Veterans Day is the day set aside to honor the men and women who have served and are serving our county. They have been and are willing to put their lives on the line to protect our freedom. Today the veterans of Vietnam and Korea are aging and those of World War II are fewer and fewer. We must always remember and recognize their honor, patriotism and willing sacrifice and also that of those who have more recently served and are still serving around the world.
Saturday a monument to those who served in World War I was dedicated at the Lowndes County courthouse. The monument incorporated marble tablets honoring those from Lowndes County who had served in that “the war to end all wars.” It had been saved from its original location in a wall of the old Magnolia Bowl through the efforts of the Columbus School Municipal District, the City and County, the Lowndes County Community Foundation and the Bernard Romans Chapter of the DAR.
Following the monument’s dedication Col. John Nichols, Wing Commander at Columbus Air Force Base, addressed the large crowd that, ignoring the rain, had gathered to honor America’s veterans. It was a moving ceremony and not dampened by the morning drizzle. Col. Nichols reminded us that “every man and woman who wears America’s uniform is a part of a long unbroken line of achievement and honor. No single military power in history has done greater good, shown greater courage, liberated more people, or upheld higher standards of decency and valor than the Armed Forces of the United States.”
The dedication of the World War I monument reminded me that when I was growing up it was the vets of World War I who were the old men telling stories of what seemed so long ago. I especially recall Col. Wilfred Beaver, Curtis “Pop” Friday, Eugene Hardy and Samuel Kaye. Though I never knew Capt. Sam Kaye, I heard so many stories about him it seemed like I did. Interestingly, all of those heroes of an earlier age had served in the air service ancestor of the modern Air Force.
Capt. Sam Kaye served with Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker and his famous 94th “Hat in the Ring” Squadron. By the end of the war Kaye commanded the squadron’s First Flight. Kaye’s Spad airplane became known as his “Acrobatic Easter Egg,” as he had painted it light blue with white and red polka dots.
Kaye was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for action in which he and Lt. Reed Chambers attacked a formation of six German planes, shooting down one and forcing the others to retire back to German lines. Kaye later received a Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster in lieu of a Second Distinguished Service Cross for an action in which he encountered a formation of seven German Fokker airplanes and though greatly outnumbered, attacked them shooting down one of them. Kaye was also awarded the Croix de Guerre, by France for “exceptional prowess in the air.”
Columbus Army Air Field was first named Kaye Field in his honor but the name was change because of confusion with Key Field in Meridian.
Col. Wilfred Beaver was a World War I British pilot in the famed Royal Flying Corps No. 20 Squadron. As a British pilot he was credited with shooting down 19 German aircraft. He was awarded the “British Military Cross” at Buckingham Palace by King George V in 1918. The citation called him “a patrol leader of great dash and ability.” He received the award not long after he had survived being shot down over his own airfield by one Freiherr von Richthofen, the “Red Baron.”
After the war he emigrated to the U.S. At the outset of World War II he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps and was commissioned at his former British rank of Captain. By the end of the war he was a Lt. Col., commanding the U.S. 8th Air Force’s 447th Bomb Group in England. Micky Brislin Sr. served in his unit and married Beaver’s daughter, Pat. They all moved to Columbus when Bruce Lumber Company opened a plant here.
Eugene Hardy was another Lowndes County native who joined the Army Air Service during World War I. Hardy enlisted in September 1917. The September 16, 1917 Columbus Dispatch carried an account of the going away party given him by “the Hardy Boys and T.C. Billups” at the Bell Cafe in Columbus. During the war he was commissioned as a lieutenant and flew a Spad in France. I recall him telling me stories about being one of the pilots who developed a technique that later became known as dive bombing. In 1919, he returned home and the Columbus Dispatch announced his return saying he had arrived from abroad “after winning signal honors as an avaitor engaged in daring combat.”
One of the first people I recall meeting when I moved to West Point was Curtis “Pop” Friday. Pop as everyone knew him had been an instructor at the Army Air Service’s Payne Field at West Point. Payne field opened in March 1918 as a pilot training base. By May it was fully operational with 125 Curtiss JN4 “Jenny” aircraft. Before the field was closed in March 1920, over 1500 pilots had trained there. The pilots were known as “birdmen” and the aircraft as “buzz wagons.” Pop married a local girl, Virginia East, and remained in West Point.
At the conclusion of his address Saturday, Col. Nichols charged us to never take for granted the legacy of those who have served their country. We should keep the promises we have made to them and we “must care for those who were injured in the service of our country. We must support the families of our deployed members. We must honor and remember those who have died.” We should all remember this is a solemn obligation we all have not just on Veterans Day but on every day.
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
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