Duke D. Cummings is inexplicably left off the official listing of men and women from Caldwell County who died in WWII. It may be that he had moved off briefly to California. Nonetheless, he is most definitely one of our own. Duke was born in Port Aransas but spent most of his school years in Luling. He was a star football player on the Eagle squad. His father Newton Cummings was a teamster in the oil patch. His mother was Elva Lynn Duke, who was living in Grayson County, Texas when she met and married Newton Cummings. Duke’s first name was apparently in honor of his mother’s family. The family moved around. His younger sister, Val Jean, was born in Erath County in 1927. In 1930, the family was living at 167 Rife Street, Aransas Pass. Between 1930 and 1935, his parents divorced. His father, Newton S. Cummings, was a teamster, and would eventually move up to central Texas. Duke was raised by his mother in Luling. Elva Lynn remarried in 1942, moving to Texarkana, Arkansas.

After high school, he attended Seguin Lutheran College (now Texas Lutheran University) for two years. According to his high school classmate, Dr. Tom Matthews, Duke moved to California to work in the defense industry. He enlisted the Army Air Corps on November 1, 1941 at Ft. Sam Houston. In all probability, he was told he would be called up when a slot opened. The 1942 Paso Robles phone book still showed Duke living at 629 Osos Street, with a listed occupation as a ‘warehouseman.’

Sometime in 1942, Duke was called up. After successfully completing primary and basic flight training, he was sent to Geiger Field in Spokane, Washington, and graduated with a co-pilot designation on the B-17 four-engine bomber. He was assigned to the 301^st Bombardment Group’s 353^rd Bombardment Squadron (Heavy). Part of the U.S. Twelfth Force, the Group and its four squadrons were based in North Africa. Extensive bombing raids were made over the island of Sicily as part of the Allied attempt at strangling Axis supply lines to North Africa (Operation Flax) and in anticipation of the invasion of the island. The B-17 was one of one of the US Army Air Corps’ most prolific bombers. However, despite its designation as a ‘Flying Fortress’ is could prove easy prey to enemy fighters, unless properly escorted. In early 1943, this often was not the case.

On April 13, 1943, his ship was piloted by 1^st Lt. Jerry E. Thomas. It took off from its base at St. Donat, Algeria on a bombing raid against airfields at Castelvetrano, Sicily. After turning back toward North Africa, it was attacked by German aircraft. The plane went down in the

353^rd Bombardment Squadron Emblem  

 waters ten miles west of Cape Granitola, Sicily. As Dr. Matthews says, “It was wartime. No one had time to look for survivors.”

Missing Air Crew Report 16302, declassified in 1982, shows just how little effort was made, and possibly how little effort could have been made, to ascertain the exact circumstances of B-17, Aircraft Number 41-24394’s disappearance. Five pages, mostly blank, with a few blanks filled in on a pre-printed form, are all that memorialize the deaths of a crew of ten. “Failed to return from a mission over Castelvetrano, Italy,” is all that is said.

The Luling Newsboy was hopeful. “It is entirely possible that Lieut. Cummings has bailed out of his damaged plane somewhere in the African wastes – again, he may be a prisoner of the enemy. Luling has already experienced several instances of our sons reported ‘Missing In Action’ who turned up later, and it is the fervent hope of every soul of this community that such are the circumstances now.”

Elva received a letter from Duke’s tent-mate, Lt. William Benson. Benson wrote:

The plane of which Lt. Cummings was a crew member was damaged, but not badly, but practically all of the crew got clear and parachuted to safety, though in enemy territory. I believe he is safe, but a prisoner of war, for I took particular notice to look where the             

 A 301^st Bomb Group B-17 – North Africa

 parachutists came from and although I was flying some distance ahead of his damaged plane, I am nearly certain he got clear…

It was not to be. By letter dated April 14, 1944, the War Department notified his mother at her rented house on North Oak Street in Luling that a year had passed, and there was no more hope. She was told that the War Department “must terminate such absence by a presumptive finding of death.”

            The plane and crew were never found. Duke’s name is memorialized at an American Cemetery in Italy.

Duke Cummings was twenty-one years old.

Tablets of the Missing, Sicily-Rome American Cemetery, Nettuno, Italy

JOSEPH BENNETT COOPWOOD

by Todd Blomerth

The December 9, 1943 edition of the Lockhart Post Register read “MAJ. JOE COOPWOOD KILLED IN ACTION.” This was a tragic day for Lockhart, because Joe was one of the town’s most beloved citizens. Because of his unique background, training, and service to his community, Coopwood’s death dealt a tremendous blow to the  Caldwell County community.
Major Joseph Bennett Coopwood was the regimental surgeon for the 141st Infantry Regiment of the 36th “Texas” Infantry Division. He was born in Lockhart on March 7, 1907. His mother was Eva Putnam Coopwood and his father was Dr. Thomas Benton Coopwood. Joe was destined to follow in his dad’s footsteps. He graduated from Lockhart High School, then spent one year at the Virginia Military Academy before enrolling at the University of Texas for two years. He then attended Baylor University College of Medicine and received his Doctor of Medicine in 1930. At the same time he was commissioned into the Medical Officers Reserve Corps. He interned in San Antonio and did his residency at the Cumberland Hospital in Brooklyn, New York. He then came home to set up his medical practice. On December 19, 1936 he married Kate (“Tiny”) Ellis Lipscomb. They would have two children, Tommy and Kate. A devout Methodist, he served on Lockhart’s First Methodist Church Board of Stewards. He was also a Mason.

At DeRidder, La. In 1940     141st Reg’t Medical Detachment -Lockhart 1941

He was one of the organizers of the 141st Infantry Medical Detachment, which had its armory in Lockhart. When the 36th Division was nationalized in November 1940, he quickly rose through the ranks, and on December 24, 1941 was promoted to major. The Division went into training at Brownwood, Texas and later in Florida. Some of the medical detachment trained in Colorado and were loading a bus for their first ski trip, sponsored by the local chamber of commerce, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The ski trip never happened, and for many of the detachment there would never be another opportunity.
In early 1943, the division was sent to Massachusetts, and then shipped to North Africa for further training. Loading on ships at the port of Oran, it then became part of the most controversial front in the European Theater – the attack on the Italian mainland. Labeled by Winston Churchill as the “soft underbelly” of the Axis powers, the invasion took place near the port of Salerno, approximately one quarter of the way up the west coast, and south of the city of Naples. In describing Italy, author Rick Atkinson stated it was “eight hundred miles long, [and] it was the most vertebrate of countries, with a mountainous spine and bony ribs.”
The Americans and British had finally taken the island of Sicily in August of 1943, and the Italian government bowed out of the war soon after. Substantial numbers of troops (and just as importantly, landing craft) were siphoned off in preparation for the 1944 D-Day invasion of France from England. Assuming that the surrender of Italy would allow the Americans to ‘walk in’, Allied planners gave little thought to what would happen if the Germans chose to defend Italy in spite of the Italians, which they immediately set about preparing to do.
To make matters worse, British Field Marshal Montgomery had cut off the American axis of advance in Sicily by giving priority to his own troops. In doing so he (and the inaction of Allied air forces and navies) gave the Germans ample time to evacuate over 40,000 troops across the Straights of Messina onto the Italian mainland. American General Omar Bradley would later declare Montgomery’s conduct “the most arrogant, egotistical, selfish and dangerous move in the whole of combined operations in World War II.”
This mistake would have deadly repercussions for the Allies at Salerno. Landing without preparatory naval bombardment, the 36th Division’s regiments were cut to ribbons. The 36th’s commander, General Walker stated the 36th lost 250 men killed in one half day defending the beachhead! There were so many dead that, in the words of an Army engineer, “They’ve placed the graveyard, the latrines and the kitchen all in the same area for the convenience of the flies.”
Dr. Coopwood was one of the medical personnel working on Red Beach. “The evacuation hospital near Red Beach was so overcrowded that many patients lay “along the walls of the tents with their heads inside and their bodies outside.”
As regimental surgeon, Dr. Coopwood saw every conceivable way a man could be killed or wounded. For many, the only treatment was morphine to ease their dying, with an “M” printed on their foreheads with iodine.
On Sicily, famed correspondent Ernie Pyle wrote “Dying men were brought into our tent, men whose death rattle silenced the conversation and made all of us thoughtful.” He saw that a trench outside the surgical tent was “filled with bloody shirt sleeves and pant legs the surgeons had snipped off wounded men.” He remembered one dying man in particular:

The dying man was left utterly alone, just lying there on his litter on the ground, lying in an aisle, because the tent was full…. The aloneness ofthat man as he went through the last minutes of his life was what tormented me.

Salerno would be as bad. Italy would be worse.

While the Salerno beachhead was in grave peril, Montgomery (whose troops had landed in the boot of Italy even though everyone knew there were virtually no German troops there) slowly moved northward, ignoring desperate pleas from the troops at Salerno.
After the botched landings at Salerno, German Field Marshal “Smiling” Albert Kesselring, a defensive genius, withdrew his troops to a series of defenses dubbed the Winter Line. The 36th Division’s official history tells of the German delaying action across the whole of Italy. The 36th was given a brief respite then moved back into the lines. “It rained the November night the 36th moved up to re-enter the line near Mignano, where Highway 6 and a main railway cut through a narrow pass into the Liri Valley running north toward Rome.” Rain, mud, cold, artillery, snipers, and incomprehensible orders to take hills that hid German fortifications were the order of the day.
On November 15, 1943, the division moved into the Camino Maggieore hill mass guarding the Mignano Gap. Rains turned the mountainous terrain into a horror. What donkeys and mules not already requisitioned by the retreating Germans were dragooned into service. Where donkeys couldn’t go, supplies were carried by hand.
One of Doctor Coopwood’s section sergeants was McMahan’s Curtis Owen. Sergeant Owen ran the 141st Regiment’s second battalion aid station near the front. It wasn’t necessary for regimental surgeons to visit these aid stations – there was enough to do elsewhere, and the risk of being killed increased dramatically the closer to the front. In fact, according to Owen, he never saw any other regimental surgeon do it. But, said Owen, “Major Coopwood wasn’t like other doctors. He came up and checked on us every other day. He had a high regard for his people.” Owen said that the last words he heard from Major Coopwood were, “I’ll see you day after tomorrow.” Coopwood never came back. He was killed the next day by a long range artillery round that struck his jeep. In all probability his death could have been avoided. When the Italians surrendered, some units came over to the Allied side. Bivouacked near the 141st Regiment’s headquarters, they exhibited poor camouflage practice. More than likely they were seen by German spotter aircraft and the area then targeted. He was killed on November 21, 1943. He was 36 years old.
His death disheartened those who knew him. Curtis Owen had joined the Medical Detachment in Lockhart in 1940 out of respect for Dr. Coopwood: “He was a father figure to us. He had taken country boys and made soldiers out of all of us.” Lockhart’s Stanley Balser was his driver. He suffered from chronic asthma that had flared up the morning of November 21st, requiring him to report to sick call. Until the day he died, he often questioned why he lived and the man he so admired died.

Dr. Coopwood’s death hit hard. The The Coopwood house faced that of Peck and Martha Westmoreland on Lockhart’s Maple Street. Peck, a pharmacist was home eating lunch with Martha when he saw Western Union auto drive up to the Coopwood house. Peck later told his son Brad that he never felt so sick in his life, because he knew what the telegraph company’s messenger’s appearance meant.
Harry Hilgers, then attending Lockhart High School recalled news of the death being “received like a bombshell in the student body.”
Major Coopwood was buried in Italy. After the War, his body was disinterred and brought home to Texas. All businesses in the city were closed from 3:30 to 5:30 on October 1, 1948, as last rites were held at McCurdy’s Funeral Home. American Legion Post 41 members assisted in the ceremonies there, and at the Lockhart Cemetery, where he was laid to rest. His funeral was not just a local event. George Ohlendorf, then a young boy, lived on a farm near Polonia, north of Lockhart. He watched buses and cars carrying 36th Division veterans to the last rites streamed south out of Austin. An Honor Guard, with men from as far away as Lampasas, consisted in part of men he had commanded in the 141st Infantry Regiment’s medical units. Curtis Own represented the McMahan community. A caduceus made of mums “from the boys in the Medical Detachment who served overseas with him” decorated the chapel, in the words of the Post Register. His casket bearers included Stanley Balser and Wesley Dalton.

In one of the memorials subsequent to his death, the Lockhart Business Men’s Club stated, “His civilian and professional life made of him a good citizen. The when, where and how he died makes him a patriot. Such a man could be nothing less than a good husband, and one worthy of the name father.”
Mrs. Coopwood never remarried. She retired as a schoolteacher, as did her daughter. Joe Coopwood’s son Tom became a physician. His grandchildren included three physicians and a nurse.

(Much thanks to Dr. Tom Coopwood for providing his dad’s photo)
(Rick Atkinson’s The Day of Battle provided much information on Sicily and Salerno)

POSTSCRIPT: Brad Westmoreland called after reading the article. His mother and father lived across from Dr. Coopwood on Maple Street. They were eating lunch when Western Union drove up. Peck told his son Brad that he never felt so sick in his life at what he knew he was going on across the street.

POSTSCRIPT: An email from Harry Hilgers:
Todd: I have read almost every book and article written about WWII and have added my own experiences to that and found your article in the Post Register as the most riveting story I have read. I was a student at LHS when the news came about Major Coopwood and in a class with his sister, Julia, who was my instructor in Spanish class. The news was received as a bombshell in the student body which met once per week in Adams Gymn to hear the latest news from the front. There was a large flag mounted by the stage with blue stars for every veteran serving and gold stars for those who were killed in action. It was a vivid and sad reminder to all of us of how close we were to being included in the casualties. Major Coopwood was, because of his background, his family history, and his achievement something akin to Sir Galahad of King Arthur’s Court so that his death was keenly felt by all. His picture can be seen in the foyer at the Legion. You have a gift as a writer of keeping the reader’s interest at a very high level and this article was, perhaps, your best example of that talent. Keep those articles coming. Harry

POSTSCRIPT: Discussion with George Ohlendorf on 7-1-13
As a child living near the Rogers Ranch, he can remember Dr. Coopwood’s funeral in Lockhart because of the many busloads of 36th Division veterans that attended from Austin.

POST SCRIPT
A wonderful tribute and you made a fine Dr. Joe! I will put these with my early years memory treasures.
(From ‘Tiny’ Singleton who I contacted on Walton Copeland in March of 2014)

KENNETH R. BRIDGES

Kenneth R. Bridges was the son of Roy L. and Nora (McGraw) Bridges. He had one sister, Lurline, born in 1917 in Luling. Kenneth was born in Wharton on August 23, 1918. By 1920 the family had moved to Orange County, apparently to be with Nora’s widowed mother, but returned to the Luling area by 1930 living across the river in Guadalupe County.  Kenneth attended schools in Luling, and graduated from Luling High School in 1936. He then moved to Houston, where he enrolled in a business college.  In 1940 he was living with nine other lodgers in a boarding house on Fannin Street in Houston. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps on April 11, 1942 in Houston. The enlistment records showed him to be married, but there is no mention of any such relationship in any news reports, nor family histories.

Flight training took Kenneth to several airfields, from South Carolina to California. He received his pilot’s wings and commission, and was shipped to the China-Burma-India (CBI) Theater on February 5, 1944.  He was assigned to the 491^st Bombardment Squadron, of the 341^st Bombardment Group. The unit had just transitioned from India to China and assignment to General Clair Chennault’s 14th Air Force. The 14^th Air Force headquarters was in the city of Kunming, but the Group was scattered around the area in auxiliary fields, such as the one at Yankai. Flying in China and Indo-China was a challenge in the best of times. Little or no navigation aids, poor landing fields, poor maps, and sudden weather changes challenged the best of pilots and crew. Japanese advances in 1944, and heavily defended bombing targets added to the danger. There was no glamour in the CBI. Mud, rain, lousy food, primitive living conditions and malaria were just a few of its charms. One NCO’s memoirs notes that “menus at the squadron mess halls were concoctions of anything that could be derived from rice, eggs, onions, local vegetables, water buffalo, tea, rice-flour bread and water. Army K-Rations were classified as dessert.”

The 491^st Bombardment Squadron of the 341^st Bombardment Group was equipped with twin engine B-25 Mitchell medium bombers. The primary objective of the mediums was the interdiction of Japanese rail traffic in China, French Indo-China, and Burma. Bridges were extremely difficult targets, located in valleys or canyons, and protected by anti-aircraft of many calibers. The success rate on these targets was initially very low. After experimentation, in December of 1944 the Americans perfected what they called “glip” bombing, which increased the success rate substantially. A Group history describes ‘glip’ bombing:

      It consisted essentially of a double or multiple glide approach, first a steep glide followed by a shallow glide.   The pilot approaches the target bridge along its longitudinal axis at an altitude of 1000-1200 feet.   When approximately 2000 feet from the target, he goes into a 30-35 degree glide, building up speed of 260-280 mph.   In this glide the pilot aims 50 feet in from of the target and continues to glide to an altitude of about 450 feet.   At this point the glide is abruptly decreased to 15-20 degrees.   While in this shallow glide the modified gun sight (N-6 or similar one) is lined up with the aiming point on the bridge.   The gun sight is preset before approaching the target area.   The angle set into the sight is that obtained from skip-bombing tables, with a correction for the angle of glide.   Bomb release is from an altitude of about 150 feet.

This approach increased the accuracy at destroying Japanese targets appreciably, and it was adopted by many of the 14^th Air Force units. But bombing successes notwithstanding, running a gauntlet of anti-aircraft fire at 150 feet off the deck was incredibly dangerous.  If a bomber was hit, the chances of its crew surviving were very low. Despite this, Kenneth quickly made a name for himself. On November 22, 1944 he received the Distinguished Flying Cross.  Squadron records show numerous low level raids on heavily defended targets by his B-25 and others.

On January 19, 1945, four B-25s, each loaded with two 1000 pound bombs, took off from Yankai, China at 9:50 a.m. First Lieutenant Bridges was flight leader. The target was a railroad and highway bridge at Song Cau, (near Hanoi in what is now Vietnam).  After bombing the bridge, the Mitchells continued strafing railroad yards and rolling stock, destroying two locomotives, 23 railroad cars and a large sampan.

The raid came at a price. The bombardier, Lt. Arthur J. White, wrote a long letter to Kenneth’s mom on March 29, 1945. It was reprinted in the Newsboy the following week. He recounted how  Lt. Bridges’ B-25 was riddled with bullets as it turned from a bomb run. One of the five man crew was shot through the leg. The right engine was also hit and disabled. Bridges turned the plane toward friendly territory, because, in White’s words, “Our only hope was that we would get out of Japanese territory before we had to bail out.” The plane struggled on one engine, and couldn’t hold altitude. Flying up a river valley, it could not climb mountains on either side, and when the river took a sudden turn it couldn’t handle the maneuvering required. There was no choice for Bridges but to order his crew to parachute. He held the plane steady and the five crew members jumped at 800 feet. By that time, it was too late for Bridges. The plane crashed into the side of a mountain, killing him instantly.

                 White was devastated by his friend’s death. “I made arrangements with the Chinese to put him in a coffin and to transport him back to the nearest American base.”

The February 16, 1945 Luling Newsboy reported that the family had just received notice that Kenneth was missing.  His death was disclosed shortly thereafter. White’s letter to the family reflected his deep friendship and respect for Bridges. “His death was a severe blow to the whole squadron,” he wrote, “as he was one of the nicest persons in it and was very popular. He would have been promoted to the rank of captain on the First of February. He deserved it.” (Lt Bridges received his promotion posthumously). On May 6, 1945 a memorial service was held at Central Baptist Church.

Kenneth received the Silver Star at some point in his time in China. It is not clear when, but in all probability it was awarded posthumously for the bravery and leadership he showed in keeping his plane aloft long enough for his crew to bail out. And they all survived.

Eventually, Bridges’ body was returned to U.S. soil. His remains were temporarily kept at Schofield Barracks Mausoleum, and in 1949 re-interred in Section C, Site 278, National Memorial of the Pacific (Punchbowl) in Hawaii. Kenneth was 26 years old when he died.

PATRICK MCGREAL ARMSTRONG, JR.

Patrick McGreal Armstrong, Jr. was the second child of Patrick Sr. (“Pat”) and Elizabeth Martha (Strong) Armstrong. He was born on March 2, 1920 in Forth Worth, Texas. He had an older sister, Bennie, and four younger siblings, Stephen, Mollie, Margaret, and Churchill. Pat was born in Heidenheimer, near Waco, in 1896 and was in the oil business in some capacity for much of his adult life. As such, he and his family moved often, following the oil plays in various parts of Texas. His World War I draft card showed him to be living at 100 S. Thompson Street, Houston, Texas and working for Texas Supply Company in Beaumont. At the time of Patrick Jr.’s birth, he listed his occupation as a driller. The family lived in Wichita Falls in 1921 when Patrick’s younger brother Stephen was born. In 1923, the family was living in Houston. By 1929 the Armstrong family had moved to 123 Monroe Avenue, San Antonio, and Pat was manager of ABA Oil Company. By 1930 he had become an independent oil operator. In 1934, the East Texas boom brought Pat to Tyler. At some point in the late 1930s the family moved to Luling. The family residence fronted State Highway 29 (the road to Lockhart). In Caldwell County Pat’s finances took a downturn, and in 1940 he filed for bankruptcy. The federal court in Austin granted the bankruptcy on January 6, 1941, and the Post Register gave official notice to his creditors soon thereafter.

Pat moved back to San Antonio after the bankruptcy. He, Elizabeth and the younger children lived at 406 Dunning Avenue. He started a new business – Armstrong Iron & Salvage Company. He would later become a Methodist minister working with Goodwill Industries.

The family was still in Luling when Patrick, after completing one year of college, enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps and was accepted for flight training.  His initial training was in the San Diego, California area. He then completed his advanced flight training at Kelly Field outside San Antonio. He graduated with Class 41-H on October 31, 1941, and was commissioned a 2^nd Lieutenant. He was assigned to the 36^th Pursuit Squadron, 8^th Pursuit Group. Recently transitioning out of obsolescent P-36s into P-40s, the unit trained in anticipation of a war in Europe. The Group’s mission changed with the sneak attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. After a short time of flying defensive cover over New York City the 8^th Pursuit Group (which consisted at the time of the 35^th and 36^th Pursuit Squadrons) entrained to San Francisco in early January, 1942.

The suddenness of the attack and the swiftness of the Japanese advance across the Southwest Pacific caused substantial panic. The American Territory of the Philippines was quickly becoming a lost cause, and plans to sail there were scrapped. Sparsely populated Australia had by this time sent most of its able-bodied men to fight the Germans and Italians in North Africa and the Mediterranean. There was little to stop a Japanese advance into that vast and under-populated country. Hurriedly, the Americans cobbled together assistance to the beleaguered Aussies. The 8^th Pursuit Group sailed from San Francisco on February 12, 1942 for Northern Australia on the United States Army Transport (USAT) Maui. A passenger steamship built in 1917, it had been purchased by the government in late 1941. The crossing took 24 days. Arriving at Brisbane on March 8, 1942, the Group began training on recently assembled Bell P-39 Airacobras. It then moved north to Townsville.

It is impossible to overstate the Allied concerns about the Japanese juggernaut in late 1941 and 1942. The Emperor’s forces had sliced through supposedly impregnable defenses at Singapore, taken Hong Kong, trapped American forces in the Philippines, and seized islands all over the Pacific. Somewhat surprised by the speed of their advance, the question for the Japanese high command was where to go next. It was decided that three axes of advance be made. One would move into the Solomon Islands, Fiji and Samoa to cut the supply route from the United States to Australia. The second would strike toward Midway and Hawaii, and the third would take control of the huge and virtually unexplored island of New Guinea, in anticipation of an eventual move into Australia. It was deemed necessary also to protect Japan’s huge naval facilities at Truk and Rabaul. Papua New Guinea, the southern half of the landmass was an Australian-administered territory. Both sides realized that control of its coastline was critical. Bombing of the territorial capital of Port Moresby began in late February, 1942. Japanese forces began unopposed landing at Salamaua and Lae on its northern coast soon thereafter. Lae, known because it was the last departure point for Amelia Earhart in her ill-fated 1937 attempt at circumnavigating the globe, was quickly turned into an advance airfield. The Japanese planned to ship men around the southern tip of New Guinea and take Port Moresby. From there it was a short hop to the Australian mainland. (This attempt would later be thwarted by a carrier battle in the Coral Sea, and the incredible bravery of Australian forces which prevented the Japanese army from crossing the New Guinea’s forbidding Owen Stanley Mountains)

Australian forces began reinforcing the Port Moresby area as the Japanese forces built up its forces for an anticipated attack.

The 8^th Pursuit Group’s ground and support units sailed to New Guinea on April 20, 1942 and its three squadrons’ (it had added the 80^th Pursuit Squadron) P-39s flew up between April 26^th and April 30^th. The 36^th Pursuit’s new home was Seven Mile Drome, a dirt strip outside of Port Moresby. To say that conditions were primitive would understate matters. Torrential rains, sudden and violent storms, exposure to malaria-carrying mosquitoes, and repeated bombings by the Japanese made life precarious.

Air combat in P-39s against highly trained pilots and better Japanese aircraft shortened lives as well. The P-39 was of innovative design, with a tricycle landing gear, and an Allison V-1710 engine directly behind the pilot. Its export version, the P-400 would prove an effective tank buster for Soviet forces. But the P-39/400 was often an inadequate match against more advanced fighters in dogfights. Plagued with oxygen system problems and a low service ceiling, it could not reach high flying enemy bombers. Hiroyoshi Nishizawa, Saburo Sakai and other Japanese aces racked up impressive kill numbers with A6M2 “Zeroes” when P-39s were used as interceptors.

The 8^th Pursuit’s units went into combat immediately, primarily defending the Port Moresby airfields. On May 4, 1942, Patrick Armstrong piloted a P-39D-BE, aircraft number 41-6971 in support of a raid against the enemy facilities at Lae. He was not seen again.

Although an official ‘finding of death’ was not made until December of 1945 it is almost certain that Patrick was the first Caldwell County casualty of World War II. His body was never recovered. He is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing, American Cemetery, Manila, Philippines.

Patrick was twenty-two years old.