The Casper Star Tribune - Casper, WY, USA
By KRISTY GRAY
Star-Tribune staff writer
Saturday, January 3, 2009 8:35 PM MST
Sick or injured veterans often uttered their last words to him before they died.
As a military chaplain, he has given invocations at the funerals of hundreds of World War II veterans, trying to individualize each prayer.
Leonard L. Robinson wants to see the World War II Memorial for them.
"It took a long time to get a memorial. Most of us sent in donations to help build it," said Robinson, 89, of Casper.
"I'd like to see it up close and personal, to walk through it. It's a thing to honor those who didn't come back, and something to keep their memories from falling off the face of the earth."
Robinson may soon get the chance. He is one of 70 Wyoming World War II veterans on a waiting list for Honor Flight-Wyoming, a program starting here that seeks to fly veterans, free of charge, to see the memorial in Washington, D.C.
If fundraising goes well, the group hopes to make its inaugural flight this spring.
"For World War II vets, they would like to see how their accomplishments will be remembered by this nation. But more importantly, they would like to see how their buddies will be remembered -- those that didn't make it off the plane or who were shot," said Earl Morse of Springfield, Ohio, president and chairman of the national Honor Flight program.
Robinson, a survivor of the Bataan Death March and prisoner of war for three and a half years, wants to see the memorial for himself. And for the men in Battery E 200th Coast Artillery who never made it back with him.
Robinson, a college student in Boulder, Colo., was drafted in March 1941.
His service was supposed to last one year. In September, he was shipped to Clark Air Base on Luzon Island of the Philippines with the Battery E 200th Coast Artillery. Their mission was to deliver machine guns and return to America soon after they had trained the Filipino soldiers.
But Robinson lived through his own day of infamy.
It was Dec. 8, 1941, at Clark Field. Across the international date line, in America, it was Dec. 7. Rumors that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor circulated the base, but Robinson and his fellow soldiers on night watch didn't believe it. They thought it was an outlandish excuse made by the men who arrived late to relieve them.
The only radio on the base confirmed the news, and everyone's orders and lives changed.
A commander ordered Robinson to get a few minutes' rest after his night watch. But Robinson fell asleep and missed the truck that was to take him to the mess hall for lunch. He chased after it, but the engine drowned out his cries.
In minutes, everyone on the truck would be dead.
In the sky, 54 bombers and 75 pursuit planes approached in two V-shaped formations. Robinson thought they were American planes, but as he watched, their silver bellies turned black. At first, he didn't know what he was seeing.
Then he realized it was the bomb doors opening. Two bombs hit the truck Robinson chased but did not catch.
Robinson thought of Psalm 23 in the Old Testament, a psalm that would carry him through the war: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake."
The Japanese nearly destroyed Clark Field.
Robinson's battery began moving almost every night, finally setting up a semi-permanent position on Bataan Peninsula on New Year's Eve 1941.
Robinson became a scout, looking for Japanese snipers and any extra food he could find.
After nearly three months of fighting and holding off Bataan, the Americans had run out of food and nearly all their ammunition. Still, Gen. Douglas MacArthur ordered that there would be no surrender.
But Maj. Gen. Edward P. King Jr., commander of Luzon Force, Bataan and Philippine Islands, went against those orders. He surrendered more than 75,000 Filipino and American soldiers on April 9, 1942.
Robinson remembers the morning well: "Three Japanese tanks came then, and we became POWs."
More than a quarter of the 75,000 soldiers forced to take the Bataan Death March never made it to Camp O'Donnell, a prison camp 90 miles away. They marched for nearly a week through deep dust and with little food and water. Soldiers caught helping those too weak to continue were either shot or beaten.
Conditions weren't much better at Camp O'Donnell. Just once a day, men lined up for a drink of water despite the intense tropical heat. Americans died fast, Robinson said, as tropical diseases and the march's after-effects ravaged the ranks.
"A person could be in the best shape of the group, but if they gave up, the next morning they'd be dead," Robinson said.
Once, a Japanese commander lined Robinson and 11 other men along a bluff. Twelve Japanese riflemen, one for each prisoner, loaded their rifles and raised them to their shoulders. Robinson decided he would jump off the bluff as soon as he heard a shot and hope for the best.
He didn't have to. Another Japanese officer stepped out of a building and shouted something Robinson couldn't understand. The riflemen lowered their guns and walked away.
Again, Robinson thought of his Psalm.
Through all the searches and all the beatings, Robinson held on to two objects during his 3 1/2-year captivity. One was a New Testament he kept in his left breast pocket. The front cover had been almost ripped in half by a piece of shrapnel Robinson found after a battle. That Bible, he figured, had saved his life.
The other was his old billfold. It had no money and was so worn it didn't interest the Japanese soldiers who kept anything with value for themselves.
If they had looked, they might have discovered the hidden compartment. Then, they would have found the roster of Battery E Robinson had written by hand in case records were destroyed. Throughout the war, Robinson noted dates of death next to the names of his fallen brothers.
In September 1943, Robinson and other prisoners were transported to Japan in "hell ships," 12 men stuffed into a compartment 10 feet long and 10 feet wide. Dozens died on the trip.
He eventually ended up in Niigata, Japan, where he lived and worked the docks with other prisoners for two years.
He weighed 102 pounds at his hungriest and lost his two front teeth in a beating. A guard used Robinson's shoe to repeatedly strike an ankle swollen with cellulitis. A doctor drained a canteen cup's worth of pus by slitting his ankle open.
By Aug. 10, 1945, the Americans knew something big had happened.
Japanese guards who never had flinched when a single bomber plane flew overhead suddenly watched them intensely -- especially B-29s.
A few days earlier, Robinson later learned, the United States had dropped the atomic bombs.
Though he didn't know it then, Robinson's war was over.
History has not yet made up its mind on those bombs. Robinson has. Japan's surrender that followed them likely saved a million American lives and many more million Japanese lives, Robinson said.
In 1973, Robinson moved to Casper to become the pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church. He retired in 1990. He has served as the chaplain of the United Veterans Council and for Disabled American Veterans, often standing vigil next to beds of sick and dying men. As a veterans' chaplain, he's helped provide military services for hundreds of veteran funerals.
He considers it a privilege to honor their memories.
"Everyone who came back, came back because someone else helped them at some time or another. You helped other people because you didn't know when you might need them," Robinson said.
He'd like to see the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., for them and for all the people who helped him in the war and all the people he tried to help after.
Of the 1,817 men of the 200th Coast Artillery who went to the Philippines with Robinson, just over 600 returned. Robinson would like to see the memorial for those who never got to see the Golden Gate Bridge from the deck of the ship that brought them home.
And for the men on the Battery E roster, tucked for years in a secret compartment in Robinson's billfold, with a date of death scribbled next to their names.
* For more on Leonard L. Robinson's story, read his book, "Forgotten Men," available at Ralph's Books in Casper.
How it all started
In 2004, Earl Morse was a physician's assistant in a Veterans Affairs clinic in Springfield, Ohio.
The World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., had just opened to the public in April of that year and was the topic of conversation between Morse and his patients.
He asked them if they planned to go see it. Almost all thought a son or daughter or their local VFW post would arrange a trip.
But, after a while, Morse realized none of them had actually gone.
"And reality was setting in. They were never going to see their memorial," said Morse, founder and president of Honor Flight Network.
Morse, a retired Air Force captain who was once stationed at F.E. Warren Air Force base in Cheyenne, approached his dad, a veteran of Vietnam.
"Let's rent a plane and get you to see the Vietnam Memorial. And, we'll sit two World War II vets in the back," Morse said.
Renting the plane would cost $600 a day. But Morse refused to charge the WWII veterans, and he and his father split the cost.
Soon, word spread to other pilots who wanted to get involved. "If you are going to do this, you pay every penny," Morse told them. "We can't charge the WWII vets."
In May 2005, six small planes carrying 12 veterans flew to Washington, D.C. A month later, eight planes embarked with 16 vets. A month after that, it was 10 planes with 20 veterans.
Morse was so proud, he bragged to his mom.
"But son," she said, "we're getting 95 applications every month."
Today, Honor Flight has flown 18,000 World War II veterans from 45 states to the memorial. And, a group in Wyoming is now forming a local chapter.
"My heart goes out to those hardy WWII vets from Wyoming," Morse said. "Which one of them does not deserve to see their memorial?"
Honor Flight-Wyoming
In September, 200 veterans, including 55 from Wyoming, flew to the national World War II Memorial with Honor Flight-Northern Colorado. Gus Fleischli of Cheyenne, who flew 32 bombing missions over Germany from 1944 to 1945, was one of the Wyoming vets.
"We got off the airplane and walked into the terminal building. The people in that terminal stood up and clapped. It was a long walk and there were hundreds of people, but they all did the same thing," he said.
"We got there, and you couldn't help but remember thinking about some of the people that weren't there and wishing they could have been."
Fleischli and a group of other Wyoming vets decided this was something Wyoming should do on its own. In a partnership with other veteran groups, they formed Honor Flight-Wyoming which was recently incorporated and has filed for nonprofit status. The group estimates that more than 5,000 WWII vets live in Wyoming and has a waiting list of 75.
* Fundraising: The group is now raising money with the hope of making its first flight to Washington, D.C., this spring. They figure it will cost $1,000 per veteran for food, plane tickets, hotel rooms, bus fares and incidentals. The only money veterans would need is for souvenirs.
* Guardians: One guardian for every three veterans is required to go on the trip, and the program also provides a medical staff.
Guardians must pay $800 to go so that donations are used for the veterans themselves.
Elizabeth Brewster, a registered nurse of Cheyenne, was a guardian for the September trip and wants to be one again this spring.
"I was truly honored to go. If it wasn't for the World War II veterans, we wouldn't have what we do today," she said.
As a guardian, Brewster made sure veterans got on and off the buses, helped them board the plane and helped those in wheelchairs or those too tired to keep up with the group.
Brewster was struck by all of the people who thanked the vets for their service. Soldiers on leave from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan came up throughout the day to shake the veterans' hands.
"It was very moving to watch the whole thing. A lot of us now don't remember what they did for us. It's important for them to see that our country does appreciate them," she said.
* Get involved: To donate, make checks payable to Honor Flight-Wyoming and send them to P.O. Box 1143, Cheyenne, 82003.
Veteran and guardian applications will be released soon through Wyoming American Legion and Veterans of Foreign War posts, or call Larry Barttelbort, director of the Wyoming Veterans Commission, at 307-772-5016.
* Information: www.honorflight.org. A Wyoming-specific Web site is in the planning stages.
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