Van E. Harl

FLYBOYS

Louis Stannard, the author of China Diaries, suggested I read the book Flyboys by James Bradley. Nobody really uses the term flyboys anymore. I figured the book was written by an old military pilot. The book was published in 2003 and as far as I can tell James Bradley was never in the military, but his father was. His father was a Navy Corpsman (medic) and was one of the six men who raised the flag on Iwo Jima. The picture of the flag-raising was the most published photo of WW II.

Bradley had written a bestseller book entitled Flags of Our Fathers, which is about his father and the other five men who made history, raising a fly on an island in the middle of an ocean that nobody had ever heard about. Everyone knows about Iwo Jima now, but there was another island about 150 miles away called Chichi Jima. Until “Flyboys” came out only a small circle of people in the US knew much about that island, which is only twice the size of Central Park in New York City.

One of the people, who knows all about Chichi Jima and will never forget it, is George H. W. Bush, the former President of the United States. There were a lot of post WW II politicians who service in the military during WW II, but in relative safe places in the rear area. President Bush was not one of them. He was a naval aviator who flew missions directed at the island of Chichi Jima. For his efforts he was shot down and the two other members of his aircrew were lost at sea (one a life long family friend.) George Bush was picked up by a submarine just off the island of Chichi Jima. He was the lucky one.

The Japanese hated American aircrews. They had proven that the alleged invincible home islands of Japan could be attacked. Prior to WW I, wars were fought on a two dimensional level, land and sea. The third dimension of air power got its fledging start in that war. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had the vision to see that when, not if, the US entered WW II, this was a war that was going to be won by airplanes. The problem with airplanes in war is some of them get shot down and the aircrews fall into the hands of the very people who were being bombed.

On Chichi Jima, both Army and Navy aircrew were tortured and brutally killed. But it did not stop at death. The Japanese officers had the bodies cut up and parts removed. They then cooked and ate the flesh of these dead Americans. If Lieutenant Bush had landed on Chichi Jima instead of in the ocean he would have suffered the same fate.

I received a Presidential letter of appreciation from President Bush for some work I had done just prior to coming up for major in the Air Force. That letter was sitting on the top of my personal file when the promotion board met. I was the only non-pilot to be selected for major (with a definitely promote) on my base that year. I would suggest, cause and effect. I directed security for the President as he stopped at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska, on his way to the funeral of Emperor Hirohito in Japan. I still believe that Hirohito should have been executed at the end of the war, but his belated death help me get promoted and enabled me to finish a military career with a retirement. You see if you do not make major you do not get to stay until retirement (cause and effect.)

Flyboys is history but it is a real page-turner. I could not put it down. Bradley tracked down the family and friends of the murdered aircrews. The descriptions of family loss during that war are heartbreaking. Many did not know about the torture and cannibalism that was inflicted on these young men. Some families were destroyed because of the war time losses and the fact that no closure was achieved since the remains were never returned to the US. The suffering by families of current military members killed in combat continues this heart-break. This is why every effort is made to keep families informed and to return these falling comrades to American soil. Some times you have to excel and aim high for very sad reasons.