November 2, 2019
November 1, 2019
Showing posts with label Funeral. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Funeral. Show all posts
Saturday, November 02, 2019
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
Never Forgotten - November 2 Funeral for USCG LT Crotty
LT Thomas James Eugene "Jimmy" Crotty was the only member of the US Coast Guard to become a POW of Japan. His combat record garnered the Coast Guard a battle streamer for the Philippines Campaign. He will "return" home on November 1, 2019. Semper Paratus
On Friday, November 1, his arrival honors will be held at Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station, 10405 Lockport Rd., New York at 10:00am.
All are invited to join LT Crotty's family on Saturday, November 2nd at Noon for a funeral Mass for LT Crotty at the St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in Buffalo, New York. He will be buried with full military honors next to his parents in Holy Cross Cemetery, 2900 South Park Avenue, Lackawanna, Erie County, New York. Commandant of the Coast Guard Admiral Karl L. Schultz is expected to attend as are senior officials from the Navy and Marines.
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| Arlington Cemetery Memorial |
His remains were recently identified after being exhumed from Common Grave 312 in the American Cemetery and Memorial in Manila in the Philippines.
There are many opportunities during LT Crotty's return home from Hawaii to Buffalo, New York to honor him. Please take a moment to sign his "tribute wall" LINK HERE
On Thursday October 31, the repatriation ceremony for LT Crotty at Coast Guard will be held at Air Station Barbers Point, Kapolei, Hawaii at 11:00am. During the repatriation ceremony, a Coast Guard Honor Platoon led by Rear Adm. Kevin Lunday, commander, Coast Guard 14th District, will escort Crotty’s remains from the hearse to a HC-130 Hercules airplane and accompany the remains to Coast Guard Air Station Sacramento. There the casket will be transferred to another plane to continue its journey home.
On Friday, November 1, his arrival honors will be held at Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station, 10405 Lockport Rd., New York at 10:00am.
All are invited to join LT Crotty's family on Saturday, November 2nd at Noon for a funeral Mass for LT Crotty at the St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in Buffalo, New York. He will be buried with full military honors next to his parents in Holy Cross Cemetery, 2900 South Park Avenue, Lackawanna, Erie County, New York. Commandant of the Coast Guard Admiral Karl L. Schultz is expected to attend as are senior officials from the Navy and Marines.
The family will also receive LT Crotty's Filipino Veterans of WWII Congressional Gold Medal during the ceremony. It symbolizes Congressional recognition of the enduring bond between the American and Filipino forces defending the Philippines against Imperial Japan's invasion.
A 1934 Coast Guard Academy graduate, Crotty was assigned mid-1941 to the US Navy Mine Recovery Unit at Cavite Navy Yard near Manila in the Philippines. He served aboard the USS Quail in the Philippines during the outbreak of World War II in early 1942 and in April aided the 4th Marines in the defense of Corregidor, an island in Manila Bay. He missed the epic escape of the USS Quail's captain and 17 crew members in a 36-ft motor launch across the Pacific to Australia. Instead, with the surrender of Corregidor on May 6, 1942, he found himself on the rocky beach of Corregidor's 92nd Garage Area. At the end of the month he and most of the POWs on Corregidor were taken to Manila and marched down Dewey Blvd to Bilibid Prison. From there they were put standing in trains to the Cabanatuan POW Camp. He died there on July 21, 1942 of diphtheria. See HERE for more of his story on this blog and HERE for the official Coast Guard biography.
Coast Guard Mutual Assistance (CGMA) has established an award in LT Crotty's name. The Lieutenant Thomas James Crotty Inspirational Leadership Award recognizes the CGMA Representative who best exemplifies a willingness to go above and beyond in the service of the Coast Guard family. Donations in lieu of flowers to support this award may be made to Coast Guard Mutual Assistance online or sent to 1005 North Glebe Road, Suite 200, Arlington VA 22201. Please note LT Crotty on the donation.
News story from The Buffalo News, October 27, 2019.
News story from The Buffalo News, October 27, 2019.
Saturday, October 19, 2019
The Last Train
October 17th is celebrated by only a few. It is remembered, however, as the day in 1943 of the opening ceremonies of the Thai-Burma Death Railway. Engine C5631, built by Nippon Sharyo in 1938 at its Narumi plant, was the locomotive used at the opening. It was hauling a cargo of Comfort Women.
This notorious engine now sits restored at the entrance of the Yasukuni Shrine's war museum in Tokyo. The museum celebrates the "Bushido" of Imperial Japan's military and it success in liberating Asia. A recent article in the right wing propaganda online magazine Japan Forward highlights the annual celebration for this wartime relic. The author dismisses the atrocities associated with building the infamous tract.
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| Ralph Levenberg |
The truth is that more than 100,000 Asian and Allied POWs died in its making from abuse, torture, starvation, and lack of medical care. No one is sure how many of 200,000 Asian laborers died, as the Japanese did not consider them human enough to count. There were Allied POWs. As the dead cannot speak, I urge readers to comment on the piece and alert veterans groups in Australia, England, and the Netherlands. Japan Forward was created in January 2017 by the rightwing Sankei Shimbun as part of the Abe Government's stepped up PR and history revision campaign.
October 18th (2019) was the funeral for former POW of Japan Air Force Major Ralph Levenberg (September 12, 1920 – July 29, 2018) and his wife Kathie at Arlington National Cemetery. They were buried with full military honors: an Air Force Rabbi, a horse-drawn caisson, an Air Force casket team, an Air Force firing party (three shots), a bugler, an Air Force escort platoon, and an Air Force military band.
Major Levenberg was with the Army Air Corps' 17th Pursuit Squadron at Nichols Field in the Philippines when Japan attacked on December 8, 1941. The Field was destroyed on December 10th and the surviving airmen were moved to Bataan to form a provisional infantry. He and all American-Filipino troops on Bataan--estimated to be 85,000--were surrendered on April 9, 1942.
He was one of the small number of Jewish soldiers on the infamous Bataan Death March to Camp O'Donnell. From mid-April until most of the camp was shut down in early June 1942 and the POWs moved to Cabanatuan, thousands died. Levenberg participated in a number of grueling work details outside the camp in the Philippines before he was shipped to Japan to be a slave laborer.
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| From the funeral |
Aboard the hellship Nissyo Maru, via Formosa, he arrived at the Port of Moji early August 1944. There he as taken north to the Nagoya POW Camp #2-B Narumi. This camp provided labor to Nippon Sharyo, where train engines were built and repaired. The same factory that built Engine C5631 that opened the Thai-Burma Death Railway.
Most of the time Levenberg worked in the "kitchen" boiling water for the thin soup to feed the POWs. Two weeks before the end of the war, he was savagely beaten by a guard and fell into a month-long coma. He did not revive until September 3 when he was evacuated to an American hospital ship. At liberation, he weighed 72 pounds and could not walk.
Nippon Sharyo factory still maintains the factory at Narumi where Levenberg toiled and was beaten. The Company is now owned by the rail corporation JR Central. The company is promoted by the Japanese government as wanting to build high-speed rail in the US with proposed projects between Dallas and Houston, and Baltimore and DC. The firm, however, has never apologized to nor acknowledged its American POW slaves.
Both Nippon Sharyo and JR Central have offices in the United States. Both were alerted to Major Levenberg's funeral. Neither replied nor sent condolences.
Major Levenberg remained in the US Air Force after the war and saw combat in the Korean War. He held numerous world-wide assignments as a security professional in the Strategic Air Command and then as a U.S. civil service member of Naval Air System Command.
In retirement, Levenberg donated his time and energy to support other former POWs at the VA Hospital in Reno, Nevada. He also served on the VA's National Advisory Commission of Former Prisoners of War and as National Commander of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor (ADBC) from 1979 to 1980.
In 1994, he joined, on behalf of ADBC, the group of ex-POWs of the Japanese from other former Allied countries in an appeal to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights regarding these countries' failure in addressing the injustice suffered by POWs of the Japanese during WWII. The appeal was based on the denial of a previous appeal with respect to the "gross violations of human rights" committed by Japan against American POWs during WWII. (Excerpts from the appeal document for UNCHR prepared by Mr. Levenberg) Although their appeal was again denied, it led to the payment by Canada, the United Kingdom, Isle of Man, Norway, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Australia to their former POWs of the Japanese. The United States is the only country that has not done so.
His oral history was recorded by the Library of Congress and the University of Nevada (“Nothing Had Prepared Me For This Kind of Brutality” p 570). In 1996, Dick Cavett interviewed Levenberg for his HBO series Yesteryear...1942 -- a look at the first year of America's involvement in WWII.
Major Levenberg remained in the US Air Force after the war and saw combat in the Korean War. He held numerous world-wide assignments as a security professional in the Strategic Air Command and then as a U.S. civil service member of Naval Air System Command.
In retirement, Levenberg donated his time and energy to support other former POWs at the VA Hospital in Reno, Nevada. He also served on the VA's National Advisory Commission of Former Prisoners of War and as National Commander of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor (ADBC) from 1979 to 1980.
In 1994, he joined, on behalf of ADBC, the group of ex-POWs of the Japanese from other former Allied countries in an appeal to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights regarding these countries' failure in addressing the injustice suffered by POWs of the Japanese during WWII. The appeal was based on the denial of a previous appeal with respect to the "gross violations of human rights" committed by Japan against American POWs during WWII. (Excerpts from the appeal document for UNCHR prepared by Mr. Levenberg) Although their appeal was again denied, it led to the payment by Canada, the United Kingdom, Isle of Man, Norway, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Australia to their former POWs of the Japanese. The United States is the only country that has not done so.
His oral history was recorded by the Library of Congress and the University of Nevada (“Nothing Had Prepared Me For This Kind of Brutality” p 570). In 1996, Dick Cavett interviewed Levenberg for his HBO series Yesteryear...1942 -- a look at the first year of America's involvement in WWII.
Monday, August 05, 2019
THE Coast Guard's POW of Japan
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| Lt James Crotty, USCG |
Thus, today, we pause to remember the Coast Guard's one POW of Japan. Records suggest there were two others, but Coast Guard historians believe they were actually sailors assigned to Coast Guard duties in the Philippines.
By all accounts, Lt. Thomas James "Jimmy" Crotty is a hero. He arrived in the Philippines on October 28, 1941 for what was supposed to be a six month deployment as a member of a Navy mine recovery unit near Manila.
A 1934 Coast Guard Academy graduate, Crotty had never before traveled outside North America. He served on board cutters based out of New York, Seattle, Alaska and Sault Ste. Marie. His career included duty on the cutter USCGC Tampa (WMEC-902) during its famous rescue of passengers from the burning liner SS Morro Castle, and a Justice Department appointment as special deputy on the Bering Sea Patrol.
Prior to his Philippines assignment he studied at the Navy’s Mine Warfare School in Yorktown, Virginia. With additional training at the Navy’s Mine Recovery Unit in Washington, DC, Lt. Crotty became the Coast Guard’s leading expert in mine operations, demolition and the use of explosives. He was first assigned to the In-Shore Patrol Headquarters at the American Navy yard at Cavite, located near Manila.
On December 10, Japanese aircraft bombed and damaged most of the facilities at the Cavite Navy Yard and advancing enemy ground forces necessitated the movement of American units behind fortified lines on the Bataan Peninsula and onto the island fortress of Corregidor. During this evacuation, Crotty supervised the demolition of strategic civilian and military facilities to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. This equipment and material included the Navy yard’s ammunition magazine and the fleet submarine USS Sea Lion, which the enemy damaged during the air attack. Crotty had the sub stripped of useful parts, filled it with depth charges and blew it up on Christmas Day.
The Navy withdrew Crotty and its other personnel from Cavite to the Sixteenth Naval District Headquarters at Fort Mills, on Corregidor. The Navy reassigned Crotty to the local guard unit, but he also participated in night raids on the mainland to demolish more American equipment and facilities before the Japanese occupied Manila.
During February and March of 1942, Crotty served as executive officer of the Navy minesweeper USS Quail (AM-15), which shot down enemy aircraft and swept American mine fields so U.S. submarines could surface at night to deliver goods and remove critical personnel. During his time as executive officer, the Quail served as a command vessel and provided shore bombardment for an offensive against Japanese landings attempting to cut off supply lines to American forces trapped on the Bataan Peninsula.
After Bataan was surrendered on April 9, 1942, Corregidor's defenders held out for another month. Crews on board Navy vessels, such as Quail, had cannibalized deck guns and moved them onto the island to mount a final stand against the encircling enemy forces. Crotty served up to the bitter end fighting alongside the island’s stubborn Army, Navy and Marine defenders. Eye witnesses reported last seeing him commanding a force of Marines and Army personnel manning 75-millimeter beach guns firing down on enemy forces landing on Corregidor’s beaches. When Japanese bombardment finally silenced Crotty’s guns, Corregidor’s defenders knew the island fortress would soon fall.
The Quail was scuttled May 5th to prevent her capture. After, Lt. Commander John H. Morrill gave his crew the choice of surrendering to the Japanese or striking out across open ocean the Quail's 36-foot diesel motor launch. Only 17 of his 24-member crew could join him on the desperate voyage. Lt. Crotty had been separated from the crew, as mentioned above, to command a mixed defensive unit on Corregidor and was not included. With a pistol recovered from a dead serviceman as their only armament (this may not be true), supplies and weapons scavenged from the beached tugboat Ranger on Caballo Island, and with a few charts and navigational aids from the Ranger, Morrill and his crew evaded the Japanese and transversed 2,060 miles of ocean, reaching Darwin, Australia on June 6 after 31 days.
See Morrill's account in his book: SOUTH FROM CORREGIDOR
With Corregidor’s capitulation on May 6, Crotty became the first Coast Guard prisoner of war since the War of 1812, when the British captured Revenue Cutter Service cuttermen. At the end of May, the Japanese loaded Crotty and his fellow prisoners into watercraft transferring POWs from Corregidor Island to Manila, where they were marched through the city to Bilibid Prison and eventually taken by railroad in box cars to the Cabanatuan prison camp in northern Luzon.
Crotty’s fellow prisoners at Cabanatuan knew him for his love of sports as well as his sense of humor and optimism. One of them wagered a bet with Crotty on the outcome of the 1942 World Series while another later recounted that: “The one striking thing that I remember was his continued optimism and cheerfulness under the most adverse circumstances. He was outstanding in this respect at a time when such an attitude was so necessary for general welfare.” But Crotty’s courage and optimism could not sustain him late in the summer of 1942 when a diphtheria epidemic swept through the camp killing forty prisoners per day. Crotty contracted the illness and, with the Camp's lack of necessary medications and proper health care, he passed away only days after getting sick joining the more than 2,500 American POWs who perished in this camp during the war.
It had been unclear if he died July 19th or September 30th. On September 10, 2019, the Defense Personnel Accounting Agency (DPAA) confirmed that Crotty had died July 19, 1942, and was buried along with fellow prisoners in the Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery, in grave number 312. In January 2018, the “unknown” remains associated with Common Grave 312 were disinterred and sent to the DPAA laboratory for analysis, including one set, designated X-2858 Manila #2. These remains proved to be LT. Crotty's.
In a May 6, 2010 ceremony in Buffalo, New York, Crotty's descendants received his long-overdue Bronze Star, Purple Heart, the Prisoner of War Medal and the Philippines Defense Medal. It is possible for the family to now apply for the Congressional Gold Medal given to those who served with Filipino troops during WWII.
On November 2, 2019, a rosette will be placed beside his name on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial indicating that he has been found. His funeral will be that day in Buffalo, New York at the St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church and he will be buried with full military honors next to his parents in Holy Cross Cemetery, 2900 South Park Avenue, Lackawanna, Erie County, New York.
One of the 43 Battle Streamers on the Coast Guard flag--Philippines Defense--is entirely due to the actions of one man, LT Crotty from Buffalo, New York, who helped command a Navy vessel, scuttled a submarine, swept mines, served as adjutant, led Marines and soldiers defending Corregidor and held the line to the last.
Requiescat In Pace
Liberally borrowed from Compass and War History Online.
Updated October 20 and 21, 2019
By all accounts, Lt. Thomas James "Jimmy" Crotty is a hero. He arrived in the Philippines on October 28, 1941 for what was supposed to be a six month deployment as a member of a Navy mine recovery unit near Manila.
A 1934 Coast Guard Academy graduate, Crotty had never before traveled outside North America. He served on board cutters based out of New York, Seattle, Alaska and Sault Ste. Marie. His career included duty on the cutter USCGC Tampa (WMEC-902) during its famous rescue of passengers from the burning liner SS Morro Castle, and a Justice Department appointment as special deputy on the Bering Sea Patrol.
Prior to his Philippines assignment he studied at the Navy’s Mine Warfare School in Yorktown, Virginia. With additional training at the Navy’s Mine Recovery Unit in Washington, DC, Lt. Crotty became the Coast Guard’s leading expert in mine operations, demolition and the use of explosives. He was first assigned to the In-Shore Patrol Headquarters at the American Navy yard at Cavite, located near Manila.
On December 10, Japanese aircraft bombed and damaged most of the facilities at the Cavite Navy Yard and advancing enemy ground forces necessitated the movement of American units behind fortified lines on the Bataan Peninsula and onto the island fortress of Corregidor. During this evacuation, Crotty supervised the demolition of strategic civilian and military facilities to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. This equipment and material included the Navy yard’s ammunition magazine and the fleet submarine USS Sea Lion, which the enemy damaged during the air attack. Crotty had the sub stripped of useful parts, filled it with depth charges and blew it up on Christmas Day.
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| Corregidor under attack |
During February and March of 1942, Crotty served as executive officer of the Navy minesweeper USS Quail (AM-15), which shot down enemy aircraft and swept American mine fields so U.S. submarines could surface at night to deliver goods and remove critical personnel. During his time as executive officer, the Quail served as a command vessel and provided shore bombardment for an offensive against Japanese landings attempting to cut off supply lines to American forces trapped on the Bataan Peninsula.
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| click to order |
The Quail was scuttled May 5th to prevent her capture. After, Lt. Commander John H. Morrill gave his crew the choice of surrendering to the Japanese or striking out across open ocean the Quail's 36-foot diesel motor launch. Only 17 of his 24-member crew could join him on the desperate voyage. Lt. Crotty had been separated from the crew, as mentioned above, to command a mixed defensive unit on Corregidor and was not included. With a pistol recovered from a dead serviceman as their only armament (this may not be true), supplies and weapons scavenged from the beached tugboat Ranger on Caballo Island, and with a few charts and navigational aids from the Ranger, Morrill and his crew evaded the Japanese and transversed 2,060 miles of ocean, reaching Darwin, Australia on June 6 after 31 days.
See Morrill's account in his book: SOUTH FROM CORREGIDOR |
| motor launch to Darwin |
Crotty’s fellow prisoners at Cabanatuan knew him for his love of sports as well as his sense of humor and optimism. One of them wagered a bet with Crotty on the outcome of the 1942 World Series while another later recounted that: “The one striking thing that I remember was his continued optimism and cheerfulness under the most adverse circumstances. He was outstanding in this respect at a time when such an attitude was so necessary for general welfare.” But Crotty’s courage and optimism could not sustain him late in the summer of 1942 when a diphtheria epidemic swept through the camp killing forty prisoners per day. Crotty contracted the illness and, with the Camp's lack of necessary medications and proper health care, he passed away only days after getting sick joining the more than 2,500 American POWs who perished in this camp during the war.
It had been unclear if he died July 19th or September 30th. On September 10, 2019, the Defense Personnel Accounting Agency (DPAA) confirmed that Crotty had died July 19, 1942, and was buried along with fellow prisoners in the Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery, in grave number 312. In January 2018, the “unknown” remains associated with Common Grave 312 were disinterred and sent to the DPAA laboratory for analysis, including one set, designated X-2858 Manila #2. These remains proved to be LT. Crotty's.
In a May 6, 2010 ceremony in Buffalo, New York, Crotty's descendants received his long-overdue Bronze Star, Purple Heart, the Prisoner of War Medal and the Philippines Defense Medal. It is possible for the family to now apply for the Congressional Gold Medal given to those who served with Filipino troops during WWII.
On November 2, 2019, a rosette will be placed beside his name on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial indicating that he has been found. His funeral will be that day in Buffalo, New York at the St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church and he will be buried with full military honors next to his parents in Holy Cross Cemetery, 2900 South Park Avenue, Lackawanna, Erie County, New York.
One of the 43 Battle Streamers on the Coast Guard flag--Philippines Defense--is entirely due to the actions of one man, LT Crotty from Buffalo, New York, who helped command a Navy vessel, scuttled a submarine, swept mines, served as adjutant, led Marines and soldiers defending Corregidor and held the line to the last.
Requiescat In Pace
Liberally borrowed from Compass and War History Online.
Updated October 20 and 21, 2019
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