I’m not sure what to call the book, but in the Navy we call them “Cruise Books,” that record an overseas deployment. The title of the post if taken from the title page of the book.
Cpl R.A. Witnik, US Army
This book was given to me by a family member of Cpl. R.A.Witnik (deceased), who was, as told to me by the family, a 37mm Anti-Tank Gun crew member in the 331st Combat Regiment of the 83rd Division.
I had the book scanned and then ran the images through optical character recognition to make it a searchable PDF document. I also have the same type book from the 33st Combat Regiment, which I’m working on processing in the same manner to post for reading.
The content is unique in my experience, having not seen any of these pictures before. Also the narratives read like conversations, not like professional writers/editors generated the content.
In the meantime, enjoy the read!
Updated 1/24/18: And I have this in hand, too. Think a honest to God WWII worn CIB in there:
Update 1/23/18: 19 min video documentary of 83rd Infantry Division:
RADM Charles Hunter passed away 2/24/2017. Memorial service will be held at 1 PM March 4th, 2017 At the Gross Funeral Home, 6636 Central Ave, St Petersburg, FL.
I met Charlie (he told us to not call him “Admiral” or stand when he walked in all these years – but we ignored his request out of respect) in 2009 by being invited to have breakfast with several veterans, mostly Naval Academy graduates and pilots (he was a 1954 USNA Graduate). Even with a table full of veterans, not a lot of details of real combat gets mentioned, but from a man who was awarded a Navy Cross, and as noted in the picture, the Distinguished Flying Cross as well, over the years, I heard him speak briefing of his single plane mission into Haiphong Harbor on the moonless night of October 30th, 1967.
He had arrived aboard USS CONSTELLATION (CVA-64) to replace the VA-196 CO that had been shot down. His orders to replace were delivered to him one morning at NAS Whidby Island, where he was a Replacement Air Group instructor for the A-6 Intruders. He had gone to work for a normal day, commenting he regularly he and his Bombadier/Navigator (BN) walked into the CO’s office and indicated they wanted to get in the game. They were regularly told to shut up, get back to work training crews….but on this particular morning, they were called in and told to gear up for a TransPac flight and get headed west. Arriving aboard, he was now the new CO of VA-196.
Three months later he was flying up the Red River at night at 200 ft, inbound to the target. I didn’t catch the entire telling, as several conversations are always going around the table, but I overheard “There were 5 SAMs (surface-to-air missiles) coming at us, 2 from (???) and three at 2 o’clock, so I barrel rolled to evade. The we set the radar altimeter to 50 ft and it alarmed 3 times before we got to the target.”
Consider that statement for a moment, and parse out the important real details. First off: 5 SAMs headed your way all at once. You’re low, altitude gives options when playing the physics of flight. Not much of it limits you. Now, he’s inbound and we know his 9.5 tons (a fully loaded A-6 capacity) was delivered to to the location of the mission. While I’m not a pilot, I know this: Even fighters, let alone attack aircraft, almost always jettison their external stores when it’s time to fight, or in this case, evade. He barrel rolled beginning at 200 ft with 9.5 tons of ordnance still on his wings, and didn’t end up impacting the Red River surface doing close to Mach.
I’m also not sure of the details in the radar altimeter alarming, but I suspect it was to alert the pilot of an all-weather attack aircraft, designed to fly to target in basically zero visility, that he was going lower than the parameters set into the system to aid the low visibility capabilities. So there he and his BN were, zorching (tip o the hat to the long departed Neptunus Lex – another fine aviator) towards his assignment just short of 600 kts at 50 ft off the water with a now alerted air defense network, at that time, the best one on the planet…. He popped up, delivered the ordnance, and high taled it back to the CONNIE, with he and his BN intact.
His comment was the USAF airborne asset counted at least 22 SAMs being fired at his aircraft. 22….let that sink in. Other than that one snippet I overheard and then listen intently for the rest after I heard it begin, he never really mentioned it. He never mentioned his Navy Cross, and until finding his picture (above) on the funeral home site, I had no idea he had a Silver Star as well. Humble. Just a good old boy from the Panhandle of Florida, who worked hard, having many times mentioned his teacher who made a point to make several of them very good in math, and was accepted into the Naval Academy.
More details I managed to collect: He was Commanding Officer of VA-85 (Assuming command 9/6/1968), an East Coast Squadron, and while in that position, I found a passing note on the web years ago about GEN Curtis LeMay coming to the carrier he was flying from, and Charley briefed him. I did ask him ,having found that bit of history, what that was like. He brushed it off like “he was just an average guy” (meaning GEN LeMay). UPDATED: I just found this clip of him, with Gen LeMay in the pilot’s seat of an A-6A, giving his the details of one of his VA-85 aircraft:
He skippered the USS SARATOGA (CV-60) 11-Sep-76 to 4-Feb-78 and had the highest operational performance rates for all the East Coast CVs.
Besides being good company at breakfasts every other Saturday mornings for the last 7+ years, he was just an average guy in being around everyone. No need for special treatment and seemed a little embarrassed by our rank recognition when he or we walked in to our meeting place.
After absorbing the stories of a great man and leader above, to see him physically, you’d not then a bantam weight 5′ 6″ man could have been a warrior who would have earned top awards for heroism under fire. No matter, he had whet it took when the time came to get the mission accomplished, and also to lead crews to excellence.
Other personal stories: As an Ensign, he began at the RAG learning to fly the F-7U CUTLASS. One of our other breakfast attendees flew with him and later did a deployment to the Med as roommates flying them.
He punched out once: He was getting a mid-air refueling and he ended up with fuel in his A-4 SKYHAWK engine (and not inside the combustion system), causing the plane to begin burning up. Smoke in the cockpit stuff, so he fell back from the tanker and used the ejection seat, without noting any injuries.
There’s more to this story about ADM Hunter: The mission of such historical value was the basis for the movie starring Danny Glover: “Flight of the Intruder.” The differences: It wasn’t a rogue mission and he wasn’t shot down over enemy territory. In this case, Hollywood partially modeled real life.
Commander, U.S. Navy
Attack Squadron ONE HUNDRED NINETY SIX (VA-196), U.S.S. Constellation (CVA-64)
Date of Action: 30 October 1967
Citation:
The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Commander [then Lieutenant Commander] Charles Bryan Hunter (NSN: 0-584531), United States Navy, for extraordinary heroism on 30 October 1967 as a pilot in Attack Squadron ONE HUNDRED NINETY-SIX (VA-196), embarked in U.S.S. CONSTELLATION (CVA-64). Exercising exceptional professional skill and sound judgment, Commander Hunter, planned and executed an extremely dangerous, single-plane, night, radar bombing attack on the strategically located and heavily defended Hanoi railroad ferry slip in North Vietnam. Although the entire Hanoi defensive effort was concentrated upon his lone bomber, he flawlessly piloted his aircraft to the target area and commenced his attack. Seconds before bomb release, six enemy surface-to-air missiles were observed to be tracking on his plane. Undaunted by this threat to his personal safety, Commander Hunter took swift and effective action to avoid the missiles and then proceeded to complete his attack, releasing all weapons in the target area with extreme accuracy. After release, he guided his plane through the intense anti-aircraft-artillery fire and four additional missiles which were fired at his aircraft. In spite of this intense enemy opposition, Commander Hunter completed his mission and was directly responsible for dealing a significant blow to the North Vietnamese logistics efforts. His indomitable perseverance and conspicuous gallantry were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.
Given the current events of the President making a speech at Hiroshima yesterday, and figuring out I hadn’t gotten around to making this post already, here’s another small bit of history that proves, that as horrible as the A bombs were on Japan, the decision by FDR and later Harry Truman, may well have saved a culture from extinctions.
It would be nice o pursue a World without nuclear weapons. I actually concur with him. I do, however, take exception to him presenting this topic at Hiroshima, and even Nagaski would have been inappropriate. The reason atomic, and later, nuclear weapons were invented, was because of the agressive actions of Japan in the Pacific region of the planet. Long before Pearl Harbor, Japan had occupied, just to name some significant one: The Korean Pennisula, and large portions of Manchuris. In fact, the US had cut off selling scrap metal, lumber and petroleum products via an embargo, as a less than military response to make an international diplomatic point. The embargo hampered Japanese military efforts, but the unintended consequence was then Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, strategically planning to take our powerful Naval forces out of action, so they could then invade SE Asia, where the tin, lumber and POL resources were that they needed to continue their empire building in China.
The massive human wreckage and war crimes of the Japanese military are well documented along the way, the term “The Rape of Nanking” is but one term in this accounting.
In a twist of irony, our President goes to Japan, and says he is there to mourn the dead of our use of atomic weapons the bring the war to a close, started by the Japanese and filled with brutality towards civilians. I doubt a moment was devoted to considering the men, women and children used for bayonet and beheading training for Japanese soldiers and officers in China (and what is now Korea), let alone the many Korean women who were taken, in today’s lexicon, as “sex slaves” for the Japanese military. Back then, they were called “comfort girls” and that issue is still major issue between Japan and Korea even now.
Little known history is Japan had successfully developed and tested and atomic weapon before the end of WWII. Revealed by a Japanese immigrant physics professor, who was part of the research team, he had saved docuemtns ordered destroyed before the Allies could find them. The History Channel has a documentary on this bit of history, and the details are also found here on Wikipedia.
Has the President, or his staff bothered to realized both Germany and Japan were working to build the same type of weaponry, and speficially planning to use them for domination? Not likely, it doesn’t fit the narraitve of how bad America has been, trying to build an empire aggressively against the peaceful Japanese peoples.
Ans, yes, they higher irony is the enabling of Iran to build the very weaponry he says the World would be better off without.
Now, on to a telling bit of 2nd hand storytelling that proves we are blessed to have the Japanese culture, economy and as a security partner in peace, and all because of some very difficult decision making, in the end, by Harry Truman.
Assigned to the COMNAVSURFLANT Combat Systems Mobile Training Team (CSMTT) in 1990, one my shipmates, Paul, had been stationed at Naval Station Sasebo, Japan earlier in his career. On his desk, he had a carved wood pen and pencil holder, with his name “bookened” by china globes. The globes were fine white china, about 3″ in diameter and had a little “chimney,” like you would see on a Christmas ornament with out the cap to hold the hanger. Certainly it was a conversation starting piece, and I asked, as I’m sure many others have over the years: Just what are those globes?
“Grenades.”
The long version: Sometime in the 80s, the in Sasebo Harbor channel needed dredging and the dredging spoil came up with pile after pile of those spheres. No one, at first, had any idea what they were or for, but someone began asking around.
Some very old Japanese revealed the story. Noritake made them. The Japanese Government directed them verbally to manufacture globes for inexpensive grenades, to be issued to every man, woman and child in the event of an invasion by the Allied Forces. They would run up to them and kill themselves and ans many Allied troops as possible. When the war ended, the globes produced and stored, were order to be dumped in the harbor, to conceal their existence.
It was an entirely undocumented production contract. Consider why any one, or any government, would, with all their mandatory red tape, all of a sudden doing something verbally?
I don’t recall the book, but about 10 years ago, it was on the new book shelf at Borders, the topic was the contents of the diplomatic cables between Toyko and Berlin we had intercepted. The author’s analysis was Japan’s leadership was poised to expend every Japanese citizen, rather than have anyone remaining, standing in defeat. His conclusion was: The delivery of the two atomic bombs were the tipping point in the Japanese Government’s decision to end the war, with out the coming horrific toll in lives that would be an expected outcome.
Paul’s memorabilia of his time in Japan tells of the internal planning to enable national suicide, which means it wasn’t “words, just words” of one ally to another in the midst of global war, but a purposeful plan the had put into motion. Knowing the events of Saipan and Okinawa, it is even more clear the Japanese military had great control over what they could get civilians to do in the face of the Allied Forces.
Category: Geo-Political, History |
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As noted on the Wikipedia page linked above, the initial designation of this aircraft was the BT-13, and the SNV-1 was a batch of 1350 planes transferred to the US Navy. This airplane was the most produced primary fight trainer of all types in the WWII era.
I missed this new aircraft type in the Col’s logbook, until one of our breakfast crew, who had flow it himself in the early post-war time frame, exclaimed “Oh, he flew the Vibrator!” while looking at the logbooks.
Many years ago, I first was introduced to the Vultee Vibrator when Jim Helinger, Sr, walked up to one at Sun n’ Fun, placed his hand on the fuselage and said “We called this the Vibrator!”
Here is the December 1943 logbook entries noting Col Dode took his first fights in his second aircraft type, which was the normal progression for both Navy/Marine Corps and Army Air Corps trainees.
Jim, Sr did note this aircraft was the secondary trainer for those cadets marked for the fighter pilot assignments. I don’t recall the airframe that future bomber pilots would be next trained in.
Here’s some historical video, albeit from the Army Air Corps viewpoint, I’m reasonably certain the fight training in this aircarft would have been very similar in all services.
From the Desk of Col George Dodenhoff, USMC – Part 5
Col Dodenhoff – Total Flight Hours 1943 Page – 19431226-450w.png
Subtitle: Still in training in Dec 43
Col Dodenhoff had done plenty of flying in September and October of 43, but only had one flight in November, at Naval Air Station, Pasco, Washington, closeing out the year with 3 flights at Naval Air Station, Corpus Christi.
Just preceeding this time frame, the Marine Corps had just wrapped up the assault on Tarawa, one of the major battles of the Pacific, that defined the future of amphibious landing tactics and equipment.
Dode now has a total of 139.6 hours in the air, across 100 flights. Of that time, now 82.4 hours have been as a solo pilot, still in the standard basic primary trainer, the N2S-3.
On September 21st, 1943, the Colonel took to the skies by himself. A critical step in the process of learning to fly anywhere, he did so with a total of 12 recorded dual control fight time. He would have been sitting in the aft seat of the N2S-3 BuNo 07759. As a point of reference by today’s training, a civilian private pilot’s license first solo flight doesn’t have a set number of hours to have, but it is at the discretion of the flight instructor to allow the first individual journey into the sky. I would assume (not being an aviator), similar in the military training realm.
He was aloft for 1.5 hours over NAS Corpus Christi (again an assumption on the location). with no notes at all, so it had to be a normal flight. I can’t find anything specific regarding the syllabus for a solo flight during that period, but I’m sure in included a variety of skills to be practiced.
Oct 2, 1992: (Very) Shortly After Midnight – USS SARATOGA – Part VIII
This is the video of the talk given at Tactical Training Croup, Atlantic about April 1993, after having conducted certification of most all of the Atlantic Fleet NSSMS units. LCDR Don Diehl had sat through the Court of Inquiry, having been sent TAD from the USS GEORGE WASHINGTON as COMNAVAIRLANT’s subject matter expert on Combat Direction Center (CDC) Operations. Rather conducting a oral board on the operators on the ships, Don basically told the story of what happened, interspersed with questions of the people who manned the various stations to check their knowledge. In this manner, he helped convey the circumstances, so the other crews could learn from the mistakes. Don has since passed away, but he was a great inspector and instructor for the team across the several months we spent traveling the world together.
On September 10th, 1943, Dode made his first recorded flight. He would have been sitting in the forward seat, with Lt Doran (service unidentified – it could have been wither a Marine, or, maybe more likely due to the missing “2” or “1,” may well have been a Naval aviator) in the rear seat as his instructor pilot.
Flying 1.5 hours, he began his career as a Marine Aviator. Without comment in the notes section, it must have been a routine flight.
Based on the equipment issued page (the one preceding this page), I’m going to presume the flight occurred at Naval Air Station, Corpus Christi, TX.
His aircraft logged was the ubiquitous N2S, the legendary primary trainer in WWII, but better known to many as the Stearman PT-17, Bureau Number (or “BuNo” in official abbreviation for future reference in this series) 07732. The particular variant, the -3 version, one of 1875 delivered to the US Navy, with the Continental R-670-4 Radial engine.
“Boeing Stearman N67193” by Juergen Lehle – Own work (See also AlbSpotter Flugzeugbilder Aircraft Photos). Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons
The actual manufacturer’s formal designation was the Boeing-Stearman Model 75 The N2S was the Navy designation. for the aircraft. In this regard, he was having the common experience for the aviators of this time. This airframe was used by the US and Canadian forces, with over 10K of them being made between the production in the 30s and 40s. After WWII, they were sold as surplus, helping kickstart the General Aviation market for private pilots. These surplus planes were widely used for crop dusting and airshows for wing walkers.
Some of the type of training for flying Col Dodenhoff would have received would have been like what is contained in this WWII flight training video:
With the recent return to the posting section here, it reminded me how the structure of the blog has been in need of some effort to catch up on the changes of time and WordPress, but, importantly as well, just the maintenance of the information presented here for viability as sources.
I spent about an hour a few nights ago working my way down the blogroll links. It evoked some interesting thoughts.
– Some of the blogs are gone. As I pondered that, the recollections of the resaon for interaction and the content of those sites came back, some in more detail that others, and many I found as a result of work with the Soldier’s Angels projects, particularly of note being the Project ValOUR IT that provided laptops with voice activated software to our injured troops.
– Some blogs have had their domains purchased by others and now, while the link is live, it’s nothing related to the one I linked to some many years ago.
– Some blogs are present, but, the last entries are years ago, some have the last post indicating the posting had come to an end and this was a digital goodbye, while others are frozen in time.
– And the rest are still there, some plugging along, still posting new items, but the tenor has changed with the World and history’s diffrences from the time when we were very actively engaged in a large sacle effort to combat an enemy with conventional and special forces.
On one hand, we have come to believe, what is posted on the net, stays on the net and never dies. That’s true and false, depending on whether a site stays active. Be it Facebook, or a personally owned and managed blog, if it even drops it’s registartion, the content, unlike that of a hard copy document, is gone. Unless someone has diligently copied the full text/media to their site, then the link gets “broken” and that snippet of detail so linked is gone.
I’ll caveat this with the site of archive.org, where, if they have crawled a site, you may be able to find that old info you seek. I just went ant looked, for the remembrance of it all, for the well read, well written, pretty much my favorite blog of all time, Neptunus Lex. It’s long since been off the air, and thankfully not hijacked for the purposes of leeching off his massive daily traffic and backlinks. The link posted is to the snapshot taken by the recording process on the day after Capt Lex had “died with is boots on.” March 6th, 2012, an afternoon “hop” to train our future warriors in the air got enmeshed in the bad weather and he died trying to land his F-21 in high winds and pretty much no visibility. Even as recently as a few weeks ago, I told someone who’s grandson wants to fly that it was a shame Lex’s blog wasn’t still there, for it, even without his personal advice to a specific request, was a massive archive of career guidance. So, the prior comment on it all going away isn’t completely true, but it can be if the “Way Back Machine” didn’t get around to your site as frequently as needed to make your content immortal. I have noted that when using the site for some business work. Certainly the well traveled sites will be there.
In the scanning of the links that were active, I gleaned some information, one bit being Maj Chuck Zigenfuss, the man who was the inspiration and first ValOUR IT user retired from the Army in January of this year. He was one of those exceptional leaders I met along the way in the MilBlogging world, and I suspect he was that to his troops and his commanders. His work, along with Beth’s has provided over 6000 laptops to those in need, and still does today.
SteelJaw Scribe sill presents news from his world and provides analysis of the geo-political side, too. Cdr Salamander’s site is probably the most active MilBlog going. One of the leaders in the Milblogging world, GreyHawk, who’s site was the Mudville Gazette, is one of those sites that has been taken over. Matt Burden of Black Five is still there, and some basic posts are being done.
Enough of the reminiscing. I will be cleaning up the no longer useful links/sidebar entires to begin, then I will go hunting a more up-to-date theme. For those who have been at this across the versions of WordPress 1.x to the 4 series, know this isn’t just a few clicks of effort. On top of that, I need some housekeeping in the main content world, to clean up little glitches that have occured as I moved the main data table forward. For over 1300 posts, there will be some detail work needed.
Anyhow, blogs are not forever (sort of), so I’ll make my final point: It’s it’s worth hanging on to, pull it out and ant least create a book out of it, even if it’s just a big Word document to be passed along.
I do not have any indication of the date of the picture, but judging from the flight gear (the headgear in particular), it would be pre-Korean War era, since hard style helmets were in place during those times based on my research. The plane is a Corsair airframe of some sort, of which his logs showed, across the many hours, both the F4U and FG-1 models, which would appear the same in this view.
From his DD 214: Born in Brooklyn, NY on 2February 28th, 1923, George also was claiming residence when he was commissioned in the Marines on June 1st, 1944, showing that as his home of record. I don’t have a record of his date of actual entry into service, but he must have been in an aviation cadet program of some sort, as you will see in his logbook as we explore his history. Other service noted was 1 year, 5 months, 23 days for his total service time. That would put him enlisting for his service on December 9th, 1942. He was 19 years old when he raised his right hand and took his oath of office for military service.
Opening the logbook, the first page is the record of equipment issued:
Note in the picture of the equipment issued, the rank of “A/Co” seems to be scribbled through and “2ndLT” written next to it. Equipment appears to be mostly issued ar Naval Air Station, Corpus Christi, TX on June 2nd, 1943 under the signature stamp of CAPT J.M. Easter (SC). That date aligns with the next important event in the retelling of the history of Dode.
A connected bit of history from the NAS Corpus Christi wikipedia page is George was on the base at the same time President George H.W. Bush was graduating from his fight training in June 1943.
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