Evening star., 1946-03-25
Letters to The Star
Tells His Own Story of How
Demobilization Proceeded

The series of articles by B. M. Nc
| Kelway on the Army in the Pacific is
very interesting to me because it depicts
exactly the undermined and poorly
supervised situation which my brother
officers and I foresaw and discussed in
the Ryukyus last September.
My job last fall was executive officer
and adjutant of heavy bombardment
squadron of the 5th Air Force on Ie
Shima, next door to Okinawa. Shortly
after VI day, we had to bring all
our personnel records up to date in
preparation for demobilization proce-
dures. During the latter part of August
and early in September we worked long
into the nights, interviewing our 400
enlisted men and nearly 100 officers,
checking their service records and quail
fication cards and making out their
adjusted service rating cards (comput-
ing discharge points,
About August 20 we had a warning
that 85-point men might be going home
before long. On August Is I was in
formed that our squadron administra-
tive and ground supervisory officers
squadron engineering officer, supply
officer, ordnance officer, intelligence
officer, etc. would be considered eli
gible for Stateside movement as soon
| as their replacements were trained and
if they had sufficient points, the re-
placements had to be from among our
own flying crew officers. I reviewed all
of6 arle Of
and found, from among approximately
rs flying officers, one lieutenant who
had once been an adjutant in the in
fantry for few months, and another
who had taken a chemical warfare
course. For the most part, the remain
der had no useful officer background
or civilian background suitable to the
job which lay ahead. We had half
dozen flying crews then who had flown
no combat-their officers were fresh
out of flying schools, where they had
gone almost directly from enlisted basic
training. The average flying officers
age was around % years; for the ma
jority, their background seemed to be
either student" truck driver" or
salesman
Our squadron commander was trying
to get transfer. We were short of
cooks (Which was the case during all
Of 1945) clerks, motor mechanics and
drivers. Our neighboring squadrons and
the group headquarters were in the same
fix. The first typhoon of the season
came through about then and took
away two-thirds of our tenting, and
that didn't help any.
Well, to make this reasonably brief,
the ground officers mentioned were
given the most nearly qualified avail
able flying officers as their understudies,
and we started to train them to take
over the outfit. The new chaps were
nice enough fellows, but they were too
young and practically devoid of any
supervisory experience outside of a little
cockpit commandership. The older, ex-
perienced officers had to turn over to
them control over several millions of
dollars worth of aircraft. armament,
parts, motor vehicles. squadron equip
ment and supplies, not to mention the
responsibility for the well-being of the
enlisted men and the other officers
their housing, feeding, clothing, recrea-
, ton, medical attention and pay. Our
period of understudy-t training ceased on
September 10, when, on three hours
notice, I cleared myself and all the
regular administrative and other ground
officers of the squadron out of Ie Shima
over to Okinawa, where we were told a
Navy ship awaited us for the trip home.
AS the Navy ship moved away from
Naha, our engineering officer Capt.
Carter, said: Il certainly don't envy
those green kid officers and noncoms
the job OF running that messed-up
squadron for the next few months and
then inactivating it, with all the records,
personnel and property there is to
clean out" We all agreed then that
pushing brother, husband and daddy
home quickly in compliance with public
clamor, which was hot at that time.
was not at all to the best interests of
the Army. or the country as a whole
We felt then. as Mr.. McKelway does
now, that the demobilization program
Ia IAlC dSl1lS OJCl dtCu tOO ldSL III MANY
places. LYMAN L. WOODMAN.
Congressmen and Goats
To the Editor Of The Star:
I heartily endorse proposal recently
made by the Southern Goat Owners
and Breeders Association at Jackson
vile, Fla, to the effect that a few
congressman be used in the Pacific
atomic bomb experiments rather than
scarce and valuable goats.
But let's not use only a few of them.
Let's do ourselves a favor and insure
the peace by tossing 'em all in! Let the
mermaids listen to them babble for a
while.
But just in case some Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Dumb
Human Beings pops up to mar our fun,
I'd like to suggest an alternative pro-
ceeding. Let's draft these intelligent
gentlemen from Florida to serve as
cur representatives in Congress and
shift the present crop of congressman
down to the Florida farms to milk the
goats. There they might do something
useful for once in their lives. It's more
than they're doing in Washington. And
perhaps the new congressman would
have enough consideration for us pre-
maturely- -graying mothers to release
the fathers in service SO that they can
resume the responsibilities they should
have been allowed to resume six months
ago. MRS. JON HERLEE.
Praise for Sudduth's Pictures