Sunday, May 31, 2015

Sentimental Sunday: Japan R&R, 1952-1953

From my dad Fred Pape's military scrapbook:

On Dad's first R&R (rest and relaxation) leave, Dad traveled to Tokyo via Itazuke Air Base in Japan.  He caught a ride on this plane:



Dad said he rode in the private B-17 (pictured above) of General Herbert Leonard Grills, then deputy for personnel at Headquarters, Far East Air Forces (FEAF, or more specifically, the Far East Air Logistic Force, or FEALOGFOR) at the Tachikawa Air Base near Tokyo, Japan.  Below is Dad's photo of the "HQ Building of FEAF [FEALOGFOR] at Tachikawa AB."



On the back of the photo above, Dad wrote, "Another scene of largest movie theater in Tokyo.  Looks like any big town stateside."

On the back of the photo below, Dad wrote, "Street scene looking toward Emperor's Palace grounds in background."



© Amanda Pape - 2015 - click here to e-mail me.

Friday, May 29, 2015

Friday's Faces From the Past: Fred Pape's Distinguished Flying Cross, 1953



My dad, Air Force 2nd Lieutenant Fred Pape. received the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) for his service in Korea.

Here is some information about the Distinguished Flying Cross from the Air Force web site:

Background

The Distinguished Flying Cross, authorized by an Act of Congress of July 2, 1926 (amended by Executive Order 7786 on January 8, 1938), was awarded first to Captain Charles A. Lindbergh, of the U.S. Army Corps Reserve, for his solo flight of 3,600 miles across the Atlantic in 1927, a feat which electrified the world and made Lindy one of America's most popular heroes.

Criteria
This medal is awarded to any officer or enlisted person of the Armed Forces of the United States who shall have distinguished her/himself in actual combat in support of operations by heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight, subsequent to November 11, 1918.


Distinguished Flying Cross,
illustrated by Virginia Reyes of the Air Force News Agency
Medal Description
The Distinguished Flying Cross was designed by Elizabeth Will and Arthur E. DuBois. It is a bronze cross pattee, with rays between the arms of the cross. On the obverse is a propeller of four blades, with one blade in each arm of the cross and in the re-entrant angles of the cross are rays which form a square. The cross is suspended by a rectangular-shaped bar and centered on this is a plain shield. The reverse is blank and suitable for engraving the recipient's name and rank.

Ribbon Description
The ribbon has a narrow red center stripe, flanked on either side by a thin white stripe, a wide stripe of dark blue, a narrow white stripe and narrow dark blue at the edge of the ribbon.



© Amanda Pape - 2015 - click here to e-mail me.

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Wordless Wednesday: Fred Pape's 50th Mission, Korea, 1953



© Amanda Pape - 2015 - click here to e-mail me.

Monday, May 25, 2015

Military Monday Memorial Day: Remembering Col. Gordon M. Parks, 1916-2004

 Images above and below (cropped from above) from the Arlington National Cemetery website

Colonel Gordon Merritt Parks was my father's first cousin's husband.  More information about his Army military career stretching from 1934 to 1963, and subsequent career with the Secret Service, can be found in the post linked to his name in the previous sentence.

Patricia "Pat" Marie Pape Hunter Parks (1923-1967) was my dad's first cousin, the daughter of his aunt Rhea Maria Pape (1892-1977).  She was killed when her auto was struck on the highway just outside the family home in Maryland in 1967.  Kevin Richard Parks was the only son of Gordon and Pat (they had five daughters) who died when he was a day old in April 1958.  Gordon later married Elizabeth Vaughan Tunnell Ruth (1914-2011).

Closeups above and below of the reverse side of the tombstone, showing the US Army 113th Cavalry insignia (above left), the US Army Signal Corps insignia (above the name in both photos) and the Secret Service insignia (below right).  
Cropped from the image available at the Arlington National Cemetery website.


© Amanda Pape - 2015 - click here to e-mail me.

Friday, May 22, 2015

Friday's Faces From the Past: Fred, Milt, & Pep, Korea, 1953

From my dad Fred Pape's military scrapbook:


Left to right: Second Lieutenant Frederick H. "Fred" Pape, navigator-bombardier; Airman Second Class William R. "Pep" Peppers, gunner; and First Lieutenant Milton C. "Milt" Royles, pilot; also known as Night Intruder Crew #12.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to find any additional information about Pep.  He's probably a bit younger than my dad, but I don't have a birthdate or even year of birth, nor a home of record for him.

This picture was probably one of three taken on the date of Dad's 50th mission  - there are two other more-or-less formal pictures like this, one of Dad and Milt, and one of Dad alone.


© Amanda Pape - 2015 - click here to e-mail me.

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

(Not-So-) Wordless Wednesday: "One of the Better Korean Homes," 1953

More photos from the "Small Trip on Off Time" section of my dad Fred Pape's military scrapbook, these from early 1953, when he was stationed at the K-9 Air Base near Pusan, Korea:








© Amanda Pape - 2015 - click here to e-mail me.

Monday, May 18, 2015

Military Monday Memories: "Small Trip on Off Time" in Korea, 1953

From my dad Fred Pape's military scrapbook - some photos he took in the nearby South Korean countryside during some time off in early 1953.



Looks like the person above is carrying a big load of firewood





 © Amanda Pape - 2015 - click here to e-mail me.

Friday, May 15, 2015

Friday's Faces From the Past: Ben Pace, 1953

From my dad Fred Pape's military scrapbook:



Ben Francis Pace was born March 16, 1923, in Kentucky, the second of three children and only son of Ross Bernam Pace and Ruth Bridgewater Pace.  He had an older sister named Florence Evelyn and a younger sister named Virginia.  By the 1930 Census, Ben's parents were divorced, and he and his mother and sisters lived with his grandmother, Eliza Bridgewater, in Glasgow, Barren County, Kentucky (on the 1940 Census as well).  Ben enlisted in the Army Air Corps on June 5, 1941, served in both World War II and Korea, and ended his career as a major in the Air Force on August 31, 1962.  He died May 1, 1995, in Panama City, Bay County, Florida (where he had been living since at least 1979), and is buried in Evergreen Memorial Gardens there, next to his wife Helen.

Dad did not identify the other man facing the camera (the one to the right) in the photograph.  It's definitely not Ben's navigator/bombardier, Dick Parks, nor does it look like their gunner, Maurice Price.

Dad said he flew with Ben once.  Because of the prevailing winds that day, they had to take off to the north, towards the mountains you can see in the background in the photo above, rather than south, towards Pusan Bay, and it was "rather hairy."


© Amanda Pape - 2015 - click here to e-mail me.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Tombstone Tuesday: Confederate General Hiram B. Granbury

I recently finished the book, The Widow of the South, about Carrie McGavock, which is set at Carnton plantation during and after the Battle of Franklin [Tennessee] on November 30, 1864.  Carnton served as a field hospital for the Confederate Army, and after the battle, four dead generals lay on the back porch.

I was surprised to learn that one of those generals was Hiram Bronson Granbury, for whom my town is named.  Here is his grave in the Granbury Cemetery, which is about one mile from my home:

Granbury was born in Copiah County, Mississippi, on March 1, 1831, but moved to Waco, Texas, in the early 1850s.  He was admitted to the Bar and served as chief justice of McLennan County from 1856 to 1858.  Also in 1858, he married Fannie Sims (1838-1863) of Waco.

When Texas seceded, Granbury organized the Waco Guards, which became part of the Seventh Texas Infantry Regiment. He was captured after the fall of Fort Donelson, Tennessee, in February 1862, but freed later that year in a prisoner exchange.  He served with distinction in a number of other battles and campaigns of the Civil War. At the Battle of Franklin, Granbury’s brigade charged the center of the Union breastworks.  He was killed in action outside them, along with Major General Patrick R. Cleburne, for whom a nearby town is named (and who was another dead general on the Carnton porch).

Granbury was first buried near the battlefield, and later in St. John's Church Cemetery in Ashwood, south of Columbia, Tennessee.  On November 30, 1893, his body was moved to the Granbury Cemetery, as the town in Texas had been named in his honor.

There's a statue of Granbury next to the Hood County Courthouse.  Here's a photo I took during the Texas Independence Day evening celebration in March 2013:

Granbury Statue at Hood County Courthouse, March 2, 2013 / Amanda Pape / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Hood County is named for John Bell Hood, who commanded the Confederate Army at Franklin, and who had also adopted Texas as his home.

Here's a close-up of the statue of Granbury and its inscription:
Confederate General Hiram B. Granbury StatueJ. Stephen ConnCC BY-NC 2.0
(cropped from photo taken March 1, 2009, in Granbury, Texas)

There is also a monument to Granbury and his Texas Brigade at Winstead Hill Park, which is a part of the Franklin Battlefield National Historic Landmark on the south side of Franklin in Williamson County, Tennessee, along US Highway 31 (the Columbia Pike).
Winstead Hill Monument: Hiram Granbury side 1Brent Moore / CC BY-NC 2.0
(cropped from photo taken November 27, 2009, in Franklin, Tennessee)

Winstead Hill Monument Hiram Granbury side 2Brent MooreCC BY-NC 2.0
(cropped from photo taken November 27, 2009, in Franklin, Tennessee)

"H. B Granbury, Major 7th Reg. of Texas Vols." ca. 1862, Baltimore, Maryland by Bendann Bros. [attributed].
Lawrence T. Jones III Texas Photographs, DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University

The photograph of Hiram Granbury above is the only known photograph taken of him during the Civil War, at the time he was only a major. While in Union custody in Boston, he had been allowed to meet his ill wife in Baltimore, Maryland, where this photograph was taken.

Fannie had been diagnosed with inoperable ovarian cancer, and Granbury took her to her home state of Alabama to be with friends and family.  She died in Mobile on March 20, 1863, and was buried in a (no longer) unmarked grave there.  In the Granbury Cemetery, there is a memorial for her, pictured at left, next to the grave of her husband.

Ironically, Granbury had met Carrie McGavock's nephew Randall McGavock while both were imprisoned at Fort Warren in Boston in 1862.  They were both in the Battle of Raymond in May 1863, where McGavock was killed in action.

© Amanda Pape - 2015 - click here to e-mail me.

Sunday, May 10, 2015

Sentimental Sunday: Happy Mother's Day! Mom & Me, 1958



© Amanda Pape - 2015 - click here to e-mail me.

Friday, May 8, 2015

Friday's Faces From the Past: "Dick in the Monkey Suit," Korea, 1953

From my dad Fred Pape's military scrapbook:



My dad said the "monkey suit" was an experimental flight suit.

Richard Robert "Dick" Parks was a fellow navigator-bombardier in the 37th Bomb Squadron in Korea who had trained with Dad at Ellington Air Force base.  I did not have much luck finding information about him in earlier research, but was more successful with a search on the 37th Bombardment Squadron page on the Korean War Project website, where Dick Parks posted the following in May 2002:


K1 AND K9 OCT52-APRIL53

DICK PARKS wrote on May 29, 2002

City and State: TACOMA WA
Unit: 37TH BOMB SQN, 17 BOMB WING

Service or Relationship: AIR FORCE VETERAN - KOREA

Comments: I was a navigator crewed up with pilot Ben Pace at K9 and K1 on B-26s in 37th Bomb Sqn, 17th Bomb Wing from Oct 52 to April 53. After finishing tour I returned to CONUS [continental United States] and was instructor at Langley in B-26s. Later flew B-47s and B-52s for many years and was Field Maintenance Sqn Commander and Ops Plans officer at various bases.  I retired at Fairchild in 1978 as LC [lieutenant colonel] after more than 27 years service. Then worked for Boeing in Seattle for 13 years retiring again in 1992.

Keywords: B-26 Navigator


I'm pretty sure this is the Richard Robert Parks born July 25, 1930 in Ohio.  His home of record as of April 1952 was Columbus, Ohio.

© Amanda Pape - 2015 - click here to e-mail me.

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

(Not-So-) Wordless Wednesday: More Photos at K-9, 1953

More photos from around the K-9 air base in Korea from my dad Fred Pape's military scrapbook:



The photo above, and the one below of Dad's pilot, Milt Royles, inside their "home," look a lot like some other photos (in color!), also from 1953, on the "Around the K-9 AFB Pusan Korea" page on the 17th Bomb Group web site.



Above:  "Minding the Stores"
The next two photos are of "East Pusan Bay" and "Looking South" across Pusan Bay.




© Amanda Pape - 2015 - click here to e-mail me.

Monday, May 4, 2015

Military Monday Memories: "K-9 Korea," early 1953

From my dad Fred Pape's military scrapbook:



Dad's 37th Bomb Squadron (and the entire 17th Bomb Wing or Group) moved from the K-1 base to K-9 in late December, 1952, when work on the runways at the latter was completed.




Another view of the 17th Bomb Wing headquarters pictured above is on the 17th Bomb Group website.


Another view of "The Castle" pictured above, quarters for senior officers at K-9, is on the 17th Bomb Group website.


Another view of the Officers Club pictured above is on the 17th Bomb Group website.


© Amanda Pape - 2015 - click here to e-mail me.