Episode 151: A Tale of Two Soldiers, Part III

This week, we conclude this tale of two soldiers - of Brigadier General Smith and Lieutenant Colonel Waller - with a court martial, but surprisingly it isn't for war crimes conducted by Smith... at least not initially.

Army Brigadier General Jacob Hurd Smith died on March 1, 1918 at age 78. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Section 3, Grave 1924.

Marine Corps Major General Littleton Waller Tazwell "Tony" Waller died on July 13, 1926 at age 69. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Section 4, Grave 3311.

Episode 150: A Tale of Two Soldiers, Part II

 

When US Army Brigadier General Jacob Smith issued an order that authorized the genocide of Filipinos during the Philippine Insurrection, only one of his subordinates stepped in and tried to stop it - Marine Corps Major Littleton "Tony" Waller, but a massacre of a US Infantry Company at the hands of Moro rebels made stopping the deaths of innocent women and children much more difficult.

Episode 149: A Tale of Two Soldiers, Part I

 

There is only one person buried at Arlington that I believe should be disinterred and moved elsewhere, an Army Brigadier General named Jacob Hurd Smith who should have been drummed out of the military decades before he became a general, but since he wasn't, he was allowed an opportunity to commit genocide in The Philippines. Only one of his subordinates, a Marine named Littleton "Tony" Waller actively tried to stop him.

Episode 147: The Mayaguez Incident - The Last American Casualties in Vietnam, Part VII

In the years following the Mayaguez Incident, several memorials have popped up. As is was considered the final combat action of the Vietnam War (despite taking place after the officially recognized end of the war and in Cambodia, not Vietnam) those killed in action were engraved in the final panel of the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, DC.

In 1996, Arizona Senator and former Vietnam POW John McCain helped dedicate a memorial to those killed on Koh Tang on the grounds of the US embassy in Phenom Penh, Cambodia.

In 2013, a memorial marker for those killed in the Knife-31 crash off Koh Tang's east beach. It is in Section 60, Site 10360.

Two Marines killed in action during the Mayaguez Incident, who were originally listed as missing in action and whose statues was officially changed in 1976 to killed in action (body not recovered) were eventually located, recovered, repatriated, and ultimately interred at Arlington National Cemetery. Second Lieutenant Richard Van de Geer is interred in Section 66, Grave 6027 - he was 27 years old.

Private First Class Walter Boyd, Jr. is buried in Section 66, Grave 5686 - he was 19 years old.

 

Episode 146: The Mayaguez Incident - The Last American Casualties of Vietnam, Part VI

 

The crew of the SS Mayaguez is released by the Khmer Rouge, but it is too late to stop the US rescue attempt. Now President Ford wants to pull out the troops, but since information flowed a lot slower in 1975 than it does in 2025, the second wave of US Marines was already on site. Will they follow presidential orders or will they disregard their commander-in-chief and extricate their comrades under siege in enemy territory?

While those decisions were being made, the destroyer USS Henry B. Wilson came across the survivors of the Knife-31 crash that happened in the opening minutes of the attempted invasion of Koh Tang and was able to rescue them after they had survived more than two hours treading water in the ocean 

Episode 145: The Mayaguez Incident - The Last American Casualties in Vietnam, Part V

     

As things were falling apart on nearby Koh Tang, 1/4 Marines from the frigate USS Harold E. Holt brings 1/4 Marines from the Philippines along side the stricken SS Mayaguez.

Believing the commercial ship to be held by an unknown number of armed Khmer hijackers, US aircraft engulfed the Mayaguez in tear gas before the Marines boarded.

By the time the Marines returned to the Holt, it was clear that only a few Khmer Rouge fighters had stayed on the ship and they abandoned the vessel when the tear gas was dropped.

The SS Mayaguez, retaken without a shot fired, was hooked up to the Holt and towed away from Koh Tang.

Episode 144: The Mayaguez Incident - The Last American Casualties of Vietnam

Bad intelligence plus bad timing equals a bad plan. Last week we saw the bad intelligence when no photos of the objective were available so the Marine making the plan flew over the site at 4500 feet with his personal 35mm camera. This week we see the bad timing I've been eluding to. The bad intelligence and bad timing come together for a disastrous first fifteen minutes of the battle for the Mayaguez and her crew.

Aside from losing three of the first four helicopters that tried to insert Marines onto the beaches of Koh Tang island (two of which can be seen in the first photo on east beach) the forth bird was so damaged that the pilot abandoned the mission, taking her 20 Marines back to Thailand. It was likely the right call as it didn't make it back to U-Tapao Royal Air Base in Thailand before it had to be abandoned.

Episode 143: The Mayaguez Incident - The Last American Casualties in Vietnam, Part III

US reconnaissance planes lost track of the Mayaguez crew when the trawler they were on arrived at the port of Kompong Som on mainland Cambodia. Because of that, US planners continued to plan for a rescue under the assumption that the crew was split between the Mayaguez itself and Koh Tang island and their estimate of how many Khmer soldier were on Koh Tang was off by 90%. Both of which led to a rescue plan that would not be well suited for the reality on the ground.

Oh, and the reconnaissance photos the Marines used to plan the operation was taken with one of their officer's personal 35-mm camera from 4500 feet above the island because apparently no other photos of Koh Tang existed in Thailand where the planning was taking place.  

Episode 142: The Mayaguez Incident - The Last American Casualties in Vietnam, Part II

The last image of the Knife 13 casualties just before they took off

As the first day of the Mayaguez Incident was coming to a close, US officials were gathering Marines from The Philippines and Okinawa for a potential rescue attempt. Seventh Air Force Commander, on the ground in Thailand, tried to include his airmen but that... well, that did not go well. One of the helicopters moving to the staging area crashed - call sign Knife 13 - killing all 23 people aboard, 5 crew and 18 passengers. Just last month a monument was dedicated to honor those killed at the Air Force Security Forces Museum at Joint Base San Antonio - Lackland in Texas

The Knife 13 Memorial dedicated October 10, 2024 at Joint Base San Antonio - Lackland, Texas

As the second day of the incident dawned in Southeast Asia, the air force did all in its power, the the use of fighters and attack aircraft, the prevent the Cambodians from transferring their prisoners to the mainland were President Ford felt it would be much more difficult to get them back unharmed. 

Episode 141: The Mayaguez Incident - The Last American Casualties in Vietnam, Part I

The last US combat units left South Vietnam on March 29, 1973. The last US embassy personnel were dramatically evacuated on April 30, 1975, the same day that the People's Army of Vietnam entered Saigon, signally the defeat of South Vietnam and the reunification of the country by the Northern communists.

But those considered the final American casualties of the Vietnam War died the following month in neighboring Cambodia fighting soldiers loyal to the Khmer Rouge, not the government in Hanoi. This final unlikely battle was fought over a commercial container ship during the early chaotic days of significant political change in Southeast Asia.

Episode 122: Tales from Punchbowl, Part II

 

Donn Beach, the father of tiki culture, founder of the Donn the Beachcomber restaurant chain, and  creator of the mai tai cocktail started out in California but after his service as a lieutenant colonel in WWII, he relocated to Hawaii.

In Hawaii, he established Waikiki's still popular (though very different than when it was founded) International Market Place and was part of a group of entrepreneurs who went out of their way to preserve historic sites across the islands.

Army Air Corps Lieutenant Colonel Donn Beach is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Section B, Grave 1-C.

1920's Notre Dame University football legend Jack Chevigny was not only part of the Fighting Irish's surprise upset over powerhouse Army in the now-classic 1928 Gipper Game, he was the one who yelled "That's one for the Gipper" as he crossed the goal line to tie the game up. He went on to coach football at first the NFL and then the collegiate levels after earing his law degree.

Chevigny joined the Marines and after multiple recruiting and physical training assignments, he requested a combat assignment. He ended up with the 27th Marines where he landed on Iwo Jima on D-Day where he was killed.

After initially being interred on Iwo Jima, Marine Corps First Lieutenant John "Jack" Chevigny's remains were moved to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific where he was buried in Section C, Grave 508.

Wah Kau Kong excelled in athletics and chemistry while attending the University of Hawaii. He was in the middle of a Master's Degree in chemistry when he decided to volunteer for the Army Air Corps in 1942.

He achieved the highest score on the air cadet entrance exam that had ever been seen at the time (he was already a licensed pilot) and when he graduated from Army flight school he was the first Chinese-American to become a fighter pilot. He was shot down over Germany protecting a crippled B-17.

Army Air Corps Second Lieutenant Wah Kau Kong was buried in Germany by the Germans who recovered his remains before being moved after the war to the American Cemetery in the Netherlands. He was eventually moved to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific where he rests in Section D Grave 453.

Family man Stanley Dunham served as an ordinance sergeant in World War II. After his daughter Ann graduated from high school in 1960, the family moved to Hawaii where he worked in the furniture industry, his wife Madelyn became the first senior executive at the Bank of Hawaii, and their daughter Ann studied Anthropology at the University of Hawaii. Ann married a fellow student from Kenya and together they had a son, future US president Barak Obama.

Ann divorced her first husband - it turns out that he forgot to mention that he was already married to a woman back in Kenya who he had two children with - and then married a surveyor from Indonesia. She and her son moved to Jakarta after Ann graduated but when Obama turned 10, he moved back to Hawaii to live with Dunham and Madelyn so he could attend school in the United States.

Army Sergeant Stanley Dunham was cremated and his ashes placed at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in columbarium CT1-B, row 400, niche 440.

Episode 111: The Arlington of the Pacific, Part 1

 

There are two famous extinct volcanic craters boxing in Honolulu, Hawaii. Diamond Head, the one in the distance, is probably the more famous. But Punchbowl, in the foreground, is where ancient temples once stood and where those who broke the most serious tabus were executed. For more than one hundred years, artillery pieces were placed on its rim to protect the city, and since 1949, it has been the site of the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Rising more than 450 feet above Hawaii's capital city, there were no tall office buildings of resort hotels to hide its grandeur in this photo from around 1885.

Long after the temples disappeared, it was still seen as a place of religious significance, even after the local population largely converted to Christianity in the early 1800s. This photograph from 1910 - with Diamond Head in the background - shows the crowds for a sunrise Easter service.

Once roads were built to the summit, tourists and locals alike began flocking to the site, first with carriages and then in automobiles, like in this pre-World War II photograph.

A hike to the crater rim has offered spectacular views of Oahu for centuries.

Though a cemetery at the site had been discussed for decades, the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific opened in 1949 in the wake of World War II.

And has continued to grow with each successive military conflict... but that is a story for part two.

Today, Punchbowl crater, the Arlington of the Pacific, is a site to behold.

Episode 89: A Marine in the European Theater of Operation, Part II

You may be cool, but you will never be wearing-your-service-uniform-AND-SUNGLASSES-in-German-occupied-France-while-the-Nazis-are-actively-hunting-you cool. Peter Ortiz was that cool. This week we finish the story of French Foreign Legionnaire turned OSS operative Peter Ortiz, after he jumps behind enemy lines, deep into Nazi-occupied France to stir up mayhem and cause as many problems for the Germans as he can.

What would you do if the Germans were hunting you and you happened to end up in the same bar as several German officers? I can almost guarantee that your answer to that question is completely different from Ortiz's answer -  know mine was! My answer also would not have earned me a Navy Cross.

After the war, Ortiz returned to Hollywood, and while he never made it big as an actor, he was friends with John Ford and counted a few John Wayne movies (Including She Wore a Yellow Ribbon) among the 25 or so he got small parts in.

Marine Corps Colonel Pierre "Peter" Julien Ortiz died on May 16, 1988; he was 74 years old. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Section 59, Grave 1269.

Episode 88: A Marine in the European Theater of Operation, Part I

With his Clark Gable good looks and an appetite for adventure, Peter Ortiz left college after one year in 1932, enlisted in the French Foreign Legion, and fought in the Moroccan Rif before returning to southern California and becoming a consultant in the motion picture industry. But when World War II broke out in Europe, he couldn't sit idly by so he hoped a ship back to France, reenlisted in the Foreign Legion, and was taken prisoner when France fell. To make a long story short, he escaped back to the states, joined the Marine Corps, and got back into the fight as quickly as he could.

 

Episode 84: Godspeed John Glenn, Part II

 

At 77 years old, John Glenn is the oldest astronaut to fly on a NASA mission. Only pioneering aviator Wally Funk (82) and actor William Shatner (90), both tourists passengers on different Blue Origin flights, were older during their trips into space.

Shortly after the STS-95 mission, Glenn retired after 24 years in the Senate but continued to live a full life, traveling the world with his wife Annie.

In 2011, Glenn and Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins were presented the Congressional Gold Medal...

...and in 2012 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

He passed away in December 2016 and after laying in state at the Ohio Capital Building his remains were eventually brought to Arlington National Cemetery where he was buried on a rainy April 6, 2017.

Annie specifically asked for the funeral interment to be delayed until that day. It would have been John and Annie's 74th wedding anniversary.

Air Force Colonel John Herschel Glenn, Jr. is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Section 34, Grave 1543. He was 95 years old. Three years later, in May 2020, Anna Margaret Castor Glenn, John's beloved Annie, joined him. She was 100 years old.