Roy Exum
Exactly 72 years ago, George was too young to buy a drink of whiskey but old enough to pilot an Avenger torpedo bomber. So, with a gunnery officer and radioman aboard, the 20-year-old who the other pilots called “Skin” motioned for the desk crew on the USS San Jacinto to back his plane into the groves of a catapult and – boom! – with an explosion of steam they were off to an island 600 miles south of Tokyo known as Chichi Jima.
Two years before ‘Skin’ – so called because of his lanky frame -- had captained his high school soccer and baseball teams but, after a 10-month course in avionics at Corpus Christi, he earned his wings three days before his 19th birthday. By Sept. 2, 1944, he had several combat missions under his belt. The target on Sept. 2 – this 72 years ago -- was a Japanese radio installation.
As the Avenger at full throttle went into its dive, the well-fortified Japanese opened with intense anti-aircraft fire. As the 20-year-old pilot would later recall, “Suddenly there was a jolt, like a massive fist had crunched the belly of the plane. Smoke poured into the cockpit, and I could see flames rippling across the crease of the wing, edging toward the fuel tanks.”
George held his line, releasing his bombs on the target. He made several direct hits but, with his engine engulfed in fire, he turned toward the Philippine Sea and yelled for his crew to bail out. Struggling to maintain altitude, George finally jumped but not before the tail of the plane nearly knocked him unconscious. One crew member died aboard the bullet-riddled aircraft and George could only watch helplessly as the other man’s chute failed to open.
He had been able to fly several miles out to sea but, as he fell to the water, he could see Japanese gunboats, their guns ablaze, hurrying towards him. The boats were quickly beaten back by fighter planes from the carrier San Jacinto but he was drifting towards Chichi Jima. Using his hands, he feverishly paddled away as fast as he could.
Little did George or the other pilots know at the time, captured American airmen were taken to Chichi Jima, killed, and cannibalized. It seems the Japanese officers, after torturing and killing the airmen, made a ritual of eating their enemies’ livers.
With the fighter planes keeping the gunboats at bay, George soon saw a periscope breaking through the water’s surface and, in short order, he was rescued by the USS Finback. Ironically, he ended up spending a month on the Finback, helping rescue other downed airmen, before returning to the carrier San Jacinto. He finished the war with 58 combat missions, the Distinguished Flying Cross, three Air Medals and a Presidential Citation for the carrier’s role in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, one of the largest air battles in World War II.
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As I read about George’s 72nd anniversary of being snatched from the very jaws of death, I couldn’t help but wonder if there is any 20-year-old in our nation right now who could match “The Greatest Generation.” I doubt it, but then again there weren’t many 20-year-olds back then who could saddle an Avenger Torpedo Bomber and fly 58 combat missions before their 21st birthday and then go on to become the President of the United States.
The biggest question of all is why haven’t I ever heard this story about George Herbert Walker Bush, this nation’s 41st president? But now I know why there in a Nimitz-grade aircraft carrier that bears his name, and why the ship’s call sign is “Avenger.”
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GUN CONTROL
A blogger added up the hunting license sales in just a handful of states and arrived at a striking conclusion: There were over 717,381 hunters last year in the state of Wisconsin. Allow me to restate that – just south of three-fourths of a million people, each with a bona fide license.
Do you realize Wisconsin hunters are the eighth largest army in the world? That's more men under arms than in Iran. (More than France and Germany combined.) These men and women are deployed to the woods of a single American state, Wisconsin, to hunt with firearms. And NOT ONE PERSON WAS KILLED.
Wisconsin’s numbers pale in comparison to the 969,633 who hunted the woods of Pennsylvania in 2015 and Michigan's 763,618 hunters, ALL OF WHOM HAVE RETURNED HOME SAFELY in both states.
In 2015 there were 727,229 licenses sold in Tennessee, another 507,926 sold in Alabama and 395,219 in Georgia. The most in any one state? 1,060,455 in Texas.
THE POINT? America will forever be safe from foreign invasion with that kind of home-grown firepower! Hunting... it's not just a way to fill the freezer. It's also a matter of national security.
What army of two million would want to face 35,850,931 people who know their way around in their local woods and how to shoot a rifle? This is the very real gun control our enemies, foreign and domestic, fear like a plague. This is why our enemies encourage and lobby our naïve politicians to constantly complain about gun control when they’ve no idea what they are saying.
Pay no attention to stupid people. Never allow our domestic “enemies” to take away our guns. Almost 36 million who have a hunting license can’t be wrong.
royexum@aol.com