 15, in which his outfit participated.


Thanks, Dad, from your little boy, Mike. And thanks, Mom, from your big boy.