place. It brought back memories of the time long ago when I first stood at that spot. We were assigned passage home based upon the number of 'points' a person had which were individually accumulated according to the number of overseas days he or she had. Because we were relatively late in arriving in Guam, it took several months to have the required number of points and so I wasn't able to get on a ship until about March 1946. I did have a nice private stateroom, and had my meals in the ship's officer's dining room on a large ocean liner with the name of USS Breckenridge. I was discharged at Fort Douglas June 16, 1946. I was awarded the following medals: Pacific Campaign Medal with two bronze stars, Distinguished Unit Badge with two bronze stars, American Campaign Medal, and World War Two Victory Medal. I participated in one campaign, the Eastern Mandates Air Offensive of Japan. I continued my military service in the USAF Reserve retiring to the Inactive USAF Reserve at the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1969 and from the USAF at the rank of lieutenant colonel in April 13, 1981. Dale Burton Schofield_ Dale served in the Army Air Corps in the 8th Air Force Squadron from September 1942 to October 1945 attaining the rank of sergeant. One of his fondest memories about his service was helping to develop college courses on his base in England, which became known as the Kingscliff College, where he served as registrar. William Hegsted Shurtleff Bill Shurtleff was drafted in the Air Force in 1942. He did his basic training in Baltimore, Maryland. He went to OSC (Officer Candidates School) and became a first lieutenant He was assigned to the 20th Air Force and flew B-29s. He was at sea for 38 days waiting for the Marines to capture Saipan and establish landing strips sufficient to accommodate the large B-29s for the bombing of Japan. He experienced being attacked by suicide planes and was involved in the loading of bombs and fusing the appropriate bomb for each mission. He saw the order from President Truman to load a third atomic bomb which was never dropped. He was released to come home in October 1945. Donald Henry Smith Donald enlisted in the Army Air Corps in November 1942 and was called to active duty in January 1943. He received his pilot's wings and a commission in March 1944 as first lieutenant. He was ordered to Rattlesnake Army Air Base at Peyote, Texas, as copilot on a B-17 crew, which was already in combat crew training. He finished his training there in August of 1943 and his crew was issued a brand new B-17, which they flew to England where they were assigned to the 452nd Bombardment group. They survived 35 combat missions over Germany. The plane was damaged by anti-aircraft fire a number of times, but only one crew member was wounded. He finished his combat tour in January 1945 and came back to the states in February and was discharged from the service in May 1945. He received the following honors: European Theatre of Operations ribbon with one battle star and an Air Medal with five oak leaf clusters. He used his GI Bill to obtain a PhD in Soils Science from Iowa State College. He spent ten years in Hawaii as a soil chemist for the Pineapple Research Institute and then ten years as agricultural research director on Del Monte's 25,000 acre pineapple plantation on Mindanao, Philippines; and another ten years as agricultural research manager for Del Monte's California Division. Wallace A. Smith Wallace A. Smith served in the Air Force. He was assigned to the Air Transport Command in the China-Burma-India theater. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross and Oak Leaf Cluster awards as well as the Air Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster. Stephen Sedley Stanford Having obtained my civilian pilot license in 1940, I enlisted in the Army Air Corps in July of 1941 and was assigned to Moffett Field near San Francisco being there when Pearl Harbor was attacked in December. Volunteering to enter training as a glider pilot, I was transferred to Ft. Morgan, Colorado, then 29 Palms, California, where I graduated with my silver wings in August 1942. 60 As my squadron was about to depart for England for an invasion, I was hospitalized with the measles. Of the 139 remaining members of my squadron participating, only three survived. I then trained to fly multi-engine aircraft and in February 1944, graduated with a second set of silver wings and became an instructor of ten cadets flying the fighter trainer AT-9 that lands at 110 miles per hour. In September 1944, I transferred to an air transport squadron in the Southwest Pacific based on Biak Island -a few miles from the equator. At first, we were flying the C-47, and then went to the C-46 capable of carrying 52 men with their full field equipment, the largest Army truck or else suppliesparticularly gasoline taking them to the front lines then bringing casualties back to hospitals hidden in the jungles. With the war moving into the Philippines, we had to fly nonstop over 1,000 miles so we would stop over at Peleliu in the Palau Islands for refueling. That usually meant staying overnight with the hazard of the enemy still dug deep in foxholes in the coral. Ground crews fired flares all through the night to prevent their getting close enough to throw grenades into or near our parked planes. As we approached to land at the airfield on another island, a taxiing plane stirred up a cloud of dust obscuring our vision of the runway causing us to veer off to the side and crash into two planes parked along the side. We then saw a loaded bomber beginning to take off on that same strip in the opposite direction. Except for the dust we would have collided head on. Flying over water and coming out of a cloud we were fired on by an American naval vessel before being recognized as American. A radio device identifying us was then found to be out of order. Approaching another landing strip with a load of gasoline we found all the planes parked along the side in flames having been strafed and bombed moments before with the departing raiders still in sight about a mile away. Arriving at Leyte Gulf in the Philippines, we were ordered to enter a holding pattern as the airstrip was busy with fighter planes coming in for more fuel and bombs and taking off again attacking Japanese aircraft carriers, battleship and smaller seacraft. For nearly half an hour this gave us a full view of what some historians regard as the greatest naval battle of all time in terms of tonnage lost. With the taking of Okinawa, we made that our base of operations for a time. While away on a mission, a hurricane having a velocity of 130 MPH hit, stripping almost everything from the ground and carrying it out to sea. Upon receiving news of the dropping of the atomic bombs, we moved in August 1945 to Japan occupying an airbase at Yokota about halfway between Tokyo and Mount Fujiama. Having a college background in landscape architecture, I was given an interpreter and a crew of about fifteen Japanese to beautify and rebuild the grounds for our occupation. In November taking one of the tiny railroad trains typical of that country, I boarded a troop ship at Yokohama and via the Aleutian Islands sailed into Puget Sound disembarking at a camp near Ft. Lewis, Washington, before returning to Ft Douglas in Salt Lake City where I had begun four and one-half years earlier. Alden Vernon Stanley_ Alden Stanley served in the Army Air Corps as a tail gunner in B-17s. He flew 33 missions. Roy Vaness Stephens - KIA Roy graduated from Weber High School in May 1936 and attended one year at Weber College. In March of 1941 he joined the Utah National Guard's Medical Group and trained at San Luis Obispo, California. In May of 1942 he transferred to the U.S. Army Air Corps for pilot training, earning his wings in May of 1943 at the U.S. Army Air Base in La Junta, Colorado. He was then designated as pilot in command of a B-17 and assigned to his crew at Peyote, Texas, in July 1943. It was in October of 1943 at the U.S. Army Air Base at Walla Walla, Washington, that he and his crew were assigned to the 452nd bomb group. In January 1944 the group arrived at their air base at Deopham Green, England. While there he flew several missions, bombing the German cities of Braunschweig, Regensburg, Berlin, Augsburg, Ulm, and Munich. On March 23, 1944, Roy flew his ninth mission. During this mission, he and his crew were shot down and killed in a bombing raid over Braunschweig. He was twenty-six years old. Eleven months later, his younger brother, Dale Stephens, age twenty-two, was killed in Luxembourg while serving with Patton's 3rd Army, 318th Infantry. Both Roy and his brother Dale were buried at the Ardennes Cemetery near Liege, Belgium. In 1948, both brothers were brought home and buried at the Aultorest Memorial Park in Ogden, Utah. 61