Carlton Honors Memorial Day: Remembering Those Who Gave All - Carlton Senior Living

Carlton Honors Memorial Day:
         Remembering Those Who Gave All
                      By Harriett Burt

Carlton Pleasant Hill-Martinez celebrated Veterans Day last
November by featuring the stories of some of the residents
who served in World War II and Korea. It was so popular that
we decided to do it again in May. But when it looked like it
would be another set of stories about living veterans, this time including Vietnam, one of the vets
pointed out that “Memorial Day is about those who died” in service to their country, not those who
lived. It took a while but finally the solution became apparent. We should feature the living veterans
talking about those they knew, either as relatives and or as buddies, who did not survive the war. The
profiles won’t be very long but the focus is where it should be in the month of Memorial Day. Also
included is a piece about Richard Young’s teen age high school years during war time, the loss of an
uncle and a brother, and enlisting the day after graduation in 1945 when it was thought by most that
the war would last at least another two years.
By June 1945 most Americans believed what most of the government believed: that World War II
would last for at least two more years because the Japanese would fight so hard to defend their
homeland. The existence of the new atom bomb was known only to a few scientists and staff, a very
few high-ranking military officers and government officials and, unfortunately, the Russians.
In the summer of 1945, Richard, who had just finished basic training, was a GI on a ship headed for
the Philippines where fellow Carlton resident, Paul Moser, a new 2nd Lieutenant in the Navy, was
already helping to prepare for the planned American invasion of Japan’s home islands. But for the
development and use of the atom bomb in August 1945, it probably would have been a long, terribly
bloody fight for both sides. However, American history will always include an ongoing argument
about whether or not the means were justified by the quick end of World War II. Welcome to the
Nuclear Age.
                  World War II Comes to An End: The Richard Young Story
Carlton resident Richard Young graduated from Albany High School on one day in June 1945 and
enlisted as a GI in the United States Army the very next day. He knew what he was getting into as his
family had already received two of the telegrams every family dreaded. Richard’s oldest brother,
Raymond, a B-17 gunner, had been killed in France in 1944 by a Messerschmitt fighter. His mother’s
brother, Uncle Ted, died on his ship, the destroyer, Greeley, in the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942.
Two other family relatives had lost their lives as well.
In the summer of 1945, after basic training, Private Young boarded a troop transport ship in San
Francisco headed for the Philippines. The immediate mission was to ‘clean up’ the scattered remnants
of the defeated Japanese Army on the island of Leyte and then to train for what was expected to be a
very difficult, dangerous, and lengthy invasion of the home islands. The soldiers made a number of
treks through the jungle looking for any movement but all they ever saw, according to Richard, were
the bodies of dead Japanese soldiers. Richard had his rifle with him but he never had to use it.
The real impact of World War II was on his teenage life. During the war, sports were mostly the only
ongoing student activities outside of the classroom, he recalls. Fortunately, Richard was an outstand-
ing athlete who played football, baseball, (his favorite sport), and basketball.

Richard Young was the youngest of four children, three of
                                     whom were boys. Raised in the East Bay, the war had been part
                                     of his life for almost four years. As with many families at the
                                     time, “The War” was a constant shadow hovering over their
                                     lives with the fear of a telegram announcing a relative’s death
                                     always looming.
                                     One day it came to the Young household, still grieving over the
                                     death of Richard’s mother from uterine cancer the previous year.
                                     His father, a taciturn veteran of World War I, was just leaving
                                     the house in 1944 when Richard arrived home from school.
                                    “All he told me was ‘look up on the ledge’” where important
                                    mail was kept, Richard remembers. There was a yellow enve-
                                    lope. Inside was a telegram from the War Department regretting
                                    to inform the family that Richard’s oldest brother, Raymond,
                                    had been killed in the skies over France. It was the last of his
                                    24-flight stint as a gunner. He probably would been given leave
to go home for 30 days had he returned to base safely.
Two years earlier Richard’s uncle, a naval officer who had turned down promotion by Admiral
Halsey to an aircraft carrier because his favorite ship was a destroyer, was on the USS Greeley during
the early fighting in the South Pacific. He was killed in the Battle of the Coral Sea which occurred
over four days of May 1942. Both sides had heavy losses of ships and sailors before the U.S. Navy
finally won. The battle was a turning point in the war in the Pacific.
“Grandma was very upset,” he remembers. “‘Uncle Ted was the youngest of her children.” He was
also a bit of a ‘wild child’ and lots of fun, Richard remembers.
A gifted athlete, Richard played football, baseball and basketball at Albany High School, even
playing on the varsity football team as a freshman. Later, after leaving the service, he played baseball
at Santa Rosa Junior College, known for its outstanding sports program.
During high school, he became good friends with Berkeley High baseball star and future professional
baseball player and Oakland A’s manager, Billy Martin, as well as renowned Bay Area player and
major league manager, Jackie Jensen. Jensen had heard about Richard and asked to meet him only to
find out that he was a shortstop not a pitcher, which was all Jensen was looking for at the time.
But Richard’s baseball skills were coveted by the colonel he served under in the Philippines. Soon he
was on a team playing around the island. They celebrated the end of a game, he notes sarcastically,
“with a ‘feast’ from ‘little boxes filled with food and cigarettes,” also known as C rations and K
rations. “I met some damn good people playing baseball,” he says, even if the food wasn’t that great.
But army rations were about to disappear from his life when the Japanese surrendered in late August
with official ceremony in early September. Richard and his mates were soon on their way home and
out of the Army.
He decided to go to Santa Rosa Junior College. He had relatives in Santa Rosa and the JC had an
outstanding athletic program. While there, Richard was picked by a minor league team in Nevada to
play. “That was a fun time,” he says, adding “and a couple of good years. I played a whole bunch of
teams.” But when it came time to sign another contract, the shortstop decided he wanted to be a
teacher instead and enrolled at San Francisco State.

Besides his interest in sports, Richard is a history buff who loved a good argument with his teachers
about some historical event often involving the British since there appears to be a streak of Irish blood
mixed with the patriot in the family as well.
“The family has a long history in the American Army,” he says, including the French and Indian War
and the American Revolution where an ancestor was an officer under General Washington. His
ancestors from Virginia include “a very strong man” who served under Robert E. Lee during Civil
War. After that, he went to Texas to fight the Indians before moving to California in the late 19th
century.
When asked about any regrets he might have about his life since his birth in Berkeley in 1927, Richard
immediately mentioned his mother’s death in 1943. “It was the first time I heard the word ‘cancer’”
he says, looking away sadly.

     Carlton Veterans Recall Relatives, Friends and Comrades Who Did Not Come Home

Most veterans who have survived the wars beginning with World War II up to the recent conflicts in
the Middle East lived to come home and lead normal lives although not all escaped the lifelong effects
of wounds, both physical and psychological. But a significant number of the military in those
conflicts came home in flag-draped caskets, if they came home at all. Carlton residents, including
veterans whose stories appeared in this and other issues of the Carlton Times, share their memories,
on this Memorial Day, of relatives, friends and comrades who have died serving their country in
wartime, whether hot or cold, since 1941. Thank you for your service and your respect for those who
served but who were not fortunate enough to return to their families. The following remembrances
are not arranged in any particular order.
Len Burnand is a new Carlton resident who moved in on April 15. A retired Master Sergeant in the
Air Force, he spent his career first doing data processing and later working with computers thus
helping the Air Force keep up with the amazing changes in everything from routine record keeping
to planning military operations. Stationed in Del Rio, Texas at the beginning of his service, Len met
Melvin Voss who was his supervisor and mentor for 12 years. “I really liked him,” Len recalls. They
worked together in Texas and in Germany. Later, Melvin was transferred to Vietnam to work with
data processing and the early computers. Sadly, he was killed there in 1972. Len doesn’t know how
but guesses, “probably by the VC.”
Charles “Chuck” Wiscavage: Retired Chief Master Sergeant, United
States Air Force. At age 19, he was a right gunner in a B-29 combat
crew during the Korean War. “Our crew flew 28 combat missions over
North Korea – 8/51 to 3/52”, he says. He also was the first at Carlton
to submit names of combat friends who did not come home. Two
members of the close-knit group of whom Chuck says, “we stuck
together wherever we were,” died on a mission on October 31, 1951.
Right gunner Charley O. Parr of Klamath Falls, Oregon, was 20 when he was killed on that night
over North Korea. Bill Murray, 19, of West Virginia was a tail gunner who lost his life on the same
mission.
Chuck Carnes served in the Army Signal Corps Cryptology unit from 1953 to 1955, when the
Korean War was over in the same indefinite way it is today. When asked to contribute to the
Memorial Day tribute to the servicemen who died as a result of the wars, cold or hot, the U. S. has

participated in since 1941, he didn’t hesitate to talk about his first cousin, Jimmy Harris. Jimmy, like
many boys and young men in the 1920s and 30s, was fascinated with airplanes. By age 16, he had
earned a pilot’s license and was crop dusting farms near his Nashville home. When the US entered
World War II, sergeants could be pilots. Jimmy qualified immediately. Chuck knows that he was a
pilot in Italy during the war and was sent at some point to Officer Candidate School. Jimmy stayed in
the newly created Air Force after the war. He advanced up the officer ranks so quickly that by 1960
Colonel Harris was a full or “bird” colonel, meaning the eagles on his shoulders revealed his rank. A
rise in rank from full colonel would require stars which he probably would have earned had he lived.
Jimmy was soon wing commander of an air refueling wing at Emendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage,
Alaska. One day he was sitting in the cockpit waiting for to leave on an inspection trip. As the KC135
began take-off the whole plane suddenly exploded and crashed, killing all on board. It was found later
that one of the eight pumps inside the KC135 that transferred the fuel into the plane being filled up
had been overlooked for cleaning. All the fuel pumps in the KC135 must be thoroughly cleaned
before it can safely fly when not on a refueling mission or there would be a tragedy like this.
Jim Tresposkoufes: Jim was the subject of one of the stories in last November’s honoring of
Carlton’s veterans of war. You may remember that he landed at Normandy, was captured a month
later and spent 7 or 8 months as a ‘working POW” in a German box-making factory. Now 99, he was
released in 1945 and going home while passing by the early stages of the American cemetery at the
landing site. He remembers how beautiful the section he saw was. “I wanted to go back to see it, but
I never did,” he says regretfully.
Dave Jacobson graduated from Daly City’s Jeffer-
son High School in 1965 as the Vietnam War was
heating up. He joined the Army and drew two years
of duty on the business side of the military in Alas-
ka. Two fellow students were among the 25 percent
of draftees who were directed to the infantry. Emil
Bess joined the Army and lost his life in Vietnam.
Jim Benate was the first member of the class to be
drafted. He chose the Marines. He also was the only
one of the pair Dave got to say goodbye to before he
left for what turned out to be his death in Vietnam.
Maybelle Jolley: Readers may recall Maybelle’s story of being a nurse at Walter Reed Hospital after
the end of World War II. As a Castlemont High School student in the early 1940s, she also came face
to face with the impact of the war on so many young men in the Oakland high schools. One of them
was a boy in her church group named Laddy Bent, the minister’s son. The group of six couples were
close. “I went with him for a while,” she recalls, and then he left to join the Navy and become a
submariner. “It was such a shock for all of us” when news of his death came, Maybell remembers
sadly, nearly 75 years later.
Paul Moser’s father came from Pennsylvania so every summer in the 1930s, the family drove from
California to visit for a week. During the visits, Paul hit it off with a cousin, Donald Hanna, who was
a year or two older. “We bummed around together. He was a good friend, like an older brother,” he
remembers. Donald went into the service right after he graduated from high school but before the
Japanese attack. On December 7, 1941, he was serving at Pearl Harbor although Paul doesn’t know
what he was doing or what ship he might have been on. When Paul and his wife visited Hawaii in the

1970s, they toured the Memorial and searched through the list of those who lost their lives that day.
Donald’s name was there.
Val Kingwell graduated from Alameda High School in 1943 and joined the Marine Corps B-12
officer training program at UC Berkeley, later transferring to USC. A fellow student, Ed Fry, also
joined the Marines. Ed was the 18 -year-old son of a golf pro. He was one of many Americans who
lost their lives in the bitter battles on the island of Okinawa from April to July 1945. Okinawa and
nearby Tinian were the last stops toward the home islands of Japan and the end of the war. The
invasion of Okinawa was one of the costliest in loss of lives of all the Pacific battles. There were
50,000 Allied and 84-117,000 casualties on the island.
Ed Vining grew up in Montgomery, West Virginia, a small town “where everybody knows your
name.” He has three stories to tell. First, Noyes Kinder was a few years older than Ed and old enough
to establish a flying school. That was quite common in small towns and cities in the 1930s when
airplanes were the most amazing things around that ordinary people could actually learn to use. Ed,
himself, learned to fly while still in high school. When the war started, Noyes joined up and soon
found himself in the cockpit of a Curtiss Commando cargo plane. He then was given one of the most
dangerous flying assignments in the war: the Burma/China route through the Himalayas. His job was
to keep the American and Chinese troops equipped to fight the Japanese no matter how much rain,
snow, tall mountains, storms, and enemy fire he had to go through. He kept flying until he went down
during a storm. Another loss for Montgomery occurred early in the war when Arnold Nalen, the
community’s first to join up who then became the first to die in combat. Ed thinks Arnold probably
lost his life in North Africa in 1942/43. He notes that the Army fought in North Africa and Europe
while the Marines were the main troops in the Pacific. Ed himself, joined the Navy at the beginning
of the war. After two years in the states as a naval aircraft mechanic, he was posted on Tinian, not
only to keep the airplanes working but also to be an occasional gunner on Navy Privateer bombers
that were chasing Japanese shipping near the home islands and bombing factories on the island of
Kyushu. In the squadron he served in, eight of the 15 planes and at least about 70 of the men were
lost from June to August 1945.
 The stories of the servicemen above focuses only on a minuscule number of the Americans who
have died in wartime for our country since 1941. But someone, somewhere, still remembers nearly
                                    all of them. –Harriett Burt

“I believe our flag is more than just cloth and ink. It is a universally recognized symbol that stands
 for liberty, and freedom. It is the history of our nation, and it’s marked by the blood of those who
                       died defending it.” -John Thune, United States Senator