My last column mentioned a group of people who were friends of my father and like him had served in the Army Air Corps during World War II.
They were all ordinary folks who had done extraordinary courageous things. Things that we never knew about and that they rarely talked about.
A few years ago the television series “Band of Brothers” brought our attention to the World War II heroes of the Army Airborne through the story of Easy Company. Through it we discovered that Brad Freeman of Caledonia had never mentioned the places he had been or the world changing events he had played a role in.
Now a new series is streaming on Apple TV. “Masters of the Air” tells the story of the 8th Army Air Force and its role in defeating Hitler. We will learn of unspoken accomplishments and acts of courage during World War II much the same as those unspoken acts of courage by people we have known. There have been giants among us and we did not realize it.
There was Glenn Shumake, who received pilot training at Columbus Army Air Field. He served in England at RAF Molesworth as the 303rd Bomb Group operations officer and rose through the ranks there from 2nd lieutenant to major. He then became commander of the 358th Bomb Squadron.
Shumake flew the required 25 combat missions to complete his tour but then signed up for another combat tour. He was officially credited with flying 35 combat missions and flew an amazing 31 of those over Europe as a lead crew pilot and air commander. On March 28, 1945, he was the pilot in his bomb group’s lead B-17 that was the lead aircraft in a 900 plane bombing mission. After the bombing run over German submarine pens, his B-17 was hit by flak (anti-aircraft fire) over Bremen, Germany, and crash-landed. All of the crew members survived but were captured. At some point right before the war ended, he and my father found themselves briefly in the same POW camp.
Shumake retired from the Air Force as a Colonel in 1970. Among the decorations he received were the Distinguished Flying Cross with two Oak Leaf Clusters, the French Croix de Guerre and his unit received a Presidential Unit Citation.
James Doolittle grew up in Louisville, Mississippi, and worked on the M&O Railroad after the war. His was a story of death, destruction and confusion, which was nevertheless a story that always brought a smile to my father’s face. My father said Doolittle was unbelievably lucky to have survived the explosion of the bomber he was a gunner on when it was hit by German fire.
Doolittle was a ball turret gunner on a B-24 Liberator bomber with the U.S. Army Air Force’s 15th Air Force. He had begun his tour at Casablanca but had been in Italy flying combat missions for two months when he flew his ninth and final mission. On Feb. 22, 1944, a large force of B-24s, including Doolittle’s squadron, were sent to bomb a ME-109 aircraft factory at Regensburg, Germany. They faced heavy attacks from German fighter aircraft and anti-aircraft batteries. Thirteen American bombers were shot down, including Doolittle’s plane that was loaded with incendiary bombs and exploded when hit by German fire.
Because of the confined space in the ball turret, Doolittle had not previously been wearing his parachute in the turret. But on Feb. 22 he had decided to do so. That saved his life for when the plane exploded, he was blown out of the turret but with his parachute on. The normal crew was 10, but an extra person was on board that day. Everyone on the bomber except Doolittle was killed.
What always made my father smile, though, was telling how when Sgt. Doolittle landed and was captured the Germans, who thought he was the famous American general and aviator James Doolittle, who had led the first bombing of Tokyo. My father enjoyed telling how Doolittle kept telling the Germans he was just a sergeant, but they wouldn’t believe him and brought in top Gestapo and Luftwaffe officers to interrogate him. After a couple of weeks, they determined from his serial number that he really was just Sgt. Jimmy Doolittle from Mississippi.
He was placed in POW camp Stalag Luft IV where my father was also held after having been shot down over Frankfurt, Germany. In a Memphis newspaper interview Doolittle had commented, “I was quite a hot dog until they had time to trace my serial number. Then I was just another GI with a long time in a prison camp ahead of him.” My father recalled that even at Stalag Luft IV in the summer of 1944 there were still occasions when the German guards would ask questions about who Sgt. Doolittle really was.
Conditions at the camp and on a 500-mile forced march to prevent liberation by approaching Russian troops were rough. Those conditions can be summed up by the fact that 14 German officers and guards at the camp faced charges of war crimes when the war ended.
My father, other than a few funny stories, rarely spoke of his experiences during World War II. The stories he told me were mostly of his friends Red Franks and Howard Nolan and others who never came home. I began to learn my father’s full story through an article that appeared in the American Ex POW magazine, a letter that was in the 96th Bomb Group magazine after he passed away, and from the Chief Justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court, whose father’s life he saved. Today there is a street at Columbus Air Force Base named after him.
With space limitations I could only cover two of the people whose names appeared in my father’s book, but there are so many veterans whose stories needs preserving. I hope people will record those stories and save them and give them to the Billups Garth Archives at the Library. How little did we realize that people we knew who were so recently walking among us were heroes and giants.
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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You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 34 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
