Memorial Day 2024, Monday May 27

The last Monday in May is dedicated to remembering military members who died in service. I've done a number of blogs over the years about my uncle Clare who was killed in WWII in the China Burma India Theater in October 1944. There are only a few nieces and a nephew who remember him, and we are all in our 80s. He came home in October 1947 on the Honda Knot, and from there came by train to Franklin Grove, Illinois where he was buried in the Ashton Cemetery.

The Korean dead will be returned

I teared up when I read that the remains of soldiers would be returned from North Korea. Their parents are gone now, but there are siblings and children and grandchildren. I remember when my uncle came home in 1947 after being killed in China in 1944 during WWII. He was an aerial engineer for the 24th Mapping Squadron of the 8th Photo Group, Reconnaissance (10th Air Force) which served in the China, Burma, India theater. Clare and a pilot in his unit were killed in an explosion when their plane hit a gasoline supply, through the stupidity of his commanding officer who insisted the men go up in a blinding storm. No one else in that unit lost his life and we only found out how Clare died when a great nephew, Steve, attended one of their reunions in the 1990s. Clare came home on the Honda Knot through San Francisco with 233,181 American dead mostly from action in the Pacific. Another large number came to New York from Europe. Hundreds of thousands of grateful Americans lined up to greet them. I hope we can welcome home those who died in Korea, the war that never ended. Thank you, President Trump.

https://www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/2018/06/12/trump-kim-agree-to-repatriating-us-military-remains-from-korean-war/

http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2010/05/remembering-uncle-clare-on-memorial-day.html

Remembering Uncle Clare--Friday family photo

In sorting through the basket of Christmas cards and letters this week, I found one from my cousin Sharon who lived in a Chicago suburb when we were children.  She is the daughter of my mother's oldest brother, Leslie.  The letter was dated December 20, 2000. Our parents' brother, Clare, had been killed in WWII in October, 1944. I recall my mother saying he couldn't be a pilot because of a hearing problem, but was trained for photographic mapping.  He was an aerial engineer for the 24th Mapping Squadron of the 8th Photo Group, Reconnaissance (10th Air Force) which served in the China, Burma, India theater. Clare and a pilot in his unit were killed in an explosion when their plane hit a gasoline supply, through the stupidity of his commanding officer who insisted the men go up in a blinding storm. No one else in that unit lost his life and we only found out how Clare died when a great nephew, Steve, attended one of their reunions in the 1990s.

Sharon writes in December 2000: "I just finished gathering Steve's information, pictures, and letters from Clare and sent it off December 7.  I hope it gets there.  I copied the letters from Clare and the photos, just in case.  Leslie (Sharon's father) had at least 40 letters from Clare which I also loved reading.  I had no idea he had been stationed in so many places around the United States.  He was even out in Kingmore, Arizona, for awhile.  I told Steve how we cousins would walk down the hall to "Clare's room" and peek in and see the flag and the purple heart.  He was someone we wished we had known.  Gayle remembered that too. [As did I.]

I have one vivid remembrance of Clare visiting us in Chicago and giving me a stick of Dentyne gum.  I was 6 by then in 1944 and I remembered because of the pungent flavor of the gum.  I thought it was so good.  Then I read in his letters it really did happen and he even took a picture of Richard and me standing by the back door.  The negative had been laying in the letter for 56 years.  He told Leslie they didn't bother developing it because they thought it was too faint and maybe he could have it made up.  When I held it up I could see 2 little kids on it, so I took it in and sure enough it was Richard and I as we were that day with Clare. [I remember Clare visiting our family in Mt. Morris, so it may have been the same trip.]

Leslie wrote Clare in September, 1944, and it must have come back to him [my grandmother also had a letter returned to her that he never received]. It was with Clare's letters.  It must have been so awful. I said to our daughter I wish I could've been more responsive to it all then and she said, "You were just a child."  So I said to Steve if his children don't grasp it all right now, they will someday and your book (Steve was working on a book about Clare's life) will be there for them.

While I was copying pictures for Steve's project, I made up some extra ones for my cousins.  I'll get them off to you in the new year.  These pictures and letters make me feel like I didn't miss out on knowing Clare after all.  We enjoyed visiting with Howard in October and having him help me identify pictures, names and places.  Muriel also was a big help.  We noticed from my old pictures there had been 2 Marmon cars over the years with Charles and Mary (our grandparents). I asked Muriel how they got all that camping equipment in the Marmon for their trips out to Kansas and she said they strapped it to the running board.  Mary would prepare for weeks."  

Sharon mentioned that the camera store had been able to develop the glass plates that came to her from her father's collection of slides, movies, and negatives. He had died in November, 1999 in Arizona when he was 97. In the developed plates below, Clare is in each one, and the lower right has my mother with him. Although Sharon doesn't say, I assume Leslie took the photos since he isn't in any of the photos in the other plates.

Some of the developed glass plates from Leslie's collection sent by Sharon.

Remembering Uncle Clare on Memorial Day

I was looking through some old letters that were returned to the family and found this clipping about Uncle Clare's funeral in a thank you note my grandmother had written to my mother's friend Arlene. The enlistment date isn't correct as I think he enlisted in 1942, but September 1944 was when his unit joined with 40th Photographic Reconaissance Squadron, which is probably where that date mix-up came. Also my aunt's name is Dickson, not Dicks. Clare came home in October 1947, three years after his death, on the Honda Knot, a huge funeral ship bearing over 3,000 coffins. I don't think my grandparents were ever the same. I'm not sure why they chose this photo, except he looks like the farm boy he was, who had perhaps just removed his cap to squint at the growing crops, instead of handsome and suave in his Air Corps uniform.

"A navy launch approached the Honda Knot and offered another massive wreath from President Truman. Dignitaries in the audience included Army General Mark Clark, who had led American troops in Italy during the war, and the Secretary of the Navy John L. Sullivan, who honored these fallen heroes, many of whom had passed under the Golden Gate Bridge on ships bound for the Pacific war. Six of the 3,012 flag-draped coffins aboard the Honda Knot were removed the next day to lie in state in the rotunda of San Francisco’s city hall, where ordinary citizens of a sorrowful nation paid their last respects. The six dead represented servicemen from the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, and the Coast Guard, along with a civilian, all killed in the war. From the early morning until late that night, thousands of mourners filed by the coffins of knelt in prayer by their sides. The arrival of the Honda Knot and the Joseph V. Connolly officially initiated what one observer called the “most melancholy immigration movement in the history of man,” the return to the United States of 233,181 American dead after the end of World War II. America’s army of fallen warriors was coming home from the four corners of the earth, from Guadalcanal and Australia, from New Guinea, Japan, China, and Burma in the Pacific theater. From the Mediterranean theater men were returned from Libya, Sicily, Italy, Yugoslavia, and Romania. The bodies of men who had died in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany also came home. Most had been killed in action or had died of wounds from direct combat against the enemy." From the book Safely Rest, by David P. Colley

Friday Family Photo--Veterans Day

When you go home
Tell them of us, and say,
For your tomorrow
We gave our today
Kohima Epitaph
Across the nation we're observing Veterans Day, November 11, which memorializes the end of WWI (armistice was the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918), and honors all veterans of the armed services. Today's photos are my Uncle Clare looking sharp and spiffy in his dress uniform in New Orleans and home on leave with his parents. He was 32 when he went into the Army Air Force in 1942. I think he could have had an exemption because he was a farmer and essentially was managing the Illinois and Iowa farms for his parents who were 68 and 66, and doing all the physical work on the home place. But I think he also saw the war as an opportunity to do some of the things he'd always dreamed of--he was a fabulous mechanic and loved airplanes. I have a dim memory of my mother telling me he couldn't be a pilot because of a hearing problem, but was trained for photographic mapping, and was an aerial engineer for the 24th Mapping Squadron of the 8th Photo Group, Reconnaissance (10th Air Force) which served in the China, Burma, India theater.

In New Orleans

With his parents, on the Franklin Grove farm

On a Geocities site I found the following information about this squadron: "The 8th Photographic Reconaissance Group arrived in India on 31 March 1944, assuming operational control of the 9th Photographic Reconaissance Squadron, 20th Tactical Reconaissance Squadron and 24th Combat Mapping Squadron on 25 April 1944, with the 40th Photgraphic Reconaissance Squadron joining the unit on 6 September 1944.

The main mission of the units attached to the 8th Photographic Reconaissance Group was to gather phtographs to be used in making target maps, assessing target damage and identifying potential targets"

Clare and a pilot were killed in an explosion when the plane hit a gasoline supply, through the stupidity of his commanding officer who insisted the men go up in a blinding storm. No one else in that unit lost his life and we found out how Clare died when a great nephew attended one of their reunions. I'm glad my grandparents never knew since they suffered this loss so terribly the rest of their lives (died in 1963 and 1968).

Searching the internet I found lists of accident reports, alphabetic by name of the soldier or civilian--thousands and thousands died in accidents--and his name is listed. Also found this report of USAAF Serial Numbers, "64105 (F-7A, 8th BRG, 24th CMS) w/o on takeoff accident at Hsing Hing, China Oc 29, 1944" which I assume was his plane since nothing else matches the date.

Originally buried near Chengtu, China after his death on October, 29, 1944, Uncle Clare came home on the Honda Knot in 1947 (I found this information on a Lee County, IL obituary web site) with over 200,000 dead soldiers and sailors with fighter escorts and awaiting dignitaries. While we waited in rural Illinois to bury him with other family in Ashton, he was being welcomed home in San Francisco:

"In San Francisco, a similar ceremony took place under an overcast October sky as the army transport ship Honda Knot slipped through the frigid waters beneath the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco Bay. An aerial escort of forty-eight fighter planes flew over the vessel before dipping their wings in salute and banking away. Surface ships from the Coast Guard and the Navy approached the Honda Knot and led her through a misting rain to anchorage off Marina Point, where a gathering of five thousand mourners waited to pay tribute to the war dead that the ship was delivering home to American soil from the Pacific theater. A navy launch approached the Honda Knot and offered another massive wreath from President Truman. Dignitaries in the audience included Army General Mark Clark, who had led American troops in Italy during the war, and the Secretary of the Navy John L. Sullivan, who honored these fallen heroes, many of whom had passed under the Golden Gate Bridge on ships bound for the Pacific war. Six of the 3,012 flag-draped coffins aboard the Honda Knot were removed the next day to lie in state in the rotunda of San Francisco’s city hall, where ordinary citizens of a sorrowful nation paid their last respects. The six dead represented servicemen from the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, and the Coast Guard, along with a civilian, all killed in the war. From the early morning until late that night, thousands of mourners filed by the coffins of knelt in prayer by their sides. The arrival of the Honda Knot and the Joseph V. Connolly officially initiated what one observer called the "most melancholy immigration movement in the history of man," the return to the United States of 233,181 American dead after the end of World War II. America's army of fallen warriors was coming home from the four corners of the earth, from Guadalcanal and Australia, from New Guinea, Japan, China, and Burma in the Pacific theater. From the Mediterranean theater men were returned from Libya, Sicily, Italy, Yugoslavia, and Romania. The bodies of men who had died in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany also came home. David Colley site

Clare is listed on this memorial site for the 10th Air Force.

Update: The National Archives has a site for WWII Honor List of Dead and Missing. You select by branch of the military, then by state, then by county. I found Uncle Clare, although his name was misspelled.

Veterans Day, War Memorials, World War II, Army Air Force, 10th Air Force, China Burma India Theatre