Richard Chandler Sole Survivor

Here is the story of the sole survivor S/Sgt. Richard Chandler (wedding photo, left) and his rescue by a DUMBO plane off Ha Ha Jima on 10 February 1945 as told by Cpl Zander Hollander in BRIEF on March 13, 1945, pages 6 and 7.

"Richard (Dick) Everett Chandler was born January 14, 1924 in Thief River Falls, MN. During WWII, he voluntarily enlisted to serve in the U.S. Army Air Corps from 1943 to 1945. 

Richard was a Staff Sergeant crew member filling the tail gunner position on a a heavy bomber B-24 Liberator aircraft. 

His plane was shot down by enemy fire on February 10, 1945 in the Pacific, upon which he became the crew's sole survivor. 

He received air medals for a total of 35 missions, a Purple Heart and an Asiatic Service Medal."

It took me 6 years to screw up the courage, but I finally contacted Richard Chandler (Armorer Gunner, S/Sgt. , Serial Number 97562389 - returned to duty), in December, 2006. He is the sole survivor after Frank's B-24 disintigrated near HaHa Jima.

In his "Casualty Questionnaire" he stated in question 9, "Where did your aircraft strike ground (even here it was the European Theater and not the Pacific Theater questions that ruled) he answered, "It didn't - some of the pieces hit the ocean."
Because the plane took Japanese ack-ack in the belly where the 500 pound bombs and fuel tanks were stored, it was engulfed in flame and only small pieces hit the ocean. Another piece of the puzzle.

On 12/8/2005, Mr. Chandler was gracious enough to talk to me about that mission. He said Frank Curley, my uncle, came running up to the plane as it was loading because he was assigned to the mission at the last minute...one of those last minute changes that cost lives in war.

But, ultimately, as I have heard from the pilot (Harry Gibbons) behind Frank, and from the tail gunner (Richard Chandler) on the flight who was there and who survived, it was the incompetent leadership of Major Holland that doomed the mission.

On October 18, 2015 Richard Chandler's grand daughter Traci McPhearson called to say that he had died. She thanked me for the letter I sent him in February when his wife died. And she provided these additional details:

"When the plane exploded, my grandfather ran to the other two tail gunners to check on them. Both were dead and the plane was exploding in fire. 

He put on his parachute, jumped, and saw that his parachute was on fire. 

Also, he had only been able to get half an arm through one strap.
On the way down a Jap Zero fired at him. 

He hit the water hard. 

He was badly burned and the impact injured his upper spine. 

He inflated his Mae West flotation jacket. 

As he did, he felt something beneath his feet and started kicking as he thought it was a shark. 

Fortunately, it was a dolphin that circled him protecting him from sharks until the PBY rescued him.
In the water he was strafed by the Jap Zero that hit the two life rafts that other B-24's on the mission dropped for him. 

From the shore, Jap machine gunners were trying to kill him."

Mr. Chandler died on October 18, 2015 with the following poem read at his service.

Why
(A Soldier's Poem)

Far above the storm clouds gathering

Far above that midnight sky
Looking out just past the rainbow
Where eagles dare not fly
Out among the ashes
Of heroes long since past
I will take my place among them

When that final die is cast

Let not your heart be troubled

That's what I've always heard

But I stood for what I believed in

With these my final words

For in this life but few things matter

In this short time that we have here

Leaving nothing behind but our honor

The thing we hold most dear.

The story of his rescue and survival and life is the stuff of fiction. His granddaughter is writing that story and so I will leave it to her to do him justice that I can only hint at here.