You Are Not Forgotten

by Bryan Bender

  If you asked me where this journey really began, I would say Les Nicholas’s tenth-grade journalism class at Wyoming Valley West High School in Plymouth, Pennsylvania. I was also blessed with many mentors who nurtured my potential, afforded me new opportunities, and showed me—with their sleeves rolled up and their patience in check—how to cover the military in all its complexity, both human and machine. Primary among them were Richard Lardner, Dan Dupont, John Robinson, Barbara Starr, and Richard Parker. I am especially grateful to Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editor-in-chief and former Boston Globe Washington bureau chief David Shribman for his confidence in letting me cover the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for one of the best newspapers in the country. I wish I could thank two of my former colleagues at the Globe in person for all their help and encouragement: Elizabeth Neuffer and Anthony Shadid both gave their lives giving a voice to the voiceless. They are deeply missed.

  But there are two men—and their families—to whom I owe the most. I met George S. Eyster V on April 12, 2008, when he came to collect me at the small, ramshackle airport on the shores of Blanche Bay on the northern tip of New Britain Island. George was my escort those weeks I embedded with the JPAC recovery teams. I had expected to be telling ghost stories of fighting men swallowed by the jungle long ago, but through George I came to appreciate that the young men and women searching for them—most of them veterans of America’s post-9/11 wars—were in their own way lost, or at least overlooked and underappreciated by society. I am deeply grateful to George and his beautiful bride, Sandra Patricia, for taking this journey with me. The two of them, as well as George’s mother, Ann Eyster Whittaker, and his grandmother, Harriet Eyster Linnell, spent many hours answering my questions—often more than once—and permitted me to pick apart family scrapbooks and photo albums, and to scout hard drives.

  Then, of course, there are the McCowns. They welcomed me into their lives and homes with open arms and entrusted me with the honor of recounting the life, the death, and the homecoming of their beloved Ryan. I am especially grateful for all the help and support from Captain John Almeida and his wife, Christine Duffey; Jane McCown McKinney, her husband, John McKinney, and their daughter, Blair McKinney; and Mrs. Vance McCown and her children, Ellen McCown Schwab, Katherine McCown Wall, and Bill McCown. To Helen Miller Schiller, you’ll always be a “swell guy” in my book, and I couldn’t have done it without you. Last but not least, to you, Ryan: Thank you for what you did for me. And for the rest of us.

  Bryan David Bender

  Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania

  January 2013

  NOTES AND SOURCES

  The story of George S. Eyster V and Marion Ryan McCown Jr. could not have been told without the participation of numerous people and primary-source material. All quotations in the book were from interviews conducted by the author; recorded in personal diaries, letters, or official government reports; or related by at least one person who was there. The following notes are not a comprehensive list of every source used in the book but describe the most significant and unique documents, books, articles, and personal interviews. A number of sources were relied upon throughout the narrative, but they have not been cited in every instance for brevity. They include the author’s multiple interviews with Eyster in Papua New Guinea and the United States and his family’s letters, records, and personal recollections. Other material widely used includes Ryan McCown’s personal diary and letters; his official military records; interviews with his surviving family members and fellow pilots; and the official reports from the Hell’s Angels of Marine Fighter Squadron 321 between 1943 and 1945. A significant amount of material was obtained from the National Archives and Records Administration in College Park, Maryland; the National Military Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri; the Library of Congress; and several other public and private libraries and archives. The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command permitted the author to travel to Papua New Guinea in April 2008 with Eyster and his recovery teams and, with the permission of the next of kin, also made available hundreds of pages of official government case files, investigation notes, maps, and other information on several individual MIA cases from Southeast Asia and World War II. Justin Taylan, the world’s most knowledgeable person about American pilots and crews reported missing in the Pacific during World War II, and his database at PacificWrecks.com were invaluable.

  PROLOGUE

  The main sources were interviews with Eugene V. Smith and Richard Marsh and the official after-action reports of Marine Fighter Squadron 321. Also consulted was The Siege of Rabaul by Henry Sakaida, who interviewed many of the surviving American and Japanese fighter pilots who fought in the skies over Rabaul.

  CHAPTER ONE: THE LEGACY

  The main sources were interviews with Major George S. Eyster V; Ann Eyster Whittaker; Harriet LaRoche Eyster; and the family’s voluminous collection of scrapbooks, albums, military records, and personal letters. Other first-person reflections were drawn from Peter Arnett’s Live from the Battlefield, his dispatches from Vietnam for the Associated Press, as well as interviews and writings of the late photojournalist Horst Faas. Key details of the 1966 episode in Vietnam were also drawn from Tom Mangold and John Penycate, The Tunnels of Cu Chi. The history of the Society of the Cincinnati and its rules of membership were derived from an interview with the society’s librarian, Ellen Clark, as well as Markus Hünemörder, The Society of the Cincinnati: Conspiracy and Distrust in Early America.

  Biographical information and details about the wartime service of Captain Wilhelm Heyser were drawn from multiple primary sources at the David Library of the American Revolution in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, including pay and muster rolls, company reports, and Continental Army General Orders. The writings of William Heyser III were contained in his personal diaries, published by the Kittochtinny Historical Society in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. The biographical information on J. Allison Eyster and his relatives was drawn from the Pennsylvania Scrap Book Necrology, vol. 44; Anita L. Eyster, “The Pioneering Ancestor of the Oyster-Eyster Family,” Historical Review of Berks County, April 1941; and the obituary of the Honorable George Eyster, Lutheran Observer, January 7, 1887. Details on the maternal Pate family history were contained in John Ben Pate, The American Genealogy of the Pate Family.

  Other books and articles consulted include Thomas J. Scharf, History of Western Maryland, vol. 2; Charles Francis Stein, The German Battalion of the American Revolution; Henry C. Peden Jr., Revolutionary Patriots of Washington County, Maryland, 1776–1783; Henry J. Retzer, The German Regiment of Maryland and Pennsylvania in the Continental Army, 1776–1781; Philip S. Foner, ed., The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine; William M. Dwyer, The Day Is Ours! An Inside View of the Battles of Trenton and Princeton; the personal letters of General George Washington; and Cumberland Valley Sentinel, June 23, 1851.

  CHAPTER TWO: A TRUE CHARLESTONIAN

  The chief sources were Ryan McCown, Five Year Diary: A Comparative Record of Events, a daily personal record kept between December 25, 1938, and January 1, 1943; and interviews with Helen Miller Schiller. Wartime Charleston was recreated from Fritz P. Hamer, Charleston Reborn: A Southern City, Its Naval Yard, and World War II; William J. Fraser, Charleston! Charleston! The History of a Southern City; Walter Edgar, The South Carolina Encyclopedia; and “The South’s Charleston,” Review of Reviews, December 1929. McCown’s personal attributes also came from interviews with his nephew Captain John L. Almeida; half sister Jane McCown McKinney; sister-in-law Mrs. William Vance McCown; and cousin Robert Maxcy McCown. The McCown family history was also derived from Louise McCown Clement, The McCown Family of the Peedee Section of South Carolina. The history of the maternal Aimar branch was recounted in William Turner Durban Jr., La Connexion Française: A Reflection on Three French Families, Durban, Aimar, and Me’Nard. Also consulted were records of the Unitarian Church of Charleston, on file at the South Carolina Historical Society.

  Details of Washington, D.C., and the National Mall were
gleaned from photographs taken by the U.S. Office of War Information between March and May 1942, courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Also consulted were David Brinkley, Washington Goes to War; and Scott Hart, Washington at War, 1941–1945. The Marine Corps Base at Quantico during World War II is recounted in Paolo E. Coletta and K. Jack Bauer, United States Navy and Marine Corps Bases, Domestic; Charles A. Fleming, Quantico: Crossroads of the Marine Corps; and Mark Blumenthal, Quantico: Images of America. Further details were obtained in an interview in the New Way Café with the former Quantico mayor Mitchell Raftelis.

  CHAPTER THREE: HEEDING THE CALL

  The main sources were interviews with Major George S. Eyster V and Ann Eyster Whittaker and their personal and family archives, including letters, e-mails, cards, funeral programs, and eulogies. Details about Army Ranger School were obtained from J. D. Lock, The Coveted Black and Gold: A Daily Journey Through the U.S. Army Ranger School Experience; and Mona D. Sizer, The Glory Guys: The Story of the U.S. Army Rangers. Additional information about the suicide of Specialist Wayne Gajadhar came from “Soldier, 20, Kills Himself,” Fayetteville Observer, March 17, 1999. The technical characteristics of the Kiowa Warrior helicopter were derived from M. M. Kawa and J. M. Kirk, Program and Operational Highlights of the Armed OH-58D Kiowa Warrior.

  CHAPTER FOUR: PREPARING FOR WAR

  The main sources were McCown’s Aviator’s Flight Log and interviews with VMF-321’s Richard Marsh; Eugene V. Smith; Grover Cleveland Doster and his wife, Eloise; Robert Whiting; and the ground crew members James L. Kalleward and Gordon Renshaw. Additional personal recollections came from a December 22, 1943, letter from McCown to his mother, courtesy of the Charleston Military Museum; a letter dated April 23, 1944, from Major Edmund F. Overend to Mrs. E. W. Marshall, courtesy of Betty S. Montgomery; an essay published by Overend in 1946 titled “I Fight for Tomorrow”; and interviews with Hazel Marshall Nelson and the late Leroy Wilkinson. The activities of VMF-321 were also outlined in Peter B. Mersky, A History of Marine Fighter Squadron 321, and in the squadron’s official Daily War Diary; a letter from Gordon Knott preserved by the Marine Corps History Division in Quantico, Virginia; and the official deck logs of the USS Nassau and USS Pocomoke.

  The history and features of the F4U-1 Corsair were derived from a series of books, including Fred Blechman, Bent Wings: F4U Corsair Action and Accidents: True Tales of Trial and Terror; William Green, Famous Fighters of the Second World War; Boone T. Guyton, Whistling Death: The Test Pilot’s Story of the F4U Corsair; Mark Styling, Corsair Aces of World War II; Barrett Tillman and Kenneth A. Walsh, Corsair: The F4U in World War II and Korea; John A. DeChant, Devilbirds: The Story of United States Marine Corps Aviation in World War II; Robert F. Dorr, Marine Air: The History of Flying Leathernecks in Words and Photos; Corwin Meyer, Corky Meyer’s Flight Journal: Dodging Disasters—Just in Time; Frederick A. Johnsen, F4U Corsair; and Pilot’s Flight Instructions for the F4U-1, F3A-1, and FG-1 Airplanes, March 1, 1944.

  Additional information about American and Japanese fighter tactics was drawn from Robert C. Mikesh, Zero; Gregory “Pappy” Boyington, Baa Baa Black Sheep; and a series of official intelligence assessments during World War II, including the undated “Quality of Japanese Pilots,” on file at the Marine Corps History Division in Quantico, Virginia. Also consulted for background was Alan J. Levine, The Pacific War; Bruce D. Gamble, Black Sheep One: The Life of Gregory “Pappy” Boyington; and Daniel Ford, Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and His American Volunteers, 1941–1942. Additional details of Tutuila in American Samoa were contained in John J. Carey’s memoir, A Marine from Boston; Gordon L. Rottman, The WWII Pacific Island Guide: A Geo-military Study; History of U. S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, vol. 1; and J. A. C. Gray, Amerika Samoa.

  CHAPTER FIVE: A LOSS OF FAITH

  The chief sources were a personal war diary, in the form of scores of Internet chats between George S. Eyster V, Ann Eyster Whittaker, and Scott Eyster from December 2004 to July 2005, preserved by Whittaker on her home computer. The communications were supplemented by interviews with the participants and a series of personal letters to and from several generations of Eysters. The episode involving George S. Eyster IV—Big George—at the outset of the 1990–91 war was recounted by Chaplain Gordon Terpstra and a letter he wrote to Whittaker dated August 17, 2000. The high-speed chase and firefight in Mosul in August 2005 were recounted in detail in an eighteen-page, first-person dispatch on the incident published by the war correspondent Michael Yon on August 31, 2005. Background on the Forty-Second Infantry Division was drawn from Hugh C. Daly, 42nd “Rainbow” Infantry Division; and an article by Kirk Semple in the New York Times, February 13, 2005. Information on overall military operations and demographics in Iraq during Eyster’s tour was drawn from On Point II: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom; Helicopter News 42, no. 15; Michael Hastings, “America’s New Cavalry,” Men’s Journal, September 2010; Michael Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq; Loretta Napoleoni, Insurgent Iraq; and the military database maintained by Global Security.org. Additional information on Warrant Officer Matt Lourey was provided by his mother, Becky Lourey, as well as a letter she received from a soldier whose life was saved by Lourey’s final act. Growing public opposition to the war was recounted in Peter Laufer, Mission Rejected; interviews with Senator Chuck Hagel aired on ABC’s This Week on August 21, 2005; and a September 28, 2005, press conference in North Carolina featuring General William Odom. The history of the ancient city of Nineveh was recounted in Brian M. Fagan, Return to Babylon: Travelers, Archaeologists, and Monuments in Mesopotamia; and the Old Testament.

  CHAPTER SIX: MOVING UP THE LINE

  The New Guinea and Solomon Islands campaigns in World War II were recounted in The United States Army in World War II, vol. 8; History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, vol. 2; William B. Hopkins, The Pacific War: The Strategy, Politics, and Players That Won the War; William Manchester, Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War; Edwin P. Hoyt, Japan’s War: The Great Pacific Conflict; Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon, eds., The Pacific War Papers: Japanese Documents of World War II; Fletcher Pratt, The Marines’ War: An Account of the Struggle for the Pacific from Both American and Japanese Sources; Douglas Oliver, Bougainville: A Personal History; James Campbell, The Ghost Mountain Boys; Ritchie Garrison, Task Force 9156 and III Island Command: A Story of a South Pacific Advanced Base During World War II; Robert Sherrod, History of Marine Corps Aviation in World War II; and Gordon L. Rottman, The World War II Pacific Island Guide: A Geo-military Study.

  Information on Allied reconnaissance missions over Rabaul was contained in reports of the U.S. Army Air Corps’s Seventeenth Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron. Operations at Torokina, on Bougainville Island, were also recounted in Donald Jackson, Torokina: A Memoir; Building the Navy’s Bases in World War II: History of the Bureau of Yards and Docks and the Civil Engineer Corps, 1940–1946; Henry Sakaida, The Siege of Rabaul; and Yank, February 18, 1944. Additional Japanese perspective was drawn from Masatake Okumiya and Jiro Horikoshi, Zero: The Story of Japan’s Air War in the Pacific.

  CHAPTER SEVEN: A NEW PATH

  The chief sources were interviews with Major George S. Eyster V; Major Grover Harms; Lieutenant Colonel James Hanson IV; General Michael Flowers; JPAC deputy commander Johnnie Webb; JPAC anthropologists Dr. Thomas Sprague, Dr. Owen Luck O’Leary, Dr. Paul Emanovsky, and Dr. Derek Benedix; Commander Brian Danielson; Robert Maves; Rick Huston; Alvin Teel; Major Brian DeSantis; Major Jeremy Taylor; Sergeant Kili Baldeagle; Davy Baldeagle; Colonel Ines White; Kenny Scabby Robe; Sergeant Sengchanh “Sammy” Vilaysane; and Dr. Andy Baldwin. Crucial details were also contained in dozens of case files and mission reports made available by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command. Publications consulted included POW-MIA Fact Book; official reports to Congress by the Defense POW/MIA Office; Hoang Khoi, The Ho Chi Minh Trail; S
usan Sheehan, A Missing Plane; Michael John Claringbould, Black Sunday: When Weather Claimed the Fifth Air Force; and Robert Utley, The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull. Biographical details and the wartime service of Major Nam Thuan were drawn from Tom Mangold and John Penycate, The Tunnels of Cu Chi.

  CHAPTER EIGHT: MISSING

  The chief sources were official records and after-action reports from Marine Fighter Squadron 321 and the Army Air Corps’s Forty-Second Bombardment Group, as well as McCown’s voluminous Individual Deceased Personnel File containing reports and correspondence on his MIA case from 1944 to 2008. Grace McCown’s neighbor Meri Roberts Dame provided first-person recollections, and McCown’s nephew John L. Almeida also shared family history and personal letters. More details about McCown’s final mission were drawn from written testimony by the former VMF-321 pilot Leo Harmon, courtesy of the Charleston Military Museum. Information about wartime shortages and bond drives was gleaned from the series the Week in America, American News File.