The attack on Dec. 7, 1941, by Japanese forces on Pearl Harbor led to the U.S. entering World War II that ended after President Harry S. Truman approved the dropping of A-bombs on Japan.
What came to be known as the “Flight of 11 Angels” was a B-29 Superfortress that took off from Saipan Island on April 1, 1945, Easter Sunday, on a bombing mission to strike target 357 in Tokyo four and a half months before the end of World War II.
The B-29 Superfortress was shot down over Japan, and its crew members parachuted out. Captured, they were imprisoned in the Tokyo Military Prison near Emperor Hirohito’s Imperial Palace, the former site of the Endo Castle near the center of Tokyo.
The Battle of Okinawa was being fought on the same day that the B-29 Superfortress lifted off as part of the 500th Bomber Group 73rd Wing operating on Saipan Island.
Alpheus Gordon Carle was born in 1918 in Covington, the son of Georgia Agusta Murphy Carle. She soon moved from Covington to Boston, Mass. Alpheus grew up in Boston and enlisted in the U. S. Army Air Corps on Nov. 5, 1942.
Unlike the late Jack Kimberlin of Clifton Forge who flew 29 bombing missions over Germany as a B-29 Superfortress pilot during World War II and returned home safely, 1st Lt. Alpheus, the command pilot of the B-29 Superfortress that participated with more than 300 other B-29 Superfortresses on the bombing mission on April 13 and 14, 1945 of the Tokyo Arsenal, never returned.
During the night raid, Alpheus’ aircraft was one of seven that was shot down, and the crew’s radar observer, George Jochin Kruse Jr., was killed in the crash. The other crew members were captured in Sanuma, Omiya Village, Japan and imprisoned with other U.S. airmen in the Tokyo Military Prison.
In the Pacific Theater of War, the United States Army Air Corps had lacked airbases from which to launch bombing raids on Tokyo until the Mariana Islands were captured and airstrips built on Saipan, Tinian and Guam. On Nov. 17, 1944, the USAAF had launched its first bombing raid of Tokyo from Saipan.
The late Robert Slusser of Clifton Forge received two Purple Hearts in World War II after he enlisted at 17 and served as the U.S. Marine Corps. He served as an infantryman Corporal and was wounded by shrapnel in Guam and recovered from his injury on Saipan Island. After recovering from his wound, he was shot by a Japanese soldier on Okinawa.
He returned home and spent 60 years as co-owner of Nicely Funeral Home in Clifton Forge, having earned his funeral director’s certificate in 1951.
William M. Dressler Sr. of Covington served in the U.S. Army in North Africa and in Italy where he was shot in the leg at Anzio. Like Slusser, he survived his wound and returned to Covington where he owned Dressler Motors Inc. for 50 years.
Another local man, the late O.A. Mustain of Clifton Forge, survived the D-Day invasion at Normandy, France. He was wounded by German gunneries as Allied forces moved inland after securing the beachhead. Mustain ran a successful business in Clifotn Forge after returning from the war.
Unlike the local warriors cited who served their country in World War II and lived to return and lead productive lives, 62 airmen, including Alpheus, lost their lives in the Tokyo prison fire on May 26, 1945.
The first strike against Japan’s homeland had come via the Doolittle Raid on April 18, 1942 that consisted of 16 B-25 Mitchells taking off from the USS Hornet off the coast of Japan to attack targets on the mainland.
The raid had given the U.S. a propaganda victory, but the B-25 Mitchells, the first aircraft that enabled the U.S. to strike Japan’s homeland, lacked the nautical mile’s range to return from their mission safely.
Of the 80 airmen who completed the raid, all except Capt. Edward J. York who was low on fuel when he landed in the neutral territory of the Soviet Union were forced to ditch their airplanes off the coast of China or crashland in China. Three airmen were captured and executed while 77 survived the mission.
Jimmy Doolittle’s raid provided a boost of morale to the Allied Forces in that Japan’s homeland had been attacked for the first time during World War II. The bombing raid proved to be a foreshadowing of what would eventually force Japan to surrender.
While the United States Marine Corps and U.S. Navy were launching an attack on Iwo Jima where the late Arthur William “Pete” Harding, a 1940 graduate of Covington High school who returned home and became mayor of Covington, and the late Walter Davis, Jr, who returned home to Clifton Forge where he became a C&O engineer, were fighting as part of the 4th Marine Division to capture the island, Hell on Earth: Operation Meetinghouse was launched from Saipan.
Operation Meetinghouse, the most damaging bombing raid of World War II, took place on March 9, 1945 after a squadron of B-29 Superfortresses with a nautical mile range of 3,250 miles bombed Tokyo.
The raid spelled the beginning of the end for Japanese forces that suffered greater damages to Japan’s infrastructure from the incendiary bombing that took place than did the bombing of Hamburg, Dresden, Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
With B-29 Superfortresses attacking Japan from China and the Marianas, General Curtis LeMay gave the order to remove all defensive guns except the tail gun from the B-29s to make each aircraft lighter.
Some of the airmen whose airplanes were shot down during the raids on Tokyo parachuted out during the dark of night, and they were captured by the Japanese and imprisoned. Some died inside their aircraft from enemy gunfire, and some during the crashes.
On May 26, 1945, the Allied bombing that took place in Tokyo caught the Imperial Prison on fire, and the Japanese guards refused to unlock the cells. Consequently, many U.S. airmen were unable to leave their cells and perished in the fire.
Also, those who attempted to escape from cells that were opened via damage from the bombing where cut down by the Japanese prison guards who used their swords as executioners.
Alpheus and Sgt. Henry (Harry) Lawrence Younge along with six other members of their crew died in the fire. Younge was the uncle of Janet Clement of Richmond who recently visited Covington to search for relatives of Alpheus.
The prison guards involved in the atrocity were tried at the War Crimes Tribunal following Japan’s surrender on Aug. 15, 1945. They were found guilty and executed.
Of the 62 American airmen who died in the prison fire, the remains of 23 were identified and repatriated to their families in 1950. However, 39 airmen remain listed as MIAs, including Alpheus and Younge.
A mass burial was conducted by the Japanese near the prison’s ruins where a soccer field has been built over the site following the removal of the remains that occurred after World War II.
Some relatives of the airmen are concerned that some remains may not have been removed with the remains that were removed after World War II. Relatives of 33 MIAs are seeking closure and have gathered DNA samples that they have submitted to DPAA.
Michael Krehl, the grandson of Sgt. Leonard J. McNeil who was a crew member of a B-29 that crashed near Tokyo, has opened a website with information about the ongoing recovery efforts: tokyoprisonfire.com. He and other family members have collected those 33 DNA samples that they hope will be used to identify the MIAs.
Krehl and other family members have used ancestry trees and news media to reach out to relatives of the MIAs, and the DPAA that has a $155 million budget can be contacted concerning Krehl’s quest to use DNA to identify the remains of the remaining MIAs.
The retired owner of a paving company in Orlando, Fla., Krehl has been working with Clement to draw attention to the problem of identifying the 39 airmen and returning their remains to their descendants.
Clement recently visited the Alleghany Highlands to search for gravestones of Murphy and Carle at Emory United Methodist Church Cemetery in Falling Spring. She came away empty handed, but alerted the “Virginian Review” about her quest.
Clement and Krehl have spearheaded the project by contacting U.S. Senators, and 17 have pitched in to help. Currently, Senator Marco Rubio has taken the lead, and Rubio has received a letter from the department of Under Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon, answering his questions he raised on Sept. 15.
The response from Colin H. Kahl, PhD at the Under Secretary of Defense (DoD), notes that comingled remains require that DNA family reference samples or other medical means of identification be provided and that the requirement has been met and a request for approval to disinter the U.S. Service members has been routed to the (DoD) official authorized to act.
Copies of the letter to Rubio were also sent to USD (Personnel and Readiness) and The Adjutant General of the U.S. Army.
On April 13, 1945, a B-29A Superfortress crashed into a wheat field north of Tokyo, and Lt. Col. Doyne L.Turner of Arkansas was an observer onboard and one who survived the crash but met his demise in the prison fire. His remains have not been identified.
While the government has noted that it may take several years to fulfill the request, the unidentified remains of the victims of the prison fire that resulted from the firebombing of Tokyo remain buried as Unknowns at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines.
Khrel and Clement’s quest along with other family members who have banded together to provide the DNA samples to identify the 39 MIAs and bring their remains home for burial continues to gain national attention.
Paul Axsom, a casualty specialist with the DPAA, can be contacted at 1-800-653-5191 concerning remaining family members who may wish to supply DNA samples to help identify those airmen whose remains were exhumed and moved to the American Cemetery in Manilla, Philippines for comingled burials.
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