Memo To: All The Flag Day Celebrants

Doc and Jane Protheroe have returned to Hilton Head after several months in Florida over seeing repairs to their condo.  Hopefully they will be able to do some recuperation in warm, sunny South Carolina.  They say hello and regards to all.

Doc sent along a newspaper clipping which told the story of an Iwo Jima Marine’s son who went to Iwo to search for the truth about a battle the nation always has been intensely interested in.  His eye witness father was unwilling or unable to share any anything about it before he died at the age of 49.

This Marine’s son (Michael) trained for the trip in the jungles of Saipan for a week and wore Marine gear, and used his father’s own map to retrace his steps on Iwo Jima.  He returned with a vial of black “sand” and a piece of shrapnel from the beach.  He also returned with a new peace, one helped by talking to survivors of the battle and their sons.

This article and the others that were published regarding Iwo Jima were all outstanding reading of the Marine Corps success in war time battle. 

Again many thanks to all who took the time to send along the various articles on Iwo over the last few weeks.

Another article described how the Marine Corps helicopter aviation units have for years been assisting in emergency search and rescue missions around Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort where they were called “Angel One”.  Now all that type of U.S. Marine Corps effort has been cancelled due to high costs of maintaining the aircraft and the responsibilities will be assumed by the U.S. Coast Guard.

George Bartlett sends his best to all.  He reported that he was flying to Cherry Point in a B-25 to the air show in May and then plans to go to Oshkosh with them in July.

He received a great write up in the Sentry (May 8,2005) where he described his first mission aboard a B-25 (PBJ) which was a low level flight over one of the hot spots of the South Pacific.  Directly after the passing of the target, a 44mm cut loose at them filling the plane next them with bullets.  He knew then that it was going to be a long war. 

Check out the link below and it will take you right to the story from the SENTRY:

http://www.marines.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/lookupstoryref/2005510114241 

He had an opportunity to fly over Cherry Point air station with two pilots and a group of five young Marines.  He said when it fires up, I feel the same excitement just like I was 18.

As an attachment to this news letter is a Report of a B-25 Trip taken by George in October 2004 (Courtesy of MAG61 newsletter The Bugler).

Jim Garls says hello to all.  With the great spring weather he has started his Gentleman Jim The Farmer routine with the planting of tomatoes.  Hopefully the rain will fall and assist the plants in their endeavor to grow.  All continues well in Pekin he reported.  The warm weather has allowed him to mow the grass and remain active as an outdoorsman.

Bernard Simek called to say hello and send his regards to all. Although he hasn’t been an active 613'er he has over the years maintained contact with several members at Christmas time.  He had been made aware of our webpage and wanted everyone to know that his granddaughter who has a computer has been reviewing all the material diligently.  Hopefully he will be able to meet her at home when she rearranges her schedule so that she can show him the various pictures of the squadron personnel, organizational sections/groups and Kwajalein itself.  He went onto say that since his discharge from the Corps he has been busy operating a bar and also an air conditioning and heating company.  His son is also in the business with him and they have kept busy for years.  Even though he is beyond retirement age he still finds the time to stay busy keeping abreast of the many design improvement changes to the various systems.

Carmine Nasta sends his best regards to all.  He continues to maintain a routine with the VA to help maintain his health status.  He has to walk with a cane which hinders him from trying to run the 220 and also helps in maintaining a careful pace while endeavoring to cross the streets on Staten Island.

He has been in touch with Ike Stern in an effort to identify squadron members in pictures from the various engineering organizations within 613.  Some names came to mind at once and others just wouldn’t materialize.  Hopefully Ike will be able to continue pull names out of his memory bank to complete the identification of members.

He said that on his agenda are the calls to Walt Mathesen, Walt Gravello and Gene Hansen.  He reported that Gene is still active with the Baltimore Orioles and that Management has made his job a little easier by putting in elevators to move the baseball fans up and down the many flights to the seat aisles.

He reminisced about having the various Marine Football Teams RON at Cherry Point while he was there during the Korean War.  By having the teams stay at Cherry Point they were able to maintain a good practice schedule and get to the next opponents base ready to go out and play rather than figure out where they could get some rest.

While attending some of the games at other Marine Bases he met two of his brothers who were also in the Marine Corps.

Also spoke to John Aymen who sends regards to all.  They are now settled in their new Condo but he has to watch his physical activities.  He has been undergoing therapy for cancer which has slowed him down a bit so things he has wanted to do have to wait until he gets some energy under his belt.

George Comer reported in and said that he has been reviewing his pictures of 613 ever since he read that we were looking for a picture of Dave Snider and he located one during his search and sent it onto me.

Received a letter from Frank Noland which also included a picture of Dave Snider.  He too had been searching diligently and finally came across it.  The picture has been forwarded to Robert Yanacek for inclusion in the website.  Many thanks to George Comer and Frank Noland from all the members for their research in this matter and locating the picture of Dave.

George also sent along some information from the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation relative to the sale of bricks for the new building under construction at Quantico.

Bricks can be purchased at the cost of $300.00 per brick, each brick can contain a total of three lines, each line is 20 characters (includes spaces) in length. If the squadron wishes to purchase a brick let me know and come up with a suggested verbiage such as:

VMB 613

Memory of

The Ponape Mission  

Members are requested to give consideration to such a purchase and let me know what their thoughts are on the matter.

Heard from Chuck Cannato who says very best regards, good health and good luck to every body.  They have been very busy doing renovation work in their new duplex which has really kept him busy.  Hopefully things will be brought up to their new design standards and then he will be back sending and receiving e-mail.

John Gavin sends his best to all.  He and Grace will be celebrating their 55^th anniversary real soon, so regards to both from VMB 613.  The weather has been outstanding in his area but he says that they need rain to keep the lawns looking like they should, nice and green.  In recalling events at Kwaj, he remembers being on duty at the Communications Section when the message came in that we would be leaving Kwaj for return to the United States.  It gave dates and other data that was required to get things started for the evacuation from Kwaj.

In looking through his files at home he came across pictures of Boris Karloff who came over to visit at the “Beer Hall”.  He enjoyed the visit and said that Boris was one of the most pleasant individuals he had ever met and talked to.

Boris autographed a one dollar bill and a five dollar bill for him.  Some where along the line he had misplaced the five dollar bill but he still had the one dollar bill.  He sent it to the person who was instrumental in getting his high school class pin back to him and she donated it to the Kwajalein Museum for all to see.

In case members have forgotten John was swimming in the lagoon one day and his class ring slipped off into the lagoon water.  He had really forgotten about it until one day he received it in the mail.  The person who recovered the ring put a tracer on it back to his high school and they were instrumental in his recovering the ring.  The Readers Digest also had a short article on this recovery in one their issues.

He mentioned that when the government was dredging the lagoon for improvements the ring was spotted in the coral sand when it was being tipped into a barge.  The person really had good eyesight to spot the glitter and retrieve it.

On another occasion he met General Wainright who was at Kwaj on his trip back to Hawaii or the states.  He had the opportunity to speak to him for about one hour.  It was a great meeting and he really enjoyed talking to the General.

Frank Robinson says hello and regards to all.  He manages to continue his athletic movements but doesn’t want to try and do the 220.  He’s afraid his legs will freeze up if he does attempt it.

We were about to contact him to verify the names of a couple of players on the VMB 613 Squadron Basketball team but a member of the team looked at the picture and gave us the complete roster

Heard from Joe Yakawich who says hello to all.  He again endeavored to get a jump on spring by casting his line into the river but only got a few nibbles, no strikes.  Hopefully things will change in the near future.  He continues to maintain his production schedule in making models of air planes and with summer approaching, efforts also had to be directed toward gardening activities on his estate.  Two of his grandchildren recently graduated from college, Engineering degrees were received.  His son the Lt Colonel US Army continues to be on the move within the U.S. and over seas.  All efforts are towards making the Army more efficient in their world wide assignments.

Heard from Ed Alling who says hello and regards to all.  He sent along some pictures of 613 units which I will forward to our webmaster for inclusion on the website.

The picture that appeared in last months letter, sent by Homer Anderson to Kim Haddix he also sent along with names of the members that he recognized.

Homer Anderson reported that all is well with the Anderson family in Santee.  He sends regards to all our loyal members.

He reported on the picture that appeared in last months news letter and sent along some information on it.  The picture was taken at Kwaj and the structure that can be observed was the movie projection booth to the theater, plus the backs of the back seats are also visible.  The personnel in the picture are the main crew that built the theater.  Here are the names:

Back Row:  Ed Brais; E. Walker; George Gilman, and; Frank Haddix

Front Row: Homer J. Anderson; Troy Bohannon; Lt Cunningham; Bert Bader, and; Harold Riehle

There were two names he couldn’t recall, the extreme right to Lt Cunningham, but some other squadron members identified them for us.  He went onto explain that Lt Cunningham was the Project Engineer and the mech-gunners whose names he passed onto us were the crew.  (Tsgt Bader and S/Sgt Riehle who were to right of Lt Cunningham were the projectionists when the operation was completed).  The crew was very diligent and they scrounged and “obtained” lumber from all over the island to build the booth and seats but they still managed to finish the project in record time. They were the main crew that built the theater.  Lt Cunningham wanted a picture of his loyal crew hence the picture.  Homer closed his letter with “hope this gives some answers to the “who” “what” and “where”

Many thanks to all other members who sent along their recollections of members names.

John Peterson says hello and regards to all.  He reported that Jane is still having health problems and has to visit with the MD’s more often than she desires.  They did have a short spell when she felt great so they went on a trip to Zion and Bryce and back through Salt Lake City to Deer Lodge, MT and through Spokane.  While in Montana they went through a 150 mile snow storm which really made the trip interesting.  He sent along a 1948 Marine Corps Recruiting Brochure which hopefully I can enclose with this letter.

Frank Dudzik says hello and regards to all.  He endeavors to maintain Xmas contact with members but may occasionally miss one.  All remains well with him.  He continues to do construction work and has to remember to be careful of how he steps off.  Every now and then he misses a step or steps on the wrong pile of material and takes off flying.  He has had three major mishaps doing this which has really made him think twice at times before stepping off.

He remembers the trip to Boca Chica particularly the change in temperature.  From Cherry Point to Florida hot weather and flying in the aircraft the entire flight.

Vern Beggs and Anne send a hearty greetings to all.  They are both doing OK but are staying a little closer to home.

Gene Amber sends regards to all 613 members and said that it was great to hear about Doc Scott still moving about at his advanced age.  They have a golf pro (95 years of age) who comes from Scotland, brought in by Bobbie Jones, and played his first Masters many years ago.  He is still endeavoring to teach Gene how to swing.

Robert T. Jones III was a close friend of Gene’s who hosted him at Augusta some years ago.  Unfortunately he died at age 47.

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