Open Post

Death Threats

...and why making them on the internet is a bad idea.

Left-of-center writer

...seeks clarity on Iraq war, earns scorn and condemnation from readers, part 974.

On Tour

Wynton Hall:

I'll be doing Michael Reagan's radio program today (Friday, May 26th) at 7:30 p.m. EST. Also joining me will be LTC Mark Mitchell (aka Chapter 12 in Home of the Brave: Honoring the Unsung Heroes in the War on Terror). LTC Mitchell is the first soldier since Vietnam to be awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

Also, Cal Thomas gives Home of the Brave a gracious plug in his new Memorial Day column. You can read it here.

Generations (Part 2)

Note: this entry, originally from June 2005, is re-posted as part of Mudville's Memorial Day 2006 salute to the fallen.

This is the conclusion of Generations, by SFC Peter J. Crittenden, US Army Special Forces, currently serving in Germany. Part one of the story is here.

Pete's brother Jules Crittenden writes:

As Pete mentioned, we don't know a lot about Phil. He had a literary bent like a few of us in this family and was getting his start as a reporter, freelancing for small newspapers, when the war came along and he enlisted. He was the eldest of four sons, raised in a string of pubs his old man owned at different times in Melbourne and several country towns in Victoria. He played the piano. He was a sleepwalker as a kid, and broke his ankle falling out a second story window. Phil didn't have much luck with night flights.

I have an old leather-bound copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Kayyam, returned with Phil's effects. It is inscribed "To Philip, on your 80th.'' Presumeably a joke when he turned 20. He didn't make 21. As is the case with a lot of families of our generation, his absence is something that can never be fully measured, not just one person we never knew, who died violently for all of us and lies in a foreign place, but also those he might have brought into the world and the things he might have done with his life.

My father tried to enlist while still underage, but his father, distraught over the loss of his eldest, refused to sign the papers. So my father went to work in the shipyard at Williamstown, repairing ships that came in from the Pacific War and taking them out on sea trials. Once there, they wouldn't let him leave. It was a vital industry. This may well be the reason Pete, myself and our brothers are here today. All of this on one family's loss in a long-ago war only serves to underscore the nature of sacrifice for all of them, past and present, and the importance of remebrance. Thanks again for posting our family's story.

Generations

P. J. Crittenden

I'm stationed in Germany so there was no question; I would go and visit the graves in Belgium. I contacted the Fitzmaurice family and we made a plan to link up in Charleroi on May 30, which is American Memorial Day. I explained the whole incredible story to my wife and children. Our two daughters, ages eight and nine, struggled to grasp the meaning of it all, the same as I had when I first learned about Uncle Phil. "Oh, he died... ...Oh..."

Our excursion took on the atmosphere of a holiday outing. It was Memorial Day; we were hitting the road like Americans do every year. We loaded up the VW Turbo Diesel Passat wagon and headed her down the mighty German Autobahn at an average speed of one hundred miles per hour. Next stop, Belgium! I told the kids we'd have chocolate-coated Brussels sprouts on waffles for dinner!

Arriving in Charleroi was a deja-vu unlike any other I'd experienced. Perhaps it was the extensive map-recon and the photos I'd looked over; the place was just as I'd imagined. A small city, a ring road, some dilapidated mining apparatus to the south and viola, we were at out hotel. While Wife and Kids got settled in I went in search of the cemetery.

There was some confusion. James Fitzmaurice had described the cemetery as being at Florennes. I believe this confusion comes from the R.A.F. Bomber Command website; the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website describes the cemetery as Charleroi Communal Cemetary and gives clear directions. This did not make navigating the maze-like back streets of Charleroi any easier, but I found the place after interrogating a few natives and stretching my grasp of the French language to the limits.

Everyone I spoke to made me as an American right away (I don't know how because my French is impeccable pied-noir). One of the locals told me how much he loved the American military, how happy his mother was on June 6th when the Allies landed, how much she laughed and jumped up and down. What do you say when somebody tells you something like this, shaking your hand and not letting you go? It's a great honor; they haven't forgotten, they will never forget.

Charleroi Communal Cemetery is a traditional European graveyard, something out of a Victor Hugo novel. Large family sepulchers featuring urns, statues of angels, and obelisks, spread out as far as the eye can see. There is a huge monument to the local war dead from 1914-1981; you go down into it and there are the crypts. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission sector lies in a little corner to the left as you enter the main gate. There are 333 graves there, mostly from the First World War, or as the Belge call it, "la Guerre de quatorze/diz-huit." The Commonwealth section stands quite out from the dark, gray civil tombs beyond; the sun shines on the white marble headstones surrounded by a carpet green, green lawn, neatly mowed.

The crew of FU-D are buried all in a row, up against the cemetery wall, next to the Great Cross which is a feature of every Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery I have ever visited. I found Uncle Phil's grave right away.

Sergeant P.G. Crittenden Royal Australian Air Force 20th October 1941, age 20

Loved Eldest Son
of G.W. and B.A. Crittenden
of Melbourne, Australia

There was a strange feeling, of course, as I knelt and looked at his grave. Beyond just seeing my own surname on a headstone in such a far away land; I was looking across the generations, across a vast gulf of time, at the monument of someone I had never known, someone who was loved by those who loved me.

When I first told my father I was going to visit his brother's grave in Belgium, his comment was, "I don't know what on Earth you're going there for." I've long learned to accept this sort of attitude from my Dad. It's a thing his generation seems to have about the past sometimes, a sort of denial, like a delayed stress thing about the war; that sort of thing haunts you for life. Later, after I returned from Belgium, I called Dad and told him about the inscription. I sensed a wonder in his voice. "An inscription," he said, "What do you know? So they did it right..."

* * *

The next day, Sunday, we were to meet with the family of SGT Brown; the Fitzmaurice's. I stressed to Wife and Kids that this was not a funeral, that the funeral had been conducted sixty four years ago; this was a memorial, and we weren't to get all worked up and over-emotional. Stiff upper lip, English blood runs cold, that sort of thing. I put on my uniform because it seemed the right thing to do. The little girls wanted to handle the wreath; they were very concerned about how to do it right.

SFC Peter J. Crittenden, with his daughters Charlotte (L) and Amanda.

We waited at the cemetery while the Fitzmaurice's made their way from the UK via the Channel tunnel. While Wife and Kids read all the inscriptions on the headstones, an ancient Belgian gentleman came up to me and told me of his adventures during the war; how he'd been a refugee, he and his family went to France. The French vaccinated him, and his vaccination became infected all up and down his left side so that he couldn't get on the boat to England, and how he eventually ended up a forced laborer for the Germans. He even had photographs to back up his story. The old man couldn't stop shaking my hand, telling me how great the Americans were, how great the Allies were, how much he loved us. We spoke for the better part of two hours. Funny thing with the French language, how it grows on you after a couple of days incountry; I understood every single word he said.

And then the Fitzmaurice's arrived. Wonderful people, a lovely family. Young James was the star of the show, of course, because it was his endeavors that had helped bring our families together at the graves of the crew of the FU-D. He had brought the items his grandfather had saved; the POW journal, photographs, badges of rank, insignia, and the incredible SATAN RIDES TONIGHT logo from the leather flying jacket. It was all so overwhelming.

Then one of those moments came where everyone looks at me because I'm the tallest, I'm the guy in uniform, and I realized it was time to say something. As verbose as I am I always choke when I'm put on the spot, but this was a historic moment for all of our families so I had to deliver.

I told them we were very grateful, that our family was so very thankful that they had all this information about our Uncle Phil and thankful that they'd come to honor the dead crewmen with us. I told them how the family of Peter Hamilton had been in touch, and that they were looking forward to hearing about the visit to Charleroi. I said how we had known nothing, nothing, for so very long; how it had been a great emptiness in the story of our family and now, thanks to them, our Uncle Phil was back with us again, in a way, forever.

In the middle of a speech like this you learn how to look away at the right moment, to time your phrases to keep from losing it. I looked to the sun shining down on this hot day.

Uncle Phil wrote this poem when he was in flight school in Saskatchewan, and it was printed in the local paper there:

The Two Australians

Their's was to die with laugher in their hearts,
In a clean land, fresh blown by snow-kissed wind,
Made sweet by early spring and sun.
This was their stage then, this their last sports field.
Their eyes made brave in southern lands
Had not yet looked on Death -and yet-
They chose that which was Death's playmate
And blithely played him out.

Some fool-made query- "such a pity 'twas so young."
They had not shirked, complained, nor asked
For aught but what their day might bring;
They held a pride within their hearts,
Australian pride, and strength of England's strain.
They died -'twas seemly so- their blood
Enriched the ground on which it fell;
They won't begrudge - their heads are in the sky.

Uncle Phil

He signed it "From a Comrade". He could have been writing about his own crew.

P. J. Crittenden
31 May 2005
Stuttgart

2005-06-03 22:24:15

Jesse MacBeth's Explanation

Because some may have missed it, and even if not it's worth reading again. (Who doesn't need a laugh on a Friday?)

Friday means...

... it's time for Major John's news from Afghanistan, where there seems to be more combat than in Iraq.

Changing the Subject

Given the much well-deserved drubbing Republicans are about to take in the opinion polls, it should surprise no one that they will soon attempt to change the subject. Three months ago Iraq seemed an unlikely choice for this "new focus" but no doubt any good image consultant would advise that to "shore up" the image you emphasize your strengths, and "hey, we're good on Iraq, let's beat that drum!"

Color me cynical, but I expect these debates - should they ever materialize - will result in some interesting sound bites - and little else. I predict most comments from both sides will appear a few months down the road in campaign ads, and they will predominantly be ads run by the opposition.

This plan may not work as Republican leadership expects. Given their loss of support from "the base" on so many other issues there's a great opportunity for the Dems to get Iraq "right", and they've got a fairly good voting record already should they adopt a "stay the course and do it right!" approach.

For the record, I'm all for such debate. My advice to both sides: Bring it on.

Generations

Note: this entry, originally from June 2005, is re-posted as part of Mudville's Memorial Day 2006 salute to the fallen.

This isn't my story, let's set that straight right away. This one was sent to me by Jules Crittenden, a friend of Mudville and a reporter for the Boston Herald. But Jules didn't write it either, it's by his brother, an Army SNCO stationed here in Germany. It's their family's story, though by giving me permission to post it here I suppose it's everybody's story now. It transcends time and place, spans generations and continents, and I'm proud to be able to share it with you. I'm posting it in two parts. This first installment is background, and an amazing story of discovery. Like so many families who lost relatives in that distant time and place the Crittendens knew little more than a few basic facts; they had an uncle who was killed when his plane was shot down over Europe in 1941, and that's about it. I'm of the same age, so I grew up knowing little enough about details too. I could look through my parents' war time High School yearbooks and find tribute pages to those recent graduates who had fallen in Europe or Africa or somewhere in the Pacific. It was a small school, too, but a surprising number of names were on those lists.

"What happened to him?"

"Oh, he was killed in the war"

And that was that.

It was a small school, everyone knew everyone.

Repeat several hundred thousand times, and you have several hundred thousand stories, all worth telling, few ever told. Some can still be retrieved. It's never too late, as SFC Peter Crittenden is about to explain.

Generations

P. J. Crittenden

When I was very young my Dad told my brothers and I about our Uncle Philip who had died in the war in Europe. This meant nothing to me at the time, I was too young to understand the meaning of it all. It was just another of Life's mysteries; Uncle Philip died in the war. He was shot down. We accepted it and asked no further questions.

When I was a little older, as I began to develop a grasp of the great World War II, I asked my father what type of airplane Uncle Phil flew. "A Wellington bomber," he told me. I had never heard of a Wellington. Spitfires and Mustangs and B-17 Flying Fortresses I knew of, but I'd never heard of a Wellington. I looked it up in my big brother's book of world aircraft. It was an ugly looking thing, an ungainly behemoth. It looked like a sitting duck for a Messerschmidt; which, I later learned, was exactly what it was.

The Wellington was a pre-war model; a wooden frame covered in canvas, one of the precursors of modern aircraft design. By the time Uncle Phil was shot down in 1941 the Wellington already belonged in a museum.

In 1974 our family visited Canberra. At the Imperial War Museum my younger brother Jules located Uncle Phil's name inscribed within the dome. Years on, when I was living with my Grandfather in Melbourne, I came across Uncle Phil's wings, and the telegraph informing that he'd died in the war. It surprised me to see that his wings were Canadian Air Force insignia; I later learned that he'd trained in Saskatchewan before shipping over to Britain.

That's as much as we ever knew. The older generation never talked about it. It was the War, the Big One. A lot of people died, a lot of families lost more than we. Uncle Phil died in Europe, it was over; that was it.

Then last December an email arrived from brother Jules. He had put an ad on an R.A.F. Bomber Command website, seeking information. The reply was from a young man in Britain, James Fitzmaurice, the grandson of the sole survivor of the shootdown of Uncle Phil's plane. SGT P.G.E.A. Brown has since passed away, but he'd left behind a treasure trove of information.

We never knew there were any survivors; it never crossed our minds to even wonder. The fact that Uncle Phil had died so far away from home was a tremendous loss, overwhelming in and of itself. No questions were ever asked; we were just told about the telegraph, and accepted the lack of detail as part of the fog of war.

James Fitzmaurice sent us photos and diagrams scanned from the journal. There were maps of where the camps had been located, near Frankfurt, then northwest of Berlin, then Czechoslovakia, Poland, Lithuania, and finally near Hamburg. There was a photo of a Wellington IV and a photo of a Messerschmidt BF-110, the twin-engined nightfighter that shot down Uncle Phil's plane. There was even the name of the aircraft, the FU-D - "Wimpy IV", and their outfit; Royal Australian Air Force Squadron 458. It was a Commonwealth composite crew, an R.A.A.F. aircraft filled out with R.A.F. crewmen. Of course by this time it was more than Uncle Phil's plane; there were the names of the crew:

PILOT: Sergeant Peter John Maxwell Hamilton, R.A.F. (Killed In Action), age 22
CREW: Sergeant Philip George Crittenden R.A.A.F. (Killed In Action), age 20
Pilot/Officer David Kimber Fawkes, Observer, R.A.F. (Killed In Action), age 25
Sergeant Thomas Jackson, Wireless Operator/Air Gunner, R.A.F. (Killed In Action), age 26
Sergeant Andrew Young Condie, Wireless Operator/Air Gunner, R.A.F. (Killed In Action), age 23
Sergeant P.G.E.A. Brown, Air Gunner, R.A.F. (Prisoner of War)

There were photos of the crewmembers graves, in Belgium. There were photos of SGT Brown with the crew, standing by the tail gun of the Wellington, as he described shooting down a Messerschmidt ME-109 the previous night. Looking at this last photograph, on the screen of my laptop, was like looking through a time portal. I tried to distinguish which one was my Uncle Phil but I couldn't; they are all wearing the 1940s aviator's helmets, with their goggles up.

We're not sure if this is the crew of the FU-D - Uncle Phil's plane - or SGT Brown's previous crew, because he was just assigned to the FU-D the day they before they were shot down. Likewise, we don't know if the jacket insignia - "SATAN RIDES TONIGHT" - was the FU-D's nose art, or that of Brown's previous bomber. It really doesn't matter - these are relics directly from the event. What was significant was that we finally had the story, and the sensation was overwhelming.

On the evening of 20 October, 1941, at 1829 hours (6:29 pm), Wellington IV FU-D took off from R.A.F. Base Holme-on-Spalding-Moor, Yorkshire. It was 458 Squadron's first operation, a part of a larger air raid; the target was possibly Bremen, or perhaps Antwerp. The flight consisted of 82 Hampden's, 48 Wellington's, 15 Stirlings and 8 Manchester's. FU-D's target was Mont-sur-Marchienne, directly south of Charleroi, Belgium.

Six hours later, at around 0030 hours in the morning, 21 October, 1941, Wellington IV FU-D was shot down by a German Messerschmidt BF-110 nightfighter.

Fitzmaurice's grandfather, Sergeant P.G.E.A. Brown, was the tailgunner. Because of his position in the tail he was able to escape by turning the turret around to the right, and with the door facing outside he jumped and "hit the silk".

The rest of the crew didn't make it; they are buried in Charleroi, Belgium. SGT Crittenden had the dubious distinction of being the first Australian serving in Bomber Command to be killed flying with an R.A.A.F. squadron.

SGT Brown landed safely although the exact location is not known. He was picked up by the free French (French resistance) and was dressed up as a mute Belgian Farmer, and was passed through the French resistance until he was turned in at the last post to German forces.

SGT Brown went on to establish a career as a POW escape artist; he escaped five or six times, each time being re-captured within a couple of days and sent to camps further east, in (now) Czech Republic, Poland, and Lithuania. During the time he was a POW, Brown kept a journal, which he somehow managed to hang on to throughout his entire three-year ordeal.

P. J. Crittenden
31 May 2005
Stuttgart

Greyhawk here: That was part one of the story, part two will follow tomorrow. Reading it led me to seek out more information on the Wellington Bomber.

Here's a picture of one, pre-mission:

Here's one flying a mission:

And here's one on the ground, its mission done:

As SFC Crittenden said: The Wellington was a pre-war model; a wooden frame covered in canvas, one of the precursors of modern aircraft design. By the time Uncle Phil was shot down in 1941 the Wellington already belonged in a museum.

But they kept 'em flying. Mostly. Here's a story of another from 1941 (source of the photo above). Here's one from 1942, and here's one from 1943. The Wellington was used until the end of the war, and actually only two survive in museums today.

Canvas stretched on a frame, thousands of feet above Germany, through flak from below and Messerschmidts from above. A far cry from today's endless discussion of the Army's failure to armor every Humvee.

(Part two of this story is here)

2005-06-02 21:12:25