In its June 8, 1953, issue, Life magazine included a full-page spread with four blurry images of a North Korean Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 getting shot down over Korea. They were taken by the wing-mounted movie camera of a U.S. Air Force F-86E Sabre as it engaged the enemy jet near the Yalu River on May 14. The grainy black-and-white photos depict the crippled MiG after it was hit by a burst from the Sabre’s six .50-caliber machine guns. They show the jet in flight, followed by a bright flash as an explosive charge propels the pilot and his ejection seat away from the doomed aircraft.

The 23-year-old American aviator who scored the victory and took the images was a recent West Point graduate who had arrived in Korea just six months earlier. It was his first victory as a combat pilot and the photospread in Life gave him his first moment in the spotlight. It was not his last. 

The pilot was Lieutenant Edwin E. Aldrin—better known to the world today as Buzz. He would rocket to fame more than a decade later as a space-walking astronaut with Gemini 12 and then again a few years later as the second man to walk on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission.

However, in 1953, Aldrin was relishing his first air-to-air victory—even if it was lacking in thrills. His quarry hadn’t realized there was an American in the sky, never mind on his tail. 

“It was a singularly undramatic experience: no dogfight, no maneuvers, no excitement. I simply flew up behind the enemy and shot him down,” Aldrin wrote in his 1973 autobiography Return to Earth. 

The real excitement came a few weeks later when the photos appeared in Life. Aldrin flew with the 51st Fighter Interceptor Wing, which was in constant competition with its rival 4th Fighter Interceptor Wing. “That was a real coup over those glory boys of the 4th,” he said in his 1989 book, Men from Earth. Aldrin also earned a Distinguished Flying Cross for the kill.

At the time, Aldrin was just coming into his own as a fighter pilot, using skills that appear to have been something of a family tradition. He had been born in New Jersey on January 20, 1930. His father, Edwin Eugene “Gene” Aldrin Sr., became a U.S. Army aviator after World War I and was an officer in the Army Air Forces during World War II. Between the wars Aldrin Sr. had once served under air power pioneer William “Billy” Mitchell. He retired as a colonel from the Air Force Reserve in 1956.

Aldrin Sr. also had an interest in space and in 1915 he had studied rocketry at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, under the guidance of Robert H. Goddard, inventor of the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket. He later served as consultant to the manned space flight safety director of NASA, where he would cross paths with his son. He died in 1974.

Aldrin Jr. pursued his own dream of flying by graduating from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1951 (the U.S. Air Force Academy was not established until 1954). He later earned a doctorate in astronautics from MIT, where his father had received a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering in 1918. 

Fresh out of West Point, young “Buzz” (the nickname came from the way a sister mispronounced the word “brother”; Aldrin made it his legal name in 1988) found himself on the way to Korea. The “police action” there had United Nations forces, including the United States, defending South Korea after the communist North (backed by China and the Soviet Union) invaded on June 25, 1950. In Korea, Aldrin demonstrated a proficiency as a jet pilot that helped him become mission leader in just a few months. “You always started as a wingman to get experience and see how things work,” says Michael Napier, an RAF fighter pilot in the Gulf War and author of Korean Air War: Sabres, MiGs and Meteors, 1950–53. “Aldrin was a very impressive pilot and always looking for opportunities. From what little I know about his character, he was feisty, too. That’s certainly an advantage in those situations.” Aldrin had one kill under his belt. His second victory would prove to be far more difficult than his first. 

The epic duels between F-86s and MiG-15s locked in soaring, spiraling dogfights have become emblematic of the Korean War. The jets often clashed in large numbers over MiG Alley, the name given by United Nations pilots to the area near the Yalu River, which marks the border between North Korea and China. The two airplanes were similar in appearance, with swept-wing designs and open-nose intakes to provide the air flow necessary for high speeds and high-G maneuvers. 

“Both were top-of-the-line fighters,” says Dr. Michael Hankins, a curator at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. “There are little differences here and there in terms of slats and hydraulic controls, but they are pretty evenly matched in a one-on-one dogfight. Overall, the Sabre is a more effective airplane.”

In its day, the MiG-15 was a formidable fighter itself. It reached Korea in November 1950, when the Soviet Union deployed two regiments of the 324th Fighter Aviation Division to aid the overmatched North Korean air force. Featuring the Klimov VK-1 engine, the jet could reach speeds of nearly 700 miles per hour—up to 100 mph faster than American jet fighters like the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star, Republic F-84 Thunderjet and Grumman F9F Panther. In Korea, the Soviet swept-wing turbojet aircraft overwhelmed the straight-wing first-generation jets flown by the United States and its United Nations allies—literally flying circles around the now-obsolete airplanes.

In addition, the Soviet jet was heavily armed, with three autocannons: two 23mm NR-23s and a single 37mm N-37. Intended as a means to destroy the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, the MiG-15’s weapons could be equally devastating—if not more so—on fighter aircraft. The explosive rounds packed a wallop but at the expense of a slower fire rate and limited ammunition reserves on the plane. The two firing systems offered another disadvantage, too. The two smaller-bore cannons were on the left side of the fuselage while the big gun was on the right, meaning a pilot had to be aware of what gun he was using to aim correctly. 

The jet’s superiority was quickly challenged in December 1950 when the United States rushed three F-86 squadrons to counter the MiG-15 threat. Built by North American, the Sabre featured the General Electric J47-GE-7 jet engine through late 1953. That engine produced 5,200 pounds of thrust with a top speed of 687 mph—a close match with the MiG-15. However, the F-86 could reach only 45,000 feet, about 5,000 feet below the Soviet-built jet’s ceiling. This gave enemy pilots momentum during an attack, as well as the element of surprise when they dove on American aircraft. The MiG-15 could make tighter turns, but the F-86 could descend faster, an advantage in a downward spiraling dogfight.

The Sabre’s six Browning .50-caliber machine guns featured a fast rate of fire—about 1,500 rounds per minute, which was more than adequate to inflict serious damage on an enemy plane. Though not as powerful as cannons, the F-86’s weapons were aided by a computerized aiming system that automatically determined the target’s range. Guided by radar, the A-1CM gunsight proved a game changer by providing highly accurate firing and impressive kill statistics. By the end of the war, the U.S. scrapped the machine guns and added four 20mm cannons to the F-86H. The future of American fighter aviation would be based on variants of this weapon as faster and more technologically advanced jets were introduced over the years.

The Sabre and Mig-15 clashed for the first time over Korea on December 17, 1950. Flying an F-86A, Lt. Col. Bruce H. Hinton of the Air Force shot down a MiG-15 in that showdown. By war’s end, Sabres scored 757 victories in head-to-head matchups against the enemy aircraft while losing only 103 encounters.   

While Aldrin was pleased to get his first victory, the celebration was decidedly low-key. “There were no celebrations awaiting me as there would have been in all previous wars,” Aldrin recalled. “I didn’t even get to paint a MiG on the nose of my aircraft—I had no aircraft of my own; I flew whatever was available. That night I bought drinks for several of my friends and that was that.” The return to war so soon after World War II likely dampened celebratory spirits, as did the threat of annihilation by two nervous superpowers equipped with nuclear weapons facing each other through their proxies in Korea.

The dawn of “push-button” warfare may have also had an impact on how pilots viewed success in combat. Advancing technology altered the scope of combat to the point where long-distance attacks with missiles were possible against an enemy that wasn’t even visible. “The Korean War was the first of what historians called the impersonal conflicts,” Aldrin wrote. 

Impersonal or not, Aldrin continued to take to the skies over Korea. On June 7, 1953, he scored his second kill. “If the first MiG was a piece of cake, the second was the hairiest experience I’ve had flying machines in this planet’s atmosphere,” he said. 

On that day, Aldrin’s wingman had to abort due to engine problems shortly after takeoff. The young lieutenant continued on alone, trying to catch up with three other Sabres over MiG Alley. Called Tiger Flight, this unit of the 39th Fighter Interceptor Squadron flew the more advanced and faster F-86Fs. Aldrin was piloting a slower F-86E and had a hard time keeping up with the American jets.

The leader of Tiger Flight spotted a MiG airfield and descended to attack. Aldrin jettisoned his spare tanks and followed. He knew he couldn’t catch the other Sabres but didn’t want to be left behind. As he descended, his jet began to shake and roll as he approached Mach 1—“a forbidden speed for the Sabre,” he recalled. Just as the other pilots leveled off at 5,000 feet, Aldrin was surprised to see another aircraft suddenly banking off his right wing. He caught sight of the plane’s tail and recognized it as a MiG-15. Aldrin throttled back and activated his speed brakes so he could get behind the enemy jet.      

The enemy pilot had spotted Aldrin’s aircraft at the same time. He turned into the American, who then realized he was going to overshoot the MiG and wind up with the enemy on his tail. Aldrin made a hard right turn to get on the bogie’s left side. The pair of combatants repeated the maneuver several times as they hurtled toward the earth. “Fighter pilots call this a scissors, the two opposing aircraft crossing like blades of a broken scissors,” Aldrin said. “Cross and cross again, with each pilot trying to slice the sky more sharply than his enemy.” 

Aldrin saw the ground rushing up at him as the two airplanes continued to cross paths during their descent. The contest became a game of chicken as each pilot waited for the other to pull out of the dive. The enemy pilot broke first. Aldrin quickly jumped behind him and tried to line up the MiG in his gunsight, only to discover that the high-G turns had jammed the aiming device. If he was going to score this victory, Aldrin would have to do it on his own. Using the nose of his Sabre as a gunsight, the young lieutenant fired a quick burst and saw the spark of a tracer striking the wing of the enemy jet. Aldrin then throttled up and chased the MiG into a steep right turn, where he had a clear shot. “I fired and the bright tracers jumped along his wing from the root to the tip,” he recalled. “Smoke shredded back toward me. He rolled out of the turn and pitched over in a shallow dive. I gave him two more bursts. His nose came up and he started to stall out.” Aldrin saw the MiG’s canopy pop off and then a bright flash from the ejection charge. Still in his seat, the pilot blasted away from his stricken jet with an “implausible” red scarf trailing behind him. As Aldrin soared past, he couldn’t see if the parachute deployed or not. 

As thrilled as he was with the kill, Aldrin knew he had to be careful about what he said when he got back to base. He had been flying north of the Yalu River and over China at the time—an area where U.N. pilots were technically forbidden to venture. “The reason for the rule was pretty clear,” the Smithsonian’s Michael Hankins says. “Everybody was worried about starting World War III, especially with nuclear weapons in play. We didn’t want to see any more involvement by the Chinese—or even the Russians for that matter.” 

Still, U.N. pilots often ignored the directive. “It seems that crossing the Yalu and pursuing MiGs into a technically forbidden area was not uncommon,” Hankins says. “A lot of pilots were doing that. There was kind of a nod and a wink when they were told, ‘Don’t go over the Yalu, but we all know you’re going to.’” 

Still, Aldrin was reluctant to admit where he shot down the MiG-15. If discovered that he was over China at the time, he would have been denied credit for the air-to-air victory. Fortunately, his secret was safe. “[T]here was no way to tell from the gun camera film what side of the river I’d been on, so the Air Force gave me an oak leaf cluster to go with the Distinguished Flying Cross I’d gotten for the first MiG,” Aldrin wrote. “This time I’d earned it.” 

It is not clear who flew the two aircraft Aldrin shot down. At that stage of the war, North Korean and Chinese pilots were both flying MiG-15s. Chinese jets often sported North Korean markings, possibly to make U.N. pilots believe the North Korean air force was stronger than it was. In addition, Soviet pilots were secretly flying missions during the war, also in North Korean jets. They would even don North Korean uniforms to fool U.N. pilots during flybys. The U.S. military was aware that Soviets were present because of Russian chatter on the radio, yet neither side would publicly acknowledge the reality of the situation.

Perhaps the surest indicator of who was flying an enemy plane was the capability of the pilot. North Koreans were poorly trained and not as adept at air combat. Chinese pilots were better because they were trained by the Soviets. The best pilots were usually Russian since they had the most experience. Aldrin’s adversary had certainly demonstrated some skillful piloting, so it’s possible he was a Soviet pilot.

Aldrin finished his tour in Korea in December 1953 after the armistice had been signed. He had flown 66 combat missions. As a flight commander, he later flew F-100 Super Sabres equipped with nuclear weapons while stationed in West Germany. He then went back to school and earned a doctoral degree in astronautics from MIT in 1963, which opened the door for him to join NASA and the space program. In 1966, Aldrin and Jim Lovell rocketed into space on Gemini 12, a mission on which Aldrin made headlines again for a successful five-hour spacewalk—the longest on record at that point. Three years later, he was catapulted to worldwide fame when he joined Neil Armstrong for a stroll along the lunar surface during the historic Apollo 11 mission, an event viewed on television by an estimated 650 million people around the world.

Aldrin left NASA in 1971 and returned to the Air Force, retiring as a colonel in 1972. He received an honorary promotion to brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force in May 2023. In addition to his Distinguished Flying Cross and an Oak Leaf Cluster, Aldrin has an Air Force Distinguished Service Medal and Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster in lieu of a second DSM, three Air Medals, a Congressional Gold Medal, Presidential Medal of Freedom and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, as well as many other honors and awards. At 93, Aldrin remains a strong advocate for space exploration, especially a manned mission to Mars. He has even proposed a special trajectory for such an expedition, using the gravity of Earth and Mars to send spacecraft to and from the planets. The procedure is known today as the Aldrin Cycler.

While exploring the dusty surface of Earth’s closest neighbor, Aldrin and Armstrong unveiled a plaque symbolizing the overall goal of the mission. Affixed to one of the legs of the lunar lander, the stainless-steel sign reads: “We came in peace for all mankind.” That was a stark contrast to his experience in Korea, where his objective was to stop communist aggression at all costs. In reality, though, both situations remained consistent with his overall mission in life. Talking to an interviewer in 2016, Aldrin said, “At age 17 at West Point, I took an oath to serve my country, and that has been the overriding purpose in all of my activities since then.”

When Military History sought an interview with Buzz Aldrin, he initially demurred. The second human being ever to walk on the surface of the Moon—on July 21, 1969, as a crew member of Apollo 11—he finds that journalists seldom want to discuss anything else. But Aldrin’s career spans much further. A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, he was commissioned into the Air Force at the outset of the Korean War. Flying the North American F-86 Sabre for the 16th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, Aldrin completed 66 combat missions and downed two MiG-15 jets. After the war he earned a doctorate in astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Aldrin walked in space as a Gemini astronaut before flying to the Moon with Apollo. Today, the 93-year-old Air Force brigadier general remains a strong advocate of the space program, particularly of planned missions to Mars.    

What made you select the Air Force after graduation from West Point?  

I wanted to fly and had always wanted to fly. I took my first flight at age 2 with my father and never looked back. Flying was exhilarating. We [graduates] knew the nation would need pilots, so we signed up.  

What was it like flying the cutting-edge F-86 Sabre?  

Fast in a dogfight—and I was in a couple of those—and gratifying, because the plane handled well, although my gun got jammed in one encounter, and on another occasion I had a frozen fuel line. But the plane was a jet, and we liked the idea of flying jets. They got you higher and faster, and we all liked that.  

How did the MiG-15 match up in your two recorded Korean War shootdowns?  

The MiG-15 was a fast plane, and they had good pilots. The pilot ejected in the first one, which was filmed by the nose camera [of my Sabre].  

Your second kill entailed a difficult dogfight. Tell us about that.  

Not a lot to tell, but you can see photos of it. My gun jammed on my first lock, so I had to be steady, stay with him, get the lock again and then fire. He, too, ejected, which was good for him. Dogfights are all-consuming—they happen fast. Nothing about a shootdown is easy, but when you return alive you feel glad you returned, glad you could do what you were supposed to.  

What was it like flying the F-100 Super Sabre equipped with nuclear weapons?  

I will just say, those times—perhaps a bit like these times—were about being prepared. There was tension, but we were always well trained, ready for what might come. We signed up to protect the United States, and so we did. It was as simple as that. We all thought freedom mattered, and we flew to protect it.  

A fighter jock with a doctoral degree?  

Yes, before selection to NASA’s third group of astronauts, I earned my doctorate from MIT. I wrote a thesis called “Line-of-Sight Guidance Techniques for Manned Orbital Rendezvous.” An understanding of that topic and orbital mechanics proved fortuitous when Jim Lovell and I flew Gemini 12, the last Gemini mission, which required proving the efficacy of orbital rendezvous. As fate would have it, we actually needed to manage part of that process manually, due to computer problems, so the thesis came in handy after all.  

How excited were you to join the space program?  

Very. And looking back, I was just fortunate to be selected for Gemini 12 and Apollo 11. I was also blessed to have great crewmates—Lovell in Gemini 12, and Neil Armstrong and Mike Collins in Apollo 11. What can you say? We were all blessed.  

Describe the sensation of your free-flight space walk for Gemini.  

My longest EVA [extravehicular activity], or space walk, of Gemini 12 was surprising for the beauty and sense of accomplishment that came with it—and because my heart rate apparently stayed low. Someone asked me why, and I really could not say, except that I was honestly having fun.  

We must ask, what was it like to walk on the Moon?  

In many other venues I have discussed the answer to that question, but suffice to say we had a job to do, and we worked very hard to do it. We did not want to let others down, since so many had worked to make Apollo 11, mankind’s first Moon landing, a success.   I called it “magnificent desolation” at the time, and that remains a good description. It was also an honor, and while we trained hard for it, the actual event was exhilarating in small and unexpected ways. We saw our shadow landing, which never happened in simulation. We had to test one-sixth gravity, since that could not be simulated. We had to get experiments out, and one required waiting for a small BB to settle in a cone, which took a while with one-sixth gravity. Neil and I worked together to get the American flag in, which was harder than you might think with only about an inch of Moon dust to plant it in.  

On May 5, 2023, you were promoted to brigadier general. What did that mean to you?  

Well, it was humbling, gratifying, and I was really honored. I stepped out of the normal advancement sequence flying for NASA. Afterward, I continued to serve, fly and believe in the U.S. Air Force. To be recognized for that—for what I did during and after that special time—was gratifying. I thank all those involved. It meant a lot, and I am happy still when I think about that day.  

You continue to advocate for a manned mission to Mars. Why?  

Simple, really: The United States is the leader in human space exploration, and we need to keep reaching outward, expanding and enriching the human experience. That means not resting on our laurels, but going out to Mars, exploring and swiftly creating permanence there—not a touch-and-go, but staying on Mars.  

How do you reflect on your achievements in the military and as an astronaut?  

We all have our stories and our journey, and mine has been exciting. It was an honor to serve in Korea, with NASA and thereafter with the Air Force. This nation is one of a kind—both a great and good country. Those opportunities came from tens of thousands of other dedicated Americans, and I feel forever grateful for what they did to make my journey possible. So, how do you reflect on all that? You just remind yourself each dawn is precious, and you stay grateful. You keep trying to do whatever you can to keep the greatness and goodness going.

This interview appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of Military History magazine.

John Hicks made it home well after midnight on that chilly December night in 1773. Not wanting to wake his wife—and thus incur her wrath—he quietly entered his house in Cambridge, Mass., gingerly removed his boots and silently crept up to bed.

The next morning, Elizabeth came downstairs first. Spotting his out-of-place footwear, she quickly surmised that John had sneaked out during the night. When he finally woke up, a suspicious Elizabeth began questioning her husband about his nocturnal activities.

At first, John denied ever leaving the house, but his wife continued her harsh interrogation: “Well, look at your boots standing here. They weren’t here last night when you wore them up to bed. Of course, you were out last night!”

With that, Elizabeth picked up his boots and spotted something falling from them: tea leaves. John then fessed up—he had left the house to join the Sons of Liberty in neighboring Boston as they protested the hated Tea Act of 1773 and assisted in dumping 342 chests of the British Empire’s favorite beverage into the harbor.

Hicks’ involvement in this historical event—marking its 250th anniversary this year—offers intriguing insight into a defining moment that triggered the American Revolution. On Dec. 16, 1773, more than 100 men—some dressed in American Indian outfits—clambered aboard three merchant vessels docked at Griffin’s Wharf in Boston and set in motion actions that led to the “shot heard round the world” at Lexington and Concord nearly two years later.

“The Boston Tea Party was the catalyst that brought about this revolutionary change,” wrote Benjamin Woods Labaree in his eponymous epic about the incident that upended history, first published in 1964. He added, “For three years before the Tea Party, the 13 American colonies shared no common cause, and relations between them and the mother country were relatively calm. Within 18 months after the Tea Party the colonies were united in war against Great Britain.”

John Adams believed the tossing of tea was an earthshaking event. A resident of Braintree (now Quincy), the future president learned about what happened the next day. In his diary, he wrote, “This Destruction of the Tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, intrepid and inflexible, and it must have so important Consequences, and so lasting, that I cant but consider it as an Epocha in History.”

Hicks is believed to be one of the men who protested the Tea Act that night 250 years ago—“believed” because no eyewitness accounts exist naming those who boarded the ships: Dartmouth, Eleanor, and Beaver. The insurgents kept quiet afterward because their defiant act was viewed as treason by the Crown, punishable by hanging.

Stories about those who tossed the tea began emerging more than a quarter-century later after America had already secured its independence. In fact, the protest itself was not referred to as the “Boston Tea Party” in print until 1834, according to historian Alfred F. Young, author of 1999’s “The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory and the American Revolution.” Prior to that, it was known simply as the “destruction of the tea” and was rarely mentioned by early chroniclers because it didn’t fit the narrative of liberty-loving Patriots defending themselves against oppressive English aggressors.

To date, only about 140 people have been identified as participating in the Tea Party. Hicks was one of them—at least according to an article printed in Volume 20 of the “Proceedings of the Cambridge Historical Society” in 1934, which described the encounter between him and his wife. Also thought to be there that cold night were William Breck of Boston, Joseph Dow of Amesbury, Mass., and Michael Jackson of Newton, Mass. Jackson (see sidebar) has only recently been identified as involved in the Boston Tea Party.

The stories of those four men provide a personal view of what happened that evening in Boston. A new effort helps to highlight their histories through a surprising source: their heirs. Developed by the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum and New England Historic Genealogical Society, a descendants program focuses attention on the bravery of these men as only their proud progeny can tell it.

“John Hicks was a rabble-rouser,” said Mary Ellen Rogan, a descendant of the tea-tossing rebel. “According to what I’ve learned, he was a Patriot while his sons were Loyalists. Neighbors reported hearing loud arguments coming from his home while the family was seated around the dinner table.”

Rogan—along with Erica Hahn of California, Jonathan Lane and John Rando, both of Massachusetts, and John Cox of Connecticut—talked about their historical links to men who stood up for liberty.

A librarian in New Jersey, Rogan discovered her relationship to Hicks some years ago while researching her family’s genealogy. As a child, she learned some ancestors were sea captains from Maine. Deeper digging as an adult revealed an even older connection to New England.

“I discovered we had people in the Revolution and also on the Mayflower,” she said. “When I got to Hicks, I learned he was a tax collector, though not a very good one. I don’t think his heart was in it.”

Like many residents of Boston and surrounding communities, Hicks would have been aware of the mounting dissent over the tea tax imposed by the British. Several meetings and protests were held following the arrival of the first ship laden with crates of Bohea, Congou, Singlo and Hyson tea. Citizens were angered by England’s attempt to institute taxes when the colonies had no representation in Parliament—an act they viewed as tyrannical because of rights stipulated in the Magna Carta of 1215.

In actuality, the Tea Act of 1773 did not include a tax. Parliament tried to sneak through duties from the Townshend Acts of 1766 and 1768, which had been vigorously opposed by the colonies, culminating in the Boston Massacre of 1770. English legislators backed down and repealed the law, only to try to slip it through one more time.

Once again, the colonists were having none of it. In 1773, protests erupted up and down the Atlantic seaboard. Mostly, these remonstrations were peaceful. In New York and Philadelphia, ships were sent back to England without being allowed to unload their consignments. In Charleston, S.C., crates of tea were left to rot on the docks.

In Boston, however, Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson decided to enforce British sovereignty. He refused to let the merchant ships—owned by colonial traders—to leave without payment of the taxes by a deadline of December 16, 1773.

That evening, the Sons of Liberty held a mass meeting at the Old South Meeting House. Up to 7,000 people gathered outside the Boston church while patriot Samuel Adams attempted to get the governor to rescind his order. When that failed, Adams reportedly said, “This meeting can do nothing further to save the country.”

After the crowd heard that news, someone shouted, “Boston harbor a teapot tonight,” according to Young. It may have been a prearranged signal. Soon, a small group of men in Mohawk dress—signifying American independence to the colonists—started making its way to the waterfront. They were quickly joined by an angry mob, many of whom blackened their faces with soot to avoid being identified.

One piece of the evidence that suggests the Boston Tea Party was planned is a notice that posted around town prior to Sons of Liberty meeting on that eventful eventide. Published by the “Chairman of the Committee for Tarring and Feathering,” the inflammatory message urged Boston citizens to hold accountable “those odious Miscreants and detestable tools” responsible for preventing the tea’s return to England.

“Hold yourselves in Readiness, on the shortest Notice, to give them such a Reception, as such vile Ingrates deserve,” it proclaimed.

Hicks was probably a protester that night—and may have taken extraordinary measures to be one. According to another descendant, he snuck out of his home—not by the front door, but through a second-story window.

“Hicks hated the British; he despised them,” said Erica Hahn, who is also related to the Pilgrims and is a board member of the California Mayflower Society. “Two of his sons were deeply Tory and tried to keep their dad from doing anything they didn’t approve of. Hicks made a ladder of sheets and climbed down from the bedroom to get out of the house without being seen. This is included in several family genealogies and I think it has the ring of truth.”

On his way to Boston Harbor, Hicks might have bumped into Joseph Dow and his wife, Judith, who were visiting the town on December 16. Dow was a shipbuilder in Amesbury, located north of Boston on the New Hampshire border. It appears he was in Boston on business. During the British occupation of the town in 1775–76, Dow may have contracted to do work with the English military.

“He was kept busy and well paid,” claimed “The Book of Dow: Genealogical Memoirs,” written by Robert Piercy Dow in 1929.

Dow’s exact participation is unknown. He might have been swept up in the turmoil on the streets and followed the mob to Griffin’s Wharf, where he at least witnessed crates being hurled into the salty water. Dow later became a Tory and fled to Maine before moving to Canada, where he established a new ship-building business in New Brunswick.

“He had come down to Boston on business and got caught up in this event,” said descendant John Rando, who lives in Gloucester, Mass. “I suspect it was by happenstance. There’s no proof he was part of the Sons of Liberty, who were really the ones stirring the pot.”

He added, “Joseph Dow was at the right place and the right time. He made a different choice after that, but I have relatives who were on the American side. Reuben Dow was a militia captain who fought at Lexington and Concord. He was later wounded at Bunker Hill. I can’t speak for Joseph, but Reuben left behind a wife and family to answer the call of duty. That says a lot.”

In all likelihood, William Breck was an active participant in the Boston Tea Party. The Boston merchant served in the Boston militia, and was a member of the Sons of Liberty and a freemason, some of whom had an active role in planning the protest. He was also associated with patriot Paul Revere, who following the tea toss was dispatched by the Sons of Liberty to New York and Philadelphia to inform them of what happened.

Jonathan Lane learned of his ancestral ties to Breck from his grandmother, Barbara Lane. She was the keeper of the family history—a job she inherited from her grandfather, Charles Edward Benton, a Civil War veteran. They were responsible for collecting documents and details about past relations so future generations would know the role they played in history.

“Her grandfather told her about our ancestors in the American Revolution and she told me about them,” recalled Lane, who is the Revolution 250 coordinator at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston, currently gearing up for America’s semiquincentennial in 2026.

“I’m a child of the Bicentennial. I was 10 in 1976 and my grandmother was very keen to make sure I understood about our role in the American Revolution. I have dozens of relatives who fought and supported the war.”

So, did Breck throw tea off the ships in Boston Harbor? Lane is not sure about that. Breck’s whereabouts that night are unknown, but it is thought he attended the gathering at Old South Meeting House and then exercised his right of civil disobedience.

“Breck was actively engaged in the Sons of Liberty, St. Andrew’s Masonic Lodge and one of the local caucuses, which were all involved in protesting the tea tax,” Lane said. “Because of those associations, it is assumed he was there. We know 92,000 pounds of tea were unloaded into the harbor. That was a lot of work for the 140 or so men said to have been on the ships. There were probably many others that we don’t know about.”

One of those who might have been on the ships and possibly wore Native American clothing was Michael Jackson. A forgotten hero of the American Revolution, he led a militia unit as English soldiers retreated from Lexington and Concord, was wounded at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Jackson nearly lost a leg during an amphibious assault on an island in New York Harbor in 1776 and wintered at Valley Forge in 1778 (his wife is believed to have served as a nurse at that cold encampment). He was one of the few men to serve in the Continental Army from its inception in 1775 to its disbanding in 1783, when he held the rank of brevet brigadier general.

Thanks to an elderly aunt, John Cox had been aware of his blood tie to Jackson since he was a child. Her diligent genealogical research was one of the reasons he joined the Litchfield Patriots, a nonprofit organization honoring the residents of his Connecticut town who fought for American independence.

“Her mother was a Jackson and she was devoted to the history of the family,” he recalled. “Over the years, she had collected a treasure trove of information on the Jacksons going back to the Revolution and before. When she knew she was fading, she started passing along to me her collection, which included copies of letters in Boston museums.”

His membership in the Litchfield Patriots brought Cox in contact with Kristin Harris, research coordinator at the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum. She was in his town last year as part of a delegation placing a marker at the grave of Elisha Horton in commemoration of his role in the historic tea toss.

At that event, Cox spoke to Harris about Jackson and described a letter referring to his ancestor’s involvement in the fabled fracas in Boston Harbor. After further research, she was able to verify that Jackson was indeed there (see sidebar), making the Revolutionary War veteran the latest Tea Party participant discovered.

On December 16, 1773, Jackson lived in Newton, then known as Newtown, which was about 10 miles from the scene of the crime. Because of that distance, it is surmised that the militia leader was already in Boston, probably having learned of the evening’s plans because of his involvement in the Sons of Liberty.

The letter in question was penned by Jackson’s son, Ebenezer, in 1823. The missive to his son Ebenezer Jr., details Michael Jackson’s military service, including how he fought in the French and Indian War, was a lieutenant in the Massachusetts Provincial Regiment, and served in the Continental Army. It also includes this tantalizing sentence: “He was one of those who under a disguise of Indian dress, destroyed the tea in Boston at the commencement of the Revolution.”

With that verification, Cox and his brother were invited to Boston last fall to place a Boston Tea Party marker at Jackson’s grave at Centre Street Cemetery in Newton.

“It was exciting to learn that Jackson had a hand in this,” Cox said. “It’s fun to look back and learn that somebody could go through all that he did.”

Understandably, the descendants of these four men are proud of their ancestors’ accomplishments in the Boston Tea Party and Revolutionary War. Their involvement is a badge of honor for them and their families—a symbol representing a patriotic zeal to sacrifice all for liberty and human rights.

“It’s weird to have this connection to history because of something your ancestor did,” Lane said. “So many people sacrificed so much for this cause. This is what inspires my work with Revolution 250 and inspires me to learn more about the people who participated in the Tea Party. I think it’s really important for us to continue their legacy.”

“I’m thrilled to death to know that my family was there and involved,” Rogan added. “They did what they believed they had to do. I’m glad to be descended from people like that. John Hicks and my other ancestors were thoughtful people who lived by their own code.”

Ironically, Hicks did not get the chance to speak his story like other Boston Tea Party participants did years afterward. He was killed in Cambridge following the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, when he and other militiamen made a stand against the Red Coats.

Today, the Cambridge Martyrs memorial honors Hicks and four others who died for the Patriot cause. His home—the one where he climbed down a ladder of sheets to join the Boston Tea Party—is preserved on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge as the Hicks House Library.

“Look at the sheer guts of this guy,” Hahn said. “John Hicks was 58 years old and he hikes off to do this thing. He was so brave because he took such a risk. It just blows my mind.”

Do you think you are descended from a tea-tosser? Learn more about the descendants program at the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum (which has an actual crate of tea recovered from Boston Harbor) at https://www.bostonteapartyship.com/boston-tea-party-descendants.

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Thanks to modern media, Joshua L. Chamberlain is remembered today for his bravery on Little Round Top at the Battle of Gettysburg. He was much more than a Civil War hero, however. A new biopic by award-winning historian Ronald C. White examines the full breadth of the man who went from mild-mannered college professor to Medal of Honor recipient and one of the Union Army’s most respected generals. On Great Fields: The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (Penguin Random House, 2023) offers a deep dive into Maine’s native son, who spoke nine languages, served as a four-term governor of Maine, was president of his alma mater Bowdoin College, and, yes, had a remarkable mustache. Chamberlain was the real deal: honorable, dutiful, religious, intellectual, compassionate and committed to the ideals of the Republic. America’s Civil War recently spoke with White about his new book and what he learned about the “Lion of Round Top.”

After writing about Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant, what drew you to Chamberlain?

I was speaking about Grant at the Jonathan Club in downtown Los Angeles and someone said, “What is your next book? And I said, “I’m not exactly sure. Do you have any ideas?” And suddenly this fellow literally leapt up in the back of the room and shouted out, “Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain!” Well, I didn’t really know that much about him, so I took it to my editor and publisher. We looked at the things that were already out there and realized there was a need for a full-scale biography—not simply Chamberlain at Little Round Top, which is very important, but an in-depth book. So that’s how it all started. 

What surprised you the most about him?

To me, it was the whole religious story. His father wants him to go to West Point, his mother wants him to be a minister or missionary, so he goes to Bangor Theological Seminary after Bowdoin College. At the end of those three years, Chamberlain receives three calls to Congregational churches in Maine and New Hampshire, but he offers an address at Bowdoin’s commencement. It is so successful they offer him a teaching position. In all other biographies, those three years at Bangor are literally erased. I mean, they were important for him. All the records of the seminary, which was founded in 1814, are at the Maine Historical Society. I realized that if I was going to devote two chapters to Chamberlain’s four years at Bowdoin College, I needed to devote at least one chapter to his three years at the Bangor Theological Seminary. I was able to find things that no one else had ever looked at before. This is part of his formation, part of his shaping, part of the values that he will carry forward. 

Chamberlain has a strong sense of duty and honor. Where does that come from?

As a professor at Bowdoin during the first year of the Civil War, he saw how many of his students volunteered, how many of them were captured, how many of them were killed. He watched as these 17-, 18-, 19-year-olds go off to war. Finally he comes to the conclusion that this war cannot simply be fought by boys. It has to be fought by men of his distinction and substance. He was 33 years of age with a wife and two young children, so no one would criticize him for not serving. Yet he decides he must do this. His sense of duty compels him to do it. 

When Chamberlain volunteers for the Army, he turns down his first commission. Why?

I love that. The governor of Maine said, “I’ll make you colonel.” He responds, “No, I don’t deserve that title. Make me lieutenant colonel. I’m not a military man, but I can learn.” That was terrific. It shows the humbleness of the man. 

What impact did his religious and educational background have on his service in the military?

People went off to the Civil War in those days with patriotic values and Christian values, both of which would be severely tested. They were not at all prepared for what they would encounter in the Civil War in terms of the suffering and death. His strong faith helped him get through a horrible war and gave him the strength to survive a wound that would impact his life for 50 years. 

How important was Chamberlain’s role at Little Round Top? 

It was a very important moment at the Battle of Gettysburg. Chamberlain never demeaned—he actually lifted up—the role of Union Colonel Strong Vincent. He gives him incredible credit. Vincent is the one who, before the battle begins, says, “You will hold this line.” The same with General Gouverneur Warren, who was the first to see that Little Round Top was in danger because it wasn’t defended. Years later, Chamberlain will become an important witness for Warren, who was trying to restore his rank after he had been relieved of command by General Phil Sheridan. There’s not just one person who needs to be remembered at Little Round Top. In 1889, Chamberlain is at a reunion of the 20th Maine. He acknowledges that many things had been claimed about that engagement. He said, “We’re all right. We’re all correct.” I thought that was really a statesman-like comment. Years later, there’s no point trying to argue who did or didn’t do that. “We are all right.” That, to me, is Chamberlain. 

When things were dire at Little Round Top, Chamberlain gives a one-word order.

He later said he didn’t have time to give some embroidered command. It was simply, “Bayonet.” That was understood by the men under his command. They were running low on ammunition and knew what they had to do. 

Little Round Top was Chamberlain’s first serious introduction to combat.

This is what surprised many people and why I use “Unlikely Hero” in the title of my book. You wouldn’t think of a mild-mannered college professor being willing and able to act with courage and be so daring in battle. When I was at West Point a few years ago, several members of the faculty told me they believe Chamberlain is an embodiment of what military leadership should be all about. My friend David Petraeus [retired U.S. Army general and former CIA director], who thinks Grant is the greatest general of all time, also thinks Chamberlain is a great, great military leader. So it’s not just me, someone writing a biography, but it’s military people themselves who are validating Chamberlain’s leadership. 

Chamberlain is given the nickname “Lion of Round Top.” Does he deserve it?

I think it is well deserved. He earned it. Chamberlain led by example. When the 20th Maine rushes down the hill with bayonets, Chamberlain is out front with them. He confronts an officer with a sword and a pistol [Lieutenant Robert H. Wicker, 15th Alabama] and he convinces him to surrender. That’s an amazing story. He was not afraid to face death. 

What happens to Chamberlain at Petersburg in June 1864?

He almost died at Petersburg. Chamberlain was shot through the hip and it caused severe internal damage. It was a horrible injury that would plague him for the rest of his life. He had several surgeries and suffered terrible pain and infections until the day he died. He never, never complained and never really talked about it. He earns the nickname Bloody Chamberlain that day. He suffered a terrible pelvic wound that probably would have killed another man, then he’s leading his troops again less than a year later. His mother says to him, “Have you not given enough of yourself? You’ve done more than enough. Let other people do it.” He answers, “No, I have yet to finish this job.” The record is not clear, but Chamberlain may have used a catheter for the rest of his life. With the Civil War, we often focus on amputations as a big thing. What I learned from several scholarly articles was that it was really these invisible wounds hidden from sight that were the most prevalent and the most terrible. They went on for the rest of your life. You never got rid of them. Chamberlain finally dies, ultimately from the infections from his wounds, in 1914. He is considered the last Civil War veteran to die from his injuries. 

This article first appeared in America’s Civil War magazine

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His wound likely caused incontinence, constant pain and maybe sexual dysfunction. How does he endure this?

Again, he never talks about it, but you have to imagine what this meant for his entire life, for 50 years after the Civil War. That’s a long, long time. I think his faith enables him to accept it. I was surprised to learn that several people would see him in pain and ask why he never talked about it. He was not the kind of man who would do that. Not at all. 

Chamberlain, a strong Unionist, did not believe in the Confederate cause. Yet he does something unusual during the surrender at Appomattox.

This, to me, was so much the essence of who Chamberlain is. He never accepted their cause, but he always applauded their courage by ordering his troops to salute the surrendering soldiers. This can be difficult for contemporary audiences who are revisiting Confederate monuments and wondering if Robert E. Lee was a traitor. I want to emphasize he never, ever accepted the cause of slavery or the cause of disuniting the Union, but he never gave up his compassion for the courage of these men. He could hold both of those views at the same time.I don’t think the salute was a planned thing. I would argue that like his actions at Little Round Top, this all ultimately grows out of his whole set of values. It’s understandable because this is who he was. His whole idea of wanting reconciliation with the South as just a part of his faith, his values, the formation of his life. 

Some historians claim Chamberlain embellished his Civil War record, but you don’t think so. Why?

I found confirmation for several of his claims. For example, John Brown Gordon, the Confederate general who surrendered at Appomattox. He and Chamberlain were really on the same page about what happened. That discovery was quite fascinating. Chamberlain was also accused of changing his speeches. After the war, he was reading all these regimental histories. When he got new information, he put that into his addresses. It says a lot about who he is. I think it is a great quality that he wanted to set the record straight. 

What do you want readers to take away from your book? How do you want them to remember Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain?

As a rediscovered hero of America who has the kind of values that we need to have in our society today. And what is the source of those values? It’s both his classical education and his Christian education. And I think he is a great example of what a person can do, even facing immense difficulty with his wounds for 50 years. He perseveres and becomes not simply the Civil War hero, but the governor of Maine, president of Bowdoin College, and one of the great speakers about the values of the American democracy in those decades after the Civil War. No one spoke more eloquently than Chamberlain about what it meant to be an American in the last part of the 19th century and early part of the 20th century. I wish we had people like him around today. Chamberlain had integrity and duty and loyalty. Those were the bedrock values in his life.

On Great Fields

The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
By Ronald C. White, Penguin Random House, 2023

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Warships with powerful cannons patrol the waters just off Mobile Bay. It is the summer of 1864, and Union sailors are bristling for a fight, ready to take on any vessel tempted to run the blockade in order to reach one of the last Gulf of Mexico ports still defended by the Confederacy.

Suddenly, the Northern sailors observe an unfamiliar object hovering in the sky above the Alabama coastline. Using whirring airscrews to defy gravity, the bizarre contraption emits a loud noise and belches smoke as it moves slowly toward the Union ships.

The men watch in stunned silence as the monstrous machine slowly drifts in their direction before stopping in midair and dropping a heavy object. The small dark shape falls swiftly, then strikes a Union warship, triggering a huge explosion. Bursting into flames, the vessel quickly sinks.

The Confederate “helicopter” has scored its first victory of the war.

Ancient Inspiration

That scenario is clearly imagined, but it illustrates an incredible case of what-might-have-been history. What if Confederates had invented a helicopter capable of dropping bombs?

It came closer to happening than many people realize. An innovative inventor in Alabama saw the potential for such an aircraft and actually drew up plans for how it might fly. Those drawings are preserved today in the archives of the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

By January 20, 1862, Union ships had managed to prevent most vessels from entering or leaving the major Confederate port of Mobile Bay. While certainly not a complete cordon, the blockade cut off delivery of supplies and, more important, the export of cotton to other nations—a much-needed source of income for the Southern war effort.

William C. Powers believed he had the answer to breaking the blockade: a motorized airship capable of bombing the Northern fleet. Known today as the Confederate helicopter, his idea offered a revolutionary look at solving a bothersome military problem.

“Mr. Powers sees what’s going on,” said Thomas Paone, museum specialist at the National Air and Space Museum. “The federal blockade is choking off the South. He’s living in Mobile, which is dependent on seaborne trade. He starts thinking, ‘We can’t break the blockade, so what do we do? Let’s try something different.’ That thought process is fascinating to me.”

And to many historians as well. Powers’ plans and a small-scale model he built were donated by his family to the Smithsonian Institution in 1941. Since then, researchers and aeronautical engineers have pored over his design to determine the scope and feasibility of his idea.

“Powers realizes this is something that could have a military purpose,” said Roger Connor, curator of the museum’s vertical flight collection. “He was definitely laying the groundwork for something that would fly through the air.”

Powers’ concept is intriguing—especially considering it was devised 40 years before the Wright brothers succeeded in manned powered flight with a fixed-wing aircraft in 1903. He drew upon the ideas of earlier inventors, including ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes and Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci.

For propulsion, Powers used the rotational features of the Archimedean screw—originally developed to remove water from the hold of a ship. Da Vinci had also incorporated a version of the invention into his sketches for his helicopter. 

But the Confederate chopper was different. Instead of one screw, Powers included three with his design: a single twin-screw system on the top for upward motion and two separate screws on the sides to drive the airship forward. Building something that could fly up and over other things was a dream for many inventors in the 19th century.

“Vertical flight as a concept is more dominant than fixed-wing flight—essentially airplane-style flight—at this time,” Connor said. “Inventors are starting to understand that air acts similarly to fluid. There’s certainly a carryover from nautical construction to the vision for how an aircraft might perform.”

That maritime influence is evident throughout the plans and model. Paone pointed to several aspects of the design that have a distinct nautical style rather than the aviation appearances aviation enthusiasts expect to see today. 

“If you look at the drawings of the helicopter, it’s definitely got some ship-building roots,” he said. “It has a ship’s body and smokestacks like a steamer would. It has much more of a feel of a nautical craft than an aircraft.”

Other Flying Machines

Powers’ helicopter came at a time of incredible innovation. Technological improvements exploded from drawing boards as inventors on both sides sought to support the war effort. Mobile was also the home of H.L. Hunley, the first operational submarine to attack a warship in combat. It sank in 1864 shortly after destroying USS Housatonic outside Charleston, S.C.

“Unfortunately, warfare inspires innovation,” Paone said. “In addition to the Hunley, there are all sorts of improvements in the railroad, telegraph, weapons, and ironclads. They come about because of the Civil War and ripple throughout the world stage.”

At the time, Powers was not the only one thinking about taking to the air. Edward Serrell, a colonel in the Union Army, also conceived of a flying machine. As chief engineer for the Army of the James, he demonstrated how aerial reconnaissance could be accomplished by using a windup toy that flew upward of 100 feet.

Major General Benjamin Butler liked the idea and ordered Serrell to build a full-sized flying machine. He constructed a 52-foot, cigar-shaped prototype with wings and four fans for lift and propulsion. Called variously the Valomotive and Reconoiterer, the aircraft was waiting for the development of a lightweight steam engine for power when the war ended.

Serrell abandoned his plans with the cessation of hostilities and the whereabouts of his prototype are lost. His papers are conserved in the archives at the National Air and Space Museum. Serrell’s invention is detailed in the book Smithsonian Civil War: Inside the National Collection in a chapter written by Tom Crouch, curator emeritus at the museum.

Amazingly, these were not the only plans in the works for flying machines during the war. Other inventors had conceived of building motor-powered crafts capable of delivering explosive payloads on enemy positions.

Richard Oglesby Davidson of Virginia had his sights set on building an “aerostat,” an aircraft in “the form of an American eagle,” he wrote in his 1840 book on aviation theory. It featured a beak, legs made of spring and feathers painted on the fuselage. The “conductor,” or pilot, sat in a compartment inside the eagle, where he operated the wings for motion. According to the 2016 book Astride Two Worlds: Technology and the American Civil War by Barton C. Hacker, Davidson even considered installing a carbonic acid gas engine for supplemental power.

No one knows today what happened to those plans, though Davidson—who was nicknamed “Bird”—does turn up again during the Civil War. Crouch reports in his chapter in Smithsonian Civil War that the inventor made a tour of the trenches in Petersburg, Va., in 1864, where he showed Confederate troops a wooden model of his concept. He reportedly asked enlisted men to donate $1 and officers $5 so he could construct his flying machine. What happened to those plans—or the donated money—is anybody’s guess.

In 1863, Richmond dentist R. Findlay Hunt proposed building a steam-powered “flying machine intended to be used for war purposes” to Jefferson Davis. The president of the Confederate States of America was so impressed with the idea that he referred Hunt to General Robert E. Lee. After review by his engineers, the concept was deemed unworkable.

After the war, Hunt petitioned the U.S. Patent Office for protection of his design until he could perfect his idea. He purportedly built a model two years later but never applied for a patent.

Perhaps the most ambitious plan for an aircraft of war was developed by Solomon Andrews, a New Jersey physician and inventor. He actually built and tested a working model that was flown over Perth Amboy, N.J., in 1863 in an attempt to attract the attention of Union military leaders.

Called Aereon, Andrews’ flying machine was essentially an unpowered dirigible. It consisted of three large balloons tied together with a rudder for steering and gondola for passengers. It had no motor and relied solely on wind for forward movement, though Andrews claimed he could power the aircraft by using “Gravitation,” according to John Toland in the 1972 book Great Dirigibles: Their Triumphs and Disasters.

The balloons were approximately 80 feet in length and 13 feet wide. Each included 21 cells to prevent the gas from sloshing back and forth. In between the balloons and gondola was a 12-foot-long basket that featured a ballast car on tracks. The airship was controlled by moving the basket forward to dive and backward to ascend.

Andrews wrote several letters to President Abraham Lincoln and other officials about his flying machine. He even demonstrated how it would fly using a small model at the Capitol Building and Smithsonian Institution. By that time it was late in the war, however, and Union victory seemed imminent, so Congress opted not to fund the proposal.

Following the war, Andrews formed the Aerial Navigation Company and built a second airship that in 1866 twice flew over New York City. The firm went bankrupt during the postwar economic recession and the Aereon #2 never flew again.

“Ahead of His Time”

While all of the ideas were certainly uplifting, few of them appeared capable of getting off the ground. The dynamics of powered flight in a heavier-than-air vehicle were not well understood in the 1860s and really wouldn’t be deciphered until the Wright brothers took off from Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina at the dawn of the new century.

As for the Confederate helicopter, most aviation experts agree Powers’ design had fundamental flaws that would have prevented it from taking to the air as designed. The airscrews likely would not have generated the necessary lift, while the craft itself was too heavy for the simple steam engine Powers proposed for it.

“The propulsion aspect was not viable,” Connor says. “Powers is not on the leading edge of developing this technology. Others make further inroads than him at the time. However, he is a standout in the concept of application by understanding that it has a military purpose.”

That’s not to say that Powers wasn’t on the right flight path. Some of his ideas held promise, and one even predicted an innovation that would come about some 80 years later. According to Paone, Powers’ plans called for
lattice-style construction of wood in the aircraft’s fuselage to give it added durability. That concept was used by the British in World War II in the wings of the Vickers Wellington bomber.

“This provides incredible strength without adding lots of weight,” Paone said. “Perhaps Mr. Powers was just ahead of his time.”

Little is known about Powers. According to his family, he was an architectural engineer living in Mobile during the war. When Powers realized the South did not have enough ships to break the Union blockade, he started tinkering with vertical flight. It is believed the Confederate military was aware of his idea but was unwilling to finance something it likely perceived as an out-of-this-world scheme.

Once Powers realized his dream would not become a reality, he hid the plans and model so they would not fall into Northern hands, according to family lore. They remained largely unknown until his granddaughter, Clara McDermott, donated them to the Smithsonian for further study more than 80 years ago.

Since that time, historians and scientists have speculated about what might have been. Had Powers been given the money to test his idea, would he have eventually succeeded? That answer will never be known for certain, but Paone is excited just thinking about what was being dreamt of more than 150 years ago.

“What fascinates me is that you have people who are legitimately looking at pushing the envelope with flight,” he said. “Would this have worked? Probably not, but he’s going down this path thinking maybe he could make something fly.”

this article first appeared in civil war times magazine

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Massachusetts-based author Dave Kindy is a self-described history nerd and remembers the centennial celebration of the Civil War. He is a frequent contributor to several HistoryNet publications, as well as Air & Space Quarterly, National Geographic, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and Smithsonian.

On April 11, 1854, under a cloud of suspicion, Captain Ulysses S. Grant resigned his commission in the U.S. Army. Already saddled with debt, the Mexican War hero had no real prospects for supporting his family and his future appeared anything but promising.

Yet, a scant 10 years later, Grant had risen from relative obscurity to the senior most command of the service he had left in near-disgrace. His highly improbable ascendancy to General of the Army was testament to his boldness as a military leader and his incredible luck in surviving recriminations for missteps—as well as narrowly avoiding death in combat.

John Reeves’ Soldier of Destiny examines Grant’s life during that formative decade leading to his promotion in 1864 to lieutenant general, a rank held previously only by George Washington. In those 10 years, he emerged from oblivion ready to face a new arc of history.

This thoroughly researched and detailed book offers keen insight into Grant as an evolving soul attempting to navigate the trials and tribulations of life. It also dispels some of the myths of the future Union general as a wholly unsuited businessman and unstable drunk.

While Grant certainly had failures in the commercial sector, he excelled as a farmer and manager of his father-in-law’s Missouri plantation—complete with slaves. In regard to alcoholism, Reeves offers a balanced view of Grant’s vice, depicting him as a binge drinker who remained sober for long periods.

On the issue of slavery, the book paints Grant as a man of his time. Though he grew up in an abolitionist family, Grant at first was ambivalent of that peculiar institution. In fact, he had decidedly racist views of African Americans—not untypical for his day. By 1863, however, Grant realized “colored troops” were indispensable to the Union cause and even claimed, “They will make good soldiers.”

Of course, it is on the battlefield that the general distinguished himself. Reeves writes with flair about Grant’s boldness and risky decisions at Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga—and how he remained calm while circumstances crumbled around him. His intuitiveness in combat enabled him to make courageous choices while other commanders tended to waver and wane.

Nowhere more apparent is that aspect of Grant’s personality than in the apocryphal story of when an aide asked him if he was sure of a decision. The general answered, “No, I am not, but in war anything is better than indecision. We must decide. If I am wrong, we shall soon find out, and can do the other thing. But not to decide wastes both time and money, and may ruin everything.”

Soldier of Destiny is a masterful account of the decisive Grant and how he remained resilient while “lost in the wilderness,” only to emerge as a sword of deliverance at the moment his country needed him most.

Soldier of Destiny

Slavery, Secession and the Redemption of Ulysses S. Grant
By John Reeves, Pegasus Books, 2023

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With her book The Hello Girls and a follow-up documentary film, historian, commentator and author Elizabeth Cobbs set out to recognize the women who served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps’ Female Telephone Operators Unit during World War I. Members of the unit, many of whom worked Stateside as switchboard operators, maintained communications on the Western Front under spartan and sometimes hazardous conditions. Despite having served in uniform, however, the Hello Girls were denied veteran status. Though Congress remedied that in 1977, many of them had died by then. Recently lawmakers introduced legislation to formally honor the unit with the Congressional Gold Medal, presented for distinguished achievements that have had a major impact on American his-tory and culture. Past recipients include notable American warriors and military units. Cobbs recently spoke with Military History about her book and why the Hello Girls are deserving of recognition.

Who were the ‘Hello Girls’?

They were a group of 223 young women—some in their teens, most in their 20s and a few “old women” in their 30s—who volunteered at the request of the U.S. Army to go to France and run the telephone system. This was a daring thing. Most soldiers hadn’t even gone yet. These women were in logistics. The Army needed telephone operators over there before the majority of doughboys. They had to facilitate what was happening at the front, to get supplies, to get troops shipped here and there. Some served as long as two years. These women fielded 26 million calls for the Army in France. A handful traveled with General [John J.] Pershing during the big battles of Meuse-Argonne and Saint-Mihiel. Others served at the headquarters of the American First Army, which was close to the front but not in the war zone. They came from all over—from Washington state, down to Louisiana, up to Maine, even Canada. There were some French-Canadian women who volunteered and served with the U.S. Army.

Many served close to or on the front lines. Were any killed or wounded?

None were killed in action, but some did suffer permanent injuries, mostly from tuberculosis, which was common in northern France. Two died from the influenza pandemic, one on Armistice Day, Nov. 11, 1918.

The conditions of World War I were pretty difficult, especially related to the weather these women had to endure in fairly exposed accommodations. Some were under bombardment. Some were in buildings where artillery concussions blew out windows. Once, they were told to evacuate but wouldn’t leave until the soldiers had. These women worked around the clock, especially the supervisors. Chief Operator Grace Banker, who led the first unit, recorded in her diary at the start of an offensive, “I slept two hours today.” They were handling incredibly complex logistical problems near the front lines. They got no breaks; they worked seven days a week, 12-hour shifts for several months during the worst part of the American war effort. It was extremely stressful. Some were close enough to the front lines that their switchboards shook during bombardments.

Of course, these women crossed the ocean to get to Europe in the first place. This was a time when troopships were being sunk. All of these women knew about this, and they were constantly told to use their lifejackets as pillows and wear all of their clothes to bed in case they were torpedoed. It was scary.

this article first appeared in Military History magazine

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What kind of training did they receive?

They went through a very strict recruitment and training. They had to be bilingual in French and English, and many washed out because of that. In fact, 7,600 women applied for the first 100 positions. Many were cut for language reasons, others because they weren’t fast enough on the phone. Once selected, they were vetted extremely carefully, sometimes three and four times, by Army intelligence. These women were literally handling national secrets in the wires they connected. One woman was even pulled off a ship at the last minute, though she turned out to not be the German spy they feared she was.

Once selected, they were trained by AT&T [American Telephone and Telegraph] on the phone system. After that they were sent to New York City, where they were drilled and learned to salute on the rooftop of AT&T headquarters. Once they went to France, the women who were sent toward the front were trained in the use of gas masks and pistols. They wore uniforms and had dog tags; otherwise, they risked being executed as spies if captured. They were told again and again that their uniforms and dog tags were their protection as soldiers of the U.S. Army.

Many were bilingual. How important was that skill?

The first group of 100 female volunteers were all required to be absolutely fluent in French and English. They had these super strict tests, where they had to simultaneously translate and operate a telephone exchange, record everything correctly and communicate accurately under pressure. It’s hard for us to appreciate today how nerve-racking that could be. They were getting hundreds of calls an hour, all of them critically important, truly a matter of life and death. These women felt a great deal of responsibility. They were connecting all kinds of calls, such as between commanders and combat units in the field. There were times when they were even talking with French combat troops. The Army set up its own PBX [private branch exchange] telephone system for communications to and from the front. However, the women often had to connect with French lines and French toll operators. Back then, a toll call would be passed from operator to operator to operator. This was a problem for the American doughboys, who generally did not parlez-vous. Pershing realized he couldn’t get a call to go anywhere, so that’s when they realized they needed people who could do the job and communicate with the Allies at the same time.

Why were women selected as operators?

The Army found it took men 60 seconds on average to connect calls that women connected in 10 seconds. In wartime that was the difference between life and death—for an individual and sometimes for whole battalions. Women were adept at using this technology and had the ability to do it much faster and more reliably than men. They were tested on being able to place calls in two languages, write and convey messages, make life-and-death connections in an instant, all while maintaining their composure and decorum.

Banker received the Distinguished Service Medal. What did she do to earn such recognition?

Chief operator for the Signal Corps, Banker was a remarkable person who was devoted to the American cause during World War I. She led the first female contingent under very challenging and difficult circumstances. At one point she developed a severe allergic rash. A doctor told her she needed to have it taken care of, but she said she didn’t have time. There’s a photo of her in which she looked absolutely terrible. Grace served under the extraordinarily demanding conditions of the Battles of Saint-Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne and was recognized for courageous service. In World War I the U.S. Army awarded only 18 Distinguished Service Medals to Signal Corps officers, of whom 16,000 were eligible. All the honorees were listed by rank. She was listed as “Miss,” because she was a [single] woman.

Why did the War Department deny the ‘Hello Girls’ veteran status?

Their commanding officers begged and pleaded with the War Department to recognize these women who had served alongside them, some in very dire circumstances. Around 11,000 women served with the Navy and Marines during World War I, and every one of them got military benefits, including hospitalization for disabilities. They all served at home in the United States. Only the Army sent women across the ocean into harm’s way, and then denied them veteran status. It was so upsetting and maddening for these women. They were told it would lessen the importance of the meaning of “veteran” if they were to grant women this honor. The Army decided early in the war these women would be contract employees. However, they neither told the vast majority of women, nor gave them any to sign. In fact, women took the same soldier’s oath everybody else did. They wore uniforms but were unaware there was a distinction. Many of the women were flabbergasted when they arrived home and found out they weren’t veterans.

Congress finally recognized them as veterans in 1977. How did that come about?

Their recognition came on the same legislation as the WASPs [Women Airforce Service Pilots], introduced by Senator Barry Goldwater. Goldwater had also been a service pilot in World War II and couldn’t believe that women he’d served with, many who wore the same uniform as him, were not being given veteran benefits. At that time the women of World War I came forward and said, “What about us?” The legislation then covered both groups.

Why award the Hello Girls the Congressional Gold Medal after so many decades?

Because it’s a story that was lost. I’ve met so many women in the Army who’ve said they had no idea this is where their story began. Women today represent 15 percent of the armed forces. It’s a very brave act for any woman to join an organization in which she is going to be in the distinct minority and going against gender expectations. It’s important to say we value female veterans as much as we value male veterans. The Congressional Gold Medal would help all Americans better appreciate the women in our armed services. It would help us recognize that what the Hello Girls did was not only physically courageous, but morally courageous—challenging every social convention at the time in order to help our country. It took a very special person to do that. They performed a heroic service.

This interview appeared in the Autumn 2023 issue of Military History magazine.

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The date was set and preparations were underway. It would be a challenging mission, especially for 1934—a roundtrip flight from Washington, D.C., to Alaska with 10 of the Army Air Corps’ newest bombers, the Martin B-10. If successful, it could provide the air service with some much-needed positive news following an airmail fiasco from the previous winter, while also providing photo-reconnaissance of what was becoming recognized as a strategically important territory.

Lt. Col. Henry H. “Hap” Arnold would lead the mission. He had been taught to fly by the Wright brothers and was one of the world’s first military pilots. Later Arnold would be remembered as “the father of the Air Force” and his leadership of this difficult assignment foretold his future as commanding general of the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II. “Arnold was a visionary,” says Dik A. Daso, author of Hap Arnold and the Evolution of American Airpower and Architects of American Air Supremacy. “He had a way of seeing the technology and recognizing what it was capable of, then compelling his people to do it. You see that time and time and time again.”

The operation also focused attention on junior officers who would also play important roles in the approaching global conflict. These men—Ralph Royce, Malcolm Grow, Harold McClelland and others—flew the airplanes, led photo-reconnaissance missions, coordinated logistics and handled other key assignments. Many were later promoted to crucial commands as America fought the air war across Europe and the Pacific. According to a 2011 Air Power History article by Kenneth P. Worrell, the Alaskan flight “brought together a select group of airmen who in a few short years would rise to top air force leadership roles during World War II.” 

By the summer of 1934, the Army Air Corps was desperate for positive publicity. Earlier that year, a scandal had erupted over airmail contracts awarded during President Herbert H. Hoover’s administration. The new president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, canceled those contracts and ordered the Air Corps to fly the mail until the government negotiated new agreements with the airlines.

That effort was a disaster, serving only to expose the Air Corps’ inadequacies. Most of the aircraft it flew were antiquated World War I bombers that lacked the rudimentary communication and navigation technology necessary to deliver the mail. Much of the flying happened after dark and during the extreme weather conditions of a harsh winter. Absent adequate avionics and pilots skilled in nighttime flying, the Air Corps suffered a series of tragic mishaps. In less than two months, Army aircraft had 66 major accidents—resulting in the deaths of 13 crewmembers. By the time private carriers resumed flying the routes that spring, the Air Corps’ reputation had suffered severe damage. Congress launched an investigation and called General Benjamin Foulois, chief of the Air Corps, and Lt. Col. Oscar Westover, the assistant chief of the air wing, to testify.

To recover from the debacle, the Air Corps brass decided to undertake a daring 8,290-mile roundtrip flight from Bolling Field in Washington, D.C., to Fairbanks, Alaska. In 1934, the American territory—not yet a state—seemed impossibly remote. Fairbanks was about 2,000 miles away from Seattle, Washington, and there were few transportation options to reach any point in Alaska. No highways connected this faraway land to the rest of the United States and just a few rail lines reached it via Canada. Of course, in 1934 nonstop air flights from the continental United States would have been difficult and dangerous.

At the time, many Americans viewed Alaska as a remote backwater with little strategic importance. One who did not was airpower advocate Billy Mitchell. In 1935, the former colonel would address Congress about the territory’s value. “I believe that in the future, whoever holds Alaska will hold the world,” he said. “I think it is the most important strategic place in the world.”

In addition to focusing America’s attention on Alaska, the mission would showcase the Air Corps’ newest bomber: the Martin B-10. Looking like something out of a “Flash Gordon” comic, the oddly shaped aircraft sported greenhouse-like canopies and a bulbous nose jutting out beneath a glass-enclosed gun turret. It may have looked unusual, but the B-10 represented a revolution in aviation design. It was a huge leap forward from the Army’s existing biplane bomber, the lumbering Keystone LB series that had entered service after World War I. A monoplane with an all-metal airframe and a crew of three, the B-10 had an enclosed cockpit and rotating gun turret, and its twin 775-hp Wright R-1820-33 Cyclone engines gave it a range of more than 1,200 miles. It had retractable landing gear, an internal bomb bay and sleek NACA engine cowlings that reduced drag.

The B-10 emerged from the Baltimore, Maryland, company founded by Glenn L. Martin, an aviation pioneer and pilot who had set numerous flying records. Starting out as the Martin Model 123, which made its debut flight in February 1932, the airplane was tested by the Army as the XB-907 and then modified into the XB-10. The Air Corps was impressed enough to order 48 of the airplanes, and then an additional 103 of the upgraded B-10B.

In his upcoming book, From Vision to Victory: General Hap Arnold’s Journey Creating America’s Air Force, Robert Arnold, Hap Arnold’s grandson, notes the significance of the B-10’s advances. “At last, the Air Corps had a sleek, streamlined, 200-mile-per-hour, mid-wing monoplane that could really get up and move,” he recalls his father, the late Col. W. Bruce Arnold of the Air Force, as saying. “By God it was metal. It had retractable landing gear. Basically, it was a junior version of the B-17 yet to come. It was the whole future of Army Air Corps aviation right there in one airplane.”

The future did take some getting used to, though. Two of the Army airplanes that crashed delivering the mail were XB-10s, accidents that happened because the pilots forgot to lower the retractable landing gear.

The plans for the Alaska trip called for 10 B-10s to make the flight, with stops in Dayton, Ohio; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and the Canadian cities of Winnipeg, Manitoba; Regina, Saskatchewan; Edmonton, Alberta; Prince George and Hazelton, British Columbia; and Whitehorse, Yukon. Initially, Westover was supposed to lead the mission, but he had to remain in Washington to deal with Congress in the wake of the airmail issues. So, in June 1934, Colonel Arnold was on his way to Wyoming for a fishing trip with his wife when he received orders to return to Washington and take charge of the Alaska flight. The last-minute notice, Arnold later commented, created “a great deal of unnecessary worry, labor and money. Months of warning should have been given to responsible authority instead of a few days.” 

In some respects, Arnold was a surprising choice as commander. On one hand, he was a respected military pilot with a solid record of success as an administrator in various Air Corps departments, as well as a commander of March Field in California. Arnold had won the very first Mackay Trophy for “most outstanding military flight of the year” in 1912 for a successful air reconnaissance mission he flew despite turbulent conditions. However, he had also run afoul of military brass as an acolyte of Billy Mitchell, who had been court-martialed in 1925 after accusing his superiors of “treasonable negligence” in the management of their duties. Arnold had testified for Mitchell at the court-martial and the Army responded by angrily packing him off to a post in the backwater of Fort Riley, Kansas. In the years since, Arnold had managed to prove his worth to Foulois and Westover, who saw his value as a leader and planner. 

Indeed, the new mission commander immediately found himself drawn into a maelstrom of preparation and planning. “Arnold had experience in logistics from World War I,” says Daso, who is also executive director of the Air Force Historical Foundation. “He understood that a lot of calculations needed to be made in advance. He was the intellectual power behind the logistical deployment of all the supplies they were going to need for the flight.” Those supplies included making sure there was plenty of fuel, oil, spare parts and other materiel necessities for the airplanes and crews.

Arnold soon realized the intended start date of July 10 did not leave him enough time to prepare. He postponed the takeoff date. Foulois, his boss, was not pleased. Arnold stuck to his decision, writing to his wife, Eleanor “Bee” Arnold, that “I was holding the sack with regards to safety, hazard, success and risk. I in turn told them I would not say when I would start on the flight until the planes were ready.”

The trip was complicated by a longshoremen’s strike on the West Coast, which would hinder the delivery of supplies to Alaska. Canadian rail services couldn’t handle it all, so Arnold had to arrange additional sea transport. The U.S. Navy wasn’t inclined to assist its rival branch, so the Army located an old barge that could carry half the fuel.

In the meantime, departure was delayed by the installation and testing of new radios for the B-10s. The delay was worth it because the new equipment demonstrated just how important technology was for the future of flight. “This is the first distance flight where radio contact is maintained with the ground for the entire time,” Daso says. “It’s a gamechanger in avionics.”

The original plan called for 20 officers and 10 enlisted men. Realizing the need for ongoing maintenance, Arnold changed the roster to 14 and 16, respectively. “I prefer mechanics to joy riders,” he told Westover. Also, four officers and four enlisted men would support the fliers from four Douglas O-38 observation airplanes while an advance team of four went ahead to Alaska. The B-10s received extra fuel tanks to extend their range from 1,240 miles to 1,370, and were outfitted with cameras so they could conduct reconnaissance operations over Alaska.

The mission roster included a long list of future World War II aviation leaders. Operations officer Major Ralph Royce would go on to lead the very first bombing mission against the Japanese in the Philippines; communications and meteorological officer Captain Harold M. McClelland became known as the “father of Air Force communications”; and executive officer Major Hugh J. Knerr later ensured that U.S. forces had adequate supplies of bombs and bombers in Europe during the war. “A whole bunch of general officers pop out of this flight,” Robert Arnold says. “Typical of Hap, he begins accumulating them along the way so they can play major roles for him later.” 

Arnold also added Major Malcolm Grow as flight surgeon. He wanted the experienced military doctor along to make sure the men were handling the stress of the arduous journey. In addition, Grow had served in Alaska as post surgeon at Chilkoot Barracks from 1925 to 1927. During World War II, Grow received credit for developments that helped save the lives of bomber crews, including a new lightweight body armor. He later became the first surgeon general of the U.S. Air Force.

Arnold felt confident that he would be ready for a July 19 departure from Washington, D.C. That day, after ceremonies attended by Foulois and Elliott Roosevelt, one of the president’s sons, the B-10s left Bolling Field for Alaska. With Arnold at the controls of the lead bomber, the airplanes began roaring down the runway and taking to the air at 10:01 a.m. All 10 aircraft made a pass over Washington, D.C., then headed west for Dayton for refueling before traveling to Minneapolis for the first overnight stay.

The mission encountered problems almost immediately. Two of the Martins had mechanical difficulties and turned back for repairs. They caught up with the rest of the squadron in Minnesota later that same day. The rest of the flight went according to plan, except for an added day in Edmonton that Arnold ordered so maintenance crews had plenty of time to do necessary work. The only downside, at least according to the squadron commander, were the crowds gathered at each stop to see the unusual airplanes and the men flying them. “I’m getting goodwilled to death,” Arnold wrote in a letter to his wife.

On July 24, the squadron landed in Fairbanks, where the mayor declared a two-day holiday in honor of the mission and presented Arnold with the key to the city. After a series of celebrations, the aircrews got down to the business of photographing Alaska from the sky.

There was only one glitch during the three-week stay in the northern territory. On August 2, two B-10s and two of the O-38 support aircraft were in Anchorage on a goodwill mission and to conduct photo reconnaissance. A pilot from one of the Douglas airplanes was at the controls of one of the bombers, which he had only flown a few times, and he turned a fuel valve in the wrong direction, causing the engines to quit on takeoff. (Arnold had committed the same error earlier in the journey, but at a higher altitude that allowed him to recover in time.) The B-10 made a forced landing about 100 feet from the shore in Cook Inlet. There was no major damage, except for immersion in the ocean. “We are salvaging the plane now,” the squadron commander wrote to Bee. “However, I doubt if the plane will ever be used again on account of the salt water bath.”

 The extra mechanics Arnold brought with him saved the day. They had the bomber back in service within a few days after salvaging it and rebuilding the engines. “They are a mighty fine bunch,” Arnold said proudly of his enlisted men.

The squadron left for the return trip on August 17, with Arnold leading the airplanes and pilots in a long flight across the Pacific Ocean to Seattle, much to the irritation of the U.S. Navy, which claimed its aircraft had jurisdiction over the seas. The team then hopped across the country, stopping at Salt Lake City, Utah; North Platte and Omaha, Nebraska; and Wright Field in Dayton before landing in Washington, D.C., on August 20.

During their stay in Alaska, the Air Corps airmen received many gifts, including a totem pole. They brought it back in one of the bombers, which nearly had to be dismantled to remove it. Alaska citizens also presented them with several sled-dog puppies, which the crews also took back with them. One of the pups made an unscheduled appearance at the formal return ceremony at Bolling Field. “[W]hatever military formality they had mustered disappeared quickly when a half-pint size Eskimo pup piled out of one of the big ships and broke into the crowd of officers,” reported the Washington Post. 

The canine incursion notwithstanding, the mission generated plenty of positive media coverage. “This is a public success, particularly after the airmail fiasco,” Robert Arnold says. “It is a big deal. Going to Alaska in those days was like going to the moon now. Airplanes just didn’t do things like that then. Hap always said he was lucky to be at the right place at the right time.”

The flight earned Arnold a second Mackay Trophy and the Distinguished Flying Cross, which he received in 1937. Some of his pilots expressed irritation that he alone received the medal. Knerr, in particular, held it against Arnold for decades. Only much later did he learn that Arnold had lobbied for all of his pilots to receive the honor, and had even gone up the chain of command to ask Army Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Douglas MacArthur to award it to his men. MacArthur denied the request.

Arnold was obviously on the rise. That fall, he testified about the Alaskan flight and other issues before the Federal Aviation Commission in Washington. Toward the end of his testimony, a committee member asked him a politically sensitive question: given the chance, could Arnold “straighten out” the Air Corps? The colonel paused, then said, “If I were given the authority, I am sure that I could.”

The die had been cast. Foulois, still reeling from the airmail debacle, retired as chief of the Air Corps in 1935. His assistant, Westover, replaced him and selected the newly promoted Brig. Gen. Hap Arnold as his second-in-command. When Westover died in an airplane crash in 1938, Arnold found himself at the head of the Army Air Corps even as the world was moving inexorably toward world war. Under his leadership, the Army Air Corps (later the Army Air Forces) evolved from a small branch of the U.S. military into the world’s leading air power within seven years.

In many ways, the Alaskan flight set the stage for what was to come. Hap Arnold’s reputation soared after the mission demonstrated his abilities as a leader and planner at a crucial moment in history. When Arnold died in January 1950, he was (and remains) the only man to hold the rank of five-star general in both the Army and Air Force.

“Hap was a man in a hurry and impatient,” says his grandson Robert Arnold. “He didn’t like failure but he was not a man set in cement. He talked about having character and the strength of your own convictions, but you also have to be able to see what’s going on and be able to adapt. That’s what made him different.” 

this article first appeared in AVIATION HISTORY magazine

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In 1861, 9-year-old John Clem ran away from home and joined the Union Army, serving as a drummer boy in the 22nd Michigan Infantry. That much is known for sure. After that, the historical record becomes murky, as the legend of “Johnny Shiloh” overshadowed the truth.

In fact, Clem was never at Shiloh because his unit wasn’t mustered into service until months after the bloody battle. In addition, his birth name was Klem. How and why it changed, no one seems to know.

When it comes to writing about underage boys serving in the Civil War, separating fact from fiction is a tall order. Historians Frances M. Clarke and Rebecca Jo Plant have slashed through the fog of war to present a data-driven document that is both enlightening and unnerving in detailing the incredible numbers of youth who marched off to war in a divided country.

Of Age: Boy Soldiers and Military Power in the Civil War Era dispels the myths and dives deep into the hard reality of how both sides ignored minimum enlistment ages and admitted countless boys into military service. By their reckoning, the authors determined that at least 10 percent of Union troops were under the legal age of 21 (later 18 with an act of Congress)—far higher than the 1.6 percent estimated by previous historians. Confederate numbers were likely just as high, though more difficult to confirm due to a lack of records.

Of Age

Boy Soldiers and Military Power in the Civil War Era

By Frances M. Clarke and Rebecca Jo Plant

Oxford University Press, 2023

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In a scholarly report, the book provides often disturbing insight into a society that gave little regard to the welfare of these young soldiers, often refusing to return underage recruits to distraught parents after proof of minority was established. In the North, the suspension of habeas corpus presented Union officers with the added excuse they needed to ignore family pleas.

Of Age: Boy Soldiers and Military Power in the Civil War Era is filled with accounts of teens on both sides who heroically answered the call of duty and the tragedy of so many who met their fate on the battlefield or succumbed to the rigors of a military life that was wholly unsuited to young minds and bodies. It is a thorough history with detailed analysis of statistics, conditions, norms, and legal precedence of the day.

This eye-opening examination of a power struggle to maintain enlistment levels demonstrates the cost in terms of morality and human rights. While a savage war challenged the values of all members of society, it particularly assaulted the innocence of American youth for the sake of victory at all costs. The physical and psychological impact of war on boy soldiers—both North and South—altered a wounded society’s view of the age of consent for combat.

This article first appeared in America’s Civil War magazine

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In the spring of 1945, Wally King was a young lieutenant flying a Republic P-47 Thunderbolt over Germany. During King’s last combat mission, his plane was hit by flak and he bailed out over enemy territory. He survived the last few weeks of World War II in captivity but was able to return home, raise a family, and start a successful career as a CPA, eventually owning one of the largest accounting firms in Pittsburgh. Today, the 99-year-old veteran serves as a volunteer for the Meals on Wheels program, visiting shut-ins and the infirm near his home in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. The active almost-centenarian spoke with World War II about his military career.

How did you end up in the army?

I turned 18 and graduated high school in 1942 in my hometown in Ohio. I went to the recruiting office and said I wanted to be a pilot. He said, “Let me sign you up and then once you’re in the army, you can ask to go for pilot training.”

Well, I didn’t fall for that. So they told me to go to Cleveland to apply for pilot training. I was called up for active duty in January 1943 and went through basic training. 

I trained on P-40s in Tallahassee, Florida. Nice solid airplane, but certainly way behind other aircraft by that time. Then I shipped over to England in 1944 and went to Goxhill airfield on the North Sea to fly the P-51. Probably got about 30 hours in the air there. Then, after D-Day they flew us over to A-1 Airfield behind Utah Beach. I was assigned to the 363rd Fighter Group. 

A few days later, the army deactivated the unit because they needed more photo reconnaissance. We could stay with Mustangs that had cameras in their bellies or transfer to fighter groups, which is what we did. I went to Le Mans and joined the 513th Squadron of the 406th Fighter Group in the Ninth Air Force. The operations officer took me out to a P-47 Thunderbolt for a cockpit check and then told me to fly it. The next day I flew my first combat mission. 

How did the P-47 compare to the P-51?

The Thunderbolt was a totally different airplane than the Mustang. It was much easier to fly. The P-47 was also a better ground-support airplane. It was a very honest fighter that didn’t have any quirky habits and could take a lot of punishment. One time, we hit a German night fighter field. I was flying low and looked over to my wingman, who was going down this concrete runway. I could see this fire on the end of his propeller. He was grinding it on the concrete! About five inches of his blade was gone. I never really had any major damage on the missions that I flew, except for the last one. The P-47 was a durable, tough machine. 

You flew 75 missions during the war. What type of action did you experience?

Most of the time, we would fly along the battlefield and look for enemy vehicles. After the Falaise Gap [in mid-August 1944], the Germans were afraid to move because they would get strafed. We rarely saw vehicles on the road. Never saw many tanks. I did see a couple of Tigers, but we didn’t have anything that would damage them. If they were on a hard surface road, we would strafe the back of it and bounce the bullets up underneath to the fuel tanks. I did that once but can’t say it was effective.

Our targets were mostly marshaling yards, rail traffic, road bridges, and just cutting railroad lines. We’d send one plane down and drop bombs to blow the railroad tracks, then send another one a few miles away to do the same thing.

The most memorable mission was when the Ardennes Offensive began [on December 16, 1944]. Our group provided air cover during the Battle of the Bulge. We hadn’t flown for a week or more until the weather cleared a couple of days before Christmas. Our goal was to quiet the flak before air drops of supplies were made around Bastogne. We couldn’t see anything because of the snow cover, so we bombed, fired rockets, and strafed the woods. Once the C-47 Dakotas pushed out supplies, a whole army of ants appeared out of the white snow. These guys had been dug in and started dragging those supplies into town. 

What other missions did you fly?

Our squadron had the undesirable task of beating up flak before a parachute drop on the Rhine River near Wesel in March 1945. When we saw the line of transport planes coming, we went down to make a strafing pass. As I was coming up, the C-47s had already started dropping their people. A paratrooper went right over my wing! I thought, “This is suicide!” It looked like Dante’s Inferno. These C-47s were burning, they had engines out, paratroopers were being dropped in the river, gliders were crashing and, of course, the air was filled with flak. It looked to me like a colossal failure, but it wasn’t. They got pontoon bridges over the river and the tanks went across. 

Let’s talk about your last mission, which you were told would be your last.

They called for an eight-plane mission on April 18, 1945. I was leading the second flight. I said to the squadron commander, “This is my 75th mission. Don’t you think it’s time to quit?” He said, “Yeah. This is going to be your last mission.” Little did I know!

The army had reached the Elbe River and crossed over just south of Magdeburg. We were looking for targets of opportunity. On our way home, my wingman spotted a cannon on a railroad car and wanted to go after it. So we buzzed down to take a look.

I was pretty low but I wasn’t strafing. All of a sudden, there was a boom. I knew I had been hit in the engine by flak. Soon, fire was coming over the windshield. I looked down at my feet and saw the armor plate in front of the cockpit was melting. I said, “Time to go, Wally!” I was like a cork out of a bottle! The chute opened and I was upside down. I got myself upright and I heard this noise whizzing by. I thought it was bees. It was civilians shooting rifles! I started swaying to make myself a poor target. I drifted over this house into the backyard. I got down and could see the Elbe River. I thought maybe I could float downstream to an American bridge. I’d gone about 100 yards toward the river when this little boy tripped me. Then these guys showed up with rifles. I just put my hands up and surrendered. They took me into the house where a medic started working on me. I had burns on my face, a broken wrist, and a bad ankle.

Then two German soldiers came in. They smashed me across the side with their guns and knocked me off a stool I was sitting on. They hauled me out into the yard where the civilians started beating me. I’m pretty terrified. I am in the toughest situation of my life and I’ve never even thought about God. Once I said that, the most sublime peace settled over me. I felt God had come to take me home. That sense stayed with me for the two weeks I was a prisoner. Whatever happened to me was going to be all right.

The soldiers took me to a bunker, where this big, burly noncom was going to rearrange my teeth. A German officer just shoved him and started screaming. From what I could get, he was saying, “Would you like our pilots to be treated this way?”

It wasn’t long before a Mercedes staff car pulled up with two Wehrmacht officers. They brought me to a major, who looked like he had just walked off a movie set. There was all this destruction everywhere and he was dressed immaculately. He started asking me ques-tions and I answered name, rank, and serial number. Just then the door banged open and in comes a Luftwaffe major, who was also immaculately dressed. They started shouting at each other. I knew what it was about. The Wehrmacht had no authority to hold American airmen. He was supposed to turn me over to the Luftwaffe. 

So the Luftwaffe major took me to a dispensary where a medic starts working on me. He says, “You’re a lucky guy. The people in that village killed a bomber crew yesterday.” 

A few days later, we evacuated the building. They took me to a house near the Russian front where other Americans were being treated. I was there for nearly two weeks and had little food. There were several American patients, but most were unconscious. An American captain told me he wanted to take these guys to a bridgehead about 40 miles away because no one was caring for them. Somehow, he found a couple of ambulances with fuel. So off we went with a German doctor and these other German soldiers, who had surrendered since the war was all but over now.

We made it to this castle, which looked like something you’d see at Disneyland. A lady came down and handed us keys to the fruit cellar. She said if the Russians get close, we should destroy all the food. This German officer said, “The Russians are close enough. Let’s eat!” So they made this big meal, which was the first real food I had had in two weeks. Then I found a bed in the castle—the biggest I had ever seen in my life—and went to sleep.

The next day, we headed for the American lines. Because of the German soldiers, we avoided the SS since they would kill these men for surrendering. We left after dark with no lights. American soldiers on a Jeep with a .50-caliber machine gun found us and guided us the rest of the way. We kept stopping so they could drag anti-tank mines off the road. We finally got there and they took me to the medical tent. They cleaned me up and took care of my burns and injuries. The next day, I was flown out with other burn patients to a hospital in France. I was there for about eight weeks. They finally sent me home on a Liberty ship loaded with cargo, tanks, and halftracks.

You went back to Europe last year as part of a Normandy tour. What was that like? 

Delta flew us on a charter right to the beachhead—the first commercial airliner ever to land there. I wanted to find A-1, the first airstrip I landed at with the Mustang. I was near Sainte-Mère-Église, behind Utah Beach. My guide and I went to look for the airstrip. It was almost dark and we were about to give up when I spotted this monument. It said this was the site of A-1. I walked up this road that could have been the runway. I felt like I had been there before. It was a strange feeling standing on that spot where I had been 78 years ago.

You talk to groups about your experiences. What do you tell them?

I’m not a rah-rah-boy-we-won-the-war type of guy. I tell them that war is a nasty, dirty, evil business. There is nothing glamorous or glorious about war. I also tell them not all Germans were bad guys. That German doctor risked his own life for the Americans in his care. I wonder how many of those wounded guys would have made it if not for him. 

I’m troubled by the fact that the U.S. college students and the high school students know nothing about World War II. Contrast that with France. We visited a school there and they were so engaged. They knew their history and asked intelligent questions. The headmaster asked the last question: “What advice do you have for these students?” I said, “Put down your cell phones and love one another.”

this article first appeared in world war II magazine

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Francis Whitebird hails from a long line of soldiers. His great-grandfather, grandfather and father all saw service in the U.S. Army dating back nearly 150 years. At the outset of the Vietnam War he honored that family legacy and the warrior tradition of the Rosebud Lakotas of South Dakota by enlisting. Whitebird endured 19 months of intense fighting as a combat medic in 1969 and ’70. After the war he graduated from Harvard, became a teacher, served in tribal government, received a presidential appointment to a national advisory committee and worked to preserve the Lakota language. He also raised two sons, Colin and Brendan, who carried on the family tradition by joining the Army and fighting in Iraq. At the 2022 National Memorial Day Concert in Washington, D.C., actors and co-hosts Gary Sinise and Joe Mantegna honored Whitebird in person for his service. Military History recently sat down with the 80-year-old veteran to learn more about his experiences and legacy of service.

You didn’t set out to be a medic. How did that transpire?

Well, I volunteered for the infantry. After basic training they assigned me to Fort Sam Houston [in San Antonio, Texas], where there was a center to train all the medics. Wherever the Army is, of course, they have to have medical support, and so we wind up all over the place. I wound up with an infantry company as a combat medic.

When you’re assigned to an infantry company, you’re in charge of a platoon—about 40 men. In addition to wounds, you treat them for heat casualties, sores and other injuries. There’s something in Vietnam called elephant grass, and when you pass through it, it cuts into your arms. There’s other stuff like jungle rot and creeping crud. I don’t know their scientific names, but that’s what we called them. There’s also mosquitoes and leeches and whatnot.

Some men experienced malaria and sprains. Leg injuries were common, because we’d be up in the mountains, and people would twist their ankles. It’s a full-time job just to keep them healthy. Then you get into a firefight, and you have to drag them back, treat them and get them out of there.

You have to earn your Combat Medical Badge, just like the Combat Infantryman Badge. You have to serve at least two months in a jungle or get into four firefights, and then they give it to you. You earn it through longevity. I was assigned to the 196th Light Infantry Brigade as a platoon medic with Bravo Company for two months, then became company medic for Charlie Company, where I was in charge of three medics.

What was it like serving as a combat medic in Vietnam?

For the first nine months when I was the company medic for Charlie Company, we went through 27 medics. That was, like, one medic per platoon per month killed or wounded. When somebody starts yelling, “Medic!” they’re counting on you. I don’t know why we do it. I guess we’re young and foolish and don’t know any better.

I remember the Battle of Hiep Duc. The fourth longest battle in Vietnam, it went for 13 days. Infantry companies were being rotated in and out. We had lots of casualties. That was in August of 1969—same time as Woodstock. That battle followed Hamburger Hill. I always thought, Why didn’t they just pull us back and B-52 the place? Some general probably wanted to earn another star. Anyway, at that battle there was a guy named Rocky Bleier, who later played for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was wounded there. He has a great story about recovery and going into the NFL.

At Hiep Duc my company hit booby traps—they call them IEDs now. They were strung out along the top of the hill. We had 38 casualties, and my three medics went down. I collected all the morphine syrettes and started treating people. If one needed a shot of morphine, I gave him one and then just kept going. We were lucky there were no fatalities.

After the third booby trap went off, I called for the “Dustoff”—that’s what we called the medevac helicopter. I put on the guy who set off the booby traps—his name was Marty, and he was from Vermont. He was filled with wounds. I had already given him a shot of morphine. As I was putting him on the chopper, he looked at me and said, “Doc, I’ll see you back in the world,” and gave me a peace sign. He was just smiling, because the morphine had kicked in. I did meet him again, at a reunion in St. Louis in 1988. And he came over with his family and told them, “This is the guy who saved me.” That means a lot when somebody does that. When people thank me for saving their lives, I tell them, “I’m only one—there are nurses and doctors that take care of you too.” One of them said, “Yeah, but you’re the one who pulled me out of the line of fire.”

Tell us about your own experience of being wounded.

I was hit by shrapnel from an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade]. A large sliver hit my side, and it burned like hell. It came in so hot, it cauterized the wound. I used clamps to pull out the shrapnel and threw it away. There was a big firefight at the time. I was running toward somebody who was wounded when I got hit. So I just put on a piece of tape to keep the dirt out and kept on going. Other people needed my help.

this article first appeared in Military History magazine

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How did you deal with fear when helping the wounded amid a firefight?

Adrenaline kicks in. It takes over, and you don’t have that fear. You do what you’re trained to do—go in there and get the guy out. I didn’t think about fear; I just thought about saving the guy. After the firefight adrenaline is still in your body. Sometimes, you’re just shaking from it. You think, Holy crap! I survived that! Then you go on to the next battle.

Of course, there’s always the possibility you could get killed. When I was in jungle training, this instructor said that in a firefight the longevity of an officer, RTO [radio telephone operator] or medic is about 90 seconds. I thought, Oh, no, I’m dead.

You must have been under incredible stress. How did you handle it?

Well, there’s only so much you can take. In that humidity and heat you could smell human blood. It gets on your hands, on your jungle fatigues. You don’t go back and take a shower. I think the longest we stayed in the jungle was 69 days. You just need to go day by day and survive. Don’t worry about the future.

One of the loneliest times was radio watch. Every half hour the men had to check in with a squelch on their radios so we knew they were awake. You’re lying there in between check-ins, and you think about home. You think about different things and how you should have done them. Some of the people were married, and some had girlfriends. Of course they think about them. There was nothing to do.

The worst times were when guys got a “Dear John” letter. Their minds weren’t right. In the next firefight they wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. We called it the “John Wayne syndrome.” It didn’t happen very often, but it happened. So, to get away from that, we’d send them to the rear, get them drunk a couple of days, and they’d come back feeling better.

Describe your Lakota family’s time-honored warrior tradition.

One of my great-grandfathers was an Indian scout for Company E of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry, and I have an uncle who was a World War I vet with the infantry. We [Lakotas of the Rosebud Indian Reservation] had, I think, 200 people serving in World War I when probably fewer than 5,000 people lived on the reservation. My uncle was with the American Expeditionary Force in Siberia.

In World War II my dad was a Lakota code talker. He took an oath that he could not tell anyone about it. Not like the Navajos in the Pacific. After World War II [the Navajo code talkers] were beating their chests and jumping up and down. There were about 30 tribes involved as code talkers in Europe then, and they all took an oath they could not tell anyone, because the United States might go to war with Russia.

Code talking started in World War I. There were zero Navajo code talkers and about 40 Lakota code talkers then. There was even a team of code talkers in Korea. They never talked about it until 1968, when they lifted the ban. My dad told me then he was a code talker.

What was it like to receive public recognition at the 2022 National Memorial Day Concert?

To tell you the truth, I thought I was going to be among a whole bunch. I didn’t know I was one of two people being honored. I knew I was into something when they put us in the front row. My good friend from Vietnam, Paul Critchlow, was with me. He’s from Omaha, Neb., and was a paratrooper pathfinder.

How did Vietnam change your life?

Change came very slowly. First of all, I had to deal with PTSD, which I did by running 5 miles a day. Then I went to Harvard for four years. It didn’t really sink in, though, until I attended a “rap group” at the VA. It was for combat people, and it was the first time I told stories about my combat experience to anyone. That really helped. The other thing that was helpful was something English speakers call a sweat lodge. It really should be called a prayer lodge, because that’s what you do. It cleanses your body but also cleanses your mind. Praying is primary, sweating secondary. When we started doing these prayer lodges, a lot of the combat people started coming in and getting better. You’ve got to let the stories out. I keep telling my kids, “Tell your story.”

Do you ever wonder how you survived Vietnam and so many other challenges?

You know, I’m a cancer survivor for 19 years—probably got it from Agent Orange—and, well, I’m doing okay. I’m still aboveground!

This story appeared in the 2023 Summer issue of Military History magazine.

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In World War II, thousands of Japanese American soldiers served their country as translators in the Pacific Theater. Bruce Henderson’s new book examines this little-known story about the Nisei—first-generation Americans born of Japanese parents—who fought against their ancestral homeland. Bridge to the Sun: The Secret Role of the Japanese Americans Who Fought in the Pacific in World War II details the experiences of some of these soldiers. Henderson, a New York Times bestselling author of several histories about World War II, talked with World War II about the book.

Why did you decide to write this book?

I came to it in a serendipitous way. I was researching my last book on the Ritchie Boys—Sons and Soldiers: The Untold Story of the Jews Who Escaped the Nazis and Returned with the U.S. Army to Fight Hitler—and I came across information about the Japanese Americans who fought in Europe. I knew about that. But then I read there were several thousand Japanese American soldiers who trained for the Pacific Theater. I’ve written World War II books and I didn’t know that. I figured most people probably didn’t know it, either. 

I circled back when I finished the Ritchie Boys and found that there were strong parallels between them. Both were trained in secret for identical missions, only in opposite theaters of war. And each endured their own brand of prejudice and distrust. Many of the Ritchie Boys were Jewish Germans with accents. Of course, the Nisei and their families were rounded up and put in camps because they were not trusted. Both had to overcome those barriers to become valuable assets for the U.S. military. They knew the language, culture, and customs of our country’s enemies better than anyone and could gather valuable intelligence. 

In your book, you focus on a select cadre of soldiers. Why?

I tell a bigger story through the lives of a few. I want readers to get to know these men. I want readers to know what they’re thinking, feeling, and fearing. I feature the Kibei, who are Nisei educated in Japan. It was not uncommon then for immigrant parents to send their sons back to the homeland. These boys were as American as anybody. But when the war broke out with Japan, our government didn’t trust them as ethnic Japanese. Over 60 percent of folks in the internment camps were American citizens. Then, four or five months into the war, the army realizes they need this language skill in the Pacific. 

Many Nisei raised by immigrant parents could speak a little Japanese but were not fluent in reading and writing. However, the Kibei were. Suddenly they went from being the most distrusted to being the most desired by the army. Even though they’re in the internment camps, the great majority of these young men were ready to prove their loyalty. 

Kazuo Komoto was the first Nisei wounded in the war. He was shot in the knee in July 1943 at New Georgia Island in the Solomons and ends up in his hospital in Fiji. Who comes by his bed? Eleanor Roosevelt! We actually found a picture of that moment. He told the president’s wife how unfair it was that his family was behind barbed wire while he was being shot at. Later, he admitted to feeling guilty about challenging the president’s wife but, by God, he wanted to let her know how he felt. 

What kind of bigotry did these men have to endure?

Komoto was still recovering when he left the hospital, so he went to visit his family in Arizona. He stopped at a store because he heard the interned didn’t have fresh meat. The butcher looks at him and says, “I don’t sell to Japs.” Komoto, who is in his uniform with his ribbons, answers, “I’m not a Jap. I’m an American.” The butcher looked him over said, “Well, what do you want?” Here is this guy who’s fighting for his country and this is what he faces his first time back. 

That’s why I thought it was time for this story. We’re in a country where anti-immigrant sentiments are still prevalent. Too often, America still prejudges based on race, ethnicity, country of origin. Bridge to the Sun is a timeless message of what true patriotism is all about. 

Why don’t we know this story? 

For starters, it was highly secret during the war. We didn’t want the Japanese to know we had teams in the Pacific with these skills. The Japanese were arrogant about their language. They felt Westerners, even if they could hold a conversation, weren’t going to be able to read or write it. In Burma, Roy Matsumoto of Merrill’s Marauders climbed up a tree and listened on a telephone line as Japanese soldiers spoke without using a code. They are at an ammunition dump and Roy figures out the coordinates so they can destroy it. That’s why it was so secret. 

There weren’t a whole lot of men who served over there. Only about 4,000 made it to the Pacific, compared to something like 20,000 Japanese Americans who fought in Europe. They served in small 10- to 12-man teams, so there wasn’t a lot of camaraderie like the bigger units. After the war, they got busy living their lives, going to school, working, raising families. They just didn’t talk about it. Some families tell me they didn’t realize the stuff their dads did. It wasn’t something these men freely shared. 

Considering what the Nisei experienced, where did their fighting spirit come from?

These guys had several motivations. There was anger because they went from being 1A to 4C for the draft, meaning they couldn’t serve at first. They were not good enough to defend their country. They also wanted out of the detention camps. They wanted to win the war in the Pacific so they could get their families out of the camps. 

All they wanted to do was serve their country. One Japanese mother told her Nisei son, “This is America. It’s your country. It’s not my country, nor your father’s country. You must defend it and make us proud.” Those boys went to war with that message ringing in their ears. 

Tell us more about Roy Matsumoto.

Roy was born in California and went to school in Japan. He was ready to come home when his parents moved back to Japan, so he lived there with them. Roy went back to America and was living in L.A. with his sister when the war broke out. He was highly agitated when he found out he could not join the army. Then he and other Japanese Americans were rounded up and sent to a camp in Arizona. Recruiters were looking for these fellows who could speak, read, and write Japanese. Roy signed up and went to Camp Savage [U.S. Military Intelligence’s language school in Minnesota]. Then he volunteered for Merrill’s Marauders. He was one of 12 with that team. They were translators but they were in combat in Burma, fighting alongside the riflemen. Roy became a true hero when his battalion was surrounded on a mountaintop and were in danger of being overrun. At night, he crawled through the brush and got close enough where he hears Japanese soldiers talking about the next day’s battle. Before heading out, Roy leaves his helmet and gun behind and takes two hand grenades with him. His lieutenant asked him why. Roy said, “One is for them and one is for me.”

Roy comes back and tells his superiors where the Japanese are going to attack. The Americans rig the area with explosives and set up fields of fire. When the first wave attacked, the Japanese were mowed down. The second wave hesitated when they saw all the dead bodies. Roy stood up and yelled in Japanese, “Charge, charge, charge!” The second wave was annihilated, too. Something like 60 or 70 Japanese soldiers were killed but not a single American died. When Merrill’s Marauders started having reunions, Roy was always honored as the hero of the Second Battalion for what he did that day in Burma. 

Who are some of the other heroes?

Takejiro Higa was born in Hawaii to Okinawan parents. He was taken to Okinawa when he was 2, staying until he was 17. Then he joined his sister in Hawaii, finishing school there. When he was recruited, Higa’s biggest fear was that he might have to fight on Okinawa. All of these guys felt that way. Matsumoto had three brothers in Japan and he worried he was going to see them on the other side of the battleline. Would they have done their duty? Of course, but can you imagine what they went through? 

Higa went with a team in a division that was preparing for the invasion of Okinawa. Once he gets to the island, he does everything he can to help civilians. He never fired his rifle. He went to the caves to convince the Okinawans not to kill themselves. They had been brainwashed into believing the Americans were going to torture them and figured it was better to die with their family in a cave. Higa convinced them not to. He went from one cave to the next, always saying the same thing: “I’m Okinawan, but I am in the U.S. Army. We will care for you. We will feed you.” Fifty years later, he went back to Okinawa and met someone he had talked out of a cave. That guy thanked him. At that moment, Higa really felt that he had done his duty for America by saving lives on Okinawa. 

Tom Sakamoto is an amazing guy. I joke he was my Forrest Gump because he was everywhere, including on the USS Missouri when the Japanese surrendered. He was the first Nisei officer to go into Hiroshima after the bombing, escorting Western correspondents. 

Then you have people like Grant Hirabayashi and his cousin Gordon. They grew up together and each makes a totally opposite choice when the war breaks out. Grant joins the army and serves with Merrill’s Marauders. At the same time, Gordon protests the treatment of Japanese Americans, refuses to register for the draft, and is arrested. His case goes to the Supreme Court. Yet both men respect the decision made by the other. Grant, a true war hero, does not think any less of his cousin for the choice he made. 

What do you want readers to take away from the book? 

It’s a dramatic and inspirational story at a time when it’s sorely needed in this country. Japanese Americans with ancestral ties to a nation we were at war with were distrusted. But they stepped forward as Americans and became huge assets to our military because they knew the enemy better than anyone. They were highly motivated to see America win the war. 

With the anti-immigrant sentiment in this country today, we need to be reminded that we all came from somewhere. We prejudge way too often on the basis of race, ethnicity, and countries of origin. For me, that’s the takeaway. I just shake my head in awe when I think about what these men accomplished.

this article first appeared in world war II magazine

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Beau Geste

The 1924 novel by P.C. Wren, about brothers who run off to join the French Foreign Legion in the wake of a family disgrace, has been filmed several times (1926, 1939 and 1966) and adapted for TV. The best version is arguably the 1939 film starring Gary Cooper, the 1926 silent drama with Ronald Colman coming in a close second.

Sahara

The 1943 version of this film, based on the 1927 Philip MacDonald novel Patrol, stars Humphrey Bogart as an American tank commander fighting Germans at an oasis in North Africa. A 1953 remake—filmed as the Western Last of the Comanches—remained faithful to the original script, while a 1995 TV adaptation starring Jim Belushi was only passable.

Tora! Tora! Tora!

This 1970 epic about the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, was based on histories of the strike by Gordon Prange and Ladislas Farago. Featuring an international cast and crew, it wowed audiences. While not technically a remake, the 2001 film Pearl Harbor, starring Ben Affleck, bombed with critics but did surprisingly well at the box office.

The Manchurian Candidate

Two films have dramatized the 1959 Richard Condon novel about a Korean War veteran brainwashed by Communist Chinese captors to be a sleeper assassin. The 1962 version —starring Laurence Harvey, Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury—ranks among the all-time best political thrillers. The 2004 remake, updated for the Gulf War and starring Denzel Washington as the assassin, pales by comparison.

Eighty years ago, on the night of Feb. 27–28, 1943, a team of 10 Norwegian commandos trained by the British Special Operations Executive achieved the seemingly impossible. Descending into a deep gorge in below-freezing temperatures, they forded an ice-choked river, scaled a 500-foot cliff, planted explosives at a German heavy water production facility within the hydroelectric plant at Vemork, Norway, and slipped away undetected. The resulting explosions destroyed the entire inventory of heavy water intended for use in the production of atomic weapons. Operation Gunnerside was popularized by the 1965 war film The Heroes of Telemark (after the subarctic region the commandos traversed), starring Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris, and the 2016 book The Winter Fortress, by Neal Bascomb.

Flash forward to today. In late February and early March 2023, to mark the anniversary of the historic assault, S.O.E. Expeditions—an international team of ex-special forces operators, explorers, historians and endurance athletes—will lead guests on 10- and 15-day ski expeditions tracing the commandos’ attack and escape routes through Telemark, including stays at huts in which they sheltered. For more information visit soeexpeditions.com.

On May 11, 1945, Everett “Red” Lanman of Plymouth, Massachusetts, was serving as an aviation mechanic on board the USS Bunker Hill when it was struck by two kamikazes during the Battle of Okinawa. He had been assigned to the Essex-class aircraft carrier shortly after it was launched on December 7, 1942—exactly one year after Pearl Harbor. When interviewed, the 100-year-old was still going strong, just like the Bunker Hill’s motto: “Never Surrender, Never Sink.” Lanman’s hair was no longer red, but the Bronze Star-recipient had a clear memory of the dramatic events of nearly 80 years ago. 

Red Lanman died on January 23, 2023, at the age of 100.

Where did you first serve when you enlisted right after Pearl Harbor?

I was stationed in New York City at Pier 92, which was a receiving station. We were on guard duty there before shipping out to the Pacific. One of my first duties was after the SS Normandie rolled over at Pier 88. It was being converted to a troopship in February 1942 when a fire broke out and it sank at dock. After that, we were assigned to the USS Bunker Hill.

One of your first stops on board the aircraft carrier was Pearl Harbor. What was that like?

When we pulled into port in October 1943, we saw the sunken ships on Battleship Row. I remember seeing the USS Utah overturned and the USS Arizona at the bottom of Pearl Harbor. It was pretty shocking, even close to two years later.

We tied up there for two days next to the Utah. Then we headed out into the Pacific and went to Rabaul on New Britain, which was a stronghold for the Japanese. Our task force made a raid on the naval base there. Later that afternoon, we were attacked by 114 Jap planes. They were sons of guns! We started firing and shot down a few of them. It was a tough battle. Then our Corsairs got into the action. Their guns were firing even as they were taking off! They were good pilots. A couple of them made ace in one day.

What other battles did you participate in?

We sailed to the Gilbert Islands for the invasion of Tarawa. We also took part in air raids at Kavieng, the Marshall Islands, Truk, and the Marianas, as well as Palau, Ulithi, and Hollandia, in support of landings on Saipan and Guam. The Bunker Hill also served at Leyte Gulf, Luzon, Formosa, Iwo Jima, and, of course, Okinawa. All in all, the ship and crew received 11 battle stars and a Presidential Unit Citation.

One time we tied up to an island in the Solomons, where we went ashore so we could work on the planes. There were no Japanese there. Well, they told us they didn’t want anybody wandering off into the jungle because there were big snakes in there. So I said, “You bet your ass I won’t!” 

What was your job when the ship went to battle stations?

Mostly I was supposed to take cover, unless I was working on a plane. I would take cover up on the port side at a fire station, right near where they pumped out gasoline for the planes. There was a 40-millimeter gun mount, and we passed ammunition to the guys who were firing. We did whatever we could to help, but when the bombs started to drop, we ducked. 

What happened at Okinawa on May 11, 1945?

It’s hard to remember all of it. Things happened so fast that you don’t comprehend that much. We were working on a couple of planes on the hangar deck, right near the chow hatch. While we were putting on a flap and tightening down the bolts, General Quarters went off. Then the kamikazes hit.

I was working on an F4U Corsair with this other fellow. I was just getting ready to tighten a bolt on the wing flap. All of a sudden, everything broke loose. Stuff was coming down from overhead, and a fire started in hangar deck control, where the first plane had dropped a bomb and then crashed. The other one hit about a minute later.

This other fellow and I went over to the chow hatch. Sailors were lying on top of each other in the passageway. The wreckage was terrible! We climbed over them, and I said to this other guy, “How the hell are we going to get out of here?” He says, “I got an idea.” So we undogged a hatch, pushed it open, and climbed up. The guys above us on the 40-millimeter gun mount pulled us up. They asked us what it looked like down there on the hangar deck, and I said, “It’s a mess!” Okinawa was a tough fight. 

After the planes crashed, the USS Wilkes-Barre, a cruiser, came along our starboard side to help fight the fires and take off the wounded. We had a teak deck, and those fires burned very hot. The Wilkes-Barre got so close that the paint on its hull started to blister. We tried to help the wounded, but we couldn’t help them all.

Years later, I was at the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., for the dedication, and I met a guy with a Wilkes-Barre hat. He saw my Bunker Hill hat, and we hugged for about 10 minutes. We both had tears. He told me he thought my ship was going to roll.

How did you react to the attack?

We didn’t have time to think about it. We lost almost 400 guys. They had to be buried at sea. We assembled on the hangar deck and stood in formation. They put each body in a bag with a spent five-inch shell so that when it hit the water, it sank. As they brought the bodies up, they would put them on a slab of wood and then slide them off into the water. There was a service, and we played “Taps” and fired a salute. 

Afterward, a guy on Gun Mount Five in the back aft said, “Red, did you know there was a third plane that made a dive? My battle station shot it down.” 

Where were you when the war ended?

After Okinawa, we went back to Pearl Harbor for repairs. We were in Hawaii when we got the news that the war was over. Everybody was excited. Some of the guys said they knew the Japanese were licked when we dropped the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. We were surprised by how powerful those bombs were. 

When did you return home after the war?

I came back by train to Plymouth. I was still in uniform when I got married to my wife, Dolores, on December 7, 1945. I was late because the train was delayed. I was at Quonset Point in Rhode Island, and a fellow came to pick me up. Right after we were married, I had to go back to my quarters. Not much of a honeymoon! But I got out of the service about a week later. Dolores is gone now. I miss her a lot.

When did you start discussing your combat experiences?

I never talked about what happened until I was interviewed for the book Danger’s Hour: The Story of the USS Bunker Hill and the Kamikaze Pilot Who Crippled Her by Maxwell Taylor Kennedy. I went to the book signing in 2008. I was legally blind by then, so I couldn’t read it. I got the book on tape. Couldn’t listen to the ending, though. Too emotional. I gave a book to each of my grandsons. I told them not to read the ending because it was too sad.

Did you stay in touch with your navy buddies after the war?

Yes. Every year we had a reunion. My wife and I never missed a one. We had them in a different city throughout the country every year. It would be very emotional because we would remember what happened and all the sailors who never came home. It’s only been in the past 10 years that we had to stop because there were so few of us left.

I also visited some of my friends. One of my closest buddies lived up in Grand Forks, North Dakota. He ran a chocolate factory. Once he took me to the factory, put a hat on me, and I was making taffy! I miss the guys I served with. I feel very humble when I hear the names of my buddies who are gone now. 

this article first appeared in world war II magazine

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Christmas Day 1935 turned out to be a busy one for the 23rd and 72nd Bombardment Squadrons of the U.S. Army Air Corps in Hawaii. Stationed at Luke Field on Ford Island, inside Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu, the soldiers spent the holiday preparing for an unusual mission: dropping live ordnance on an erupting volcano.

On the orders of the Hawaiian Division’s intelligence officer, groundcrews made sure the 10 Keystone B-3 and B-6 biplane bombers were ready for the first-of-its-kind operation. The squadrons would fly from Oahu to the big island of Hawaii and bomb the Mauna Loa volcano to stop it from spewing lava that threatened the community of Hilo and its 20,000 residents.

This bizarre scenario began November 21, when Mauna Loa started erupting. Thomas Jaggar, founder of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, became concerned by what he saw on the volcano’s north face. Red-hot magma was flowing through lava tubes at the rate of about one mile per day. It wouldn’t be long before it placed Hilo in danger. Jaggar decided to approach the Army and see if the military could do something to cut off the lava flow.

Explosives had been considered before to stop the volcano. When Mauna Loa erupted in 1881, local officials discussed the idea of using dynamite to shut off the lava flow but never followed through. Jaggar was thinking the Army could send an overland expedition to set off TNT charges, but chemist Guido Giacometti suggested that Army bombers might be more effective. Jaggar traveled to the Hawaiian District headquarters at Schofield Barracks and met with the intelligence officer there. He was Lt. Col. George S. Patton Jr., who would later gain fame as one of World War II’s most successful and controversial generals.

Patton approved the scheme and assigned the operation to the Army Air Corps’ Lt. Col. Asa N. Duncan, commander of the 5th Composite Group at Luke Field. Duncan gave orders to the 23rd and 72nd bomber squadrons, accompanied by a detachment from the 50th and 4th observation squadrons, to prepare for a unique mission. 

On December 26, 10 bombers, two amphibious planes and two observation aircraft flew to Hilo Airport, where an operations base was established. The weapons and groundcrews traveled to Hilo by ship. After refueling, one of the seaplanes took Jaggar and some of the bomber pilots to identify the lava tubes he had selected as targets, located about 8,500 feet up the northeast slope of Mauna Loa.

With the objectives clearly defined, soldiers affixed ordnance to the bombers’ wings. The aircraft were light bombers built by Penn-sylvania-based Keystone Aircraft. The B-3 was a biplane powered by twin Pratt & Whitney R-1690-3 engines; the B-6 was similar, with more powerful R-1820-1 engines. (Keystone bombers, including the B-6, were the last biplanes the U.S. Army Air Corps ordered.) Each plane was fitted with 600-pound MK 1 demolition bombs, as well as 300-pound dummy bombs for aiming purposes.

The next day, the pilots flew two missions of five bombers each. They first dropped their dummy ordnance for sighting, then made final runs and released the MK 1 bombs at two locations. Ground observers reported direct hits with the 20 bombs. Lt. Col. Duncan flew in one of the observation planes to check on the results. “It was found that five bombs hit the stream itself, three in the flowing lava of the first target and two directly above the tube of molten lava of the second target,” he reported. “One of these caved in the tunnel. Three other craters were within five feet of the stream, the explosions throwing ashes into the red lava. Two others were within 20 feet of the target.” Duncan said the pilots estimated that “seven other bombs fell within 50 feet of the stream.”

The bombers had been spot-on with their attack and the magma flow began to slow. It ceased altogether within a few days, and Hilo was saved from being wiped off the map. Jaggar was pleased with the results and thanked the Army Air Corps for their efforts. “The Army, on one day’s work, has stopped a lava flow, which might have continued indefinitely and have caused incalculable damage to the forest, water resources and city,” he stated in the Air Corps News Letter of January 15, 1936.

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Others, including the pilots, remained unconvinced the aerial bombings had actually made much of an effect. Scientists believed then—and still do—that the volcano likely ceased erupting on its own. Harold T. Stearns, a government geologist who flew in one of the bombers and later wrote Geology of the State of Hawaii, didn’t think the explosives had stopped the flow of lava at all. “I am sure it was a coincidence,” he wrote.

In 1942, the Army Air Forces bombed Mauna Loa again, this time to prevent Japanese vessels offshore from using the glowing lava to spot the island. Again, the results were mixed, with most volcanologists believing that the eruption stopped by itself. Unexploded ordnance from both missions was found at the site in 2020.

To this day, the 5th Composite Group—now the 23rd Bomb Squadron of the 5th Bomb Wing, stationed at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota—is remembered for its strange encounter with Mauna Loa. In fact, the squadron’s patch, featuring bombs striking an erupting volcano, seemingly commemorates that moment in its history.

Except it doesn’t. According to historical records, an early version of the patch showing the bombs and volcano was approved by the Secretary of War on September 20, 1931—four full years before the historic bombing mission. Instead, the artwork was intended to symbolize the unit’s proximity to Mauna Loa as well as its firepower—two things that just happened to intersect in December 1935. 

Driving winds blew blinding snow across the deck of the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier Oriskany on November 18, 1952. Inside the cockpit of his Grumman F9F-5 Panther, Lt. Royce Williams watched the blizzard while waiting for the signal to take off from the Essex-class carrier as it plowed through the Sea of Japan. Snow was not uncommon at that time of year along the upper coast of North Korea, not far from the Soviet Union’s easternmost seaport of Vladivostok.

Williams was preparing to fly a combat air patrol to cover the naval task force to which the carrier belonged. This mission turned out to be different than he expected, though. Instead of flying a routine patrol, Williams made history by tangling with seven Soviet Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15s and, according to his account, downing four of them. However, because of military secrecy and U.S. concerns over broadening the Korean conflict, the details of Williams’ combat success remained secret for four decades and the veteran Navy pilot was not allowed to talk about what he had done. “When I finally told my wife, Camilla said, ‘Oh, Royce!’” Williams, 97 and a veteran of three wars, recalled recently. “She was very surprised.” 

Williams earned the Silver Star for his bravery that day, but some believed that wasn’t enough. A bipartisan effort in Congress tried to upgrade the award to the Medal of Honor. “If I get a say in the matter, I would recommend an upgrade,” said Samuel Cox, a retired admiral and current director of Naval History and Heritage Command for the Navy. “I’m convinced that his account is accurate. But that’s the problem: it’s his account and you can’t be your own witness at an upgrade review.” Finally, in December 2022, Williams was approved for an upgrade to the Navy Cross. He received it in a ceremony at the San Diego Air & Space Museum on January 20, 2023.

Royce Williams’ road to naval aviation started out rather inauspiciously. Born in South Dakota in 1925, he was a corporal in the Minnesota National Guard when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. Hoping for a chance to become a combat pilot, Williams enlisted in the Navy. During the war he flew Grumman F6F Hellcats and Vought F4U Corsairs, primarily on sub-hunting sorties, though he never saw combat. Williams was still in the Navy when the conflict in Korea broke out, and he received jet training and learned how to fly the F9F-5 Panther. 

The Panther was the Navy’s first successful carrier-based jet fighter. The prototype, powered by 5,700 pounds of thrust from a Rolls-Royce Nene engine (licensed in the United States as the Pratt & Whitney J42 P-8), first flew on November 24, 1947. The production version, the F9F-2, entered Navy service in 1949. Williams was flying the most-produced version of the Panther, the F9F-5. Powered by a more powerful water-injected Pratt & Whitney J48 (another Rolls Royce-derived engine) and armed with four 20mm cannons, it could also carry rockets and bombs for ground support and attacks on fortified positions. While the Panther’s role in the Korean conflict has been overshadowed by the Air Force’s North American F-86 Sabre, the single-engine, straight-winged aircraft performed admirably for the Navy in more than 78,000 combat missions over Korea.

The Panther had one major drawback, however: its speed. Maxing out at around 600 miles per hour, the F9F-5 was noticeably slower than one of its main opponents, the MiG-15. The Soviet-made jet was about 100 miles per hour faster and could easily outclimb the Panther. The swept-wing Soviet aircraft also came armed with three cannons: two 23mm and a single 37mm. The North Korean air force was outfitted with thousands of MiG-15s for the war (and the aircraft reportedly remains in service there today as a trainer). North Korean pilots flew most of them, although a number of aviators were Chinese—and some were Soviets. “It was a completely unique event in the Cold War,” Cox said. “There was nothing else like it. During the Korean War, there were Russian pilots flying Russian aircraft with North Korean markings from bases in Chinese Manchuria. It was all a big secret, but everyone knew because the pilots would speak Russian.” The Oriskany’s presence close to Soviet territory meant that Soviet pilots in Soviet MiGs were also in the vicinity that day.

Snow was still blowing across the Oriskany’s deck when Williams launched with three other Navy pilots into the blizzard, with a ceiling of about 400 feet. Lt. Claire Elwood was division leader but he and his wingman, Lt. (jg) John Middleton, were forced to return to the carrier when Elwood’s jet developed a mechanical problem. That left Williams, the section leader, and his wingman, Lt. (jg) Dave Rowlands, alone to fly the patrol.

They struggled through the scud to about 12,000 feet, then broke through into blue skies. The controllers on the carrier alerted them to “bogies” in the area and Williams noticed the contrails of seven aircraft at about 26,000 feet. The two pilots continued their ascent, and then they saw the suspect aircraft split into two groups and start a steep descent. 

Williams was expecting trouble, but not from these airplanes. His patrol was providing cover for the task force, which was anticipating reprisals for an earlier attack by U.S. Navy aircraft in North Korea near the Soviet border. But these jets weren’t North Korean—they belonged to the Soviet Union. After Russian radar had picked up the American Panthers, the MiG-15s had scrambled from their air base at Vladivostok. “They came diving at us and were coming in hot,” Williams remembered recently. “They fired first, so we knew we were in a fight.”

Williams flipped on his gunsight and fired a test burst; he was ready for combat. The next 35 minutes would find him twisting and turning in a deadly dance with the seven Soviet jets, using all his senses and experience to gain the upper hand on the enemy while trying to stay out of their gunsights.

The Navy pilot realized he was at a disadvantage. His Panther could easily fall prey to the swifter MiG-15s if he weren’t careful. Williams would have to rely on his skills as a pilot and take advantage of any errors by his adversaries. “They made mistakes,” he said, “and when they did, I capitalized on them.”

He got his first chance at the start of the fray. Four of the MiGs zoomed at him, with one firing at but missing the Panther. Williams pulled into a hard climbing turn and came down behind the formation. “As they went on by, that put me in position to shoot at their number four guy,” he recalled. “I was within range and tracking. I fired a short burst and he started smoking and going down.”

Wingman Rowlands followed the damaged jet to the sea. That left Williams alone with the six remaining MiGs. He began making a series of high-G turns to avoid his pursuers and get behind one of them. The remaining jets quickly climbed to about 2,000 feet above the Panther, turned and dove for a head-on attack. Williams zeroed in on the lead plane and made his move. “I was able to adjust and track on him,” he said. “He was firing on me. When he got in range, I had my gunsight aiming point on him and pulled the trigger with a short burst. He turned away. I think I hit him in the fuel tank. I learned he later crashed and died in the ocean, probably having run out of fuel.”

At that moment, Williams didn’t have the luxury of wondering what happened to that target. He now had to focus on the enemy’s wingman, who was flying directly at him. The Navy pilot locked on and fired away. “He kept coming at me, but I’m pretty sure he was dead,” Williams said. “He stopped firing and he didn’t maneuver at all. His plane went right under mine and I’m certain that one went right in the water.”

The perilous battle continued as the combatants soared and swerved above the clouds. The other three Soviet jets joined the fight and Williams had to stay sharp as they tried to knock him out of the air. “One of the jets made a run at me,” he stated. “He didn’t pull up while he was still behind me. He passed in front of me and that set me up for a close-in shot. I hit him good and pieces of his airplane came off. I had to maneuver to avoid hitting them.”

By that point Rowlands had rejoined the fight, but he soon ran out of ammunition. Williams then fired a burst at another jet, which started smoking. But Williams had also exhausted his ammunition and couldn’t finish off the MiG. In addition, he had another MiG on his tail. The Soviet fighter fired and a single 37mm round struck the Panther’s left wing and then passed into the engine area, where it exploded and knocked out the hydraulics. The Panther began shaking violently. Williams had lost control of his rudder and flaps and only had partial use of his ailerons, which he had to operate manually. With Rowlands following, Williams dived toward the clouds at 12,000 feet, porpoising all the way to avoid getting hit again by his pursuer.

“We lost sight of each other in the clouds,” he said. Rowlands lost track of the other airplanes, too, and headed through the clouds back to the carrier. “Normally, I would have ejected but with the cold-water conditions I wouldn’t have lasted long,” said Williams. “It would have been sure death. So I stuck with it and headed back to the task force.” Williams couldn’t have known it at the time, but his encounter with the MiGs was the first and last time U.S. fighters and Russian jets from a base in the Soviet Union would engage in air-to-air combat.

Flying at full throttle, Williams radioed in that his plane was severely damaged and he was trying to make it back to the carrier, which was now at general quarters. Unfortunately for him, the gun crews on an escorting destroyer did not receive word, and they opened up on the approaching aircraft until another Navy pilot reported that the incoming airplane was a friendly.

“I told the carrier I’m going to be landing at about 200 miles per hour, about 95 miles an hour faster than normal,” Williams said. “I’m also having control problems and can’t line up with the ship. I’m off by about 15 degrees. We also had heavy winds and a pitching deck. It was going to be interesting!”

The Oriskany’s captain, Courtney Shands, was aware of the situation and ordered the ship to alter its course to line up with William’s landing vector. The crippled craft caught the number-three wire on the landing deck and lurched to an abrupt stop.

After examining the damage to his Panther, Williams was surprised that he made it back at all. The flight crew counted 263 holes—most of them caused by shrapnel created when the 37mm round exploded in the accessory section of the engine compartment. It appeared that the airplane was a total loss. In fact, Williams heard the jet was going to be dumped into the sea because it was beyond repair. He believed that for decades until he learned that his old airplane had been fixed up and eventually saw service in Vietnam.

“I am the luckiest guy,” Williams chuckled. “We always have raffles and I win about 50 percent of the time. One Christmas, I went to three different parties and won all of the door prizes. It’s amazing!”

Despite Williams’ combat success, Vice Admiral Robert P. Briscoe ordered him to keep silent about the air battle. Since the enemy jets were Soviet, there was concern that announcing the news might draw Russia into the war, in which the U.S. and United Nations forces were already battling those of North Korea and China. In addition, Briscoe told Williams that a National Security Agency intelligence team on one of the ships in the task force had been intercepting Soviet radio messages. If word got out, the Russians might start wondering if the task force had been eavesdropping, imperiling other projects. “I was instructed by Admiral Briscoe to never, ever talk about it,” Williams recalled. “We had people who were tracking and listening to the Russians and we didn’t want them to know we had this ability.”

One person who did hear about Williams’ encounter with Soviet MiGs was Dwight D. Eisenhower, the former Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe during World War II and now president-elect of the United States. During the 1952 campaign, Eisenhower promised he would go to Korea if elected. He made good on that pledge on December 2, 1952, when he landed in Seoul. Williams and two other Navy pilots from that day—Middleton and Rowlands—received a summons for a high-level session with the president-elect. The three men had been told that Eisenhower wanted to learn more about the MiG-15 and how it stacked up against American aircraft, but Williams doubted that. “I think he just wanted to meet me,” he said. “That was just an excuse.”

this article first appeared in AVIATION HISTORY magazine

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Williams remembers being ushered into a room where he saw more admirals and five-star generals than he had ever seen in his life. In addition to Eisenhower, generals Omar Bradley and Mark Clark were in attendance. The president-elect’s son, Maj. John Eisenhower, served as bartender. After some initial discussion, Eisenhower asked Williams if he wanted a drink. “We have the world’s greatest scotch here,” the Navy pilot remembers the general saying. Williams said he preferred bourbon. Eisenhower wouldn’t take no for an answer and kept offering him scotch. “I didn’t want it,” Williams laughed. “That got the attention of the generals and admirals. They looked at me like, ‘What is this snot-nosed kid up to?’”

For his heroics that cold day in November, Williams received credit for one kill and one probable. Middleton, who had turned back to help Williams, was also recognized with a kill while Rowlands earned a probable. Some historians question those numbers and think a review is necessary. The secrecy of that mission and confusing after-battle reports likely led to a less-than-thorough examination of what happened that day.

From the beginning, Williams believed he got four kills, though he never talked about what happened or protested the Navy’s count. In fact, there was a great deal of uncertainty as to how many Soviet planes went down that day. It wasn’t until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 that the truth came out. Secret files released by the Russians showed that four MiG-15s had been downed during the action. All four pilots were killed. The Navy never changed the record, though, despite growing evidence that it might be incorrect. With the Russian admission of four Soviet planes being shot down, Williams was finally free to talk about his role in the air battle that day.

One of those who believes the record should be updated is Cox, who has extensively studied the air battle. “As Director of Naval History, I look at everything I can find,” Admiral Cox said. “I would give him credit for four. I think Royce’s account is pretty doggone accurate. There are discrepancies between all of the reports, but I’m confident that what he said is what happened.”

Not only should the record be changed, but some came to believe that Williams’ Silver Star should be upgraded to the Medal of Honor. U.S. Representative Darrell Issa has sponsored a bill authorizing the president to bestow the nation’s highest military award to Williams, who lives in the same congressional district in Southern California as the congressman. Issa wanted to see the medal presented to Williams as soon as possible. Though still tough and sharp as ever, the former flyer is 97 years old, making time an issue. The House passed the measure in July 2022 and it advanced to the Senate.

“I’m flabbergasted,” Williams said about the effort to upgrade his Silver Star. “They’re comparing what I did to Maj. George Davis of the U.S. Air Force, who was credited with shooting down two MiGs on his final flight when he got shot down and killed in Korea in 1952. In short order, they had the Medal of Honor for him.”

It appears that Williams will have to be satisfied with the Navy Cross. In December 2022, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro approved the upgrade from the Silver Star. “Having reviewed the findings of now numerous investigations related to the case of Capt. Royce Williams, I have determined this case to be special and extraordinary,” Del Toro announced. “Lt. Williams took the lead of an incredibly critical mission during the Korean War which led to the protection of Task Force 77 from enemy attack. I authorize the Navy Cross be awarded for his valorous actions committed from personal bravery and self-sacrifice to country. His actions clearly distinguished himself during a high-risk mission and deserves proper recognition.”

“This is the kind of thing I’ve seen in the movies,” Williams told the San Diego Union-Tribune after the ceremony on January 20. “Never thought I’d be part of it. I’m thrilled.”

Another person pleased with the upgrade is CJ Machado, a filmmaker who chronicled Williams’ story in the 2017 short film Forgotten Hero. Machado believes the secrecy about what happened that day over the Sea of Japan has prevented Williams from getting the credit he deserves. For Machado, the effort to get him tan upgrade is deeply personal. Over the years, she has become close to the retired Navy officer and looks upon him as a father figure. “Captain Royce Williams is a wonderful and dear soul,” she said. “I’m biased because I know him so well, but I believe Royce deserves to be acknowledged for that amazing feat.”

Williams ended up flying 70 combat missions in Korea. In Vietnam, he flew 110 missions in the Vought F-8E Crusader and McDonnell Douglas F-4B Phantom II. By the time he retired in 1980 as a captain and flag officer he had spent 37 years in the Navy. In all that time he had no mission more remarkable than the one he flew on November 18, 1952.  

Massachusetts-based author Dave Kindy is a frequent contributor to Aviation History and other HistoryNet publications, as well as Air & Space Quarterly, the Washington Post and Smithsonian. For further reading, he recommends Holding the Line: The Naval Air Campaign in Korea by Thomas McKelvey Cleaver, Korean Air War: Sabres, MiGs and Meteors, 1950-1953 by Michael Napier and “The story of the Top-Secret Dogfight where legendary US Korean War F9F Naval Aviator E. Royce Williams, Jr., shot down 4 Soviet MiG-15s,” an article written by Dario Leone for theaviationgeekclub.com.

This article originally appeared in the Winter 2023 issue of Aviation History.

With high-explosive artillery and sweeping machine gun fire, World War I changed the face of combat. It also destroyed the faces of tens of thousands of soldiers. A visionary surgeon, Dr. Harold Gillies of New Zealand, sought to repair that damage with a revolution in reconstructive surgical techniques.

Lindsey Fitzharris’ The Facemaker examines the clinical care and compassion rendered by a man widely considered the father of modern plastic surgery. Gillies and an international team of surgeons worked tirelessly during World War I to provide men who had shattered—and even missing—faces with facsimiles on which society would not turn its back. In the process he restored his patients’ emotional well-being and self-worth.

The technological innovations that made World War I so deadly also caused horrible wounds. While legs and arms could be replaced, damage to the head was brutal. “Wounds to the face could be especially traumatic,” Fitzharris writes. “Noses were blown off, jaws were shattered, tongues were torn out and eyeballs were dislodged. In some cases entire faces were obliterated.”

Repairing such destruction was beyond the scope of medical science at the time. Through painstaking efforts over countless surgeries Gillies developed new ways to fix smashed faces and help horribly disfigured men achieve some semblance of normalcy in their shattered lives. The innovative surgeon and his team worked—often around the clock—to restore faces with then-untried techniques still in use today. They found new ways to restore bone, regrow appendages, realign teeth and transplant tissue. Gillies became expert at harvesting cartilage and tendons from other parts of the body to use in the facial reconstruction of countless men. 

There is little doubt Gillies was a technical wizard with plastic surgery (plastic in the old sense of being pliable). Accompanying before-and-after photos of soldiers he restored bear witness to that. He was more than just a gifted surgeon, however. Gillies was a compassionate and caring doctor who truly wanted to heal broken souls. His efforts helped many of his patients return to their loved ones and life in general with an intact sense of self.

Toward the close of her excellently researched and written book Fitzharris quotes one of those Gillies helped: “I can never forget your wonderful kindness to me and all that you have done to make my life worth living. I am looking so well that people are beginning not to believe it when I tell them I was nearly burnt to death 11 years ago.”

The Facemaker

A Visionary Surgeon’s Battle to Mend the Disfigured Soldiers of World War I

By Lindsey Fitzharris, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022

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This review appeared in the Winter 2023 issue of Military History magazine.

Shortly after midnight on July 30, 1945, two torpedoes struck the starboard side of the USS Indianapolis in the Pacific Ocean. Just as Seaman Second Class Harold Bray reached his battle station near the fantail, he heard someone shout, “She’s going down!” He refused to believe that the mighty American heavy cruiser might actually sink.

It did so 12 minutes later.

Over the next four harrowing days, Bray and his shipmates would battle the elements, dehydration and hundreds of sharks before the U.S. Navy discovered the survivors.

Only 316 men from the crew of 1,195 were alive, making this sinking the greatest loss of life at sea in American military history.

Today, the resident of Benicia, California, stands alone. The Sept. 29 death of fellow sailor Cleatus Lebow of Abernathy, Texas, makes Bray the sole survivor of that wartime catastrophe.

“At first I couldn’t believe it was going down — how could something so beautiful sink?” Bray recalled in a 2020 interview with the Vallejo Times-Herald on the 75th anniversary of the loss of the USS Indianapolis.

The cruiser had departed the island of Tinian a few hours earlier after completing a top-secret mission to deliver the atomic bomb that would be dropped at Hiroshima a week later. Japanese submarine I-58 fired a spread of torpedoes at the vessel in the middle of the Philippine Sea. An estimated 300 American sailors were trapped in the hull of the USS Indianapolis as it sunk.

The remaining men ended up in the ocean. Some had lifejackets while others clung to rafts and floating debris. With little food and water, sailors suffered dehydration during the heat of the days and hypothermia from the cold of the nights while floating in oil-choked waters.

“Then the sharks came,” Bray recalled in a 2014 interview. “I looked down and they were just swarming around us. Their tails would hit me every once in a while. There wasn’t really anywhere to go; we had to deal with them. The sharks seemed to go after the people that had big cuts to them, were naked or just in their skivvies. We lost a lot of good men in those first few days.”

As many as 150 sailors may have been killed in shark attacks. Scores of others perished from delirium brought on by the elements or ingesting saltwater and fuel oil.

At first, the Navy did not realize the cruiser had been sunk, so no rescue mission was attempted. Survivors were finally spotted by a patrol plane, which radioed the position. A lone PBY-5A Catalina plane landed at the scene, where crew lashed men to the wings to keep them alive until rescue vessels arrived.

“I can’t describe to you how it felt when the ships started showing up to rescue us,” Bray said in 2014.

Following the war, Capt. Charles B. McVay III was court-martialed for hazarding his ship, even though many of his sailors spoke in his defense. The Japanese sub commander also testified that the American skipper could have done nothing to save the USS Indianapolis.

McVay, who committed suicide in 1968, was later absolved of any wrongdoing — in part by a history project by sixth-grade student Hunter Scott.

Bray’s story and those of the other survivors was chronicled in the 2018 book “Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man” by Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladic.

“From Harold, I learned a lot about the perspective of the very young men who went aboard Indianapolis and survived,” Vladic said in 2020. “They believed they were just too young to die, and it wasn’t a possibility.”

She added, “Harold still wins the title for giving the best hugs.”

Would you pay $1,057,500 for a World War I–era Mauser C96 pistol not in its original configuration?

An unidentified bidder at Rock Island’s Premier Firearms Auction did last month.

That said, this is no run-of-the-mill surplus firearm. The former owner of this reconfigured 9 mm German pistol was a scruffy, rebel-aligned smuggler with a conspicuously hirsute sidekick who used it to blast imperial stormtroopers in “a galaxy far, far away.”

Yes, this particular movie prop was brandished by Han Solo (played by Harrison Ford) in “Star Wars,” the 1977 sci-fi epic that spawned the franchise.

Its price more than doubled Rock Island’s presale high estimate, not to mention the $555,000 paid at a 2018 auction for the blaster Ford wielded in the 1983 sequel “Return of the Jedi.”

Referred to in “Star Wars” as a BlasTech DL-44 Heavy Blaster, this particular “plasma weapon” was designed around an authentic Mauser C96 fitted with a vintage German Hensoldt scope and a flash hider from a wartime Mauser MG 81 machine gun. Carl Schmidt, chief armorer at the London-based prop house Bapty & Co., fashioned it from a C96 that had already seen screen time in the 1967 spy film “The Naked Runner,” starring Frank Sinatra.

Once “Star Wars” was in the can, the gun was broken down and returned to storage. In recent years, Schmidt reconstructed the blaster from its original parts, minus various glued-on gizmos added by Lucasfilm’s art department.

Mausers pop up (and off) in the 1963 James Bond film “From Russia With Love,” the 1972 Western “Joe Kidd” — in which the title character, played by Clint Eastwood, fires a fantastical 30 rounds from the 10-round magazine — and the 1985 dystopian action film “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome,” among other big- and small-screen cameos.

The real (vs. “reel”) C96 boasts a storied history of its own.

Manufacturer: BlasTech Industries

Model: DL-44

Capacity: 50 shots

Range: 50-75 meters

Affiliation: Alliance to Restore the Republic, Galactic Empire, Twi’lek Resistance, Bounty Hunters)

---

The blaster Ford wielded in the 1983 sequel, “Return of the Jedi,” as exhibited by Julien’s Auctions on May 21, 2018. (Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images)

Between 1896 and 1937, German arms manufacturer Mauser produced some 1.1 million copies of the 9 mm semiautomatic pistol, which features an integral box magazine forward of the trigger and a distinctive rounded wooden grip that earned the gun the nickname broomhandle.

Its known users are no less celebrated. Future British Prime Minister Winston Churchill carried one while serving as a lieutenant with the 21st Lancers at the 1898 Battle of Omdurman in Sudan and during the Boer War. His countryman Col. Thomas Edward Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia) used one while leading the World War I Arab Revolt against the Ottoman empire.

But it is the broomhandle’s association with a fictional space hero that has sent the firearms auction market into higher orbit. MH

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