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.

Girl at the Deli Poem

You walk into this friggin' deli where you've

never been before all summer hot and friggin' angry

and there, behind the counter, she stands,

lips big enough for a zip code,

hair as fine as spun satin and silk

and skin that breaks your heart in two...

you look right at her and stammer, "c..c...c...coffee"

and she says back, "two or three sugars?"

and you stumble again "uh...two...uh...three"

and cotton wads grow in your mouth,

you smile wanly and she smiles back

so unspoiled and athletic and young

and that chemical reaction starts

in your brain and WHAAAAAAAMMM!!!

once again life has possibilities and hope.

She brings you a cup of coffee

and you sip it and want to spit it out

because it tastes like its been there since World War II

but you smile instead because you notice

how fine and bright and clean her eyes speak to you now

and although you want to say "Dear God!

How can you sell this turpentine as coffee?!"

you smile again and gulp it down quickly

and say, "Just what I needed! Hits the spot real well!"

And she smiles and says, "Best for miles around!

How long have you been in these parts?!"

and now you know the chemical explosions

are going off in her brain, too, so you drink some more coffee

that is so toxic and strong and fierce

that your taste buds have all mutinied

but even it cannot kill the wonderful chemicals

that now grant you the absolution, benediction,

and grace of love and suddenly you know

Robert Graves knew what he was talking about:

for here, between the provolone cheese and the Zinfandel wine,

is clear and living proof of the unbroken chain

between the ancient Celts and the current White Goddess.

Bruce Curley
Mount Airy, MD

Magic Moments

Magic Moments

There are those magic moments

Before work when the day holds promise
And you know you can do what's required

The anticipation of the son returned
From college who left a boy, now a man.

The younger son who draws a picture
Of you asleep before Santa's arrival

A wife who designed the kitchen
In a way which you never could

And the truck that leaves the road
Around the S-Curve with ice

And instead of hitting the tractor trailer,
Or the oncoming cars and trucks

Stops 20 feet from the guardrail,
No damage but to the blood pressure

And you pause...and give thanks,
Now knowing what alive means.

On What the Future of Civilization Depends Poem

"YO! Youse guys know where the party is tonight?"
The third of the summer blondes
Asks the streetcornered muscled boys.

"Right here, baby! Get outta dat car
And come over here!
We'll show youse how ta party!"
Smiles Tenderness Tony to his friends
First, and then to the summer blondes,
Fully aware of what hangs in the balance.

"Well, we're kinda lookin' for real men.
Youse guys don't look old enough
Ta drive our cars or even work on our engines!
Wheel it Angela!" laughs Marie.

They cruise around the Wildwood block,
Circle and return, compelled by a mating ceremony
As old as any migrating naked rhizopod's
As insistent as any remoras on a tiger shark
As powerful as any copulating American saddle horses.

At the same time Tenderness Tony and Angela circle each other warily,
Hundreds of thousands of others dance the same dance floor
To repeat ancient and glorious tribal mating rites
Less understood than the circling rites of shark whales off Tahiti.

I know many who do not see the wonder of this.
Instead, they spend their days saying to whoever will listen,
"See! See there! This life is only abuse, death, destruction,
Hate and finally pain, pain, pain and cruelty!"
And it is not just journalists saying this these days.

Perhaps such as these have never visited Wildwood, NJ
At the height of the mating season.
For there, on any given sultry summer night
When the air is as thick with mating phenomes
As the Brazilian rain forest, everything is possible.

"Youse guys still where the party is tonight?"
Now it is Maria talking, newly revealed as the princes in waiting
Who throws out the challenge to all willing to chance the future.
All three boys respond by raising themselves high
To preen their feathered haircuts like cocks
About to meet their flaring hens.

"Yeah, Baby! I'm here for youse only tonight!
He's "VAA VAA VOOOMM Vic! I'm Tenderness Tony
Dis heres' happiness itself,
Whose otherwise known as Loverboy Louie."

This night laden with romance and possibility,
Despite the miles of backed up traffic
Tens of thousands in cars, clubs, bars,
All along these dazzling street-lit courting avenues
Rhythmically step to this genetically programmed dance
Unbothered by anything but the moment of contact.

Like a novice nun fingering her rosary,
Theresa brushes her hair with tender strokes
As Maria parks the car in one swift motion.
All three watch the boys in the car mirror,
Well aware of what their charged rituals
Are producing in the awaiting Tony, Vic, and Louie.
Each reapplies her love-red glossy candy flavored lipstick,
Sprays wave after wave of perfume on her neck and breasts
And saunters over to her instant date for that night.

For those who snootily laugh at these young people,
Who dismiss their substandard English or their different ways,
I ask youse to please consider the following.

It is on the perpetual success of such everyday rituals
Far more than on what laws Congress passes,
Or what breakthroughs our medical schools make,
Or what discount rate the Fed establishes,
Or what new worlds the Hubble discovers,
Or what programs the President proposes,
That the future of civilization depends.

"Youse guys ready to party?" Shouts Marie.
"Yooooooooo!!! Honey! The party's just begun!"
Answers Tenderness Tony. "The party's just begun!"

Seventeen years later,
Within a mile of where her parents met,
The oldest of Tony and Marie's girls'
Drives by some guys on the corner of 58th and Atlantic
In "Wildwood by the Sea,"
And shouts, "YO! Youse guys know where the party is tonight?"
When she does, on the successful answer to her question,
Will the future of civilization depend.

1 Why a Poetslife Blog

The purpose of www.poetslife.blogspot.com is:

* To promote civil defense to protect American moms, dads, children and grandchildren and small business owners 

*  To provide prior civil defense material for my American Tactical Civil Defense Substack
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The Kind of Woman to Marry

Dear Josh and Eamon,

We didn't go to the islands or Paris on our honeymoon. 

We went to Cape May, NJ, 

where the proprietor of a B&B 

refused us shelter because we arrived at 3 a.m. after an all night drive.
That first night we slept on the beach by the nun's convent near the lighthouse. 

It was freezing and my new bride (your mother) and I clung to each other for warmth.
Since that night, many others have slammed doors in our faces. 

Always, we've clung to each other near the outgoing tide and laughed with each sunrise after the cold, harsh night.
So marry a woman like that...

one like your mother...

one who shelters you from the cold and dark...

both human and nature.

Love, Dad

Grammy's Easter Card

Grammy Curley's Easter Card to Josh that Arrived Three Weeks After She Died in 2003

Glacier

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Inwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread upon my dreams.

W.B. Yeats

Pure Water Dubois WY

Pure Water, Fitzgerald Wilderness, Dubois, Wyoming 2003

American Eagle Nest

Eagle Nest, Brush Creek Ranch, Saratoga, Wyoming 2003

Osprey Nest

Osprey Nest Above Telephone Pole, Dubois, Wyoming 2003

Waterfall

Waterfall and Josh, Fitzgerald Wilderness, DuBois, Wyoming 2003