Ohio War Stories

Doodlebug

July 8th, 2008

The Fieseler Fi 103, better known as V-1 was the first guided missile used in war and the forerunner of today’s cruise missile.

The V-1 was developed at Peenemünde by the German Luftwaffe. Between June 1944 and March 29, 1945, it was fired at targets in southeastern England, Belgium, and Antwerp. V-1s were launched from “ski” launch sites along the French Pas-de-Calais and Dutch coasts until the sites were overrun by Allied forces.

The jet engine pulsed 50 times per second, and the characteristic buzzing sound gave rise to the colloquial names “buzz bomb” or “doodlebug” (after an Australian insect).

The rocket’s mere sound was enough to turn soldiers stomach into butterflies, but was also cause for sky-watching for some. Carroll Tignor talks about this in this clip:
External links
* V1 Launch Site
* Vergeltungswaffe V-Weapons – From Daniel Green’s World War II Air Power website; contains descriptions and film sequences (AVI format)
* The V-Weapons – From Marshall Stelzriede’s Wartime Story website; with June 1944 UK/US news reports on V-1 attacks
* Fi-103/V-1 “Buzz Bomb” – From the Luftwaffe Resource Center website, hosted by The Warbirds Resource Group; with 42 photos
* The Lambeth Archives Includes a sound recording of an incoming V1 - circa 1944

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May 7th, 2008

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

Randall Jarrell

Just a few words about those veterans who crammed themselves into ball turrets during World War II…

Sperry Ball Turrett The Sperry ball turret was used on both the B-17 Flying Fortress and the B-24 Liberator as well as the Navy’s Liberator, the PB4Y. The Sperry ball turret was very small in order to reduce drag, and was typically operated by the shortest man of the crew. The gunner “sat” in the turret with their back and head against the rear wall, their hips at the bottom, and their legs held in mid-air by two footrests on the front wall. This left them positioned with their eyes roughly level with the two .50 calibre machine guns which extended through the entire turret. The cocking handles were located too close to the gunner to operate easily, so a cable was attached to the handle through pulleys to a handle near the front of the turret. Small ammo boxes rested on the top of the turret and the remaining ammo belts were stowed in the already cramped turret by means of an elaborate feed chute system. A reflector sight was hung from the top of the turret, positioned roughly between the gunners feet.

We met William Gearhart, who was interviewed by students of Newark High School. In the clip below, Mr. Gearhart talks about his function as a ball turret gunner during a massive bombing run over Berlin. Under heavy fire, the plane had to ditch its turret; Mr. Gearhart belives that his was the only plane to do so over German soil.

I found this other clip on YouTube about a ball turret gunner who describes his own bombing run over Germany. How they managed to function in such a tiny space while being shot at defies explanation.

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Comics

February 6th, 2008

Cartoonist Milton Caniff was an Ohio native, graduated from the Ohio State University, and was a prolific artist. His best-known cartoons were Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon; the former was inspired in large part by stories from WW2. He also drew Mail Call, light-hearted fare to help provide the American G.I.s with welcome diversions.

The Ohio Historical Society is currently featuring artifacts from the artist, who saved everything - including his desk:

Visitors to the Ohio Historical Center in Columbus can now get to know the man behind the cartoons with Spotlight on Milton Caniff, an exhibit which highlights the cartoonist’s life during what would have been his centennial year, from Oct. 25 (2007) through March 2 92008).

On display will be artifacts of his childhood and artist’s studio from the Ohio Historical Society’s and The Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library’s collections, including photographs, toys, furniture, an extensive weapons collection, and art supplies. Visitors also can watch Caniff tell his life story through his art as frames from an auto-biographical cartoon are shown on video.

The video below was produced by WOSU with generous assistance from the Cartoon Research Library, where visitors (make a reservation, please) can get an overview of Caniff’s work. One angle of his story is worth remembering above all else: Caniff flunked his draft physical, and probably never got over it. Maybe as compensation, he delved deep into the lives and stories or troops and nurses (with whom he kept constant correspondence).

His wartime comics were respectful, historically accurate, and done partly as gifts to G.I.s with whom Caniif could sympathize but never empathize…

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Charles

February 6th, 2008

Charles Feucht Charles “Buddy” Feucht was from Reynoldsburg, Ohio, and was studying at OSU when WWII broke out. He became a bombardier, and was stationed in New Guinea. In 1943, on his second mission, his B-24 Liberator was shot down in deep forest, and the plane wasn’t recovered.

In 2003, a hunter in New Guinea found the wreckage of his Liberator. Buddy and his crew’s remains were finally recovered, and brought back home.

His sister, Mary Alice Foster, recounts this story.

Mike Harden from the Columbus Dispatch also did an overview of this WWII story that lasted for 60 years.

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Oh

February 6th, 2008

The picture on the right belongs to the Reverend Joe Farry, of Reynoldsburg, Ohio. Like most of our site contributors, he was asked a simple question: Do you have any good war stories or mementos that you would like to talk about?

He brought in a tattered and weather-beaten friend, a U.S. flag that flew from the U.S.S. Compton, an Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer that was launched on 17 September 1944 and saw action in the Pacific.

As you’ll see from the video, the flag could use some restoration, but its need of a dry cleaning and some needle-and-thread work won’t improve its heritage. As it flew over the Heritage, while the ship cruised in for repairs around Tokyo Bay in July 1945, it was the first U.S. flag to fly in the bay.

There is something about flags during wartime that raise the iconic level of stars and stripes. from Francis Scott Key’s anthem, to Guadalcanal, to the site of Old Glory still waving during 9/11, the flag is far more than patterns and cloth…

Here’s the video:

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A

December 28th, 2007

Mauthausen From the Newark Advocate, a story about a Ohio veteran with bad memories decides to exorcise a few of them:

For more than 60 years, Hobert Yazell kept quiet about what he saw during the Holocaust.

But when he heard Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declare the Holocaust was a myth, he decided that was long enough.

“After a generation disappears, there’s nobody to say that it didn’t happen,” he said. “I didn’t want our kids growing up thinking it never happened.” Keep reading…

Mr. Yazell’s story, which explores the camp at Mauthausen - a category III camp, reserved for the camp with the most brutal conditions - is remarkably similar to Bill Ruth’s, a radio operator who came upon the newly-liberated Nordhausen camp. It is, understandably, an experience that few people would relish the chance to re-tell. But Mr. Ruth tells it to anyone who will listen, because he feels that not hearing the story is as though the story is not real:

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The

December 7th, 2007

AWOL Poster I met veteran George Peto when he came to our studios at WOSU@COSI and allowed us to videotape him talking about a piece of war memorabilia. He had a very cool top-secret map showing the allied naval advancements near Japan.

This was really only the tip of the iceberg, as George has posted stories about life life in the Marine Corps that are harrowing, funny, tragic, amazing, and sad. He wrote about Peleliu, about being a mortor expert, and his latest is a long story with several parts to it.

In one, George’s rebellious side kicked in. Though he was getting along fine while stationed near Melbourne, Australia, one day, he explains, “we were about to leave we were informed that we had to stay in camp. Our liberty had been canceled. They couldn’t do this to us; we felt we were being taken advantage of. This called for a council of war.”

Two friends and George decided to go on liberty anyway, a stint that lasted two weeks. “As the old saying goes all good things must come to an end and so it did for us. It was by our own choice we were sick, sorry and sober and worst of all we were broke, so we decided to report back to the Cricket Grounds and turn ourselves in.”

This is probably the first story I’ve read about such a careless act, one of self-gratification in such dire times. George, of course, was punished soundly. And reading the rest of his entry confirms that his service was admirable, though not unblemished.

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A

November 27th, 2007

Carlos Cordova wasn’t a U.S. citizen when he enlisted, a point that he brought up to the recruitment officer, but for naught. While in the Army, he served in North Africa before being shipped to Normandy, where he was part of the Omaha Beach invasion. Carlos notes that once you arrived on the beach, it was a long, long walk to Germany.

This video comes by way of WGTE:

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Voices

November 14th, 2007

D-Day The U.S. Army has set up an invaluable web site that provides information about the D-Day invasion. It says:More than 5,000 Ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion, and by day’s end on June 6, the Allies gained a foot- hold in Normandy. The D-Day cost was high -more than 9,000 Allied Soldiers were killed or wounded — but the mission was a resounding success; more than 100,000 Soldiers began the march across Europe to defeat Hitler.

100,000 soldiers! Which means that from this single invasion, there are 100,000 great stories. Here are just a couple. John talks about what it was like to be in a landing craft at 2 in the morning heading for the beaches. The power in Toledo resident Dave Fought’s story is that, as a medic, he looked after both Allied and Nazi troops.

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Soldiers,

November 9th, 2007

In Ken Burns’ documentary “The War,” the filmmaker explores themes that constantly runs through his work: What is means to be an American, turmoil that divides and defines people, and how racial struggles play out.

He pays particular attention Mobile, Alabama, which grew into a booming, overcrowded war town while it tried to keep up with the manufacturing needs of the country. The city was ill-prepared for the growth. It was a transformation that lead to confrontation and ugly racial violence.

Here and elsewhere, black servicemen as well as ordinary citizens found themselves pulled in two different directions; they wanted to be part of things, but felt like outsiders.

The Tuskegee Airmen (many of whom spent time at the 332nd Fighter Wing at Lockbourne Air Base, Ohio) are one of the more-cited examples of black soldiers who performed brilliantly under pressure in the war, but were marginalized on their return to post-war United States.

Paul Harris, a Dayton, Ohio citizen, also felt that tension. Paul’s color made feel feel as though he were not really a full citizen of the U.S., but the service gave him the chance to work alongside whites, and to show them that blacks could keep up in the factories and elsewhere.

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Ohio War Stories: Share Your Memories

Doodlebug

July 8th, 2008

The

May 7th, 2008

Comics

February 6th, 2008

Charles

February 6th, 2008

Oh

February 6th, 2008

A

December 28th, 2007

The

December 7th, 2007

A

November 27th, 2007

Voices

November 14th, 2007

Soldiers,

November 9th, 2007