Criteria The Distinguished Flying Cross may be awarded to military members who, while serving in any capacity with the Armed Forces, distinguish themselves by heroism or outstanding achievement while participa... The Distinguished Flying Cross may be awarded to military members who, while serving in any capacity with the Armed Forces, distinguish themselves by heroism or outstanding achievement while participating in aerial flight. MoreHide
Comments
Service ion the Pacific Theater during WW2 with the 370 Bomb Squadron of the 307th Bomb group.
Criteria The Air Medal may be awarded to individuals who, while serving in any capacity with the Armed Forces, distinguish themselves by heroism, outstanding achievement, or by meritorious service while partic... The Air Medal may be awarded to individuals who, while serving in any capacity with the Armed Forces, distinguish themselves by heroism, outstanding achievement, or by meritorious service while participating in aerial flight, but not of a degree that would justify an award of the Distinguished Flying Cross. MoreHide
Comments
Service with the 307th Bomb groups on 42 missons 1944-45.
Criteria The Air Medal may be awarded to individuals who, while serving in any capacity with the Armed Forces, distinguish themselves by heroism, outstanding achievement, or by meritorious service while partic... The Air Medal may be awarded to individuals who, while serving in any capacity with the Armed Forces, distinguish themselves by heroism, outstanding achievement, or by meritorious service while participating in aerial flight, but not of a degree that would justify an award of the Distinguished Flying Cross. MoreHide
Comments
Service on 42 missions with the 307Th Bomb Group 1944-45.
Criteria The Air Medal may be awarded to individuals who, while serving in any capacity with the Armed Forces, distinguish themselves by heroism, outstanding achievement, or by meritorious service while partic... The Air Medal may be awarded to individuals who, while serving in any capacity with the Armed Forces, distinguish themselves by heroism, outstanding achievement, or by meritorious service while participating in aerial flight, but not of a degree that would justify an award of the Distinguished Flying Cross. MoreHide
Comments
Service on 42 missions with the 307th Bomb Group in 1944-45.
Criteria The Presidential Unit Citation may be awarded to units of the Armed Forces of the United States and cobelligerent nations for extraordinary heroism in action against an armed enemy occurring on or aft... The Presidential Unit Citation may be awarded to units of the Armed Forces of the United States and cobelligerent nations for extraordinary heroism in action against an armed enemy occurring on or after December 7, 1941. MoreHide
Criteria The Army Good Conduct Medal is awarded on a selective basis to enlisted members of the Army who distinguish themselves by exemplary behavior, efficiency and fidelity during a specified period of conti... The Army Good Conduct Medal is awarded on a selective basis to enlisted members of the Army who distinguish themselves by exemplary behavior, efficiency and fidelity during a specified period of continuous enlisted active service (normally three years in peacetime). MoreHide
Criteria The Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal was awarded for for qualifying service within the Asiatic-Pacific Theater of Operations between December 7, 1941, and March 2, 1946, under any of the following condi... The Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal was awarded for for qualifying service within the Asiatic-Pacific Theater of Operations between December 7, 1941, and March 2, 1946, under any of the following conditions: On permanent assignment within the Asiatic-Pacific Theater; or, For service in a passenger status or on temporary duty for 30 consecutive days or 60 non-consecutive days; or, For service in active combat in the Asiatic-Pacific Theater of Operations against the enemy and awarded a combat decoration or furnished a certificate by the commanding general of a corps, higher unit, or independent force that the individual actually participated in combat. MoreHide
Criteria The Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal was awarded for for qualifying service within the Asiatic-Pacific Theater of Operations between December 7, 1941, and March 2, 1946, under any of the following condi... The Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal was awarded for for qualifying service within the Asiatic-Pacific Theater of Operations between December 7, 1941, and March 2, 1946, under any of the following conditions: On permanent assignment within the Asiatic-Pacific Theater; or, For service in a passenger status or on temporary duty for 30 consecutive days or 60 non-consecutive days; or, For service in active combat in the Asiatic-Pacific Theater of Operations against the enemy and awarded a combat decoration or furnished a certificate by the commanding general of a corps, higher unit, or independent force that the individual actually participated in combat. MoreHide
Criteria The Philippine Presidential Unit Citation is a unit decoration of the Republic of the Philippines. It has been awarded to certain units of the United States military for actions both during and subseq... The Philippine Presidential Unit Citation is a unit decoration of the Republic of the Philippines. It has been awarded to certain units of the United States military for actions both during and subsequent to the Second World War. MoreHide
Description (Western Pacific Campaign 15 June 1944 to 2 September 1945) Attacks on Truk, where the Japanese had a major base, continued as preparations were made for the invasion of the Marianas. The American tro(Western Pacific Campaign 15 June 1944 to 2 September 1945) Attacks on Truk, where the Japanese had a major base, continued as preparations were made for the invasion of the Marianas. The American troops that landed on Saipan on 15 June 1944 met bitter opposition; but, after a desperate Japanese counterattack on 7 July, organized resistance soon terminated. Tinian, invaded on 25 July, was won by I August. Guam, which had been seized by the Japanese on 10 December 1941, was invaded on 20 July and regained after 20 days of fighting. With the conquest of the Marianas, the United States gained valuable bases for an aerial offensive against Japan itself. To provide bases for operations against the Philipgines, the Palaus were invaded in mid-September. Later, aerial attacks were made on Formosa to support the invasion of the Philippines and Okinawa.... More
Criteria The Air Medal may be awarded to individuals who, while serving in any capacity with the Armed Forces, distinguish themselves by heroism, outstanding achievement, or by meritorious service while partic... The Air Medal may be awarded to individuals who, while serving in any capacity with the Armed Forces, distinguish themselves by heroism, outstanding achievement, or by meritorious service while participating in aerial flight, but not of a degree that would justify an award of the Distinguished Flying Cross. MoreHide
Comments
Service With the 307th Bomb Group. Flew 42 Combat Missions as both a tail and ball turret gunner.
Criteria The Air Medal may be awarded to individuals who, while serving in any capacity with the Armed Forces, distinguish themselves by heroism, outstanding achievement, or by meritorious service while partic... The Air Medal may be awarded to individuals who, while serving in any capacity with the Armed Forces, distinguish themselves by heroism, outstanding achievement, or by meritorious service while participating in aerial flight, but not of a degree that would justify an award of the Distinguished Flying Cross. MoreHide
Comments
Servicew during 42 combat missions with the 307Th Bomb Group.
Criteria The American Campaign Medal was awarded for For thirty days service outside the Continental United States but within the American Theater of Operations between December 7, 1941, and March 2, 1946; or,... The American Campaign Medal was awarded for For thirty days service outside the Continental United States but within the American Theater of Operations between December 7, 1941, and March 2, 1946; or, an aggregate service of one year within the Continental United States during the same period under the following circumstances: On permanent assignment outside the continental limits of the United States; or, On permanent assignment as a member of a crew of a vessel sailing ocean waters for a period of 30 consecutive days or 60 non-consecutive days; or, For service outside the continental limits of the United States in a passenger status or on temporary duty for 30 consecutive days or 60 non consecutive days; or, For service in active combat against the enemy and awarded a combat decoration or furnished a certificate by the commanding general of a corps, higher unit, or independent force that the individual actually participated in combat; or, For service within the continental limits of the United States for an aggregate period of one year. MoreHide
Criteria The Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal was awarded for for qualifying service within the Asiatic-Pacific Theater of Operations between December 7, 1941, and March 2, 1946, under any of the following condi... The Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal was awarded for for qualifying service within the Asiatic-Pacific Theater of Operations between December 7, 1941, and March 2, 1946, under any of the following conditions: On permanent assignment within the Asiatic-Pacific Theater; or, For service in a passenger status or on temporary duty for 30 consecutive days or 60 non-consecutive days; or, For service in active combat in the Asiatic-Pacific Theater of Operations against the enemy and awarded a combat decoration or furnished a certificate by the commanding general of a corps, higher unit, or independent force that the individual actually participated in combat. MoreHide
Comments
Service in the 307th Bomb Group in the Pacific Theater.
Description (Air Offensive Campaign Japan 17 April 1942 to 2 September 1945) The United States strategic bombing of Japan took place between 1942 and 1945. In the last seven months of the campaign, a change to fi(Air Offensive Campaign Japan 17 April 1942 to 2 September 1945) The United States strategic bombing of Japan took place between 1942 and 1945. In the last seven months of the campaign, a change to firebombing resulted in great destruction of 67 Japanese cities, as many as 500,000 Japanese deaths and some 5 million more made homeless. Emperor Hirohito's viewing of the destroyed areas of Tokyo in March 1945 is said to have been the beginning of his personal involvement in the peace process, culminating in Japan's surrender five months later.
The first U.S. raid on the Japanese main island was the Doolittle Raid of 18 April 1942, when sixteen B-25 Mitchells were launched from the USS Hornet (CV-8) to attack targets including Yokohama and Tokyo and then fly on to airfields in China. The raids were military pinpricks but a significant propaganda victory. Because they were launched prematurely, none of the aircraft had enough fuel to reach their designated landing sites, and so either crashed or ditched (except for one aircraft, which landed in the Soviet Union, where the crew was interned). Two crews were captured by the Japanese.
The key development for the bombing of Japan was the B-29 Superfortress, which had an operational range of 1,500 miles (2,400 km); almost 90% of the bombs (147,000 tons) dropped on the home islands of Japan were delivered by this bomber. The first raid by B-29s on Japan was on 15 June 1944, from China. The B-29s took off from Chengdu, over 1,500 miles away. This raid was also not particularly effective: only forty-seven of the sixty-eight bombers hit the target area; four aborted with mechanical problems, four crashed, six jettisoned their bombs because of mechanical difficulties, and others bombed secondary targets or targets of opportunity. Only one B–29 was lost to enemy aircraft. The first raid from east of Japan was on 24 November 1944, when 88 aircraft bombed Tokyo. The bombs were dropped from around 30,000 feet (10,000 m) and it is estimated that only around 10% hit their targets.
Raids of Japan from mainland China, called Operation Matterhorn, were carried out by the Twentieth Air Force under XX Bomber Command. Initially the commanding officer of the Twentieth Air Force was Hap Arnold, and later Curtis LeMay. Bombing from Japan from China was never a satisfactory arrangement because not only were the Chinese airbases difficult to supply—materiel being sent by air from India over "the Hump"—but the B-29s operating from them could only reach Japan if they traded some of their bomb load for extra fuel in tanks in the bomb-bays. When Admiral Chester Nimitz's island-hopping campaign captured Pacific islands close enough to Japan to be within the B-29's range, the Twentieth Air Force was assigned to XXI Bomber Command, which organized a much more effective bombing campaign of the Japanese home islands. Based in the Marianas (Guam and Tinian in particular), the B-29s were able to carry their full bomb loads and were supplied by cargo ships and tankers.
Conventional bombs from B-29s destroyed over 40% of the urban area in Japan's six greatest industrial cities
Unlike all other forces in theater, the USAAF Bomber Commands did not report to the commanders of the theaters but directly to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In July 1945, they were placed under the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific, which was commanded by General Carl Spaatz.
As in Europe, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) tried daylight precision bombing. However, it proved to be impossible due to the weather around Japan, "during the best month for bombing in Japan, visual bombing was possible for [just] seven days. The worst had only one good day." Further, bombs dropped from a great height were tossed about by high winds.
General LeMay, commander of XXI Bomber Command, instead switched to mass firebombing night attacks from altitudes of around 7,000 feet (2,100 m) on the major conurbations. "He looked up the size of the large Japanese cities in the World Almanac and picked his targets accordingly." Priority targets were Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, and Kobe. Despite limited early success, particularly against Nagoya, LeMay was determined to use such bombing tactics against the vulnerable Japanese cities. Attacks on strategic targets also continued in lower-level daylight raids.
The first successful firebombing raid was on Kobe on 3 February 1945, and following its relative success the USAAF continued the tactic. Nearly half of the principal factories of the city were damaged, and production was reduced by more than half at one of the port's two shipyards.
Much of the armor and defensive weaponry of the bombers was removed to allow increased bomb loads; Japanese air defense in terms of night-fighters and anti-aircraft guns was so feeble it was hardly a risk. The first raid of this type on Tokyo was on the night of 23–24 February when 174 B-29s destroyed around one square mile (3 km²) of the city. Following on that success, as Operation Meetinghouse, 334 B-29s raided on the night of 9–10 March, dropping around 1,700 tons of bombs. Around 16 square miles (41 km²) of the city was destroyed and over 100,000 people are estimated to have died in the fire storm. The destruction and damage was at its worst in the city sections east of the Imperial Palace. It was the most destructive conventional raid, and the deadliest single bombing raid of any kind in terms of lives lost, in all of military aviation history. The city was made primarily of wood and paper, and Japanese firefighting methods were not up to the challenge. The fires burned out of control, boiling canal water and causing entire blocks of buildings to spontaneously combust from the heat. The effects of the Tokyo firebombing proved the fears expressed by Admiral Yamamoto in 1939: "Japanese cities, being made of wood and paper, would burn very easily. The Army talks big, but if war came and there were large-scale air raids, there's no telling what would happen."[179]
In the following two weeks, there were almost 1,600 further sorties against the four cities, destroying 31 square miles (80 km²) in total at a cost of 22 aircraft. By June, over forty percent of the urban area of Japan's largest six cities (Tokyo, Nagoya, Kobe, Osaka, Yokohama, and Kawasaki) was devastated. LeMay's fleet of nearly 600 bombers destroyed tens of smaller cities and manufacturing centres in the following weeks and months.
Leaflets were dropped over cities before they were bombed, warning the inhabitants and urging them to escape the city. Though many, even within the Air Force, viewed this as a form of psychological warfare, a significant element in the decision to produce and drop them was the desire to assuage American anxieties about the extent of the destruction created by this new war tactic. Warning leaflets were also dropped on cities not in fact targeted, to create uncertainty and absenteeism. ... More
Other Memories
Sabu completed Aerial Gunner Training and was assigned to the 307th Bomb Group.
Fri Dec 14, 2012.
By ALLEN ESSEX/Valley Morning Star
EDITOR'S NOTE: More than six decades have passed since World War II, but memories of the upheaval and transformation it brought home to the Valley are still strong in the people here who lived it. In a five-part series that began Sunday, resumed Friday and continues through this Memorial Day weekend, the Star revisits lives changed forever by Pearl Harbor; how the Harlingen area geared up for war; how Cameron County contributed to the war effort; how one man dealt with the combat death of a friend; and finally, the unbelievable news that after nearly four years of total war effort, peace had arrived.
Before the United States entered World War II, Harlingen was a placid farming town.
Southern Pacific, Missouri Pacific and Union Pacific freight trains chugged out of the Rio Grande Valley, loaded with vegetables, cotton and citrus crops on their way to northern markets.
But the war transformed Harlingen into a military town with an air base, barracks and homes for servicemen and their families.
Within days after Pearl Harbor, hundreds of young men were being sent to Harlingen Army Airfield from all across the country to train to become aerial gunners before being shipped overseas to fly missions over Europe and the South Pacific. These were the men who would become the waist gunners and ball turret gunners, dorsal and tail gunners defending American bombers.
And Harlingen welcomed them like family.
The air base came about largely through the prewar efforts of Mayor Hugh Ramsey. As the Great Depression continued to grip the Valley, Ramsey worked hard to persuade the federal government that the flat terrain northeast of the city was ideal for one of the U.S. Army air bases being planned for the warm South Texas climate.
But it was hard for Ramsey to change minds at the War Department because of earlier impressions.
On April 12, 1938, the Valley Morning Star reported that an Army colonel was advising against Harlingen."The terrain around Harlingen is totally unsuitable for organized military activity of any kind," Col. Edmund A. Pearce said. "There are no hills for suitable maneuvers by the cavalry and it is much too marshy for the infantry to march over."
Ramsey knew an Army air base would bring badly needed jobs and contracts to build airstrips, hangars, barracks, classroom buildings, a mess hall, a movie theater, a base infirmary, as well as housing for married officers and senior enlisted men.
Paychecks for local residents who would build and maintain the base, cook and serve food and provide every other kind of service and support would be a godsend, the mayor knew.
By 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had already put American industry on a war footing, calling for the nation to be an "arsenal for democracy."
Ramsey's legwork and lobbying paid off.
On May 3, 1941, the War Department announced it would build an air base in Harlingen on 960 acres being offered by local boosters.
At first called Harlingen Aerial Gunnery School, its acronym HAGS became a problem when female Army personnel were first stationed here. So the name was changed to Harlingen Army Airfield.
Another field with an 8,000-foot airstrip - which after the war would become the Cameron County-Port Isabel Airport - would provide vital support to the Harlingen base.
The field at Bayview, off of FM 510 east of San Benito, was considered a "sub-base" of Harlingen, providing auxiliary functions to the main base.
By the time the United States entered the war, the base was prepared to train the aerial gunners who would go on to fly missions over Europe and the South Pacific.
One of the first trainees to arrive was a young man from the Gregory-Portland area near Corpus Christi. Ed Cooper discovered Spartan accommodations in barracks, an around-the-clock training schedule and demanding sergeants awaiting him and the other 18- and 19-year-old trainees in the subtropical Valley.
"The gunnery school out there was well-formed by the time I got there," said Cooper, who now lives in Santa Rosa. "I wasn't there when they poured the first concrete, but I was there shortly after.
"And then I stayed there and I went through gunnery school out at the sub-base, out there by the game refuge (Bayview)."
During the peak of World War II, the base had 3,500 military personnel and 600 civilian workers.
Living conditions were not luxurious, said Wallace Athey of San Benito, an Army Air Force pilot who was later an Air Force officer. Hastily built wooden barracks, a mess hall, officers club, hospital and other facilities were adequate at best.
"The single guys were all put in a two-story barracks," Athey said. "The married guys had to rent places in town."
Conditions at the sub-base were even more primitive than at the main base in Harlingen, Cooper said.
"When you left our regular base (in Harlingen), it was not very far until you ran into mesquite, and it was that way almost all the way to the sub-base," he said.
Barracks at the sub-base were tar paper-covered, single-story wooden buildings, most without latrines or showers. Soldiers had to go to a central building for those amenities.
Ammunition and bombs were stored at the sub-base. Bombers and other military aircraft would be flown from Harlingen to the Bayview field, where the bombs and ammunition were loaded.
Gunnery and bombing practice was conducted in what is now the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge and Laguna Madre, which was closed to fishing for the duration of the war.
Spent bullets are still easily found in the refuge, many blue-green with six decades of corrosion on their copper jackets.
Aerial gunnery students were first trained on arcade-style BB machine gun ranges, then with shotguns on skeet ranges and later aloft in AT6 trainers with machine guns, firing at targets towed by twin-engine aircraft.
They were also trained to fire at moving targets on the ground in what is now the wildlife refuge.
As a private first-class, training was intensive, said Cooper, a gunnery trainee.
"You had to fire pistols, to (.30-caliber M-1) carbines, to .30-caliber machine guns, to .50-caliber machine guns. That was the biggest thing we had," he said.
Back at the main base in Harlingen, there was the BB-gun range where Marine Military Academy is now located.
"They had a fun range out there," he said. "It was like a fun arcade; they had these little airplanes that flew around in that room. How they propelled them, I don't know; air, I think.
"You had your machine gun loaded with BBs. They coated those airplanes, which were just little bitty things, with some kind of flaky coat so when you hit it, the coat would come flying off and you knew you had hit your target.
"We didn't get to do that very much; it was too much fun."
Later, there was a program that used a movie to train the student gunners, Cooper said.
"It was just like the kids have now, very similar to a video game, computer game," he said. "You saw those outfits like that at a carnival after the war. You'd shoot those airplanes flying by.
"You could tell when you hit 'em; they'd give you a score."
Trainees fired live ammunition with most weapons on a ground range, then from various other ranges, he said.
"Then we rode around in the back of a pickup with a railing around the back on an oval about a mile long," he said. "You had 22 stations where you'd stand up and fire a shotgun at clay birds, like you were shooting skeet. They'd call that moving base skeet.
"We'd kick the empty shells out of the pickup. We had usually three or four gunners standing up in the back of that pickup."
One time, while shooting clay pigeons, he shot a dove that was flying by, Cooper said. "The instructor came unglued. I didn't know it was going to be our game refuge later on."
Later, trainees fired machine guns at a target towed by an airplane while riding in another aircraft, Cooper said.
Student gunners were seated backward in AT-6 trainer aircraft and would fire at the targets towed by the other plane.
A few of those pilots were women, known as Women's Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPS.
"They had some (WASPS) flying some of those target tow planes," Cooper said. "They lost one out over the Gulf one time, never did find her. I remember flying search missions."
One of the WASPs was Shirley Slade, who had earlier been featured on the cover of LIFE magazine while a cadet at a base at Avenger Field, Sweetwater, Texas.
In the 1980s, while retired and living in Harlingen as Shirley Slade Teer, she visited a museum on the grounds of the former air base. She was amazed to see the magazine, with a photo of her sitting on the tail of an airplane, on display in a glass case.
Besides flying tow planes, Slade also trained men to fly airplanes such as B-25 and B-26 bombers, she said.
Another of those pilots was Athey, now retired and living in San Benito.
As Athey would fly gunnery students from Harlingen to the coastal gunnery range, often in a heavy B-24 Liberator bomber, he would pass by the San Benito municipal airport, which was being used by the Army and Navy for blimp operations early in the war, he said.
A few remaining traces of the blimp base can still be seen from the air, such as the concrete blimp mooring circle.
Blimps were used to patrol the Gulf of Mexico after some freighters and tankers were sunk by German submarines along the Texas coastline early in the war.
"They kind of kept us pretty busy when we were flying gunnery students," he said. "We'd fly eight gunnery students and an instructor out to the (practice) range."We first started flying in the (advanced trainer). We moved up two or three planes. Before I left here in two years, we were flying the B-24 (Liberator bomber) and picking up 18 gunnery students and a gunnery instructor."
Because of the busy schedule at the Harlingen base and the sub-base, classroom sessions and flying took place around the clock, Cooper said.
"A lot of times you went flying at 4 a.m.," he said.
He recalls one tow plane landing and the pilot found the fuselage had been shot full of holes by student gunners, Cooper said, laughing.
Opportunities for off-base recreation were few. There was a USO offering snacks and entertainment in downtown Harlingen and movie theaters. And soldiers would sometimes attend dances organized by the Harlingen Chamber of Commerce. Families also opened their homes on weekends, inviting soldiers over for a home-cooked meal. But they had little time off, Athey said.
Another outlet for R&R was a small beer garden located near what is now the main entrance of Marine Military Academy.
Cooper recalls that he went on one off-duty excursion to Matamoros.
He was in the Army for only about two years and stationed in Harlingen only three or four months, he said.
"After picking up a flight crew at Walla Walla, Wash., we stayed together all the rest of the war," he said. "We spent a year island-hopping in the Pacific."
In combat missions in B-24 bomber, his crew would bomb small islands held by the Japanese and often find bullet holes from ground anti-aircraft fire in their fuselage when they returned, he said.
Harlingen's airbase closed after World War II, then reopened for the Korean War and stayed open until closing for good in 1962.
Cooper and others say that beyond what the base contributed to the war effort, it was good for the people of the Valley.
Two local companies that were started when the base was being constructed, Valley Transit Co., and Valley Ready Mix Concrete Co., made their fortunes from the Army base, he said.
Valley Transit Co. hauled soldiers back and forth between the Harlingen base and sub-base, and Valley Ready Mix was kept busy providing concrete for base construction, Cooper said.
During the Cold War, the base trained navigators, providing employment for local people and income for local businesses.
The base closure didn't mean an end to its influence on the Harlingen area. The presence of all those young soldiers who came and left through its gates later paid benefits to the region, according to "The Wings of Change: The Army Air Force Experience in Texas During World War II," by Thomas E. Alexander.
"Unlike most other Texas airfields ... the economic downturn caused by the shuttering of the (Harlingen) base was offset by a flood of discharged Army veterans who had been stationed at Harlingen during the war and had liked what they had seen during their tour of duty," Alexander wrote.
"Almost perfect year-round weather" and friendly local people lured veterans back to the Valley.
Sabu completed Aerial Gunner Training and was assigned to the 307th Bomb Group.
Fri Dec 14, 2012.
By ALLEN ESSEX/Valley Morning Star
EDITOR'S NOTE: More than six decades have passed since World War II, but memories of the upheaval and transformation it brought home to the Valley are still strong in the people here who lived it. In a five-part series that began Sunday, resumed Friday and continues through this Memorial Day weekend, the Star revisits lives changed forever by Pearl Harbor; how the Harlingen area geared up for war; how Cameron County contributed to the war effort; how one man dealt with the combat death of a friend; and finally, the unbelievable news that after nearly four years of total war effort, peace had arrived.
Before the United States entered World War II, Harlingen was a placid farming town.
Southern Pacific, Missouri Pacific and Union Pacific freight trains chugged out of the Rio Grande Valley, loaded with vegetables, cotton and citrus crops on their way to northern markets.
But the war transformed Harlingen into a military town with an air base, barracks and homes for servicemen and their families.
Within days after Pearl Harbor, hundreds of young men were being sent to Harlingen Army Airfield from all across the country to train to become aerial gunners before being shipped overseas to fly missions over Europe and the South Pacific. These were the men who would become the waist gunners and ball turret gunners, dorsal and tail gunners defending American bombers.
And Harlingen welcomed them like family.
The air base came about largely through the prewar efforts of Mayor Hugh Ramsey. As the Great Depression continued to grip the Valley, Ramsey worked hard to persuade the federal government that the flat terrain northeast of the city was ideal for one of the U.S. Army air bases being planned for the warm South Texas climate.
But it was hard for Ramsey to change minds at the War Department because of earlier impressions.
On April 12, 1938, the Valley Morning Star reported that an Army colonel was advising against Harlingen."The terrain around Harlingen is totally unsuitable for organized military activity of any kind," Col. Edmund A. Pearce said. "There are no hills for suitable maneuvers by the cavalry and it is much too marshy for the infantry to march over."
Ramsey knew an Army air base would bring badly needed jobs and contracts to build airstrips, hangars, barracks, classroom buildings, a mess hall, a movie theater, a base infirmary, as well as housing for married officers and senior enlisted men.
Paychecks for local residents who would build and maintain the base, cook and serve food and provide every other kind of service and support would be a godsend, the mayor knew.
By 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had already put American industry on a war footing, calling for the nation to be an "arsenal for democracy."
Ramsey's legwork and lobbying paid off.
On May 3, 1941, the War Department announced it would build an air base in Harlingen on 960 acres being offered by local boosters.
At first called Harlingen Aerial Gunnery School, its acronym HAGS became a problem when female Army personnel were first stationed here. So the name was changed to Harlingen Army Airfield.
Another field with an 8,000-foot airstrip - which after the war would become the Cameron County-Port Isabel Airport - would provide vital support to the Harlingen base.
The field at Bayview, off of FM 510 east of San Benito, was considered a "sub-base" of Harlingen, providing auxiliary functions to the main base.
By the time the United States entered the war, the base was prepared to train the aerial gunners who would go on to fly missions over Europe and the South Pacific.
One of the first trainees to arrive was a young man from the Gregory-Portland area near Corpus Christi. Ed Cooper discovered Spartan accommodations in barracks, an around-the-clock training schedule and demanding sergeants awaiting him and the other 18- and 19-year-old trainees in the subtropical Valley.
"The gunnery school out there was well-formed by the time I got there," said Cooper, who now lives in Santa Rosa. "I wasn't there when they poured the first concrete, but I was there shortly after.
"And then I stayed there and I went through gunnery school out at the sub-base, out there by the game refuge (Bayview)."
During the peak of World War II, the base had 3,500 military personnel and 600 civilian workers.
Living conditions were not luxurious, said Wallace Athey of San Benito, an Army Air Force pilot who was later an Air Force officer. Hastily built wooden barracks, a mess hall, officers club, hospital and other facilities were adequate at best.
"The single guys were all put in a two-story barracks," Athey said. "The married guys had to rent places in town."
Conditions at the sub-base were even more primitive than at the main base in Harlingen, Cooper said.
"When you left our regular base (in Harlingen), it was not very far until you ran into mesquite, and it was that way almost all the way to the sub-base," he said.
Barracks at the sub-base were tar paper-covered, single-story wooden buildings, most without latrines or showers. Soldiers had to go to a central building for those amenities.
Ammunition and bombs were stored at the sub-base. Bombers and other military aircraft would be flown from Harlingen to the Bayview field, where the bombs and ammunition were loaded.
Gunnery and bombing practice was conducted in what is now the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge and Laguna Madre, which was closed to fishing for the duration of the war.
Spent bullets are still easily found in the refuge, many blue-green with six decades of corrosion on their copper jackets.
Aerial gunnery students were first trained on arcade-style BB machine gun ranges, then with shotguns on skeet ranges and later aloft in AT6 trainers with machine guns, firing at targets towed by twin-engine aircraft.
They were also trained to fire at moving targets on the ground in what is now the wildlife refuge.
As a private first-class, training was intensive, said Cooper, a gunnery trainee.
"You had to fire pistols, to (.30-caliber M-1) carbines, to .30-caliber machine guns, to .50-caliber machine guns. That was the biggest thing we had," he said.
Back at the main base in Harlingen, there was the BB-gun range where Marine Military Academy is now located.
"They had a fun range out there," he said. "It was like a fun arcade; they had these little airplanes that flew around in that room. How they propelled them, I don't know; air, I think.
"You had your machine gun loaded with BBs. They coated those airplanes, which were just little bitty things, with some kind of flaky coat so when you hit it, the coat would come flying off and you knew you had hit your target.
"We didn't get to do that very much; it was too much fun."
Later, there was a program that used a movie to train the student gunners, Cooper said.
"It was just like the kids have now, very similar to a video game, computer game," he said. "You saw those outfits like that at a carnival after the war. You'd shoot those airplanes flying by.
"You could tell when you hit 'em; they'd give you a score."
Trainees fired live ammunition with most weapons on a ground range, then from various other ranges, he said.
"Then we rode around in the back of a pickup with a railing around the back on an oval about a mile long," he said. "You had 22 stations where you'd stand up and fire a shotgun at clay birds, like you were shooting skeet. They'd call that moving base skeet.
"We'd kick the empty shells out of the pickup. We had usually three or four gunners standing up in the back of that pickup."
One time, while shooting clay pigeons, he shot a dove that was flying by, Cooper said. "The instructor came unglued. I didn't know it was going to be our game refuge later on."
Later, trainees fired machine guns at a target towed by an airplane while riding in another aircraft, Cooper said.
Student gunners were seated backward in AT-6 trainer aircraft and would fire at the targets towed by the other plane.
A few of those pilots were women, known as Women's Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPS.
"They had some (WASPS) flying some of those target tow planes," Cooper said. "They lost one out over the Gulf one time, never did find her. I remember flying search missions."
One of the WASPs was Shirley Slade, who had earlier been featured on the cover of LIFE magazine while a cadet at a base at Avenger Field, Sweetwater, Texas.
In the 1980s, while retired and living in Harlingen as Shirley Slade Teer, she visited a museum on the grounds of the former air base. She was amazed to see the magazine, with a photo of her sitting on the tail of an airplane, on display in a glass case.
Besides flying tow planes, Slade also trained men to fly airplanes such as B-25 and B-26 bombers, she said.
Another of those pilots was Athey, now retired and living in San Benito.
As Athey would fly gunnery students from Harlingen to the coastal gunnery range, often in a heavy B-24 Liberator bomber, he would pass by the San Benito municipal airport, which was being used by the Army and Navy for blimp operations early in the war, he said.
A few remaining traces of the blimp base can still be seen from the air, such as the concrete blimp mooring circle.
Blimps were used to patrol the Gulf of Mexico after some freighters and tankers were sunk by German submarines along the Texas coastline early in the war.
"They kind of kept us pretty busy when we were flying gunnery students," he said. "We'd fly eight gunnery students and an instructor out to the (practice) range."We first started flying in the (advanced trainer). We moved up two or three planes. Before I left here in two years, we were flying the B-24 (Liberator bomber) and picking up 18 gunnery students and a gunnery instructor."
Because of the busy schedule at the Harlingen base and the sub-base, classroom sessions and flying took place around the clock, Cooper said.
"A lot of times you went flying at 4 a.m.," he said.
He recalls one tow plane landing and the pilot found the fuselage had been shot full of holes by student gunners, Cooper said, laughing.
Opportunities for off-base recreation were few. There was a USO offering snacks and entertainment in downtown Harlingen and movie theaters. And soldiers would sometimes attend dances organized by the Harlingen Chamber of Commerce. Families also opened their homes on weekends, inviting soldiers over for a home-cooked meal. But they had little time off, Athey said.
Another outlet for R&R was a small beer garden located near what is now the main entrance of Marine Military Academy.
Cooper recalls that he went on one off-duty excursion to Matamoros.
He was in the Army for only about two years and stationed in Harlingen only three or four months, he said.
"After picking up a flight crew at Walla Walla, Wash., we stayed together all the rest of the war," he said. "We spent a year island-hopping in the Pacific."
In combat missions in B-24 bomber, his crew would bomb small islands held by the Japanese and often find bullet holes from ground anti-aircraft fire in their fuselage when they returned, he said.
Harlingen's airbase closed after World War II, then reopened for the Korean War and stayed open until closing for good in 1962.
Cooper and others say that beyond what the base contributed to the war effort, it was good for the people of the Valley.
Two local companies that were started when the base was being constructed, Valley Transit Co., and Valley Ready Mix Concrete Co., made their fortunes from the Army base, he said.
Valley Transit Co. hauled soldiers back and forth between the Harlingen base and sub-base, and Valley Ready Mix was kept busy providing concrete for base construction, Cooper said.
During the Cold War, the base trained navigators, providing employment for local people and income for local businesses.
The base closure didn't mean an end to its influence on the Harlingen area. The presence of all those young soldiers who came and left through its gates later paid benefits to the region, according to "The Wings of Change: The Army Air Force Experience in Texas During World War II," by Thomas E. Alexander.
"Unlike most other Texas airfields ... the economic downturn caused by the shuttering of the (Harlingen) base was offset by a flood of discharged Army veterans who had been stationed at Harlingen during the war and had liked what they had seen during their tour of duty," Alexander wrote.
"Almost perfect year-round weather" and friendly local people lured veterans back to the Valley.