The search for E. Lee Whitmire

Transcription

1 F/O ELMER LEE WHITMIRE The search for E. Lee Whitmire Neither my mother nor my father talked about the horrors they saw or experienced during the war. My father, Lee Whitmire, died in 1972 at the age of 47. My mother, Rosemarie McDonald, died in December, While in hospice care she realized she wanted her experiences documented for her family, but even then she said I can t just talk about it, you have to ask me questions... Now I had a problem, I didn t really know enough about the war to ask good questions. So in the evening I read about the German invasion of France and in the day I would ask mom questions. The more she told me, the more I researched, and over the course of the next few weeks, her story evolved. German Stukas first bombed her city, Amiens, France, in May 1940 and the German 1 st Panzer Division invaded their streets causing her family to flee their home. She was displaced twice during the war and her experiences were traumatic for an 11 year old child. Mom talked to me for over a month and, after she died, I put her story into a selfpublished book, Pepée, for family members. I was very satisfied with how the book turned out but I now realized I was missing a lot of information about my dad, Lee. I knew he met my mother in Amiens just after VE Day but I knew almost nothing about his involvement in the war. So I decided to research Lee s history. Like many researchers before me, I hit the first wall when I learned that Lee s records were destroyed in the 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, MO. I was told if I could provide a SSN or an Army Air Force Service Number (ASN), as well as military stations, they could possibly obtain copies from those various locations. I had neither of these numbers. So I had no official record, only some stories of post war events and one war story without many specific details; how he managed to obtain a jade vase after a glider mission. As I remembered it, he flew a glider mission behind enemy lines and he and several other men were captured by the Germans. He said that after a short time they escaped and upon their return to base their commanding officer gave each of them a case of Cognac. Lee, who was an artist, traded his Cognac for a vase that had been smuggled out of Belgium. The vase was made from crystal Jade and was surrounded by naked women and grapes. (Dad was 19 years old; he no doubt admired the artistic curves of the grapes.) He also told me about having flown a C-47, alone, to see my mom in Amiens. That was the total extent of the WWII information I had about Lee. I began searching for information on glider pilots and in February, 2011, found a book that listed the names of glider pilots from World War II. I ordered the book titled World War II Glider Pilots by the National World War II Glider Pilots Association. I waited anxiously and when it came I thoroughly read every page in hopes of finding Lee s name. I was so disappointed when I closed the book. My husband, Bruce, encouraged me to write to the Association, so I went to the Association s website and ed George Theis, the National Treasurer. George contacted me right Jan 2014 Page 1

2 away and said that Lee was indeed listed as a glider pilot. Unfortunately, since he had not been a member of the Association, the record was not accurate (Dad died the year the Association was formed). George questioned his service number, training graduation dates, squadron and group numbers which did not match it was all contradictory. George had questions. No, I did not know Lee s service location in England. No, I did not have any military documents or Statement of Service. No, I didn t have a Social Security Number. (The SSN lookup for S.S.A. is Ancestory.com but if no one received benefits from a SSN, that number will not be in the system.) George encouraged me to continue looking and asked that I contact him if I found any further information. George s encouragement really made me feel good about continuing my search. On March 22, 2011, we made a major breakthrough when Bruce found a website that showed a hit on Lee s name. The site offered records of military aircraft accidents and Lee s name was listed as having had an accident in a C-47 on November 17, 1945, in Auerbach, Germany. For $25 we ordered the record. When it arrived, the record provided the much sought after Army Serial Number, T6558. I filled out the National Archive s Military Personnel Records form and sent a letter, along with my request, that included a list of everywhere I knew Lee had been in the military; Amiens-Glisy Advanced Landing Ground, Amiens France; Occupation Forces, Hanau, Germany; Chanute AFB, Rantoul Illinois (where I was born); Keflavik Air Force Base, Reykjavik Iceland; Bakalar AFB, Columbus Indiana; Langley AFB, Hampton, Virginia; and Ramstein AFB, Germany. I hoped they could match what I knew to their records. My mom had told me that she met Lee at a USO dance right after the war in Amiens, so I started researching what troop carrier groups were stationed at Amiens during WWII through the end of the war. The only Group I came up with was the 438 th Troop Carrier Group (TCG). My cousin Philippe Arakelian, in Draguignan, France, searched their family photos and came up with several pictures including a picture of my mom and dad at the Amiens-Glisy Airfield standing by a C-47. The nose number was U4. I looked it up on the Airborne Troop Carrier website and found that number was assigned to the 89 th Troop Carrier Squadron (TCS), 438 th TCG so I assumed dad was with that squadron. George Theis pointed out that really wasn t proof without documentation. It would have been easy to make a lot of assumptions but George kept me on task. At the end of March I joined the Army Air Forces forum. I asked if anyone may have known my father. A person named Hans den Brok said he didn t know him but asked me to contact him. I didn t and I learned a valuable lesson; to follow through with the person who answers. In April I received my father s Statement of Service from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Military Personal Records. I now had dates and places: 1. Service induction, Army Air Corps (SOS-1) 2. Flight schools and graduation dates 3. Advanced Glider school at Laurinburg-Maxton Army Air Base, October, Transfers throughout the war and Occupation. 5. Awards and citations 6. Commanding officers 7. Campaigns Jan 2014 Page 2

3 Unfortunately I had no dates for the combat missions. According to one paper, Lee flew two supply drops into France on 24 December, Well, that made no sense in more ways than one. Another narrative documented Lee flying two para-supply drops and a glider into Bastogne during the Ardennes Campaign. Hmm, this sounded promising; the vase was supposedly smuggled out of Belgium and now I had an official document that said he flew into Belgium. George said no, that could not be, and deferred to Charles Day, who had been cc d on all of George s s. I had no idea who this mysterious gliderman.one was. Charles Day turned out to be a goldmine of information. Charles said that all the pilots who flew in Bastogne were known. We went back and forth on this subject and I thought they must be getting frustrated with me. They never gave me that indication but doggedly stirred me on to obtain concrete evidence. done so in the Ardennes? The numbers and dates must have triggered a memory for Charles because at 7:35 AM he sent me the information about Lee having been in what the Air Force called the 435th Provisional Glider Pilot Infantry Company during Operation Varsity. Hi Patricia, Just found another good bit of info for you. Your father was a member of the 5th squad, 4th Platoon, 435 Glider Pilot Combat Team, 78th Troop Carrier Squadron in the battle of Burp Gun Corner after landing during Varsity mission. Very significant! The balance who participated in the action were awarded the Bronze Star ~Charles Day Charles said he would see if he could find the citation for the Bronze Star that was awarded and at 6:30 PM sent both George and me an I needed a better understanding of what George and Charles were talking about so I started reading books about the glider and troop carrier missions of WWII and also found many interesting facts and information on the Internet. On June 16 th I was sitting at my kitchen table around 5:00 AM and the sun was out (an unusual occurrence in Seattle.) I was debating over again with Charles about Bastogne. By now I had learned that there were three types of pilots; Power Pilots, Glider Pilots and Power Glider Pilots, and that dad was the latter. I had discovered that pilots were frequently transferred from squadron to squadron or even from group to group, sometimes for a few days, sometimes for a month or more. In fact, I told Charles, Lee had been transferred to the 78 th TCS of the 435th TCG in March of 45 so why could he not have Jackpot!! There are copies of the 1995 Special Orders covering the BGC Silver and Bronze Star awards in the Wesel notebook Attached copy of #GB-350 covers Elmer L. Whitmire #T-6558 Then George Theis called me. I don t know who was more excited about the news, George or I, but I was honored to have received his call. Besides the combat mission dates, I now wanted to know about the battle of Burp Gun Corner (BGC). George sent me the pamphlet Crossing the Rhine with the 17 th Airborne Division by Charles O. Gordon. Lee was in 1 st Lt. Earl Davis s 4 th Platoon, 5 th squad. George also sent the roster titled 435 th Glider Pilot Combat Team (this is what the pilot s company was called by the 17 th Airborne) and Gordon s letter requesting due recognition. It Jan 2014 Page 3

4 was the first time I had seen Lee s name in a paper related to a combat mission other than his Statement of Service. George also told me to contact Hans den Brok who was in the process of writing a book on the battle. George was so generous; he sent me 14 of his personal pictures taken at Wesel. I contacted Hans, who was also a wealth of information. He sent me the most precious of documents; Lee s Interrogation Check Sheet (ICS) for BGC. This is a report that every glider pilots fills out immediately after a mission. Hans also sent me the ICS for Otis Cook, who was the pilot in the glider. I now knew the following from both pilots ICSs: 1. Glider Chalk # Had trouble on first take off and aborted 3. Second take off at 1000 hours 4. Joined the tail end of the 314 th TCG th Cut off over LZ-N so they had to as well 6. Approach 170 deg. (This can be useful in trying to locate a glider in aerial photos) 7. Time over target was 1215 hours 8. Hit glider skid on another glider and went through a fence. 9. Damage to glider s right wing 10. Tail damaged by flak 11. Bottom of glider smashed 12. Were receiving mortar fire from the woods on one side and small fire arm, machine gun fire from a house on the other side of glider. 13. They were near a R.R. Track 14. Had the Battalion CO with them 15. Left with the Battalion CO to find their CP 16. They ran low on or out of ammunition 17. Arrived at the CP at 2000 hours. Lee s ICS was so special because they were his words. It was like hearing from Lee. Thank you Hans! Later Hans joked that he had answered my forum question back in March. Oops! The website Airborne Troop Carriers was very valuable for finding maps and information about the individual carrier groups and I now realized this was also Hans s site. Otis Cook s summery was frustrating, however, because it was not complete. There appeared to be a page missing, at just the place where I was sure he was going to tell what happened to them on the way to their Assembly Point. A few weeks later, while researching combat mission dates, I asked Charles about the mission the 438th TCG flew on February 14, 45, to resupply Patton s Third Army near Prüm, Germany. It was mentioned in W. L. George Collin s book, Into Fields of Fire. Charles nudged me to write to Collins and said that his contact information was in the roster I received when I became a member. I can write to these authors? I immediately dashed out a letter. I also wrote to Mr. Gerard (Jerry) Devlin who had written what I found to be the best explanation of the battle of Burg Gun Corner, in his book Silent Wings. Jerry called me and, although he did not have the specific information I was looking for, he suggested I go to the Silent Wings Museum (SWM) to do the research. Jerry also sent me a letter which was helpful in structuring my research (After Action Reports, Unit Diaries, and Photographs). Jerry suggested I contact the curator by or phone and send a list of what areas of interest I wanted to research I then searched the Association s roster and sent letters to anyone I could find that was connected with the 88 th and the 78 th Troop Carrier Squadrons. Within weeks after posting my letters I began receiving information in the form of letters, rosters, posters, manuscripts, photographs and phone conversations. Every bit of information gave me more material to research. I received information about the squadron in England and France from Bill Allin, Marty Jan 2014 Page 4

5 Sonnet, Harry Furr, and Martin Feuer and many remembered the Amiens dance where my parents met. Marty Sonnet sent me a wonderful . He also remembered the Amiens dance and that he had a 438 th TCG 1945 roster with Lee s name on it and said that he would mail it along with some other items. I received a letter from Marty Feuer who had drawn a map of Greenham Common locating the 88 th in conjunction with the 90 th, the airstrip and the direction to Newbury. He also suggested that I do research at the SWM and also suggested I join the 438 th TCG Association to get their newsletter. I contacted the secretary, Peg Fell right away. Peg sent a nice with a wonderful welcome to the 438 th. Even though no one remembered my father, each person was giving me a small piece of what was making a more complete picture of events. Often I was told, I don t have much, but what might have seemed small to one person was so important to me. I followed everyone s suggestions. I ed Dr. Donald Abbe, Curator of the SWM, and requested a research appointment. Bruce and I planned on attending the 2011 National World War II Glider Pilots Association Reunion in Oklahoma City at the end of September and we made plans to drive to Lubbock and visit the SWM before the reunion. Dr. Abbe suggested two days but we would only be available on Monday and Tuesday and I knew the museum was closed on Monday. Dr. Abbe said that staff would be there on Monday and to just let them know the dates. During the month of July I searched the Index of the Air Force Historical Research Agency (AFHRA) at Maxwell AFB, which gives descriptions of the kinds of reports you will receive for a given month and a citation for each order. I ordered, by mail, the 88 th /438 th report for the month of December to get a feel for the type of information I would be receiving. In late July I received a thick packet from Kevin Burge, HQ AFHRA, with the history and diaries of the 88 th for the month of December. It was just what I was looking for so I wrote a letter to Mr. Burge thanking him for the report and then I ordered the history reports for the 88th from November, 44, to June, 45, and for the 78 th /435 th for March and April of 45. On August 18 th I received an important phone call from Col. Robert Gates, Lee s Commanding Officer in the 88 th TCG. He answered several questions I had. I found out that while they were in England most of the officers went to Swindon, Reading or London on leave and on base they tipped their pints at the officer s club at Greenham Common. Col. Gates said he definitely remembered the Amiens dance because the 88 th invited all the single women to come and he then proceeded to tell me all about the dance. The most interesting information Bob gave me was what the squadron did after the Varsity Operation. Starting in mid-april and almost on a daily basis the 88 th picked up forced laborers for repatriation. Several times they picked up French forced laborers from Nordhausen, Germany, R-19, and returned them to Paris. He said on their first flight General Charles de Gaul met their planes at Le Bourget. He told me how men who could barely stand struggled to salute as a band played la Marseillaise and how General de Gaul personally greeted every man in line. On a lighter note, Bob told me he did not want de Gaul to give him a kiss on both cheeks, as is the French custom, but de Gaul did anyway. Col. Gates also confirmed that no Jan 2014 Page 5

6 power pilot volunteered for glider duty but were summarily assigned where needed; sometimes on TDY for a few days or weeks or reassigned to another squadron for a longer duration. Silent Wings Museum (Lubbock, TX) On September 26th we had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Don Abbe and the staff at the SWM. Don showed us the reading room which was very comfortable, the project archive room, and the library which houses the books, photographs and the Horn collection. Don facilitated my research by having a list of boxes to get us started based on my advanced notice regarding my research. I realized how important it was to have followed Jerry Devlin s suggestions of sending ahead a list of the topics of my research. Don stopped by frequently to exchange a box or to see if we needed anything, which was great because I had lots of questions. It did not take us long to realize that Don himself is a walking encyclopedia of Troop Carrier information. We talked about Burp Gun Corner for a little while then went back to searching boxes. About 10 minutes later Don came back to our table and said, It s a small world. He handed me a blue vinyl folder and a cardboard box. Sticking out of the bottom of the folder was a white piece of paper with the name E. L. Whitmire. Don had just handed me Lee s Bronze Star Citation and Medal. I asked Don if I could keep it and he said, of course, it s yours. What a treasure! I think the serendipity of it all will amaze me for the rest of my life. Tuesday we got an early start at 8 AM. We had left our half-finished boxes on the table from the day before. Box #28 from the Horn collection was full but there were only three folders. The 1st folder had a June 1944, Smithsonian magazine with an article, Crossing the Lines on Silent Wings. The 2nd and 3rd folders each had a top bound book containing legal sized documents. Folder # 2 had the book that was titled, Book 1 78th TROOP CARRIER SQUADRON, 438TH TROOP CARRIER GROUP June 1, 1945 to October (I did not really look at the end year since logically it would be after June 45.) At first I was disappointed because dad left the squadron before June 1 st. I opened the book anyway and as I perused it I realized two things; first, I was looking at mission dates. Each page was one day and listed aircraft number, supplies carried and the crew of each C-47 flown on the missions for that day. The second thing I realized was that the dates were prior to June 1st of 45. I closed the book and reread the title; the dates were backwards! I went to the page dated March 23 rd, the date Lee was transferred into the squadron, and began reading every name on every mission Jan 2014 Page 6

7 for each day. I found two additional missions that Lee had flown with information as to duration, airfields to and from and what they were carrying. March 24th was the day Lee flew as co-pilot in a glider to Wesel. A note in that day s summery stated: **C-47 #100 went with only one glider one had to cut off. The glider that cut off would have been Pilot F/O Otis Cook and Copilot F/O Elmer Lee Whitmire. On the other two missions Lee flew as copilot in a C-47 with 1st Lt. Melvin W. Immel. One, on April 11 th, non-combat mission: Routine Theater Transport, Mongoose A/C for the airborne. Then on April 13, combat mission: COMBAT RESUPPLY, X/C to R-3 to Ferry Wire and Gasoline COMBAT: ( ) Two trips We were going to head back to Oklahoma City on Wednesday but decided to get another few hours of research in before we left. This was the day I discovered box 42 in the Horn Collection. Folder 5 contained a huge amount of information on Burp Gun Corner. Maps showed where Lee had landed, (Chalk #134) and his squadron s position during the battle. The location of the German tank was also detailed on a couple of maps. In dad s ICS he said he witnessed the tank getting hit by the bazooka round. The map helped me see how that was possible. We went on to the reunion and talked to so many pilots; navigators; those precious instructors, who taught them to do it right; Crew Chiefs, who kept the planes safe. Talking with the veterans I was able to learn more, and made many friends in the process. When we got back home I continued my letter writing and phone calls with renewed enthusiasm now that I had fresh information. Some contacts were the same, some were new. I was contacting families of the men who were in the same provisional infantry squad as Lee. I contacted Lee s pilot, Otis Cook s, wife and son. I began communicating with another author, George Cholewczynski, who suggested that we needed to go to the National Archives in Washington, DC.. In April, 2012 we took a trip to Europe and visited all the places Lee was either stationed or flew a combat mission to. We visited Greenham Common in England, Amiens in France, Prüm in Germany (Resupply to Patton s Third Army) and Bastogne/Marcouray in Belgium (Lee flew resupply missions to these places in Dec 44). In Wesel, Germany, we met Hans and Christian Dijkhuizen and they took us to the location where Lee and Otis Cook landed their glider in Hans and Christian also took us to the intersection of Holtzweg and Hessenweg, where the Battle of Burb Gun Corner took place. There are more buildings now, but we recognized much that previously we had only seen in photos. That evening, we talked about what we knew from Lee s ICS. They landed shortly after 1215 in the afternoon, yet, according to Lee s report, they did not make it to their CP, located approximately two miles away, until 8:00 that evening. Was this when they were captured? And who was the Battalion CO that they joined to get to their respective command posts? Since the 435 th was carrying in the 681 st Glider Infantry Battalion, wouldn t it be Commanding Officer of that unit, Lt. Col. Joseph Keating? After some discussion back and forth, Christian finally said they were taking in the 681 st, it has to be Keating. While I focused on Troop Carrier research, Bruce began looking at the problem from the perspective of the load, the 681 st GFAB. Shortly after we returned from Europe, he Jan 2014 Page 7

8 found Col. Keating s name mentioned in the November, 1945 issue of The Artillery Journal. The article described Col. Keating s glider cutting off over the airfield in France, landing, transferring the load to another glider, then taking off again and joining the tail of another serial. Lee and Cook s glider is the only one that matched that scenario; Keating was definitely the Battalion CO in their glider. About the same time, I remembered a post I had seen a few months earlier from a woman looking for information about Col. Keating. She said her father was his jeep driver. I contacted Sue Voltz and was thrilled to find out that her father was alive and well in Elk Horn, Iowa. We immediately made plans to go visit Pfc Harold Snyder. I can t begin to describe what it was like to actually meet a man who flew in the glider that my father co-piloted into Wesel. Harold told us about aborting shortly after takeoff, moving the jeep to another glider and taking off again. He told us that he was sitting behind the steering wheel of the jeep, Col. Keating was in the front seat, and a Major was in the back seat. Harold told us about the flak, the glider cutting off from the tug and descending so fast he thought they were going to crash. He told us that as soon as they were on the ground they immediately left the glider and hit the dirt as they were receiving heavy fire from a nearby house. They were pinned down for some time, then, when the firing stopped, the Colonel, the Major, and the two pilots went up to the house that the firing has been coming from (later analysis would establish that the house was most likely the Command Post of the 680 th GFAB) while Harold stayed with the glider and jeep. The floor of the glider had been damaged on landing and they could not get the loading door open. Harold could not tell us why they had aborted. He said it was not the load, he had tied the jeep down himself and it didn t move. He also could not tell us what happened after the pilots and officers left, as he did not go with them. I located Col. Keating s son, Joseph Keating Jr and called him. He said his father had not talked much about Wesel. The only story his dad had told him was that they left from the glider on foot and were stopped by an MP who said that the direction they were heading was not secure. Keating said that s the direction of my battalion, that s the direction I m going. Try and stop me. Joe said his dad never mentioned that he was with other men and did not know anything about a capture but said from the way his dad described the heavy German activity in the area, he would not be surprised if they had been. His dad had said that the German ranking officers were threatening to kill their own men if they gave up the fight. Lee had written in his ICS that the Rank held out. Joe did come up with one good piece of information, however. When I told him I didn t know why they had aborted, he said I do! When the glider suddenly dipped in the heavy turbulence while circling the airfield, Col. Keating flew up and hit his helmeted head on the overhead beam making loud cracking noise, Cook immediately hit the release. So Otis Cook s son had been unable to provide any information, and neither Col. Keating s son nor Harold Snyder had been able to provide any information about a capture. We needed to find the Major that Harold had told us about. Bruce and I would frequently discuss what information we had and what we learned from it. Much of this research is like putting a puzzle together and frequently the puzzle pieces are right in front of us. As an example: We had the Jan 2014 Page 8

9 information about the first tow plane from two sources: the 53 rd Wing Report gave the glider Chalk number and the C-47 in serial A-13. The 78 th TCG Daily Flight records, which I got from the SWM Archives, listed the crew names from Lee and Otis s first tow plane. What we didn t know was who their second tow plane was after their abort. Their original tow plane had continued with Chalk #133 to the LZ. Since Chalk #134 made it to the LZ the 53 rd Wing did not consider it an abort and the serial information was not changed nor the abort recorded. While I was reviewing this information I happened to look down at a page in the 78 th histories and read one sentence that was a revelation. Lt. Lindenbaum landed at A- 48, picked up another glider and went on to the LZ with another group. another group but he could not remember the group number. He said that once they crossed the Rhine the sky was heavy with flak and that it was a miracle that his plane was not hit. We were losing a lot [of planes]. Later his daughter sent me a photo of her dad. We now turned our attention to finding the Major and after a few futile attempts on the internet we realized this research could only be done at the National Archives. It was time to take George Cholewczynski s advice and go to DC. THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES (College Park, MD) It was the words another group that caught my eye. I went back to the Daily Flight records for the 24 th. What I was now looking for were notes indicating a plane joining another group. Bingo! ----Tug 72 with one glider to fly to the LZ with another group. The answer had been in front of us the whole time. Lindenbaum Kasper -Fuller and Tabor. I also had Lt. Lindenbaum s second take-off time 1006 hours. I went back to Cook s report and read Our take off was delayed until 1000 hours, the tow pilot joined on the formation of the 314th group. I now had no doubt that the second tug was flown by Lt. Robert T. Lindenbaum and his crew. This was the same crew who had lost both their gliders, Chalk #119, where seven men were killed, and Chalk #120, which landed near the city of Ris-Orangis, France. To be sure, we did further research and there was no other abort that matched this scenario. I found and contacted Mr. Lindenbaum and he verified that they did indeed hook up with Just as I had done at the Silent Wings Museum, I contacted the Archivists a month ahead of time to let them know we were coming and what we were researching. Eric Van Slander contacted me by phone and told me what I needed to know for the research and how to find that information. When we got to the Archives and were checking in Eric came down and introduced himself. Eric was a tremendous help in getting us started. At the Archives, we ordered the boxes for the 681 st GFAB and started going through every page looking for any reference to a Major that Jan 2014 Page 9

10 had shown up late during Operation Varsity. We finally found, in the After Action Report for the 681 st, two entries that partially answered our questions. The first read By 1600 Bn CO and S-3 still not on scene. The second noted that, at 1930 Bn CO and S-3 arrived on scene. After some more searching we discovered a staff roster showing that the S-3 was Major Rex Light. I called Maj. Light s widow, Sarah. She said her husband never talked about the landing at Wesel except to say that it was the most terrifying experience of his life and he thought he was going to die. At the Archives we also found the missing page from Otis Cooks ICS. Actually it wasn t a whole page, just the last couple of sentences that had been cut off when it was copied, but that piece was significant. [After landing] we encountered intense enemy activity So we now had quite a bit more information than when we started. We knew that Col. Keating, Maj. Light, FO Cook and FO Whitmire left the glider on foot (Snyder), began to traverse an area that was known to contain enemy (Joe Keating), ran into intense enemy activity (Cook s ICS), expended most or all of their ammunition (Lee s ICS), and the situation was looking pretty grim (Sarah Light). Would we every find out any more? The After Action Report entries for the 681 st contained a couple of other notations that might be helpful. When it was noted that the CO and S-3 were missing, it was also noted that No Medical officer or aid personnel present at all. Survey O missing with entire crew. Then, at 1930, when the CO and S-3 arrived at the CP, they brought part of survey section with them. Brought news that, Capt. Nakadate, and Lt. Murphy were wounded and left near their gliders. If we could find these landing sites, we might find some clues to their route. A review of the ICS from the 435 th yielded no results, but a search on the internet did reveal some information on Capt. Nakadate. He received the Bronze Star Medal for treating wounded personnel throughout the day even though he himself had been wounded and was in extreme pain (A subsequent trip to the NA revealed that Capt. Nakadate set up his aid station right where his glider had landed, but so far we have no indication exactly where that was located). Bruce contacted Capt. Nakadate s son, but he was unable to provide any additional information. Bruce also found Lt. Murphy and talked with him on the phone several times. He confirmed our suspicion that he was the Survey Officer, but could tell us little else. He had, as we already knew, been wounded (by flak while still in the air) and so did not go with the rest of the survey men. He did, however, have a couple of helpful bits. First, he was conscious and alert the whole time and said he had no contact with Col. Keating. Second, he said that their glider landed right at Division Artillery and he was treated at the aid station there (possibly at the 224 th A/B Med Co which was located nearby). If you draw a line between the Division Artillery CP and the CP of the 681 st GFAB, it would cross (about midway) the CP of the 680 th. So, it appears that the survey section (less Murphy) met up with Col. Keating and company at the 680 th CP and it was they who brought Keating the news about Lt. Murphy and Capt. Nakadate. Murphy could not remember the names of his survey men except for his Survey Sergeant, a man named Gordon, from Mississippi. Bruce Jan 2014 Page 10

11 found a S/Sgt Robert W. Gordon in the 681 st Unit History who had received a Bronze Star for completing a survey under intense artillery and mortar fire in the Ardennes. Later research uncovered the fact that he enlisted in Shelby, Mississippi, so this was our man. Bruce then discovered that he had died in 2000 leaving no next of kin to contact. How were we going to find the names of the remaining survey men? Many of the unit rosters had been destroyed after the war, and we had found nothing at the National Archives. Just about the time that we thought we had reached the end of the line, we began communicating with a few members of the 17 th Airborne Association. One member, Adam Coolong, sent us information that provided us with another research resource. We had heard about Morning Reports, and knew, roughly, that they kept track of changes in personnel status, but we weren t sure how that would help us find the survey men. Adam s grandfather had been a member of the 680 th GFAB and Adam is conducting research on him. He sent us some Morning Reports so we could see the type of information they contain, and, as we looked through them, we found something interesting. After the armistice was signed in May of 45, preparations were made to start sending men home, based on their points. Most of the men in the 17 th did not have enough points, so in June of 45, they were transferred to the 82 nd and 101 st Airborne Divisions to serve as occupation forces in Germany or they were transferred to the 13 th Airborne Division for deployment to Japan. In the Special Orders detailing these transfers were listed names, ASN and Military Occupation Specialty (MOS). THE NATIONAL PERSONNEL RECORDS CENTER (St. Louis, MO) In September of 2013, in conjunction with our third National WWII Glider Pilots reunion in Kansas City, MO, we made a side trip to the National Personnel Records Center in St Louis, MO. Even on this trip we made sure to contact the Archives ahead of time. This is especially important at the Records Center because they have limited space and research is done only by appointment. There, we copied several pages of Special Orders, and made note of those with the MOS of 228, Survey and Instrument Man. We have located descendants of all these men except S/Sgt Robert Gordon and have sent a dozen letters. So far, we have heard back from a few and have a little more information We know that at least one glider, Chalk #143 piloted by 2 nd Lt. Charles Rohn and FO Michael Treichok, with at least one member of the Survey Section, Tec 4 John Prince, aborted en route and landed twenty five miles north east of Paris. We also have a statement from the son of one member of the Survey Section (Pfc Richard Bruner) that his dad was in a glider with a pack howitzer and he joined up with a group of six or seven other men who were subsequently held up by the Germans. But we are still missing any information on a capture. Jan 2014 Page 11

12 As Bruce was working on the Survey Section men, I began contacting those families and men who came into the 88 th TCS at the same time as Lee did, as replacements. Since none of the older men I had contacted in the 88 th remembered Lee, my thinking was that the replacements might have stuck together. This turned out to be a good assumption as I began obtaining photos and letters associated with Lee. Thomas Pleger was one person whose name was on the records with Lee many times. While at the reunion, in Kansas City, I happen to ask Peg Fell, the 438 th TCG secretary, if she had an address for any of the Pleger family. She did and I wrote. Just before leaving for the National Archives in Maryland I got a call from the family. Marian Pleger, Tom s daughter, had five photos of Lee and his buddies. What a Godsend! Tom was a good buddy. I would have really liked to have met Tom. Because Tom had written the names of the men in each photo I had so much more to research. I also now had photos of four of the men from the 88 th who went to the 435 th together (ROHN, ZICHTERMAN, PLEGER, and WHITMIRE). Lft to rgt: William A Wilcox, Jacob A. Zichterman, Kenneth N. Hoglund, Thomas E. Pleger, Edward E. Finch, Charles F. Rohn. Kneeling Lft-rgt: Joseph Moore, E. Lee Whitmire I found Bob Taylor who was in one of the photos. Bob gave me specific information about what they did. Showing what a small world it really is, Bob also happens to be a good friend of Tom Pleger s brother, Ernie, who has also given me information. Charles Rohn s son, Richard, gave me copies of his father s letters home. Those have given me insight to the troop carrier s everyday life. The letters are not specific in detail, due to the censoring of information in letters going home, but that was okay because I knew the history of the 88 th. What Charles letters were giving me were descriptions about the food, transportation, recreation, keeping their uniforms clean and the boredom when not flying. He described the château they stayed in at Ris Orangis there are seven of us and we have this place all to ourselves. It is simply out of this world Knowing Lee was one of the seven gave me a really good feeling. (Back to the it s a small world theme, I realized that, during Operation Varsity, Lt. Charles Rohn was the co-pilot who aborted over France carrying the 681 st Survey man, John Prince. Then after Varsity, Charles became Bob Taylor s C-47 co-pilot.) Hans also put me in contact with Barbara Woods and Brian Gilbert whose fathers were in the 88 th with Lee. Lt. John Woods was one of the seven men who stayed in the Chateau at Ris-Orangis. Both Barbara and Brian had great photos of the 88 th squadron activities including a photo of the band that played at the dance where my parents met. While I was researching my new leads, Bruce had been doing some serious analysis on some other media that we had obtained from our last visit to the Archives. In various 17 th A/B After Action Reports, Bruce had found the coordinates listed for such sites as the 680 th GFAB CP, the 681 st GFAB Jan 2014 Page 12

13 CP, the Division Artillery CP, and the 224 th Airborne Medical Company. Also, many of the glider pilots gave landing position coordinates in their Interrogation Check Sheets. These coordinates are based on the Modified British System maps used by the allied forces during the war. There is an internet tool, The Coordinates Translator that Bruce had been using to show these coordinates on Google Maps. The site can be found at Both the 53 rd Wing Histories and 17 th Airborne Operation Varsity Reports also have map overlays that show the glider landing positions in LZ-S, but we soon learned to mistrust these. These overlays showed Lee s glider, chalk #134 of the 435 th TCG, landing just about where it was supposed to, near the 681 st GFAB CP. The coordinates that Lee gave in his ICS put him in the northwest corner of the LZ-S, about two miles from the 681 st CP (and very near the position given for the 680 th CP). Lee s references to guns in the northwest corner of the LZ caused us to lean toward Lee s version. Then, when Bruce reviewed the article in the Artillery Journal mentioned earlier, it noted that Col Keating had landed some distance north of his CP. That pretty much settled the matter for us. The Coordinates Translator is a great tool and it is pretty easy to use, once you figure out which grid and sub-grid to use. For LZ-S, we used the ra sub-grid of the Nord de Guerre Grid. If you want to transfer these coordinates to a larger Google Map, simply copy the decimal version of the latitude/longitude (separated by a comma, no spaces) to the search bar of Google Maps. Map projection data has been refined over the years, however, and map coordinates from 1944 can be off as much as 300 meters when plotted on today s Google Maps. Fortunately, Bruce had found some 1944 Maps based on the Modified British System at the Archives, and when he plotted the coordinates Lee gave on this map, his position was about 250 meters southwest of where The Coordinates Translator had placed him. Even with all the position coordinates, things were still not aligning neatly on the map. The position of the 680 th Battalion CP, for example, plotted between a farmhouse located at (what is today) Schmitthauskamp 1 and two farmhouses at Landwehr 20 and 22. Bruce had also copied a map overlay at the National Archives that showed Points of Interest for the 680 th GFAB. These points were such things as the locations of the Battalion CP, the Battalion Aid Station, the gun batteries and enemy strong points. This was interesting because it showed the relative positions of physical features and events that had been described in many of the reports. Drawing Modified British System grid lines on the overlay allowed it to be compared to the map. When this comparison was made, several things fell into place. The position of the 680 th CP was an almost perfect match for the Landwehr 20/22 farms (which would make Schmitthauskamp 1 a perfect match for the Aid Station), and the two gun batteries of the 680 th were located on either side of the railroad track in the middle of the grid. In addition, the coordinates that Lee gave for 20mm and 50 cal machine gun fire were a perfect match for Landwehr 20/22, which was also consistent with descriptions in the After Action Reports. All this analysis told us a couple of things. First, we had even more confidence in the accuracy of the landing position given by Lee. Jan 2014 Page 13

14 Second, going back to Pfc Harold Snyder s account of the Col, the Maj and the two pilots going up to the house that the heavy fire had been coming from, we determined that the best match for this house would have been what had now become the 680 th CP. (ref) We were about to receive even more evidence. Some time prior to the analysis just described, Hans had given us a list of film reels held by the National Archives that contained high altitude aerial photographs taken of LZ-S on March 26 th. Prior to visiting, we ordered these reels (they are stored in Kansas City MO and have to be shipped to the NA in College Park). When we went up to the third floor to check on the reels we were met by the Archives Specialist for Aerial Photos, Jerry Luchansky. We were pleasantly surprised when he told us that he had taken a look at them and could tell us which frames showed gliders on the ground. The staff set us up on a viewing station and we loaded the first reel. These reels contain massive film strips with negatives measuring nine inches by nine inches. As we rolled through the frames, two things became apparent. First, it was a good thing Mr. Luchansky had told us which frames showed gliders, because we could barely make them out in the negatives. Second, while our camera gear had worked fine for photographing documents, there was no way we were going to get it above the viewer and still be able to see through the viewfinder to focus. Bruce, who is actually a fairly competent photographer, said it was time to call in an expert. The National Archives website provides an alphabetical list of individuals who will do research for a fee. Hans had met one of them, Dirk Burgdorf, who is listed under AAA Research, ( contact@naraexpert.com ) on his last visit to the Archives so we sent Dirk an . Dirk answered us the same day, gave us a quote of $235 to copy the six frames we were looking for, and we had them in our in-box three days later. And, not only did we have the six frames, Dirk did close ups on more than a dozen sections of each frame, so we actually ended up with over one hundred images. Considering what it would have cost us to upgrade our camera equipment, fly to the East Coast, rent a car and pay for meals and lodging, we thought this was a bargain. We had shared the photos with Hans, and almost immediately, Hans was able to tell us which frames showed the area that Lee gave as his landing position. We recognized several of the features from our visit to the area in 2012 as well as some others from the Points of Interest overlay, like what appeared to be ammo pits on either side of the railroad track that corresponded to the positions of the two gun batteries of the 680 th. In fact, the overly and aerial photo matched so perfectly that we could now look at the map and say with a great deal of confidence where the 680 th CP was located (Landwehr 20/22), as well as several other points mentioned in the AARs and Lee s ICS. The photo showed six gliders on either side of the single railroad track running north to south. We labeled these gliders one through six and examined them for any damage as described in the ICS, but, as the photos were taken from such high altitude, we were unable to see any abnormalities. Glider #1 and #2 are closest to the landing position that Lee gave. Lee reported that they hit their skid on another glider, and, since #2 could not have hit #1, Glider #1 is most likely Lee s. (AP-1) Jan 2014 Page 14

15 In March, we will travel to Lancaster, PA to attend the Varsity Gathering of the Scions of the 17 th Airborne Division. Just as we have found it useful to examine the records from the 17 th, members of the 17 th have found information from the glider pilot community useful to them. We need to keep this exchange going. While we are in the area, we will make another visit to the National Archives (we have discovered that folders often get misplaced and information that wasn t in a box the first time we looked is there six months later). While the Search for Lee Whitmire continues, we know we are reaching the point of diminishing returns. Our next steps will be to review old material to see if we either overlooked something, or, we just didn t know the significance of what we were seeing at the time. Far from being near the end of our journey, we now find ourselves deeply embroiled in the WWII Troop Carrier community. I am now a Wing Commander in the National WWII Glider Pilots Association and was recently appointed their web developer. Bruce is beginning work on organizing and cataloguing our large collection of resource materials so they will be more accessible to others. Above all else, we are striving to do anything and everything we can to recognize and honor the men who gave so much, that Greatest Generation who made the USA the Greatest Nation on Earth. We also have to review our conclusions from time to time. As can be seen, there are errors of fact or omission in official documents and the memories of those who were there is being stretched to the limit. Every piece of information needs to be confirmed by additional sources, if possible. By the same token, we must be open to changing our perception of what we think we know as additional information comes to light. For example, we initially envisioned Lee s statement that he was captured to mean that he was taken prisoner, and while this could still be the case, we are now beginning to realize that the capture may have been more of an immobilizing action by superior enemy forces. Either way, we consider ourselves extremely fortunate to have discovered as much as we have. Jan 2014 Page 15