Here’s a WWII fun fact concerning my father that probably very few knew about. In fact, I didn’t learn of it until after he had passed away. First some background: Dad was born in 1920 so grew up through the depression years. As a kid he learned to hunt out of necessity to help put food on the table. I remember hearing, when I was a kid, my uncles and others talking of how well dad could shoot whether it be at a running deer or rabbit on the ground; or doves, ducks and pheasants in the air. Supposedly he never wasted a cartridge or shot shell. And his best friend in the Marine Corps (same squadron), was also a gunner in an SBD who grew up under the exact same circumstances in Texas. I had helped dad to reconnect with this buddy late in life through internet searches, etc.
When my father passed away, I called his buddy to inform him and that I had arranged for the full USMC military honors at his funeral. While on the phone this buddy of dad’s said he had to tell me this story of my father: When the two of them were in gunnery school somewhere in Florida, being the USMC was part of the Navy at that time they were mixed in with the Navy’s gunners in training. He said a lot of the trainees had never had much shooting experience and the rest were just plain poor shots. He said he himself was an excellent shot but couldn’t begin to compare with my father. The Navy took note of the need to improve the skills of these young men, their lack of progress being made, and instituted a new program to encourage them to hone their marksmanship in their free time. This new program would provide a coupon for a cold six pack of beer to any person that could hit 25 clay pigeons from a box of shells at the skeet range. After a couple days of the Navy gunners watching my father and his buddy always drinking free cold beer, they started to ask dad if he’d get a coupon for them. Off they’d go to the range and dad would get a few boxes of shells and never miss a shot. Soon, half the Navy gunners were drinking free beer but their personal scores weren’t improving. After a week or two the “Brass” wondered where all the coupons were going and why the trainee scores were still so low. They found out they had a crack shot USMC gunner in their midst who showed up nightly at the skeet range with all of his new Navy buddies.
The “beer coupons for marksmanship program” was promptly discontinued.
Dad’s buddy swears that my dad was the only person he knew that had single handedly shut down a Navy program all by himself inside of two to three weeks. They thought it was pretty funny and had already had enough beer for a while between the two of them. The Navy was on their own after that.
He also said it was very much frowned upon but the instructors were amazed when a poor magpie or other bird would happen to fly across dad’s field of cover and he’d touch off a very short burst from his .30 cal. machine gun and turn the bird into a puff of feather dust!
Dad’s marksmanship skills obviously carried him through the war. Afterwards, he never hunted again. I suppose he’d had enough “hunting” and “being hunted” during the war and now held a different view regarding hunting. He would never say a word about any of the bombing missions or aerial combat. We weren’t allowed to look in his foot locker. (And it disappeared when he figured that we had been sneaking peeks into it.) Upon his death I found, among a few things, his Air Combat Medal with its applied stars which also represented a certain number of combat missions for each star. Knowing that he never wanted to talk about those missions, I’d almost feel guilty doing some research to find out more. I do know he spoke very highly of his regular pilot. And his pilot (who also survived the war but had by now passed away) probably spoke very highly of dad, his rear seat gunner. Both of their lives depended on each other.
David
PS: Great stories, everyone!!
