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SSgt Robert Bruce McClelland, Jr.
to remember
Ramey, Roger Maxwell, Lt Gen USAF(Ret).
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Contact Info
Home Town Denton, Texas
Last Address Torrance, California
Date of Passing Mar 04, 1963
Location of Interment Roselawn Memorial Park - Denton, Texas
(Citation Needed) - SYNOPSIS: Colonel (Air Corps) Roger Maxwell Ramey (ASN: 0-17231), United States Army Air Forces, was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an armed enemy while serving as Pilot of a B-17 Heavy Bomber in the Commanding Officer, 43d Bombardment Group (H), FIFTH Air Force, while participating in a bombing mission on 1 February 1943, while participating in an attack on the Japanese base at Rabaul, New Britain. As command pilot leading a flight against the base, Colonel Ramey remained at the scene of attack for over two hours, making 20 passes over the target, dropping flares on each run, and thus drawing attention of searchlights and diverting much of the anti-aircraft fire from other bombers to his own. The personal courage and zealous devotion to duty displayed by Colonel Ramey on this occasion have upheld the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, the 5th Air Force, and the United States Army Air Forces.
General Orders: Headquarters, U.S. Army Forces in the Far East, General Orders No. 17 (1943)
World War II/China-India-Burma Theater/India-Burma Campaign (1942-45)
From Month/Year
April / 1942
To Month/Year
January / 1945
Description (India-Burma Campaign 2 April 1942 to 28 January 1945) China Burma India Theater (CBI) was an umbrella term, used by the United States military during World War II for the China and Southeast Asian or India-Burma (IBT) theaters. Operational command of Allied forces (including US forces) in the CBI was officially the responsibility of the Supreme Commanders for South East Asia or China. However: US forces in practice were usually overseen by General Joseph Stilwell, the Deputy Allied Commander in China; the term "CBI" was significant in logistical, material and personnel matters; it was and is commonly used within the US for these theaters.
Well-known US (or joint Allied) units in the CBI included the Chinese Expeditionary Force, the Flying Tigers, transport and bomber units flying the Hump, the 1st Air Commando Group, the engineers who built Ledo Road, and the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional), popularly known as "Merrill's Marauders".
"We got a hell of a beating," Lt. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell told the crowd of reporters in the Indian capital of New Delhi. It was May 1942, and the American general, who had only recently arrived in the Far East to assume the position of chief of staff to Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek, was chafing at failure in his first command in the field. Following the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor the previous December, the Japanese had won victory after victory, extending their empire from Wake Island in the Pacific to Malaya and Singapore in Southeast Asia. When Stilwell had arrived in the embattled Chinese capital of Chungking in March, the Japanese were already driving into Burma, capturing the capital of Rangoon on 6 March. The American general took command of two Chinese divisions and, in cooperation with the British and Indians, tried to stem the Japanese onslaught. Defeated, he and his staff endured a rugged, 140-mile hike over jungle-covered mountains to India. By occupying Burma, the Japanese had not only gained access to vast resources of teak and rubber, but they had dosed the Burma Road, 700 miles of dirt highway that represented China's last overland link with the outside world. The reopening of an overland route to China would be the major American goal, indeed obsession, in the theater throughout the campaign.
Strategic Setting
The objective of restoring a land route to China originated in part in hard strategic considerations, specifically the need to keep China in the war to tie down Japanese troops and serve as a base for future operations against the Japanese home islands. But it also reflected an idealistic American view of China as a great power, capable of a major contribution, and the romantic image held by many Americans of China's heroic struggle against superior Japanese equipment and arms. For nearly three years the United States would thus push for a major effort to break the Japanese blockade, forward large quantities of lend-lease materials, and train the fledgling Chinese Army and Air Force.
