Tag Archives: World War II

Local siblings share tragedy of losing brother on USS Indianapolis during WWII

November 22, 20233-bottom, Citizen Journalism, City of Wyoming, Local History, Veterans, West MichiganAmerican History, City of Wyoming, Hiroshima, history, Navy, USS Indianapolis, Veterans, World War IIDeborah Reed

Siblings David Payne and Suzanna Green shared the tragedy of losing their brother George David Payne on the USS Indianapolis after 77 years. (WKTV)

By Cris Greer
WKTV Managing Editor
greer@wktv.org

Editor’s Note: WKTV is reposting this unique, local story in honor of George David Payne and all United States veterans.

The weeks leading up to the sinking of the USS Indianapolis during a top secret mission in WWII, 17-year-old sailor George David Payne mailed two letters home from the ship.

Some 77 years after his brother tragically died on that ship off the coast of Japan, Sparta resident David Payne still gets extremely emotional reading those last letters.

“I get choked up when I read that last letter,” said David, who never met George David. “From my understanding he was a quiet, nice kid. I’ve never heard anything bad about him.”

Below is an excerpt from one of the two final letters from George David Payne (Seaman 2nd Class):

One of the two letters Wyoming sailor George David Payne sent home just weeks before the USS Indianapolis sank off the coast of Japan on July 30, 1945. (Courtesy, David Payne)

Dear Mom, Dad and Kids,

I hope this letter finds all of you in the best of health. I feel pretty good myself.

Tell dad and all the kids I said hi. Tell Jean the same. I suppose you are having quite a time with the kids.

Tell grandma and grandpa I said hello. Boy, I’ll sure be glad when I get another leave, but I shouldn’t start thinking about a leave already.

I suppose it is pretty nice weather in Michigan now. Anyway, it should be summer. Well, I’ll have to say so long for now.

Love to all the family,

George David Payne

Tragedy strikes shortly after letters sent home

Tragically, not long after the letters were sent, torpedoes from the Japanese submarine I-58 sank the USS Indianapolis to the bottom of the Western Pacific Ocean within minutes on July 30, 1945.

Only 316 men survived

An estimated 300 men died aboard the ship, while nearly 900 sailors abandoned it, leading to several days of fighting off sharks, dehydration and injuries. Only 316 survived.

Top secret mission delivering atomic bomb components for use on Hiroshima

On a top secret mission that began in San Francisco, the Indianapolis successfully delivered atomic bomb components to Tinian Island. The components delivered were used in the atomic bomb (Little Boy) that the United States dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945.

USS Indianapolis in its prime. (U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Archives)

“Many are familiar with Captain Quint’s retelling of the ship’s story in the 1975 film, “Jaws.” Few, however, understand the far-reaching impact of the incident and the tremendous amount of documentation and research conducted in the wake of the incident that continues to impact how the Navy operates today,” according to the Naval History and Heritage Command Communication and Outreach Division.

George David Payne is remembered by two siblings (David Payne and Suzanna Green) in a WKTV interview last summer (2022). July 30, 2023, marked the 78th anniversary of the sinking of the Indianapolis.

Siblings Jim and Cherie Payne, and mom Lillian Payne at their home: 305 Murray St., Wyoming, in 1945. (David Payne)

“I wasn’t born yet when George died,” David continued. “I didn’t realize I had a brother that died in the war until I was seven. In the early fifties, there was a program on TV showing the Japanese sinking that ship and my mother Lillian started crying and said your brother was on that ship.”

While recently looking at a photo of his brother Jim, Mom Lillian and sister Cherie (dated June 20, 1945) enjoying a happy day on the front porch, David said it soon turned tragic about a month later with the death of his brother on July 30, 1945.

David said his brother George David wasn’t old enough to sign up for the war so his dad signed the necessary paperwork in 1945 to let him join the Navy.

A short stint on the ship

“He was only on that ship for two weeks,” said David, age 75, who’s lived in Sparta for over 30 years. “I had an older brother in California (Nick Alberts, from his mother’s previous marriage), and he met him out there. George stayed for Nick’s wedding in California, and then got transferred to the USS Indianapolis.”

David said Nick, a member of the Seabees in California at the time, blamed himself for George’s fate.

“My little buddy”

USS Indianapolis Seaman 2nd Class George David Payne. (Naval History and Heritage Command Archives)

“He blamed himself for getting him transferred and going to the wedding,” said David, as he cried explaining the sad details. “He always called George ‘my little buddy,’ and said, ‘I can’t come home without my little buddy.’”

Because of that lingering guilt, David said his big brother Nick didn’t return home for 15 years.

“He had guilt, but did finally come home in the late fifties when I was 14 years old,” David continued. “Nick left a book on the Indianapolis with me.”

Most of the 12 siblings (seven girls, five boys) grew up on 305 Murray Street in Wyoming and attended Kelloggsville High School.

Providing after death

Many of them experienced the Great Depression. And it wasn’t lost on any family member how far George’s Navy death gratuity went to pay for their necessities.

“Our mother bought our school clothes and everything we needed from that check, it helped out our family so much,” said David, born on September 17, 1945, less than two months after the Indianapolis sank. “Both mom and dad got 20 or 30 dollars a month from George’s death.”

Gruesome shark attack stories

David Payne honoring and remembering his brother George David at a USS Indianapolis memorial in 1995 in Indy. (Courtesy, David Payne)

During a USS Indianapolis memorial event held in Indianapolis in 1995, David learned firsthand about the tragedy from several survivors.

“Through the years, we didn’t talk about it much and we were hoping he wasn’t trapped in the ship or killed by sharks,” said David, who attended with his wife Mary and sister Suzanna Green.

“Some of the guys relayed the terrible stories, talking about sharks dragging away their friends. It must have been hell.”

He said nearly 200 sailors attended, and recalls some talking about the gruesome shark attacks.

“I remember one guy’s account saying he heard a fellow sailor’s last word’s while getting dragged off by a shark, he screamed for his mother, and David imagined his brother George screaming for mom as well, as he cried retelling his memorial experience with survivors.

“There were some terrible stories. They had to go through hell.”

A “wonderful guy”

Green said George David was “kind-hearted, and definitely cared about his country. My mother cried over his death all of her life and made sure all of us knew we had a brother George David. He was a good kid.”

Green, who also attended the 1995 Indianapolis memorial, recalls the heavy emotions of the event.

“We went there because it was in his memory,” said Green, who taught for 30 years in the Grand Rapids Public School system. “And it was very emotional when we found his name on the monument. Dave put Mary on his shoulders and she put a piece of paper up there and she scratched it with a pencil.”

A proud celebration of life and service

Siblings David, Suzanna and Margie Payne at home on 305 Murray St. in Wyoming in the late 40s. (David Payne)

“It made me feel real close to the brother that I never saw,” Green continued.

“I knew him, but never saw him. I was very proud that his name was there and that he was remembered. It was a celebration of his life and his service.”

Green said their faith got her through the tragedy.

“Mom read the bible every day,” Green explained. “I love him like I grew up with him and that’s because my mother kept his memory alive.”

“We love him even though we didn’t ever get to meet him. And he still is well loved.”

Navy changes status

The Navy officially changed the status of George David and 12 other sailors lost when the Indianapolis was sunk in 1945 from “unaccounted for” to “buried at sea,” Navy Casualty announced on May 27, 2022.

The change in status is the result of extensive research between Naval History and Heritage Command, Navy Casualty Office, the USS Indianapolis Survivors Association, the USS Indianapolis Legacy Organization, and the Chief Rick Stone and Family Charitable Foundation.

The announcement helps bring closure to the families of these sailors who lost their lives at the end of a secret mission which helped end World War II.

Remembering George David through his clothing

At age 12, David found one of George’s Navy peacoats.

“I put it on and came upstairs and asked mom if I could have it,” he recalled.

His brother James would put on his Navy uniform occasionally.

A friend’s dad and Battle of the Bulge veteran from World War II, James Emanouil, age 97 at the time of the original article, used to spar with George David in the early forties at a local gym in Grand Rapids.

“I think George David wanted to join this war because of James and Nick.”

Service to the country goes way, way back

David’s fascination with genealogy led to a discovery of another young veteran from long ago. He learned that a great, great, great grandparent fought in the American Revolution at age 15, Eli Payne, Sr. His 100-year-old aunt, at the time, gave David a charcoal drawing of this relative.

Captain Charles B. McVay III

Per the Naval History and Heritage Command website, “Captain McVay was court-martialed in the aftermath of the sinking and found guilty of recklessly endangering his crew by failing to zig-zag, in spite of I-58 Captain Mochitsura Hashimoto’s testimony at the trial stating that such maneuvers would not have changed the outcome of his attack. The conviction effectively ruined McVay’s career. It was controversial at the time and remains so today.” (Hashimoto was the Japanese submarine commander that sank the USS Indianapolis.)

“McVay had a distinguished naval career prior to the loss of the Indianapolis. He served as Executive Officer of the USS Cleveland during the North African landings in November 1942 and earned a Silver Star for his actions aboard the same ship in the Solomon Islands in March 1943.”

After his death, McVay was exonerated by United States President Bill Clinton and the 106th Congress in 2000. Captain McVay committed suicide on November 6, 1968.

The bold paragraphs below are excerpts from survivor Captain Charles B. McVay’s detailed “Oral History – The Sinking of USS Indianapolis”

This is all documented in the Naval History and Heritage Command Archives. For a complete account of “Recollections of Captain Charles B. McVay, III,” visit here.

Captain McVay:

Commander Flynn

Executive officer [second in command on the ship] came up, Commander Flynn, and said, “We are definitely going down and I suggest that we abandon ship.” Well, knowing Flynn and having utter regard for his ability, I then said, “Pass the word to abandon ship.”

Dividing up rations floating at sea

I looked over the material that we had, the food stuffs, and told the people that I would open one Hormel tin per day. It contains 12 ounces and we would divide that evenly, and I also figured out each person could have two biscuits and two malted milk tablets, which I knew would last us about ten days.

Attacked by sharks

We had sharks, or rather they had sharks down there [in the life preserver group]. We know that because we have two survivors who were bitten by sharks and as I told this one boy in the hospital. I said, “You’d better take some castellan paint and put on that thing before it heals up because nobody will ever believe you’ve been bitten by a shark. You might as well outline the teeth mark and you will have it for the rest of your life and can say, `I know I was bitten by a shark.'”

USS Ringness to the rescue

The (USS) Ringness picked us up by radar. We had a 40 mm, empty ammunition can which I had spent a good deal of energy and time trying to get to, thinking it was an emergency ration, but we picked it up anyhow and saved it and she [Ringness] got a [radar] pip from this can.

I think we had lost probably about 15% of our weight and I was naturally so elated to get on the ship, as were the others that we didn’t turn in at all. We were given something to eat, ice cream, coffee, such as that. The doctor said, “You can eat all you want,” which most of us did. We drank quite a bit of water.

Local man’s memoir features never heard stories of WWII 1st Infantry Division

May 12, 20233-bottom, Books, Citizen Journalism, City of Kentwood, City of WyomingJames Smither, World War IIJoanne

By D.A. Reed
WKTV Contributor

Joseph Olexa, circa 1941 (Courtesy, GVSU Veterans History Project)

Grand Valley State University Professor James Smither will be the first to admit that you never know where a veterans’ interview will lead you.

Such was the case when Smither, who heads up the GVSU Veterans History Project, interviewed World War II veteran David Zylstra, who mentioned that he had a manuscript of a memoir composed in the 1970s by his second wife’s late brother-in-law from her first marriage. Zylstra have been given the manuscript because he was the family member interested in history.

Released this year by University of North Texas Press and edit and annoyed by Smither, Death and Life in the Big Red One: A World War II Soldier’s Journey from North Africa to Germany, a memoir of World War II 1^st Division combat infantryman Joe Olexa, offers insights into the experiences of an ordinary soldier in extraordinary situations.

Dr. James R. Smither will talk about his book Wednesday, May 17, at 2 p.m. at Marge’s Donut Den, 1751 28th St. SW.

When Smither looked through the large pile of papers stacked on Zylstra’s dining room table, “I realized right away that it should be archived and could probably be edited for publication.”

Smither got in touch with Olexa’s two sons still living in the Grand Rapids area, and they agreed to donate the manuscript and letters Olexa had written home during the war to GVSU and the Veterans History Project.

Smither took a sabbatical to edit the memoir and get it ready for publication.

The Challenge of Fact-Checking

“The real challenge to this was the fact-checking,” said Smither. “(Olexa) wrote the memoir largely from memory. I had to follow the story and check it against both published histories of the campaigns he was in, as well as military records for the unit he served in.”

Grand Valley State University Professor James Smither, head of the GVSU Veterans History Project (Courtesy, GVSU Veterans History Project)

Matching dates and places where the unit traveled and particular events Olexa mentioned in the memoir took hours of research.

“In some cases, his memory was faulty,” Smither said. “He was remembering the incidents pretty well but didn’t always have them in the right times and places. So I had to sort that out.”

Another challenge was the pseudonyms Olexa used for a lot of his characters. Ordinary combat soldiers didn’t always know each soldier’s name, often only knowing them by their nicknames.

“In (Olexa’s) case, he was going further than that. He was giving them nicknames especially if he didn’t like them,” said Smither with a laugh.

One of the most memorable nicknames was given to one of Olexa’s company commanders who he referred to as “Captain Jitters.” Smither had to find the real name of “Captain Jitters,” and the point Jitters was removed and sent to a psychiatric hospital as mentioned in the memoir.

A Vivid Account of Enlisted Life

Smither said he was impressed by Olexa’s writing style and ease of storytelling. “(The memoir) gives you a much more detailed and vivid account of what it was like to be a combat soldier than you get from most memoirs written by enlisted men,” Smither said. “Usually, it’s the officers that write the better memoirs because they are better educated and have a better idea of what was going on.”

Part of the charm of Olexa’s account of WWII was that he enlisted before the war had even begun.

“Olexa enlisted before the war started and got into the fighting as early as anybody did, and the Americans did in the European theater,” Smither said.

In 1942, Olexa was part of the invasion of North Africa—a portion of the war where there are not many firsthand accounts at all, and none from Olexa’s regiment of several thousand men.

Some Interesting Accounts

Smither said there are many incidents of Olexa’s unit that didn’t make it into history books because they were a “sideshow” for quite a while as a battalion off on their own, conducting small patrols in the southern end of the front in Tunisia.

Soldiers of L Company in Aachen, Germany. (Courtesy, GVSU History Project)

During the invasion of Sicily in 1943, Olexa was part of a small group of men who were trained to swim onto shore and flash signals to guide the landing craft in. “I had never seen anything about that,” said Smither. “I couldn’t find anything in the records indicating an army personnel ever did this. When I was burrowing around in the unit records, sure enough, I found a report on the activities of the unit he was in, and there he is, listed on the unit roster.”

The more Smither researched, the more he found that “a lot of the crazier stories turned out to be true.”

One such story involved chasing the girlfriends of soldiers out of the woods near the base in England where Olexa spent the last five months of the European war training replacement combat soldiers. The women would camp in the woods near the base and sneak in at night, or the men would sneak into the woods to spend time with them. Olexa had to organize a group of military police and make a sweep through the woods, chasing the women out.

Looking to Add a Website for the Book

University of North Texas Press wanted Smither to focus on the combat and front-line experiences of Olexa’s tenure in the war, forcing him to leave out some of the more eccentric stories.

“The original manuscript was simply too long to go into a print edition,” said Smither. Sections where Olexa is training or in the rear, various encounters with French soldiers in North Africa, and civilians he encountered away from the front were all areas Smither had to cut back.

However, the Press is allowing Smither to set up a website where he will post deleted material and any other supplemental items that he deems relevant. The plan is to include those sections of the text with indications of where they fit into the larger story in terms of pages of the book. Smither also plans to post some of the letters and interviews that he has done with veterans in some of the same places or with similar experiences as Olexa.

Once published, this supplemental website will be accessible from the Grand Valley History Department website via a link on GVSU’s Veterans History Project, which also gives access to other veteran interviews as well.

After the book is in print for three years, the Press plans to publish an ebook version that will have Olexa’s entire memoir so readers can find the whole story in one place.

Giving back to our veterans

Smither has worked at GVSU as a historian since 1990 and has specifically worked with veterans for more than 20 years.

“I always had an interest in military history, and I was able to develop a course in it,” said Smither, whose time outside of the classroom has been spent largely on conducting veteran interviews for the Veterans History Project (VHP).

Even though he does not have a personal military background, Smither said, “As a historian, sometimes you study things that are very far from your own experiences to try to understand them. And military history is compelling because it puts people into very difficult and unusual circumstances, and they have to figure out what to do and how to handle it. I think there is something about that that captures people’s imaginations.”

Veterans History Project: More than Telling Stories

“It’s a way to give back to the people who serve,” Smither said. “Just by listening to them and taking them seriously, you are showing a certain respect for them.”

Smither believes his job is to help veterans tell their whole story, publishing the complete interviews on the VHP website instead of only releasing bits and pieces.

“It provides great raw material for future generations of historians, but it also does something for the veterans themselves,” Smither continued.

For many involved in conflict from Vietnam onward, Smither has found there is often a question of “Why were we there in the first place, and was it worth doing?” Recording their stories helps many veterans find clarity.

“What you see when you talk to (veterans) is (that) a lot of the experience for them is just with them and the people in their unit, and just trying to get by. They were not really as worried about the bigger picture of things,” Smither said. “Recording the stories helps validate the experience…and it helps them figure out what happened. Sometimes I interview a veteran and that’s the first time they actually tried to put their story together. Some of it starts to make sense a little bit better when they start to do that.”

Retired life

Olexa worked in a factory for a short time after retiring from the military but deemed it too noisy. The former infantryman was not squeamish about blood and became a meat cutter, with his last 10 years before retiring in 1981 serving as the meat manager at a Grand Rapids D&W supermarket.

“He was very much just a member of the community after that (military career),” said Smither.

Olexa married Agnes Van Der Weide July 23, 1945, and lived in West Michigan until Agnes’s death in 1993. Olexa passed away December 3, 2000.

D. A. (Deborah) Reed is an award-winning author of young adult novels and a creative writing instructor from the Grand Rapids area. To find out more about D.A. Reed, visit her website: D.A. Reed Author

Upcoming Lenger’s Video Series program features popular video by Sid Lenger

February 13, 20233-bottom, City of Wyoming, Recreation, Senior Livingfilm, Sid Lenger, World War IIJoanne

By WKTV Staff
joanne@wktv.org

The Wednesday’s Mr. Sid’s Video Series will feature an original video by Sid and Beulah Lenger.

The video is “America Then,” which will be followed by a presentation by Mike Martin on “Presidents We Need to Especially Remember in 2023.”

Mr. Sid’s Video Series is Wednesday, Feb. 15, at 2 p.m. at Marge’s Donut Den, 1751 28th St. SW. There is a 15-minute hymn sing that starts at 1:45 p.m.

The program is hosted by friends of Sid Lenger, who was a Wyoming residents and World War II veteran. Lenger died in 2003 at the age of 100.

The series runs every third Wednesday of the month. Upcoming presentations are:

March 15: WOTV’s Terri DeBoer will lead discussions of her new book “Grieving Well: A Healing Journey Through the Seasons of Grief”

April 19: Will feature several immigrants sharing their stories of hopes and challenges and adjusting to a new world.

May 10: Grand Valley State University History Professor and Director of GVSU’s Veteran History Project James Smither will present “Death and Life in the Big Red One: A Soldiers Journey from North Africa to Germany.”