The Independent-News, Volume 121, Number 15, Walkerton, St. Joseph County, 24 August 1995 — Page 6

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- THE INDEPENDENT NEWS - AUGUST 24, 1995

Veterans Recall World War II 50 Years Later JOHN F. COWGER UNITED STATES AIR FORCE B-24 FLIGHT ENGINEER STAFF SERGEANT I enlisted in the U.S. Air Force on December 9, 1941, and got my basic training at Enid, Oklahoma Air Base, as a mechanic. I was then sent to Randolph Field, Texas, to get additional training and I passed my tests for a Flight Engineer. Then I went to gunnery school in Harligen, Texas. After a six-day leave, I was sent to San Pedro Bay, California, and shipped out to Hawaii. Then I was assigned to the 7th Air Force which was based at Heickam Field. Later I was assigned to a B-24 outfit. I went to the Gilbert Islands in 1944, then to the Marshal Islands, then back to Hawaii. The Marianas were taken in June and July of 1944-Saipan, Guam and Tinian-and B-29’s were stationed there-all of those planes came with crews from the States, so what was left of our outfit was transferred to the 20th Air Force an with several new men as replacements made up the Air Force Engineers. We loaded up and headed for Iwo Jima. This is my account of the invasion of Iwo Jima an my last flight in the U.S. Air Force. Our troop ship reached Iwo Jima and anchored off shore near Mt. Suribachi. We could not land on Iwo Jima as the Japs had the beaches littered with sunken ships an their use of mortars on Mt. Suribachi was keeping the harbor closed. That night, and after a couple of days off shore, the Navy, at dark, started cruising around Iwo with all kinds of battle ships and rocket launchers shooting at the Mt. They must have blown 20 ft. off the top of the mountain. They eliminated all pill boxes, machine gun block houses,

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off the Mt. which rolled out and landed down at the bottom. About an hour before daylight they quit and the Marines started up the mountain. It took them three days to reach the top, probably around February 22. We were dug in and were sandbagged, when the Marines put the flag on top of Iwo Jima, which is still one of the most widely-printed action pictures of WW 11. Os these six Marines who hoisted the U.S. Flag on Iwo Jimaonly three survived. After that we only had some sniper fire, but three days later about 2 a.m. we had a bonzai attack. This was my second one and we had told all the men that at dark you got into your foxhole and stayed there. In a bonzai attack you laid on your back and shot anyone that moved above you. We did well, as the report came out later that we lost only 18 men and a little over 400 dead Japs. The Seabees built us a great take-off and landing line and the P 51’s came in to escort the B-29’s over Japan. We were kept very busy as B-29’s in trouble came in for repairs also. One day in April there was a big hurricane coming in so they told us to take a B-24 and check it out as they wanted to know if the P 51’s could get through to escort the B-29’s in a raid over Japan. We flew into this hurricane and I shall never forget that! It seemed like for hours, everything was black, so black, then flying into the eye of the hurricane, it was very, very calm. We flew back out and back to Iwo and told them the wind gauge registered 165 m.p.h., so they could not get through. We notified the Navy of this so they could move away from land. The next flight I took after the hurricane, was when the Kamikaze pilots were trying to sink our Navy at Okinawa. The storm had destroyed lots of supplies so we took a B-24 and made an end run around the Navy with supplies to Okinawa. I saw a Kamikaze plane fly into the deck of this battlewagon

and men and deck were flying in every direction. A buddy of mine, Steve Slifka, told me his brother was on this ship. We had been together almost two years, so he went over to where the figures came in on these ships and his brother was not on that list. After the atomic bombs had been dropped, things came to a standstill. About a week later, a pilot came over to our area and said he is looking for Staff Sgt. Cowger. He said he was looking for a flight engineer. He said my C.O. (commanding officer) said he could use me so he wanted me to check over his B-24 and take a flight with him about 6 a.m. the next morning. I was surprised when I checked over that B-24, no guns, only cameras! And some with lens as big as a 21” TV screen! We took off at six the next morning and we flew over Hiroshima where they had dropped the bomb. There was complete destruction for four and a half square miles and the pilot told me the bomb was detonated 2,000 feet above ground level. I was looking out the side window by the pilot and I saw by the edge of total destruction a steel girder looked to be about 18 inches high and the top of it was melted off with slag lying at the base. As I was looking at it something came to methat was what had really happened! No bodies-everyone had been cremated instantly-nothing there but ashes. I asked the pilot and he said 'yes’ that is what happened. That big cloud that went up was the heat taking all the moisture out of the air, like a tea kettle boiling water and steam coming from the spout. That was my last flight in the U.S. Air Force. When we got back to Iwo Jima there was an ARU (aircraft repair unit) with a ship leaving for home so the C.O. said they had room for six men to go with them. So six of us who had been over there almost three years got to go home. Before boarding ship, our chaplin who was a priest by the name of Fr. Rutowski, conducted burial services. He came over to get me to go with him to the trench with his Holy Water sprinkler and we walked the length of the trench saying prayers. The trenches were dug by giant Caterpillar tractors with eight foot blades and looked to be a quarter of a mile long. The first 18 men that we lost there, were in that trench. Fr. Rutowski told me as I was walking with him on this occasion, one thing I will never forget: “sometimes a fellow who has been killed in action will have a buddy who will write a little poem and put it on his grave marker say, ‘and when he gets to Heaven, to St. Peter he will tell, just one more Marine reporting, sir, I have spent my time in Hell.’ ” I was discharged from the U.S. Air Force on November 29, 1945, at Camp Atterbury, Indiana. My discharge says that I weighed only 116 pounds. NEIL DOWNEY UNITED STATES NAVY SK3 USS PENNSYLVANIA I was inducted in May of 1943 and had my Boot Camp training at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station, Chicago, Illinois. I was home on leave for ten days and then sent to San Jose, California. I was there a week or two and then assigned to the USS Pennsylvania, a battleship. The USS Pennsylvania was commissioned in 1914 and served as Fleet Flagship for almost 29 years. She suffered minor damage at Pearl Harbor in December of 1941 where her sister ship, the USS Arizona was damaged beyond hope of salvage and still remains as a memorial at Pearl Harbor. In 1942 she was re-gunned and modernized in San Francisco. At the completion of the yard period she bristled with guns. She carried four turrets of three each 14”-45 guns, 16 5”-38, 40 40MM, 50 20MM and eight 50 calibre A.A. guns, (a 14” -45 shell weighs about

1,200 pounds). The “Pennsy” was used primarily for bombardment and for main and secondary support fire for landings. She took part in every combat amphibious operation in the Pacific War area from May 4, 1943 to February 10,1945. Three days before the war ended the “Pennsy” caught a Japanese aerial torpedo at Okinawa. She was made sea-worthy again at Bremerton, Washington. On January 16, 1946, she was designated as an atomic bomb target and assigned to Task Force I. In the summer of 1946, she was sunk by atomic weapons at Bikini Atoll, in the South Pacific. The USS Pennsylvania had fired 6,854 rounds of 14” and 129,005 rounds of secondary and antiaircraft at the enemy. She traveled 146,052 miles and crossed the equatorial line 14 times from December 1943 to August 1945. In January 1946, I was transferred to the cruiser USS Everett. On April 23, 1946, I received my discharge. BILL BOUSE US MARINE CORP 3RD MARINE DIVISION 21st REGIMENTAL BAND CO. I was sworn into the Marine Corp in December 1943. I had my Boot Camp Training in No. 1 Platoon, at San Diego, California, on January 1, 1944. I boarded a merchant marine ship at San Diego, on March 1, 1944 and sailed to New Hebridere, British Islands. There I boarded a coast guard ship and sailed to Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands and joined the 3rd Marine Division, 21st Regimental Band Co. Bandsmen were stretcher bearers during combat. We immediately went on maneuvers for the invasion of Guam, in the Mariana Islands. I boarded a LST Ship on June 15th and sailed to the Marshal Islands of Kwakalene, there we waited for our Task Force to escort us to Guam. We made the Guam beach head on July 21,1944, and secured the island on August 16, 1944. We then set up company headquarters on Guam and waited for replacements for the 35 percent causualties the Band had suffered in the Guam Campaign. We received replacements by October 1944, and started training for our next invasion. During these five months, I saw Neil Downey, he was on the USS Pennsylvania battle-

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ship, which was in dry dock at Guam, being repaired because of a torpedo hit it had taken earlier. My father, Manford L. Bouse had been a wireless operator on the USS Pennsylvania in WW I, so I I was really glad I got to go aboard this ship and to see Neil. I also saw Harvey Stefan, Charles McKesson and Bill Savage (all Walkerton service men) while on Guam. We boarded a ship again during the second week of February 1945. (By this time I was beginning to feel as if I was in the Navy with all the ships I had been on!) We invaded Iwo Jima in the Volcano Islands, on February 24, 1945. What a thing to remember: to see the United States flag go up, looking up at Mt. Suribachi! This was the famous picture, and the most widely printed action photo of WW n. And I was there when it happened!! We boarded ship on Easter Sunday and sailed back to our headquarters on Guam and started to train for the invasion of the Japanese homeland and I was awarded a Corporal ranking. In the next few weeks the A-bombs were dropped, Japan surrendered, and THE WAR WAS OVER!!! I boarded a ship again and was back in the States by January 1946, shipped to the Great Lakes Naval Center, where my brother, Marvin, was stationed in the Marine Corp. I was discharged on February 15, 1946. This service in the United States Marine Corp had been the fastest, most educational and unbelievable 26 months of my life!!! And if these people who are feeling sorry for the Japanese could have seen some of the atrocities the Japs committed in the jungles of the South Pacific, they would say, as I say — “Thank God, for President Truman and the atomic bombs that shortened the war! 11” Subscribe Today!