This Military Service Page was created/owned by
SSgt Harry McCown (Mac)
to remember
Johnson, Gerald Richard (Jerry), Lt Col.
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Contact Info
Home Town Kenmore, Ohio; Eugene, Oregon
Last Address Atsugi AB, Japan
Date of Passing Oct 07, 1945
Location of Interment Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial - Honolulu, Hawaii
Jerry Johnson was born on June 23, 1920, in Kenmore, Ohio. He entered the Aviation Cadet Program of the U.S. Army Air Corps on March 15, 1941, and was commissioned a 2d Lt and awarded his pilot wings at Luke Field, Arizona, on October 31, 1941. Lt Johnson was then assigned to the 57th Pursuit Squadron of the 54th Pursuit Group at Everett, Washington, from November 1941 to February 1943, and went with the group to Alaska from June to October 1942, where he flew 58 combat missions and was credited with destroying 2 enemy aircraft in aerial combat while flying P-39 Airacobra fighters. He served with the 332nd Fighter Squadron of the 329th Fighter Group at Ontario Army Air Field, California, from February to April 1943, and then flew P-38 Lightning fighters with the 9th Fighter Squadron of the 49th Fighter Group in New Guinea from April 1943 to January 1944. Col Johnson served as commander of the 9th FS from October 1943 to January 1944, and then became Deputy Commander of the 49th Fighter Group until March 1945, serving as its commander from March to July 1945. He was serving as commander of Atsugi AB, Japan, when he was killed while flying a B-25 Mitchell in a typhoon on October 7, 1945. During World War II, Col Johnson was credited with the destruction of 24 enemy aircraft in aerial combat plus 2 probables and 1 damaged. All but 4 of his air victories were made while flying the P-38 Lightning (the other 4 were in the P-39 Airacobra and P-47 Thunderbolt). He also accidentally shot down a Royal Australian Air Force Wirraway reconnaissance fighter on November 15, 1943, after being advised there were no friendly aircraft in the area (the pilot survived). His remains have never been located and he is listed on the Tablets of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial in Hawaii.
Other Comments:
JOHNSON, GERALD R.
(First Award)
The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Gerald R. Johnson (0-428829), Major (Air Corps), U.S. Army Air Forces, for extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an armed enemy while serving as Pilot of a P-38 Fighter Airplane in the 9th Fighter Squadron, 49th Fighter Group, FIFTH Air Force, in aerial combat against enemy forces on 15 October 1943, during an air mission in the Southwest Pacific Area. On this date Major Johnson shot down three enemy aircraft in a single engagement. Major Johnson's unquestionable valor in aerial combat is in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflects great credit upon himself, the 5th Air Force, and the United States Army Air Forces. Headquarters: U.S. Army Forces in the Far East, General Orders No. 35 (1944)
JOHNSON, GERALD R.
(Second Award)
The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting a Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster in lieu of a Second Award of the Distinguished Service Cross to Gerald R. Johnson (0-428829), Lieutenant Colonel (Air Corps), U.S. Army Air Forces, for extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an armed enemy while serving as Pilot of a P-38 Fighter Airplane in the 9th Fighter Squadron, 49th Fighter Group, FIFTH Air Force, in aerial combat against enemy forces on 7 December 1944, during an air mission in the Southwest Pacific Area. On this date Major Johnson shot down four enemy aircraft in a single engagement. Major Johnson's unquestionable valor in aerial combat is in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflects great credit upon himself, the 5th Air Force, and the United States Army Air Forces. Headquarters: U.S. Army Forces in the Far East, General Orders No. 87 (1945)
World War II
From Month/Year
December / 1941
To Month/Year
December / 1946
Description Overview of World War II
World War II killed more people, involved more nations, and cost more money than any other war in history. Altogether, 70 million people served in the armed forces during the war, and 17 million combatants died. Civilian deaths were ever greater. At least 19 million Soviet civilians, 10 million Chinese, and 6 million European Jews lost their lives during the war.
World War II was truly a global war. Some 70 nations took part in the conflict, and fighting took place on the continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe, as well as on the high seas. Entire societies participated as soldiers or as war workers, while others were persecuted as victims of occupation and mass murder.
World War II cost the United States a million causalities and nearly 400,000 deaths. In both domestic and foreign affairs, its consequences were far-reaching. It ended the Depression, brought millions of married women into the workforce, initiated sweeping changes in the lives of the nation's minority groups, and dramatically expanded government's presence in American life.
The War at Home & Abroad
On September 1, 1939, World War II started when Germany invaded Poland. By November 1942, the Axis powers controlled territory from Norway to North Africa and from France to the Soviet Union. After defeating the Axis in North Africa in May 1941, the United States and its Allies invaded Sicily in July 1943 and forced Italy to surrender in September. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, the Allies landed in Northern France. In December, a German counteroffensive (the Battle of the Bulge) failed. Germany surrendered in May 1945.
The United States entered the war following a surprise attack by Japan on the U.S. Pacific fleet in Hawaii. The United States and its Allies halted Japanese expansion at the Battle of Midway in June 1942 and in other campaigns in the South Pacific. From 1943 to August 1945, the Allies hopped from island to island across the Central Pacific and also battled the Japanese in China, Burma, and India. Japan agreed to surrender on August 14, 1945 after the United States dropped the first atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Consequences:
1. The war ended Depression unemployment and dramatically expanded government's presence in American life. It led the federal government to create a War Production Board to oversee conversion to a wartime economy and the Office of Price Administration to set prices on many items and to supervise a rationing system.
2. During the war, African Americans, women, and Mexican Americans founded new opportunities in industry. But Japanese Americans living on the Pacific coast were relocated from their homes and placed in internment camps.
The Dawn of the Atomic Age
In 1939, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Roosevelt, warning him that the Nazis might be able to build an atomic bomb. On December 2, 1942, Enrico Fermi, an Italian refugee, produced the first self-sustained, controlled nuclear chain reaction in Chicago.
To ensure that the United States developed a bomb before Nazi Germany did, the federal government started the secret $2 billion Manhattan Project. On July 16, 1945, in the New Mexico desert near Alamogordo, the Manhattan Project's scientists exploded the first atomic bomb.
It was during the Potsdam negotiations that President Harry Truman learned that American scientists had tested the first atomic bomb. On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay, a B-29 Superfortress, released an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan. Between 80,000 and 140,000 people were killed or fatally wounded. Three days later, a second bomb fell on Nagasaki. About 35,000 people were killed. The following day Japan sued for peace.
President Truman's defenders argued that the bombs ended the war quickly, avoiding the necessity of a costly invasion and the probable loss of tens of thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives. His critics argued that the war might have ended even without the atomic bombings. They maintained that the Japanese economy would have been strangled by a continued naval blockade, and that Japan could have been forced to surrender by conventional firebombing or by a demonstration of the atomic bomb's power.
The unleashing of nuclear power during World War II generated hope of a cheap and abundant source of energy, but it also produced anxiety among large numbers of people in the United States and around the world.
