Time was, Memorial Day was May 30, and it meant more than sales, cookouts, and “the unofficial beginning of summer.” To some, the old meaning remains.
Ray Hurlbut is tall, cheerful, and vigorous. He plays golf and is a ham radio operator. He and his delightful wife Lucy have raised a fine family; their son John is well known to music fans and musicians hereabouts.
Almost 25 years ago, I was assigned to cover a visit to New York by the President of the United States. There, he addressed a gathering of most all the living recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor. I do not think I have ever felt as humble as I did that day, not so much by the presence of a President who I admired as by the sea of men and women, perfectly ordinary but for the light blue ribbon emblazoned with stars around each of their necks and, below the throat, that very rare medal which certified that when endless courage was required, these persons had found just such courage.
Many more years ago than that, the first weekend after the end of school, which included Memorial Day, was always spent by my family in southern Indiana, placing flags on the graves of ancestors who had fought in the Civil War and conflicts since then.
And now, last week, I was talking with Ray Hurlbut, who was the radioman on a Lockheed Vega Ventura PB-1 patrol bomber over both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans during the second half of World War II.
He talks matter-of-factly about the missions flown guarding fuel convoys and patrolling for submarines, of the precise navigation required to land at Wake Island in the Pacific, which combined the efforts of the co-pilot, with charts and transit, and Ray with his radio direction finder. A touch of excitement — eagerness to tell about it — enters his voice when he notes that his squadron of a dozen planes and 15 crews was flying missions from Iwo Jima while there was still fighting on that bloody island.
“We moved to different stations, as the invasion forces captured islands and established airfields,” he explains. “Saipan, Tinian, Iwo Jima …” The battle of the Pacific, especially, is legendary for its intensity, and the job of Ray’s squadron was to prevent the islands still held by the enemy from being refortified, and to find and sink enemy patrol boats that might have radioed information about allied activities.
He describes one patrol in which a Japanese spotter boat was damaged but not sunk. His plane flew back to base for fuel and more munitions, and it was noticed that the aircraft had been shot up.
“The pilot’s view was that he flew it in, he could fly it back out” and finish the job. That required special permission. The pilot was walking across the field to obtain that permission when a P-51 Mustang fighter ground looped and hit a truck, which overturned and killed the pilot. It’s a sad story, of course, but to me instructive: here were men who were seeking to go out in a crippled airplane to finish a job they’d begun and, probably, to get shot at again in the process.
Ray mentions, only when asked and only almost as an afterthought, that yes, he was awarded three Air Medals because his plane had encountered enemy opposition on so many of its missions.
He talks of being reassigned stateside and his promise to visit the wife of a friend and how, on the way there, he learned that his friend, her husband, had been killed.
And he talks of later visiting the cemetery in the Netherlands where his brother-in-law, Lucy’s brother, is buried, killed in the fighting surrounding the Battle of the Bulge. It’s hard to imagine now, but the war touched every town and every aspect of life. There were 16 million people in the American armed services in World War II, of whom more than 400,000 were killed.
And he talks of a recent trip to the World War II and Iwo Jima memorials in Washington, organized by a group called Honor Flight for him and about 35 other veterans. They had a chance to swap stories and even to be greeted at the Memorial by Bob Dole, himself terribly wounded during the war. It was a good experience.
“We flew to Baltimore and got on the bus for the drive to Washington,” he remembers, “and at one point the driver said he had to make a little detour. He turned, and there were guys in camouflage, with flags, saluting.” When the flight got home, the walkway was lined with Cub Scouts, each with a little flag.
“That morning, when we walked to the plane, on each side of the walkway there were highschool students,” he says. “And as we walked past” — his voice cracks a little here — “excuse me, I get a little emotional. As we walked past, they applauded.”
Dennis E. Powell is crackpot-at-large to Open for Business. Powell was an award-winning reporter in New York and elsewhere before moving to Ohio and becoming a full-time crackpot. You can reach him at dep@drippingwithirony.com.