Memories of the ‘Good War’ Loom Large

Sam Maas has trouble hearing and trouble sleeping. This happens sometimes as people grow older, and Sam’s 80 now. He relies on a hearing aid and sleeping pills.

The tranquilizer, Sam says, has a well-documented side effect. It makes him a bit forgetful.

“I can remember things that happened 50 years ago. But I opened up the refrigerator yesterday and I had to think, ‘Now what did I open this up for?’ ”

You can be much younger than Sam and know that feeling. Most of us, however, can’t remember 50 years ago, simply because we didn’t arrive until later. We have to turn to our parents’ generation, or their parents’ generation, to try to appreciate what it was like to be around in 1945, when the century’s greatest struggle was drawing to its end.

Sam remembers. And he wants everyone to know that today, Feb. 26, marks the anniversary of a bit of World War II history that is largely forgotten. The world pauses to remember the big events--Pearl Harbor, Normandy, the liberation of Nazi death camps, the battle of Iwo Jima. In a few months we’ll mark the atomic obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Sam Maas, in his way, represents everyone who won’t forget the smaller dramas along the way.

It was 50 years ago today that a converted B-24 transport carrying Lt. Gen. Millard F. Harmon, commander of Army Air Forces in the Pacific, and nine other men disappeared over the Pacific in a routine flight en route from Guam to Hickam Field, Honolulu. Tech. Sgt. Samuel L. Maas might have vanished that day too, if he hadn’t been on a 30-day furlough in his hometown of Milwaukee. He was a flight engineer on the crew assigned to Harmon.

With hands spotted by age, Sam shuffles through the mementos on a dining table in his West Hills home, a personal treasure of old black-and-white snapshots and yellowed newspaper clippings. There’s a news story dated March 3, the first to note the flight’s disappearance. Ten men were listed as missing. Sam had circled four of the names--the men he knew.

One was Harmon, whose command was best known for its operation of B-29 raids against Japan. Harmon had a common touch that commanded respect. “Talking to him was like talking to a sergeant,” Sam says.

The other men were friends who shared close quarters in bad times and good. One was Maj. Francis E. Savage of Tioga, Tex., the pilot Sam called “Doc.” Another was the navigator, Maj. Archibald D. Anderson of Brookings, S.D. Sam called him “Andy.” Another was the radio operator and a fellow tech sergeant, Steve Geist of Brooklyn, whom everybody just called Steve.

Fifty years later the friend they called Sam clutches an old snapshot. “I miss these guys,” he says.

Back then, they were the young men who manned a B-17 called “My Ever-Lovin’ Dove,” named for a previous pilot’s wife, and later were assigned a B-24 that the crew dubbed “Dove II.” They were based in New Caledonia and shared good times and bad.

We move to the den, and Sam shows a video account of the battle for Peleliu, a hellish, costly struggle over an island of dubious strategic value. Many military scholars say U.S. forces, which sorely underestimated Japanese strength at Peleliu, should have simply skipped this island.

Victory had been declared several days before Gen. Harmon was flown to Peleliu, but the Marines were still, as the term went, “mopping up.” Sam climbed a high ridge where artillery was trained on the caves occupied by the remaining Japanese troops, who were honoring a military code that forbade surrender. Sam remembers the smoke billowing from a cave opening. In one cavern Marines would later find more than 1,000 dead Japanese.

Sam now wonders whether Harmon was sent to Peleliu to assess the battle, to find out what went wrong, and if it really had been worth the trouble.

The battle may have been pointless, but at least there were no doubts about a war inspired by the aggression of Japan and Germany. Years later Studs Terkel would write about this period and call the book “The Good War.” Military deaths were estimated at 17 million, and civilian deaths at even more, because of genocidal massacres, bombing raids, epidemics and starvation. Yet it’s remembered as the good war, because we knew who the bad guys were, and they weren’t us. We were the good guys, and it was up to us to finish what the bad guys started.

“Us,” but not really me and probably not really you. It was up to our parents and grandparents. The crucible of the good war forged an idealistic vision of America, a sense of moral superiority and patriotic duty toward the President and commander-in-chief.

The good war gave way to a cold war--a rattling of nuclear warheads and smaller wars by proxy. A younger generation would respond to Vietnam with more questions than faith. How many of the names inscribed in black marble are there as sacrifices to those who were killed earlier? And didn’t the students at Kent State die for their country as well?

I never asked Sam Maas such questions. I tried to get him to talk about how he feels about the fact that many young people know so little and perhaps care even less about World War II. He shrugged his shoulders. The topic didn’t seem to interest him.

Sam wanted to talk about then , not now. He wanted to talk about his friends.

A few years ago, Sam set out to find other men he served with in New Caledonia and organized a reunion. They’ve met annually, sharing memories, but Sam expects the ’95 reunion to be their last. One reason is that no one wants to tackle the chore of organizing the event. Another may be the fact that a couple of men have passed away, and others are ailing.

He wanted to share his theory about what happened over the Pacific 50 years ago today. There was no enemy in the vicinity and no radio cry of May Day. Sam figures the airplane probably exploded and disintegrated from a spark igniting gasoline or an accumulation of fumes from 100-octane gasoline. Things like that happened sometimes. An 18-day search found no trace.

Fate put Sam elsewhere. After the war, he would marry Barbara, run a big bakery, earn his own pilot’s license, raise three daughters and one son, and dote on the grandkids. Sam and Barbara moved here to escape the Wisconsin winters.

Sam figures he’s one of the lucky ones. And so today he wants somebody besides himself to remember Gen. Harmon, as well as his pals Doc and Andy and Steve, and everybody else who never got to come home.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.

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