WILLIAM WALLACE

WILLIAM WALLACE
“A True Survivor”

For the last fifteen years, millions of persons all over the world  have tuned their television sets to watch the popular television show Survivor.  The king of reality of shows features everyday people who endure the elements and undergo a variety of contests.  Sixty five years ago, William Wallace and thousands of other American soldiers and civilians faced the same challenge.  However, this challenge was real. It was constantly brutal,  frequently deadly and unfathomably heinous.

William Wallace, son of Lase and Frances Wallace, was born on April 1, 1922 and grew up in Millen, Georgia.  After his graduation from High School, William enlisted in the Army Air Corps and began his training at Fort McPherson in Atlanta.    Private Wallace was assigned to the 27th Bombardment Group (L)as a tail gunner.  The group was assigned to duty in the Philippine Islands in November 1941.  Wallace was at his station when the Japanese attacked the island chain on December 7.

The invaders launched a ferocious siege upon the American and Filipino forces, who had little food and an ever dwindling supply of ammunition.  After the three months of constant fighting, the American forces surrendered.  William was taken prisoner and along with thousands of other prisoners, was forced to endure the infamous “Bataan Death March.”  The weakened men were force-marched sixty miles in intense heat.  The only drinking water was found in mud puddles along the way.  Rest periods were rare.  Slow walkers were beaten.  Stragglers were bayoneted.  Six or seven hundred men were left dead on the side of the road.

After three months and fifteen hundred deaths at Camp O’Donnell, the prisoners were transported to the nefarious prison at Cabanatuan.  William remained there until September 1943.     It was in the latter months of 1943 that the Japanese government began to transport American prisoners back to the mainland to work in the coal mines.   Wallace and six hundred other prisoners were crammed into the hold a cargo ship, which set a course for Osaka.

Along the way, the ship detoured to Formosa in China.  The men were sent to a coal mine and were worked more than a half day, every day.  William was forced to push a heavy coal car up hill.  Any slip might result in a beating.    A prisoner’s daily diet consisted of three cups of rice.  If they were lucky, the men were given a prize morsel of meat, a pickled grasshopper, known to its consumer as a “Georgia Thumper.”

By 1944, William was assigned to a coal mine of the Rinko Coal Company in Japan. Conditions in the mine were unbearable.  The men were placed in an open building, left to face the brutal winters with virtually no shelter.  Each man was given old clothes to wear and a single blanket to keep them warm.  On the coldest of nights, six men would lie on one blanket and lie together, three with their heads on one end and three at the other end, with the five blankets on top.  At least the meals were better.   Stewed fish and boiled soybeans were added to the customary, but highly treasured, three daily cups of rice.   Once a week, the men got a bath.

Wallace described the winter of 1945 as the worst.  Snow falls ranged from three feet and more.  In order to avoid work and gain a stay in the hospital, Wallace would hold his breath and fall flat into the snow to make it appear that he had lost consciousness on six or seven occasions.  His captors never realized his ruse.  Had they done so, he would have been immediately executed on the spot.  “Getting out the snow, the freezing rain and still being allowed to eat was worth the risk,” said Wallace.   During that winter, William suffered from dysentery and double pneumonia and spent Easter Sunday, his 23rd birthday, in the hospital.

Conditions in the camp began to deteriorate rapidly.  The men began to steal food and cigarettes from each other, but were strongly disciplined if caught.  Distribution of food was scrutinized down to the pro rata bean and crumb of rice.

William was not released until the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  When he left the coal mine, he weighed 87 pounds.  Constant hunger and debilitating malaria and beriberi nearly killed William.  Thousands of others who weren’t so lucky.  

In August 1945, William returned to the United States and entered a hospital in California.   When he arrived home,  he possessed six stitches in his head, a result of an unprovoked attack by a Japanese civilian with a large chunk of coal.   After a period of recuperation, William returned to Georgia.  Among the first to greet him was his high school sweetheart Mary Dickey.  The couple married in 1946, but William believed his obligation to his country was not yet completed.  He returned to the Army Air Corps for a three-year hitch.  Though he tried to live a normal life, the haunting memories of his incarceration prevented William from sleeping with a light off for more than eight years.  Talking about his experiences was difficult, if not impossible.  It wasn’t until the survivors held their first reunion when William began to relate the horrors of his internment.  Wallace’s  remembrances are featured in Donald Knox’s “Death March,” the story of the Bataan Death March and its survivors.

Wallace told Knox, “the further we went into captivity, the worse it became.”  He began to doubt whether or not he could ever survive, but came to realize “that the human body can suffer nearly everything and still survive.”

William Wallace graduated from Mercer University with a double major in religion and history.  For forty-one years, he served small rural Baptist churches in our area and worked at Warner Robins AFB until poor health forced his retirement in 1943.  His last sermon was delivered in 1991.

In January 1992, nearly fifty years after his capture,  William Wallace was presented the Congressional Prisoner of War Medal in his hospital bed by Congressman J. Roy Rowland.   Never bitter toward his captors, Wallace was disappointed that Japanese Americans interned in camps in our country were given a reparation of twenty thousand dollars, while he and the four thousand survivors and the families of the five thousand who died never received a cent of compensation.

The Rev. William Wallace died on February 27, 1995.  The lung disease he contracted in the camps eventually killed him.   Wallace survived one of the most brutal prison camps in the history of the world.  He endured to serve his fellow man and to espouse the word of the Gospel and spread the message of peace and love toward all mankind.  On this Memorial Day, take a moment to remember William Wallace and the millions of brave Americans who sacrificed their lives, their homes and families to preserve our freedoms.

THE TUSKEGEE AIRMEN OF LAURENS COUNTY

SOARING TO NEW HEIGHTS

Some 85 to 90 years ago, three young Laurens County boys played in the cotton fields and stared into the sky as their parents and the older members of their families picked cotton and other crops from the field.

Hardly any of them had ever seen an airplane in their young and isolated lives.  In the next two decades, each of them would not only learn what an airplane was, they would learn to fly some of the fastest airplanes in the U.S. Air Force.

Each of these three men took separate career paths.  One flew bomber planes, another fighter planes, and the last one flew jet planes higher and faster than few people had eve flown before.

On Veteran’s Day, the State of Georgia will honor these three men by naming the intersection of U.S. Highway 80 West and the U.S. Highway 441 By-pass as the Herndon Cummings, Marion Rodgers, John Whitehead Tuskegee Airmen Interchange.  

The legislation was sponsored by Representatives Matt Hatchett, Bubber Epps and Jimmy Pruett at the request of Laurens County Commissioner, Buddy Adams, who has been the driving force in honoring veterans in Laurens County since his election to office in 2008.   Adams proposed legislation to name the two legs of the by-pass for Lt. Kelso Horne,  the cover man of Life magazine’s first D-Day issue and Lt. Col. Clyde Stinson, who was awarded two Silver Stars for heroism and was one of the highest ranking officers killed in actual combat in Vietnam. 

     Of the estimated one thousand men who bore the title of a “Tuskegee Airmen,” three of these remarkable aviators can call Laurens County, Georgia home.  

One, Major Herndon Cummings, was a native of Laurens County, while two others, Col. John Whitehead and Col. Marion Rodgers spent portions of their childhood living in Laurens County.  The legacy of these three men lived well beyond their years as a separate unit of the United States Army Air Force.  Laurens County’s three Tuskegee Airmen went on to remarkable achievements in aviation for decades beyond their service during World War II.

   Herndon Cummings was born on April 25, 1919 in the Burgamy District of Laurens County, Georgia.  The son of Joseph and Mollie Hill Cummings,  Don’s interest in aviation was sparked on Christmas Day in 1928 when his father gave him a toy German zeppelin.  His interest in flying was forever sealed in 1936 when Don and his brother took a five-dollar ride  in a Ford Tri-Motor plane.  As the plane soared in the skies west of Dublin, Don underwent a life-altering experience.  "By the time the plane landed, I knew what I wanted to do," he recalled.   

     Cummings enlisted in the Air Corps on June 25, 1942.  He trained in the B-25 bomber at Tuskegee and later at Lockbourne Air Force Base in Columbus, Ohio, where he would later make his home.   Of the nine hundred to a thousand men who successfully completed their training at Tuskegee, most trained as fighter pilots in the P-51 fighter and other fighters. 

     Lt. Cummings was assigned to the 477th Bomber Group, which was based at Selfridge Army Air Field, Michigan in 1944.  Many of the members of the group were commanded by white officers, who according to some, favored white officers over the black officers.  Concerns over racial troubles in Detroit forced the group to move to Godman Field near Fort Knox, Kentucky.    By March 1945, the 477th was uprooted again and moved to Freemen Army Field at Seymour, Indiana.  

    The field at Freeman maintained two clubs, one for supervisors and one for trainees, but were defacto separated between blacks and whites.  In the early days of April 1945, the relationships between the commanding officers and the black pilots began to deteriorate rapidly.   On April 9, 1945, the day of the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, more than 100 of the airmen were arrested and placed in jail for twelve days until they were released by order of new President, Harry S. Truman.  

     Just weeks after they were freed,  Lt. Cummings was promoted to captain to command a bomber.  After completing his four-year stint in the Army Air Corps, Cummings served in the Air Force Reserve and attained the rank of major before retiring after twenty years of service.

     Cummings earned a commercial pilot's license, but never utilized it because there were virtually no opportunities for employment of black pilots.  He went to work laying bricks in order to support his family and send his two daughters to college.

In one of his last official reunions with his fellow Tuskegee airmen, Major Cummings was invited to sit on the stage during the inauguration of President Barack Obama.  He died some six months later on July 2, 2009.

Marion Rodgers was born in Detroit, Michigan  on September 23, 1921 and raised to about age eight in Dublin, Georgia until his family moved to New York.   Rodgers grew interested in aviation when a man in the neighborhoold began to restore a damaged bi-plane.  From that point forward, Rodgers would spend his free time going to airports watching plans take off and land.  

           Not immediately accepted into flight school at Tuskegee, Alabama, Rodgers was first assigned to an anti-aircraft artillery unit and the served a short term as a radio operator.  Eventually, Marion was accepted into flight school at Keesler Field.  In May 1943, I'm sent to Pre-Flight Training at Tuskegee Army Air Field.

Rodgers trained at Moten Field before returning to Tuskegee where he flew the Vultee BT-131 for the requisite 80 flight hours.  Promoted to the much more powerful AT-6, Marion earned his 2nd Lieutenant wings.

             After flying the P-40, P-39 and P-47, Marion was assigned to the 99th Fighter Squadron, the famous unit eternally known as the “Red Tails.”  In 69 combat missions Lt. Rodgers  flew 370 hours as am escort for B-17s and B-24s. 

After the war, Rodgers was eventually promoted to command the 99th Fighter Squadron “The Red Tails”  at Lockbourne Air Base.  In 1948, the Air Force was integrated under orders from President Harry S. Truman.  Col. Rodgers, a twenty-two-year veteran of the Air Force and a 17-year Civil Service worker, spent one year working for N.A.S.A. as a program manager on the mission of Apollo 13.  In technical circles, Rodgers was prominent in the development of electronics and communications procedures with N.O.R.A.D..

           After his retirement in 1983, Rodgers became known for his exceedingly kind contributions of his time  to public organizations in his home town. He also attended as many events honoring the Tuskegee Airmen whenever and wherever he could.   In his spare time, Rodgers spent many fun times with his wife Suzanne and engaging in his favorite hobby as an amateur radio operator.   

         Just a few weeks ago, Rodgers, 93 years old,  was treated to one more flight in a P-51 over Camarillo, California.  The flight in the fighter plane which turned the tide of the air war in Europe came nearly seventy years after his first flight.

Col. John Whitehead, known to his fellow pilots as “Mr. Death,” was born in Lawrenceville, Virginia in 1924.  Like Col. Rodgers, Whitehead spent several of the years of his youth in Laurens County.  Lt. Whitehead flew several missions over Europe in World War II.

Col. Whitehead was the Air Force’s first African-American test pilot.  Many of his hours in the air came while he was a pilot instructor for the Air Force in the 1950s.   A former President of the Tuskegee Airmen, Inc., Whitehead was given his nickname, not because he cheated death on many times, but because of his gaunt looking face, supposedly resembling that of a skull.

  

In his 30-year career, Col. Whitehead spent more than 9,500 hours in the air, with some 5000 of them coming in jet aircraft.  In January 1951, Whitehead was featured on the cover of Ebony magazine.  

After serving as a pilot in Vietnam and retiring from the military, Whitehead served as an instructor and Air Force Liaison at Boeing and  Northrop Aircraft.   

Whitehead was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with three oak leaf clusters,  the Air Medal with seven oak leaf clusters and numerous other citations and medals.   He was a man of firsts, the first African American to graduate from the U.S. Air Force Experimental Test Pilots School, the first African American to fly the B-47 bomber and the first African American to serve as an instructor of jet pilots.

THE FLY BOYS

Since the first biplane flew over the skies of Laurens County just about a century ago, our young men, and a few young women,  have dreamed of flying up and into the skies above us.   Many of these young men went on to serve in the Air Force during the wars of the 20th Century.  On this Veteran’s Day, let us salute the Fly Boys, the warriors in the skies.

The first glimpses of the flying machines came during fair and festival times when barnstorming pilots thrilled thousands of curious onlookers.  

The first Laurens County pilot was Corporal Walter Warren.  Warren, a member o the American Expeditionary Force, was the first American airmen to be wounded in World War I in early December 1917.

After World War I, flying became a national obsession.  It was in 1919, when Dublin, then one of the largest cities in the state,  became the destination of pilots around Georgia.  Recruiters out of Souther Field in Americus flew in and out of Dublin in hopes of getting some local boys in the seat of plane.

But it was in the 1930s, when interest in flying exploded.  The Dublin City Council established the first airport on the Phelps Place on Claxton Dairy Road in 1929.   Mayor T.E. Hightower urged that “Dublin be put on the air map of the United States Aeronautical Association as soon as possible.”  “All the world has taken wings and Dublin must take to the air, too, or be left behind,” Hightower added.   Another landing strip was on the west side of town on the E.T. Barnes place on the Macon Road.  This primitive landing strip, probably located near the Dublin Mall

The kids of Dublin formed a Junior Birdmen Club in February 1935.  Emory Beckham was elected the wing commander, while Jack Baggett was chosen as the club captain.  Billy Keith served as the secretary-treasurer.  Other members of the club were Earle Beckham, Luther Word, Owen Word and Jimmie Sanders.  The club, organized to promote an interest in aviation, was the only club between Macon and Savannah.

The enthusiasm of the Junior Birdmen inspired city officials to begin construction of a municipal airport two miles south of town on the Dublin-Eastman Highway south of  the present site of Mullis’ Junkyard.  With the support of Monson Barron, the city’s oldest aviation afficionado, Clafton Barron, and Ellison Pritchett, who had worked for Boeing, Lockheed, and Douglas, a four plane hangar was constructed on the site.  Local officials continued to push the Barnes site on Highway 80 West, as well as the Cullens site in East Dublin on Highway 80 East.  Neither of the three sites ever attained the status of a first class airport. 

By far, the greatest interest in flying came when the United States entered World War II. Robert Werden, Jr. loved to fly and was so anxious to fly planes in World War II that he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force.  When the United States declared war, he joined the Army Air Force, only to be shot down and killed in the early years of the war.  

Lt. Lucian Bob Shuler, a former Cadwell High School basketball coach, was an ace, having shot down seven  Japanese planes in combat.   Captain Shuler (LEFT)  was awarded eleven Distinguished Flying Crosses and twelve Air Medals.   Cpt. William A. Kelley, a former Dublin High School coach, was flying the “Dauntless Dotty” when  it crashed into the sea on June 6, 1945.  The B-29 Superfortress was the first B-29 to bomb Tokyo.  Kelley and his crew, who flew in a bomber named “The Lucky Irish,” were the first crew in the Pacific to complete 30 missions.  

Lt. Colonel J.R. Laney,  former residents of Dublin and graduates of West Point, was cited for their actions in India and Europe.   Laney was a member of the three-man crew of the Douglas XB-42 Mixmaster, the world’s fastest transcontinental plane, when it crashed into a Washington, D.C. suburb in December 1945.  Lt. Col. Laney survived the crash to complete a distinguished thirty-year career in the Army.   

Marion Rodgers,  (LEFT) who spent his early years in Dublin, was a squadron commander of the Tuskegee Airman in the years after World War II.  Major Herndon Cummings was a Tuskegee bomber pilot in the 477th Bomber Group. Cummings was incarcerated along with a hundred other fellow pilots for attempting to integrate an all-white officers club at Freeman Field in Indiana in 1945 in one of the country’s first major civil rights incidents. John Whitehead, who grew up in Dublin like Rodgers, was the Air Force’s first African American test pilot, was also a Tuskegee Airman. 

Major Herndon Cummings

 Col. John Whitehead

Captain Alvin A. Warren, Jr., of Cadwell, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for flying 70 missions in the Indo-China Theater night and day through impassable mountain ranges and high clouds. Walter D. Warren, Jr. was a member of the famed Flying Tigers in China-Burma-India Theater.  Flight officer Emil E. Tindol also received the same award, just days before he was killed in action  while “flying the hump” - a term used for flying over the gigantic mountain ranges of India and Burma.    

For his battle wounds and other feats of courage and bravery, Lt. Clifford Jernigan was awarded the Purple Heart, an Air Medal and three Oak Leaf clusters in 1944.   Lt. Garrett Jones was a highly decorated pilot who participated in the first daylight bombings of Germany.   Lt. Col. Ezekiel W. Napier of Laurens County, a graduate of West Point, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and retired from the Air Force in 1959 as a Brigadier General.  The "Pilot's Pilot," Bud Barron of Dublin, was credited with the second most number of air miles during the war, mainly by ferrying aircraft to and from the front lines. Barron has been inducted into the Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame.    

Near the end of the war, the U.S. Navy established an airport northwest of Dublin to support the Naval Hospital in Dublin.  That airport became the Laurens County Airport after the war.       Passenger and air freight service began in and out of Dublin in 1945 with flights on Southern Air Express Airlines.

J.P. McCullough was an aviation instructor in the Air Force.  Among his more famous pupils were two of the country’s better known aviators, United States Senators John Glenn and John McCain.

Major James F. Wilkes, (left) a Forward Air Controller flying a modified civilian Cessna airplane, was awarded a Silver Star for directing fighter aircraft in between friendly and enemy positions and saving the lives of many American soldiers.  Major Wilkes also won two Distinguished Flying Crosses and fifteen Air Medals. Lt. Col. Holman Edmond, Jr. in his two tours of duty in Vietnam was awarded 2 Bronze Stars and 17 Air Medals. 

Today, flying remains a popular pastime in Laurens County. And, still there are young men who fly missions for our country on a regular basis to preserve the freedoms e still enjoy at home and around the world. 

Lt. George Spicer

                                                                   Lt. Roy Malone