Episode 112: The Arlington of the Pacific, Part II

 

Seaman First Class James Richard Ward refused to leave his post after the USS Oklahoma began to capsize after being struck during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He did not survive the day but his actions saved the lives of several of his fellow sailors.

Ward's remains and those of most of the 428 others who died when the Oklahoma capsized were not recovered until May 1944 when the battleship was righted. 

Most of those remains were comingled and, at the time, unidentifiable, and as such were interred in joint graves at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific when that site was opened.

The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific includes the Honolulu Memorial, which includes Columbia standing on the bow of a naval ship.

On either side of the stairs leading up to the memorial are the Courts of the Missing

The names of all those missing in action, including James Ward, are inscribed on the walls of the Courts of the Missing.

In 2021, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA - formerly the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command [JPAC]) announced that its Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii had positively identified Ward's remains.

On December 21, 2023, Ward was interred at Arlington after his next of kin, a nephew, who never met his uncle, but who grew up hearing about him from his grand parents and his mother, decided that the "hallowed grounds" of Arlington was the perfect place to inter his hero uncle. Also was in attendance was the highest ranking officer in the Navy, the Chief of Naval Operations, and her senior enlisted advisor, the ranking chief petty officer in the Navy. 

His headstone has yet to be erected, but Seaman First Class James Richard Ward is interred in Section 81, Grade 1560.

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 110: Space Age Sunsets

 

Navy Rear Admiral (Upper Half) Thomas Kenneth (Ken) Mattingly II, who helped the crew of Apollo 13 recover from the in-capsule explosion, fix their oxygen scrubber, and maintain the ship's power during reentry, passed away in Arlington, Virginia on October 31, 2023. He was 87 years old. His exploits were brought to the attention of a new generation when he was portrayed by Gary Sinise in the 1995 blockbuster Apollo 13.  Funeral arrangements are still underway, but I believe he will be interred at Arlington National Cemetery. 

A few days after Mattingly's passing, Air Force Colonel Frank Frederick Borman II, who was one of the first three people to see the far side of the moon when he commanded the Apollo 8 mission, passed away in Billings, Montana on November 7, 2023. He was 95 years old. At the time of his death, he was the oldest living former NASA astronaut.

When the band Led Zeppelin released its sophomore album, Led Zeppelin II, in 1969, Borman's face was cropped into the cover. He standing in the back row, second from the right, with the hat and no beard. The album was released just a few months after Apollo 11 landed on the moon and the artist thought that he was using an image of Neil Armstrong... oops!

Borman was known to sign Led Zeppelin II album covers. The example above says: "Not Neil Armstrong! Frank Borman Apollo 8 CDR [commander]."

When Led Zeppelin released its sixth studio album Physical Graffiti in 1975, another effort was made to put Neil Armstrong on the cover, and this one also failed. In the top left window there is photo of an astronaut on the moon, but the photo isn't of Neil Armstrong, it was taken by Neil Armstrong. The photo is of astronaut Buzz Aldrin.

Keeping with the space theme, Led Zeppelin's 1999 album Early Days: The Best of Led Zeppelin, Volume One was a riff on the official photograph of the Apollo 14 crew.

Apollo 14 was made up of Alan Shepard, Stu Roosa, and Ed Mitchell

Episode 109: Counting Coup, Part III - High Bird

 

After Joseph Medicine Crow returned from World War II, the Crow tribal elders asked him to recount his experiences in the war - little did he know that there was more than simple curiosity behind the request. The elders had been looking for traditional war deeds; Joe was as surprised as anyone when they declared that he had completed everything needed to be a chief in the traditional way. He was also given a new name; no longer was he Winter Man with the tribe, instead he was given the name of a great Crow who had passed away long before. he was now High Bird.

Apart from being made a chief, Medicine Crow also served for decades as the official anthropologist and historian for the Crow Nation, curating an archive of important documents, photographs, and oral histories.

He continued to advocate for the importance of education and preserving knowledge. He lectured at universities, national historic sites, and other public institutions for most of his life. He served with the Crow Education Commission for more than forty years, and was awarded three honorary doctorates in recognition of his academic service; one from Rocky Mountain College, one from Bacone College where he started his academic career and served for decades as an ambassador and regular commencement speaker, and one from the University of Southern California, where he earned his masters degree and also completed all required classroom work for a PhD before he left to serve in World War II.

In 2009, President Barak Obama awarded Medicine Crow the Precedential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States, after the US Senate failed to award him a Congressional Gold Medal.

US Army Technician 5th Grade Dr. High Bird Joseph Medicine Crow died in Billings, Montana on April 3, 2016, at 102 years old. He was interred Apsaalooke Veterans Cemetery on the Crow Reservation in Big Horn County, Montana.

Episode 108: Counting Coup, Part II - Medicine Crow

 

Joseph Medicine Crow became the first Crow man, and just the second Crow, to earn a bachelors degree (botany, biology, and geology) when he graduated from Linfield University in Oregon. He became the first Crow to earn a masters degree (anthropology) when he graduated from the University of Southern California. While at USC, he also completed all the coursework needed for a PhD, but World War II broke out before he could complete his dissertation.

Episode 107: Counting Coup, Part I - Winter Man

November is National Native American Heritage Month in the United States. Because of that, I am taking the opportunity to talk a little about the culture of the Plains Indians broadly and the Crow Nation specifically, setting up the story of a Crow warrior.

When children of the Crow Nation are four days old, an elder is asked to give then a name. When Joseph Medicine Crow was born, a visiting Sioux warrior was asked to do the honors and dubbed the child Winter Man (you can find out why in the above recording). Winter Man - who was later formally registered with the Crow Nation as Joseph Medicine Crow - was raised by his grandfather to be a warrior from an early age. Little did he know, his grandson would be given the chance to honor an ancient custom; not against traditional adversaries like the Sioux or the Cheyenne, but again a new enemy - the Nazis. But that is a story for next week.

 

Episode 106: Too Tall

 

As a young boy in Mississippi, Ed Freeman wanted three things: 1. escape from his home town, 2. to join the army, and 3. to learn to fly. He enlisted in the navy  during the final year of World War II, which got him out of Mississippi; he enlisted in the army after returning from World War II and finishing high school; he became a pilot after a battlefield commission during the Korean War, but only after the army raised its maximum height limit for a pilot. The first time he tried to fly he was told that at 6' 4" he was simply, too tall.

After flying mapping mission for nearly a decade, Freeman went to Vietnam as a helicopter pilot. On November 14, 1965, he helped dropped a battalion of cavalry troopers in the isolated Ia Drang valley, where they found themselves facing a much larger force that threatened to annihilate them. For the next 14 hours, Freeman and his commander, Bruce Crandall, were the only two pilots willing to fly into a hot LZ dropping off supplies and evacuating critically wounded personnel.

35 years later, in July 2001, the Distinguished Flying Cross that Freeman received for his efforts that day was upgraded to the Medal of Honor. He was the first person President George W. Bush bestowed the medal on.

It wasn't until the movie We Were Solders came out in 2002, that I learned that Freeman had lived around the corner from me for a decade. In 2005, I walked over to his house unannounced, asked him to autograph his photo in a book about living Medal of Honor recipients that I had bought for my dad, and ended up in an impromptu mentoring session between Freeman, a bona fide hero, and me, a lowly army cadet. I walked away with the autograph and a memory I will never forget.

Army Major Ed W. "Too Tall" Freeman, a navy veteran of World War II and an Army Veteran of Korea and Vietnam passed way in Boise, ID on August 20, 2008 at age 80. He was interred in the Idaho State Veterans Cemetery in Boise in Section 12-J-155.

Freeman's commander in Vietnam, then-Major Bruce Crandall, was the other pilot who spent 14 hours in 1965 trying to help the troopers in the Ia Drang valley survive the onslaught by a much larger force. 

He had to wait a little longer than Freeman, but in 2007, 40 years after the battle in Ia Drang, Crandall's Distinguished Flying Cross was also upgraded to the Medal of Honor.

Crandall, who retired a lieutenant colonel, but was promoted to colonel years later in 2010, is still with us as of this post, but his wife Arlene passed away in 2010, which is why we know that when his time does come, Colonel Crandall with join her at Arlington in Section 7A, Grave 1.

The commander of the battalion Crandall and Freeman support, then-Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore (seen above in an image taken during the battle in Ia Drang) advocated for the both pilots to receive the Medal of Honor for years, as did many other survivors of the battle.

Moore, who retired a lieutenant general, lived long enough to see his campaigning come to fruition and was present at both Freeman and Crandall's Medal of Honor ceremony.

When he passed away in 2017, he choose to be interred at the Fort Benning (Georgia) post cemetery, among many of his troopers who were killed in the Ia Drang in 1965.

In May 2023, Fort Benning, the home of the US Army's Infantry and Armor schools, was renamed Fort Moore.