The Immense Loss I got up early Sunday morning, December 7 1941. ... still a little groggy after a late night party. I walked out on the fantail ... and noticed huge splashes in the water around us. I asked the OD “What the hell is going on here?” He said, “Oh that’s them old PBYs of ours dropping water bombs.” About that time I hear the roar of engines and bullets were flying everywhere, ricocheting off the decks and walls. We saw the low-flying Japanese torpedo planes all around us and the OD and I dove down the hatch ... another sailor and I went to the armament room and found a .30 caliber machine gun. We didn’t have anything else, most of the guns and ammo had been removed the day before because of the visit -- get this -- of some foreign ministers and a deputy ambassador of Japan. We were like sitting ducks -- flags, banners, awnings -but not guns or ammo. My sailor buddy tried to get that machine gun to work but we couldn’t; it never had been fired. I looked north across the channel and saw the battleship Arizona destroyed and sinking in a fiery blaze ... I could hear the moans of the wounded and dying around me, and curses of men who flailed helplessly at the Japanese. Edmund (Gene) McGuire
The Hardship My worst memories of combat were trying to survive from the cold. I was cold, cold, cold! We couldn’t carry much equipment in our backpack for warmth. I didn’t have a heavy coat, just a field jacket and I was freezing. The Army tried to ship us overcoats but they never arrived. We just had to huddle together to keep warm. I remember taking off my paratroop boots on night. My buddy told me, “Don’t do that, Bob, you’ll freeze!” But my feet were so cold I took my boots off anyway to rub my feet. The next morning the boots were frozen solid and it took a long time to soften them up to get them back on. I’m still cold, after all these years! It’s up here (Bob points to his head.) Bob Holly He left on our fourth wedding anniversary when he got his notice to serve. I was six months pregnant and they gave him a deferent until the baby was born. We had our first and only child, Arla, in March 1943. What was ahead of me? I was frightened ... I remember crying all day trying to figure out a budget of $78 a month. Where would I live and how would I care for the baby? Allotment checks were the same every month, although there was one stretch where I didn’t get a cent from August to February. I thought we were going to starve! When I finally got the back money, it was like hitting the lottery. Jean and Sylvester Crumlich
Mixed Fortunes The pilot shouted for us to get ready for a crash landing. I quickly strapped our radio operator into his seat, opened the ceiling escape hatch and fell to the floor bracing my back against the pilot’s bulkhead. My future looked bleak. I didn’t know of a single survivor from any past B-26 crash. Yet I felt strangely peaceful. My only regret was for my parents, as I pictured them receiving the inevitable ”missing in action” and, later, “killed in action” notices. The plane smashed into the Maas River at 250 miles an hour and split in half on impact. The front section sank like a submarine in a few seconds. I was underwater but able to stand on the plane’s floor and push our radio operator out of the hatch ahead of me. We struggled to the surface fore air. In a moment, our pilot and co-pilot burst to the surface and the four of us swam towards shore. Our turret and tail gunners never made it out of the Marauder. When we reached the river’s bank, a young German officer was waiting. He pointed his rifle at us and in perfect English stated: “For you I think the war is over.” Jim Howel The Bluffton Breeze December 2013
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