Remembering Lt. Davidson’s Crew on Memorial Day

                                           Lt. Davidson’s Crew Paid the Ultimate Sacrifice

Memorial Day advertisements usually highlight food for a cook-out or a picnic. Some businesses feature items for having fun at the lake or enjoying activities after a backyard BBQ.

                As I thought of the purpose of Decoration Day, as my grandparents always referred to it, I reflected it originated to honor the Civil War dead. Recalling those who gave the ultimate sacrifice seemed a proper way to observe part of the Memorial Day, the name given it in 1967.

                 I thought of Charles Peterson, the ball turret gunner, one of the ten-man crew who flew the mighty B-17F across the Atlantic Ocean. Target for Tonight was the B-17 Flying Fortress flown by Fred Rabo, their pilot, with Dad, Peterson, and the others, most under the age of 25 when it traversed the Pond. 

The photo of Dad and Charles Peterson was cropped
from the initial crew photograph characteristically
 taken just before the crew's inaugural mission. 
This crew photo was taken in November of 1942.
Charles Peterson was 23 years old.

                Then as Dad might say, “Peterson’s name was called to go with another flight crew.” Following is Dad’s recollection of that flight as it appeared in his World War II memoirs, Okie Over Europe.

Charles Peterson, the ball turret gunner on Edmund’s original crew that crossed the Atlantic Ocean in Target for Tonight, flew with a different crew on a combat mission piloted by Captain William K. Davidson on February 4, 1943, to Hamm, Germany. Peterson was flying one of the waist gunner positions on this mission. This was a fateful reassignment for him since he had been manning the ball turret guns on all the missions Edmund had flown. Their plane went down and the entire crew was lost. Initially this crew’s status was “missing in action.”  Soon this changed to “KIA” or “killed in action.” This was the first man from Edmund’s original crew to be killed.

Edmund’s crew had served with Charles Peterson since they had begun training in the desert at Muroc, California.  They had lived in the same barracks, had eaten at the same mess hall, and flown ten successful combat missions together. There was a momentary shock in their quarters upon hearing that his plane was missing.  Almost immediately their reaction to this unnerving news gave way to the realization that their comrade was not coming back and would be replaced the next day.  Edmund and his fellow airmen quickly became battle-hardened to retain sanity, courage, and the resolution to keep boarding the Flying Fortresses for future missions.  Charles Peterson’s unused bunk was a visible reminder of the fragility of life and the improbability of survival for B-17 crewmen. The remaining men in the barracks steeled themselves that evening to the unoccupied bunk’s conspicuousness and its haunting, yet deafening whisper to them.

                A mysterious photo was in the military album Angie, my sister, created for Dad. When we looked at the photo, Dad indicated the airman was killed in action. This week before Memorial Day, I looked at the back of the photo and read these words written by Dad: “On 1^st Lt. Davidson’s Crew; Lost Entire Crew Feb. 4, 1943; Plane #25060.”

As I revisited the doomed mission of February 4, 1943, I researched briefly the other nine members on Plane 25060 hoping to discover which of the crewmen was in the unidentified portrait in Dad’s collection. I was able to locate photos of most of the men who went down in the North Sea off the coast of the Netherlands that February day. Their names were engraved on the Tablets of the Missing in the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial in Cambridge, England.

Dad’s well-worn book, The 305^th Bomb Group in Action – an Anthology, had a listing of the missing crews. The Davidson crew was among some the first listed.  One of the crewmen was Staff Sergeant Kermit R. Plaskett, the flight engineer, on that doomed flight. He flew the same position as Dad. On the www.findagrave.com site, Plaskett’s military portrait, even though he had a serious expression, resembled the features of Dad's unidentified photo. Mother and I agreed that this unidentified portrait must be of this young man.

Staff Sergeant Kermit R. Plaskett - the 
unidentified photograph; Dad was also the 
flight engineer/upper turret gunner. Plaskett
was from a rural community, too but in 
Jolon, Californina, about 150 miles south of 
San Francisco. He was only 24 years old 
when he made the ultimate sacrifice.

May we never forget but always choose to remember the sacrifices paid by young Americans and their families over the centuries. Jesus Himself spoke these poignant words in His final hours with His disciples before His arrest, Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. (John 15:13). Paul encouraged the Christians in Galatia with these words revealing the sacrifice of Jesus:

Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

The Death of a Horse at the Belford School

           Mamie Irene Tripp, my grandmother, along with her mother, stepfather, and siblings were living in the Big Bend community west of Ralston, Oklahoma. (To view a photograph of her mother and stepfather, click https://bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2020/12/an-unlikely-marriage-on-december-13-1900.html) My grandmother and her family were living near where my parents’ farm is now located. (For more explanation as to where Mamie and her family lived, go to https://bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2014/03/calamity-in-tent.html)

           Even in the early 1900s, there were two separate rural schools in the Big Bend. The school called Belford was located on the east side of the Big Bend. Greg and Vonda Goad now own the land on which the first Belford School building was constructed. The other school called Woodland was found on the western side of the Big Bend community. Incidentally, the community received its name because of the large bend made by the Arkansas River.              

The First Belford School is obvious in this photograph of
Greg and Vonda Goad's home.

Greg and Vonda Goad's renovation and addition to the first
Belford School. This place was owned by Bernard and Mabel
(Snow) Lynn prior to the acquisition by the Goads.

The location of the first Belford School as seen from Big
Bend Road just after exiting from the west off the Belford
 Bridge spanning the Arkansas River.

             Mamie and her sister Cora attended Belford School. Around 1910-1911, Mamie was being courted by my grandfather, Edmund Gates, Sr. He provided her a horse – a saddle horse, not a work horse – to ride from the Deal place where Mamie’s family lived to the Belford School.  My grandmother, always conscientious about whatever she did, securely tied the horse as soon as she dismounted. I can only imagine her horror when she emerged from a day of diligent studying to find somehow the horse had managed to choke itself to death. Grandmother probably could hardly see her feet through her tears as she trudged to her home. As sensitive as she was, she must have agonized as she walked the couple of miles attempting to find words to tell her beau, my grandfather, the catastrophe that had occurred at school that day. According to the account my father related to me, Edmund, Sr. simply went to the school and began digging until he dug a hole large enough to bury the horse right on the school grounds since he had no other way to move it.  He then rolled the horse into the hole and covered it up. That’s how a horse came to be buried on the school grounds.

           Many people in the early 20^th century viewed education as a waste for young women, but apparently, not my grandfather. His provision of the saddle horse for my grandmother, his girlfriend, would have been like a car being provided today. That allows one to see the magnitude of my grandfather’s gift of the saddle horse as well as the great loss experienced when it accidentally choked to death. The loss in today’s terms would have been equivalent to totaling a good car! There was more to their relationship than material stuff since their marriage lasted over 50 years!

          I must retell how my brother-in-law challenged my sister by telling her she was so smart she needed to enroll in college. He said, "If you go, I will buy you a car!" Angie took Ben up, enrolled in Oklahoma State University. He bought the car, she completed the degree in three years, and they celebrate their wedding anniversary on May 28th! How similar to Grandpa Gates supporting Grandma's education! Thankfully, Angie

had a better outcome than Grandma. She only had a fender bender during her years of commuting.

Angie in her new Ford Escort that Ben bought 
when she accepted his challenge to enroll at 
Oklahoma State University. She commuted for
the nine semesters it took to complete her
 degree in business. A short time after her 
graduation, the car  began having problems
that could never be solved, but as Dad would
say, "It was a dandy on gas!" for the hundreds 
of trips Angie made to Stillwater.

Musings on a May Morning

        The beautiful early sunrises in May transcended all other times of day for checking cattle. At the top of the morning as I observed the cattle, I thought These animals are doing exactly what God created them to do. But as I compared humans, what a difference! I recalled the phrase from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian believers in chapter 10, verse 31, “…whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

        As I walked among the cattle in the pasture hoping to see the cow-calf pair I hadn’t glimpse the previous day, a fragrance hit my nose with an unbelievable perfumed odor. Nearby was a blackberry bush with delicate blossoms whose wonderful fragrance defied description. Upon returning to the house, I couldn’t dislodge that sweet-smelling scent from my memory. I turned to a verse comparing Christ to the unimaginably aromatic experience. Paul wrote to the believers of Ephesus this admonition, "…Walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma." (Ephesians 5:2).

The fragrant blackberry blossoms I sniffed. Usually
blackberry bushes are despised in pastures.

          Walking into the yard, I spotted Maskie Muff, a fluffy black and white cat. That early May morning, I scooped him up to give him a morning greeting. Often Maskie will look right into my eyes, but this morning he was focused on my glove. Even though, I never feed him by hand, he knew my hand dispenses the food.

When I call Maskie the best cat on the hill in my
sister’s presence, she tells the other farm cats,
"Cover your ears.” Maskie Muff endeared himself
to me when one of his paws was injured, requiring a
 little more attention, rendering him a rather tame cat.

       The fluffy black and white cat mirrored the people dogging Jesus in John 6. Jesus had fed miraculously a huge number of people. The next day, the same people were seeking Jesus. Jesus, who knew all hearts and minds, said to them, “…You seek Me, …because you ate of the loaves and were filled.” 

        Much like Maskie, the people looked at Jesus for what His hand could give them instead of realizing seeking to be in His presence feeds the soul as nothing else. Being in the presence of an awesome God who is omnipotent, yet desires a relationship with us, brings a peace and contentment as nothing else. David, described as a man after God’s own heart, wrote in Psalm 27:8…When You said, “Seek My face,“ My heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.”

         May we desire to give Him glory in all we do just as Mother’s little cattle herd does. Let our attentiveness to the fragrance of the self-sacrifice of Jesus Himself gave for us far exceed the sweet-smelling aroma of the blackberry blossoms. Only embracing the self-sacrifice of Jesus fixates us on His face. No material blessing compares to resting calmly in His presence.