OVERSEAS
By Bryce Martin Jr.
Wallace Bryce Martin, a son of Noah W. and Edna May (Wood) Martin, died 25 October, 1944, when his plane crashed shortly after takeoff in China. He was a member of the 20th Army Air Force, 20th Bomber Command, 58th Wing, 468th Bombardment Group, 792nd Bomb Squadron, serving overseas in the China-Burma Theater. He was a radio operator flying on the B-29 Superfortress, “Gunga Din,” when it crashed. Prior to entering the Army Air Force, Wallace Bryce Martin was with the Civilian Conservation Corps and had been employed with an ordnance company near his hometown of Galena, Kansas.
Bryce held a nice summer job in 1942. He went to work for the dual construction outfits of F.H. McGraw & Co. and Freeto Construction Co. Both were involved with the Military Chemical Works project at the Jayhawk Ordnance Works in Baxter Springs, Kansas, one of a chain of war factories supported by the War Department. The company was originally created and owned by a Crawford County, Kansas, family. Construction included adding on facilities to produce chemicals for wartime explosives. That work ended in early 1943.
The company even had its own newspaper for employees, The Jayhawker,
Jayhawk Ordnance Works, and Guests: This is a happy and important occasion, a time when our busy, efficient and never defeated Army and Navy has seen fit to pause a few moments to acknowledge the magnificent record accomplished here at the Jayhawk Ordnance Plant by you men and women of the Military Chemical Works, Inc. Your organization, a subsidiary of the Pittsburg [Kansas] and Midway Coal Mining Company, was born under the concussion of Pearl Harbor.
An especially nice paycheck came on Friday, July 3, right on time for the Fourth of July weekend celebrations. For the pay period ending June 29, he worked 40 hours at the rate of 60 cents an hour, and an additional 13-1/2 hours overtime at a time-and-a-half rate of 90 cents an hour. He grossed $36.15 and cashed a net of $35.79.
Jayhawk Ordnance Works became Spencer Chemical Co. after the war. Gulf Oil Corp. bought Spencer in 1963.
Kansas was doing its part to feed the mounting war effort. The following summer in 1943, the first B-29 heavy bomber rolled off the production line near Wichita. Boeing Airplane Co. was soon producing the sky hulks by the acres. On March 26, 1944, a flock of combat-ready B-29s left Wichita bound for India, a flight of 11,530 miles. More than half of all the B-29s built for the war push came from Wichita, making it more than likely that the plane my father blew up with was formed and assembled not far from his home and local draft board office.
Edna May and Noah Wesley Martin, 1901
Bryce was the youngest of eight children (five girls and three boys) born to Noah Wesley and Edna May (Wood) Martin. His parents were both born in 1879 and married in 1899. Bryce was born in Cave Springs, Mo., at the Martin home, nearly straddling the Kansas-Missouri boundaries. The home was located near Galena, Kan., where he attended school.
Back in the 1890s when Galena was at its rip-roaringest, some buildings were called a "double building." They actually straddled the border, with the saloon portion in Missouri and the Kansas portion serving as a gambling hall, since gambling was still legal in the sunflower state but not in Missouri.
His parents began raising a large family when horses and horse-drawn carriages still had the lawful right of way over horseless carriages.
Depression-era values would not properly describe them. They had that but they went back far enough to also have pioneer-era values, disciplines they both maintained long after the events. Edna died in 1958 and Noah in 1961.
Margaret Rose Martin, b. 10 Aug 1901, Cave Springs, Jasper, Missouri, d. 27 Aug 1983, Joplin, Missouri.
Marsha Ohnes Martin, b. 26 Aug 1904, Cave Springs, Jasper, Missouri, d. 12 May 1989, Rialto, San Bernardino, California.
Verna Rebecca Martin, b. 14 Jun 1906, Cave Springs, Jasper, Missouri, d. 20 Apr 1989, Joplin, Missouri.
Noah Wales Martin, b. 31 May 1908, Cave Springs, Jasper, Missouri, d. 04 Dec 1993, Galena, Kan.
Nadine Olive Martin, b. 27 Aug 1911, Cave Springs, Jasper, Missouri, d. 28 Sep 1941, Joplin, Missouri.
Walter Anderson Martin, b. 10 Jan 1915, Cave Springs, Jasper, Missouri, d. 07 Dec 2007, Ridgecrest, Calif.
Audrea WaDonna Martin, b. 01 Dec 1918, Cave Springs, Jasper, Missouri, d. 07 Sep 1956, Joplin, Missouri.
Wallace Bryce Martin, b. 26 Aug 1921, Cave Springs, Jasper, Missouri, d. 16 Oct, 1944, China.
Bryce’s father, Noah, worried that even if his son did return safely, the experience could leave him shell-shocked for the rest of his life, making him an emotional cripple. “Shell-shocked” was a common expression used in the region due to the many returning home from WWI who fit the definition. Noah, though primarily a hoisterman situated atop the rickety derricks, was a dynamite expert in lead mining operations. He said he had witnessed at times returning servicemen from WW1 "cracking up" during mining blasts he engineered.
Neither of Bryce’s two brothers served.
Noah Jr., was an in-between. “I was too young for the first one and too old for the second one,” he said
Joplin, Mo. — With the calling yesterday of 231 men for pre-induction examinations April 18, it brings to 670 the number sent to Fort Leavenworth this month by the Joplin Selective Service Board. A group of 200 was sent from the Board Headquarters Sunday night. Another 239 have been listed to leave on April 26, and the remainder will leave Joplin at 11 o clock the night of April 28.
“Draft Calls,” Joplin News Herald - April 20, 1944, Page 2
Those to leave April 28, a large number of them fathers, included Bryce’s brother, Walter Anderson Martin.
In 1940, Walter had found work at the American Potash and Chemical Company in Trona, Calif., and moved his wife Annabelle and their one-year old son Larry to Crumville (now Ridgecrest). Walter worked at the Trona plant until his retirement on Feb. 1, 1980. When World War II began for the United States in December 1941, Walter took steps to join the service. Although he passed his physical, American Potash, because it manufactured products useful to the war effort, wanted to keep him at the plant and arranged for him to be classified with a 2A deferment.
The Trona chemical plant did manufacture what were considered essential defense products: potash, borax, boric acid, potassium chloride, and lithium salts. It could be argued, however, that the war machine was in need of just about everything. Still, the plant was the only U.S. supplier of some of the products.
A strike in 1943 shut the plant down for three months.
Bryce was never a lead and zinc miner, like his father. Maybe he should have been up to and when he received his “greetings” from Uncle Sam, his draft notice. As a lead ore miner he would have been employed in work highly critical for the U.S. in the war front. A large percentage of the lead for bullets and other munitions came from the mines, quite literally, from his backyard and in the Tri-State area — Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, documentation shows. Galena, the ore, was what his father referred to as “the scientific word for lead” and, aptly, the name of his hometown and also the location of the largest lead smelter in the world. As the saying goes, sometimes it’s the luck of the draw that’s the decider.
The Tri-State Lead Mining District
Allyne was 15 when she and Bryce met. He was 21. "He wore a gabardine suit with tan-and-white oxfords and had just come back from some kind of camp in California."
The reason it took so long for him to find her again, Allyne said, "It was because he didn't know me. Plus, he didn't have a car at the time. That, and I wasn't home much. I worked here and there."
Bryce in uniform
August 23. 1942, Bryce and Allyne were married in Joplin, Mo. May 5, 1943, Bryce Jr. entered the world. He was born in the same house as his mother on Amherst Street in Galena. While the doctor was delivering, It took an effort from the menfolk to keep the front door closed due to gale-force winds.
On leave with family just prior to his shipping out overseas. His parents were much concerned. He was KIA less than two months later.
By June of 1944, any doubts about the B-29’s ability to loosen enemy strongholds are silenced when the first combat mission is undertaken: crews based in India raid Thailand and China-based bombers pelt Tokyo. Bryce's rear base was in thatched-roofed barracks near Calcutta, India, with bombing missions carried out in China. Allyne's younger sister, Helen, who was age 6 at the time, remembers Allyne receiving word of Bryce's death. "Two military officers came to the door and told her the bad news. She passed out.”
As a B-29 radio operator, he volunteered to leave his recently installed unit and tag along on the Gunga Din for a checkout flight in what was his first mission, and was killed in action. Bryce’s actual plane was the Mammy Yokum. Malen Powell, his Clovis pal, was the right gunner on that plane. J. Lenau replaced Bryce as radar man and radio operator for the Mammy Yokum.
“Gunga Din” is the title of a famous poem written by Rudyard Kipling, as partly voiced by a soldier fighting in India. Mammy Yokum is a cartoon strip character in the L’il Abner series who wields justice with a lethal uppercut punch.
Bryce was KIA along with the entire crew when his B-29 crashed on takeoff in 1944 at the airfield in Chengtu, China, where squadrons flew 'Over the Hump' to bomb Japan. The crews held yearly reunions in which I sometimes attended in different cities each year up until a couple of years ago when the reunions ceased due to the few left of our "greatest generation.”
His specialty as a radio operator was a natural for him. As a youth. he enjoyed making his own radios -- from a coil and a crystal made of galena (lead), an ore abundant in his region. it was before television, of course, and radio was the prime source of ready entertainment for rural people.
The following comes from Bryce's comrade in war, James Patillo, in response to a question from me about locations and there spellings:
For several centuries, English-speaking scholars have used several spellings
for given places in China and Communist China directed revision of many of
those spellings after WWII. As result, spelling of name of an ancient city
in southwestern China changed from "Chengtu" to "Chindu." City still where
it has been for thousands of years. Within 40-60 miles southwest of it were
once 4 B-29 bases (used by 20th Air Force) and several fighter bases used by
14th Air Force. There were 4 B-29 groups in India (40th, 444th, 462nd &
468th) which operated from 'permanent' bases in India (from which they
bombed from Rangoon to Singapore, Sumatra, etc.) and 4 'advanced' bases near
Chengtu/Chindu from which they bombed western Japan (main island of Kyushu),
Manchuria, Taiwan/Formosa, French Indo-China (Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia
area), and even Shanghai (destroying Army Depot supporting Japanese Forces
in Eastern China). 40th Group's permanent base in India at Chakulia; 444th's
at Dudkhundi; 462nd's at Piardoba; and 468th's at Kharagpur--all 4 bases
about 125 miles west of Calcutta. 40th's advanced base was at Hsinching;
444th at Kwaghan; 462nd at Kiunglai; and 468th's at Pengshan. B-29s sent to
India-China in Spring 1944. Chinese Red Air Force paved over runway,
taxiways, etc. at Pengshan and use it as jet-base today; Hsinching no longer
used; don't know the status of any other fields Americans once used. In 1944,
B-29 was new, un-tried--and largely untested--airplane; there was no
aviation fuel, replacement engines or spare parts for them in China and any
found there had to be hauled-in via B-29s...an in-efficient tanker/transport
plane. It was found that 18,000 B-29 miles were necessary to haul enough
fuel to China for one B-29 to fly a 3,000 mile combat mission from there;
besides there was no photo reconnaissance (worthy of the name) on targets in
Manchuria or Japan and no reconnaissance craft with which to obtain them;
for all practical purposes, America had no meteorological data on Siberia,
Manchuria or China, so no practical way in which to schedule B-29 missions.
Except for the above, it was a great experience for all concerned.
-- Jim Pattillo
From James Pattillo obituary:
The Cadillac of four-engine heavy bombers at the time was the B-29, and a new squadron, the 58th Bombardment Wing, was being formed. Restless to join the war effort, Jim volunteered for the program, training at Smoky Hill Army Airfield, near Salina, Kansas. The B-29s were too big to reach the war theater by ship, so their combat crews hopscotched to Kharagpur, India, via Presque Isle, Maine; Gander, Newfoundland; Marrakech, Morocco; and Cairo, Egypt.
Few airfields were within range of Japan, and those had limited fuel supplies. The 58th Wing would fly four missions ferrying fuel and bombs across the Himalayas from India to Sichuan Province, China, for every combat mission its combat crews flew against Japan.
...
...
468th Bomb Group China-Burma-India Losses
night takeoff crash
42-24504 (squad number) – “Gunga Din” – 792nd Bomb Squadron – Delivered to the USAAF on 6/3/44 – Model B-29-30-BW – Departed Morrison for India on 7/23/44 and gained by the 468th Bomb Group on 8/27/44.
India Combat Missions – 4
Hump Missions – 2
Omura raid October 25, 1944.
42-24504 A/C Major Parsons, crashed approximately one minute after take off. All crewmembers were KIA and 42-24504 was a total loss. Capt. Harold Barber accompanied Major Parsons and crew for a checkout mission, he had just arrived from the States with a new plane and crew. Takeoff was at night so to arrive over Omura in the early hours of daylight
Crew
Maj. Edward F. Parsons – AC – KIA
Capt. Harold W. Barber – CP – KIA
1st Lt. Argyle E. Hanscom – N – KIA
2nd Lt. Franklin J. McDonald – B – KIA
2nd Lt. Boyd W. Ebel – FE – KIA
Sgt. Louis L. Pfeifer – RO – KIA
Cpl. Bryce Martin – CFC – KIA
S/Sgt. Warren F. Wood – RG – KIA
S/Sgt. John Fowler – LG – KIA
T/Sgt. Paul H. Coburn – R – KIA
S/Sgt. Rube E. Puckett, Jr. – TG – KIA
…
Bryce is mentioned in this book:
My B-29 Story, Roger L. Sandstedt, 656 Pages
…
20 Aug 1944 • Joplin Globe, Joplin, Jasper, Missouri
Corp. & Mrs. Bryce Martin & son have arr. from "Clovis, N.M. for a 10 Day leave with his parents Mr.& Mrs. Noah Martin, Cave Springs, Mo., Corp. Martin has just completed his final training as a "Radio Operator" at Clovis Air Force Base & expects to be sent OS
Song written by Noah Martin about his son Bryce. With added lyrics and music by Bryce Jr. |
"Overseas" © Godot Boys Music (BMI) |
Overseas
By Noah Martin
Oh, my darling, come put your arms around me,
For they say you are going away,
Going away they say, far across the sea.
Little did I think when a baby in my arms,
You would be taken from me and sent across the sea.
Darling, when you are far away,
Just pray and think of me,
A broken-hearted mother far across the sea.
Just a kind word, I pass it on to you,
I am a broken-hearted father,
His son he longs to see, but that can never be,
For he was sent far across the sea.
Be not hasty in times spent with your darling boy,
For he too may be sent across the deep blue sea.
They say as time passes on, memory grows dim,
But with me that will never be…
He was sent far across the deep blue sea
…
1945
Friday evening, Poppy arrived home in Cave Springs, and after washing his hands in a metal basin with water from the nearby spring, sat down at the family table for some simple but pleasurable food prepared from Edna May's clean kitchen. After the meal he settled in for a rest in his favorite chair and read the day's morning newspaper his wife Edna May had saved for him. August 17, 1945, just a few days shy of what would have been son Bryce's 24th birthday. Poppy (as Noah was known as by family), 66, read by the natural light of the waning evening. He did not need eyeglasses for up close or for far away. It was a Joplin Globe classified on page 14 titled "In Memoriam," honoring the name and memory of Bryce from family. After a time, he placed the open newspaper on top of a small table by his chair, covered with a large white doily Edna May had embroidered. Just before 8 o'clock he would do the fiddling and tinkering needed to get the car battery-radio on so he could listen to Gabriel Heatter give his 15-minute news commentary on the Mutual Broadcasting System. He enjoyed hearing the sage of the airwaves, his soothing voice and wise analysis of our troubled times. He picked up the newspaper and glanced again at the print on the page and found his son's name again. He looked at it for a time, saw the large advertisement for "Kinsey, the unhurried whiskey," and a single cartoon strip, one of L'il Abner. Bryce always liked that one, and Popeye, too. Edna May lit a kerosene lamp as the evening fell dark.
1947
Description
22 Dec 1947 • Hawaii, USA
Mr. & Mrs. Noah Martin received word that their Son's body was in Hawaii... 7 of his comrades died with him. He would be buried in Keokuk National Cemetery, Keokuk, IA..(For final Burial). His Airplane crashed over China.. He was a "Radio Operator"..on a B-29
[After interment at the Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, he was later re-interred to Keokuk on June 8, 1949.]
He was awarded the Purple Heart. Being given the ultimate award of human sacrifice that, in this instance, you can only receive in absentia has been tagged as a "shared honor," much in the same vein as compulsory military service is referred to as a "shared burden."
1947
Military
8 Jun 1949 • Keokuk, Iowa
Name: Wallace B Martin. Serv. Info.: CORP US ARMY AIR FORCES WORLD WAR II.. Birth Date: 17 Aug 1921 Death: 25 Oct 1944 .Interment Date: 8 Jun 1949 ..Cemetery: Keokuk National Cem. Cemetery Address: 1701 J Street Keokuk, IA 52632 Buried: Sect. "D"..Site 0079
1949
Burial
Keokuk, Lee County, Iowa, USA
…
Boeing, located southwest of Wichita, built the Swept-Wing B-47 Stratojet medium bombers and B-52 Stratofortress intercontinental bombers. The company employed approximately 27,000 persons with an average annual payroll of more than $125,000,000.
Of course the Boeing Wichita Plant was Home Of The Boeing B-29 Superfortresses. After assembly, they lined the flight line, each waiting for a crew and a mission during World War II. The B-29 program is considered by many to have been one of the largest ever conceived for the U.S. government. The planes, 3,965 in number, were primarily built at Boeing facilities in Renton, Wash., and Wichita, Kan., where Boeing employee efforts earned the city the title "Home of the B-29." During peak production, employees there cranked out an impressive 100 bombers each month. |
…
The B-29 was 99 feet in length, nine feet more than the length between bases in baseball.
It was ordered into warfare before ever being fully tested. Its pilots and crews were not only carrying out major bombing missions, they were also, in effect, testing the planes as they did. The planes encountered many problems and not all of them were solved.
The first B-29 combat units arrived in India in mid-1944. Forward bases were in China's Chengtu region.
...
In late 1943, Bryce’s new assigned station for training was way out west. Bryce previously had been polishing his skills at Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He was soon to meet a pal of a lifetime in Malen Powell. Clovis Air Base was established in 1942 and located four miles west of Clovis, New Mexico. Bryce and Malen arrived for duty there on New Year's Day in 1944.
"The first time I met Bryce in Clovis he was writing a letter to his wife,” Malen recalled.
In June 1944, Bryce, Allyne, Bryce Jr., and Malen, lived at 320 Edwards St. in Clovis, barely off Grand Ave. It was close company. They had two rooms, a kitchen and a bedroom. They stored food in the refrigerator of the main house. Malen had become Bryce Jr.’s godfather and he enjoyed carrying him around town on his shoulders, Allyne related.
Bryce and his little family left at end of August and went to Galena by train. "Malen said, "Bryce, having a family, would run out of money about the twentieth of each month. He would borrow about fifteen to twenty dollars each month around that time to tide him over. When he'd pay me back, I'd fold that money and put it in the front part of my wallet and hold it for him until the next time. When we got our little furlough, I loaned Bryce the fifty dollars he wanted to take his family to Galena. He took a train and I hitchhiked to Denver, because then I had little money."
Malen Powell served as a right-wing gunner on the B29. He flew on 35 missions. In one, he was on the lead plane and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross, the fourth highest military decoration for fighting off multiple enemy fighter aircrafts, and saving his aircraft and crew.
After WWII, Malen returned home to civilian life. He became a professional truck driver for over 50 years. Residing in Wyoming, he kept in touch with the Martins over the years, visiting with family members spread out around the country during his over-the-road runs. He named a son Bryce, in honor of his best friend, and he was godfather to Bryce Jr. A Nebraska farm boy, he was offered football scholarships to four prestigious colleges but rejected them all to stay with his family to support them. After moving to Pueblo, Colorado with his family in 1941, Malen enlisted in the Army Air Corps. He trained first as a mechanic and then retrained later on as a right wing gunner. He died at age 100 and four days on December 19, 2021 in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Timeless memories of Malen, who took me as his godson so many lifetimes ago in Clovis, New Mexico, where he and my father became instant pals during those dark times in America and the world. Malen remained a friend of the family and visited with me many times in both of our travels, he as a truckdriver and me as a roaming soul. I cherish that past.
--Bryce Martin
 |
| Last reunion 2018 |
...
From Bryce Jr.
December 28, 2009
I was with Malen I in Washington, D.C., this year September 9 for the group's annual reunion. . They're a different breed, and no doubt they really are "The Last of the Great Generation." Malen is 86 and lives in Wyoming. He is hospitalized at present after falling and breaking a hip.
…
The reason he is named on a group headstone is because when soldiers were killed in close proximity to each other they were unable, at that time, to identify them separately and interred their remains together in one grave.
Airmen who perished on B-29 #42-24504:
Barber, Harold W ~ Capt, Co-Pilot, NJ
Coburn, Paul H ~ T/Sgt, Radar Operator, TX
Ebel, Boyd W ~ 2nd Lt, Flt Eng, NE
Fowler, John W ~ S/Sgt, Left Gunner, KS
Hanscom, Argyle E ~ 1st Lt, Navigator, NH
Martin, Wallace B ~ Corp, CFC, MO
McDonald, Franklin J ~ 2nd Lt, Bombardier, CO
Parsons, Edward F ~ Major, Pilot, CT
Pfeifer, Louis L. ~ Sgt, Radio Operator, FL
Puckett, Rube E, Jr ~ T/Sgt, Tail Gunner, AL
Wood, Warren F ~ S/Sgt, Right Gunner, NE
Three servicemen aboard the deadly Gunga Din crash were identified and buried in their home town cemeteries.
Of the three KIA with Bryce and not interred at the mass grave in Keokuk, one was Sgt. John Wesley Fowler, from a prominent Kansas banking family. The two may have had much to talk about in any opportunities they might have shared. Fowler was from Arcadia, Kansas, 40 miles due north of Galena, Kansas. Prior to his entering the Army Air Force, Fowler worked for Boeing-Wichita as an aircraft mechanic from June 1941 to August 1942.
Sgt. Louis LeCount Pfeifer, from Florida, was 35-years-old at the time of his death. In addition to being a radioman he was also a qualified assistant pilot and had been based in India for 18 months. Upon his entering the service two years prior he was attending college at the university of Florida. He had recently written a letter to his father asking him to buy him a farm near Orlando. He was single.
Radar Operator Sgt. Paul Headley Coburn Jr. died at age 26 and was buried in San Antonio, Texas.
...
The third mission of the month was run on October 25th against the Omura Aircraft Assembly Plant on Kyushu Island. Eighteen of our aircraft participated, with 14 of them bombing the PT, one a target of opportunity near Chinchow, and 3 failing to bomb because of mechanical failures. A/C 4504, piloted by Major Parsons, crashed approximately one minute after takeoff; all Crewmembers were killed and the plane was a total loss. With this exception, the remaining 18 B-29s returned safely.
Strike photos showed that nearly every section of the aircraft factory proper had been hit and that production had been severely curtailed if not halted completely.
On October 25th, the Squadron took part in a mission at Omura, Japan. During a nighttime takeoff, the Crew of A/C 353 looked back toward the Base during the first turn in the climb to witness a great flare of fire caused by the crack-up of the plane taking off two minutes after them. This was Captain Parsons and Crew who were accompanied by Captain Harold Barber for a checkout mission. He had just arrived from the States with a new plane and Crew.
Captain Good made a takeoff 2 minutes after Parsons left the runway and found he had to veer to the right to avoid the flames. Although not up to full climbing speed as yet, he was able to steer clear of the fire, gain climbing speed and carry out his part of the mission.
A very congenial person, he was called “Hap” Good and flew the plane “Hap’s Characters.” The Crew and plane came over together and carried out their part of the war together. They returned to the USA after the war ended, with a very good war record.
Parsons and Crew, with Barber, died in the crack-up that night. We were taking off at night in order to arrive over Omura in the early hours of daylight on the 25th.
Shortly after that day, Major Van Horne’s Co-Pilot, Tom Young, became a Pilot and Captain Barber’s Crew was assigned as his Crew.
New England Air Museum 2008
...
HERE COMES THE FAT MAN, COURTESY OF B-29 BOCK'S CAR
This implosion-type plutonium bomb, nicknamed Fat Man, weighed 10,800 pounds. The bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, August 9, 1945, at 11:01 AM. The B-29 Bock's Car (named after Frederick Bock, who was the usual pilot), dropped the bomb from 29,000 feet.
"Decoration Day," as it was always called by locals in Galena and in the region -- long after it was renamed "Memorial Day" -- was taken seriously after long after WWII ceased. Marie Jenkins from Galena recalls an experience she had with that day of remembrance:
I first met Mary [Wade] at Schermerhorn Park as a kid.
I was born in 1939. She and some of her family were down at the
river throwing flower sprays into it on Decoration Day. Ofcourse, I asked why, and she explained her son had died at
Pearl Harbor and they were never able to claim
his body, so they sent flowers to him via Shoal Creek.