We are saddened to report that another of the veterans we met last fall during our Oklahoma World War II Stories series has died. Army Sergeant Alexander Mathews of Cache, Oklahoma, died of pneumonia on March 14, 2008 at the age of 88.

Mr. Mathews was a full-blood Pawnee indian, born in Pawnee, Oklahoma on May 11, 1919. He attended Haskell Institute before joining the Army and serving in the Phillipines. Mathews was one of almost 80,000 American and Filipino soldiers who became prisoners of war when the American General surrendered to the Japanese at Baatan, shortly after the start of World War II. Mathews and his fellow POW’s were forced to walk more than 70 miles to the Japanese prison camp, Camp O’Donnell. More than 10,000 of the prisoners died or were executed on the way, in what became known as the “Baatan Death March.”

Mathews was shuttled from camp to camp throughout the war, performing slave labor, and later being transported to Japan on the so-called “hell ships,” where prisoners endured inhumane treatment and unimaginable living conditions. Mathews spent the entire length of World War II, four and a half years, as a prisoner of war.

After the war, Mathews returned to the United States and began a career with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He also served as Chairman of the Pawnee Tribe of Oklahoma. In his later years, he was a frequent speaker at schools in Oklahoma and the Pacific Northwest, where he discussed World War II and his experiences on the Baatan Death March as part of a Living History Project.

Mathews is survived by his wife, Joyce, and two sons and daughters from a previous marriage.

(Above: Alexander Mathews looks over a gun at the 45th Infantry Division Museum in Oklahoma City. Mathews served in artillery in the U.S. Army. Below: Mathews during his interview with OETA’s Dick Pryor and Boots Kennedye on August 23, 2007 in Oklahoma City.)

On a day that began with a moving tribute to all who served, and those who died, at Pearl Harbor on the day the Japanese struck, the USS Oklahoma was honored with the unveiling of a marble and granite monument that commemorates the battleship that suffered the second-largest loss of life in the Japanese attack. Dignitaries from the states of Oklahoma and Hawaii, the U.S. Navy, the National Park Service, members of the USS Oklahoma Memorial Executive Committee, survivors and family members of the Oklahoma’s crew attended the nearly 2-hour ceremony.

Sun and showers alternated throughout the memorial service and dedication, forcing those gathered under tents to protect them from the wind and rain. However, for those who had worked so long and hard to secure the site and create the memorial, it was a glorious day.

The ceremony began with a welcome from Rear Admiral Doug McClain, a former student at Putnam City High School in Oklahoma City, who is now Director of Global Operations for the U.S. Strategic Command. Following a traditional Hawaiian blessing and the invocation, the colors were presented by the Navy Junior ROTC from Claremore, Oklahoma and the Marine Junior ROTC cadets from U.S. Grant High School in Oklahoma City. The U.S. Marine Corps Band played the National Anthem.

(above: Governor Brad Henry speaks at the USS Oklahoma Memorial Dedication ceremony at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii)

Then, architect Don Beck discussed the design of the memorial, and its 429 marble posts, each of which contain the name of one of those who died aboard the mighty battleship.

Honored speakers included (in order of speaking) Linda Lingle, Governor of Hawaii; Admiral Timothy Keating, U.S. Pacific Command; Mary Fallin, U.S. Representative from Oklahoma; Tom Cole, U.S. Representative from Oklahoma; Neil Abercrombie, U.S. Representative from Hawaii; Brad Henry, Governor of Oklahoma; and Lyle Laverty, Assistant Secretary of the Interior. Oklahoma State Senator Jim Reynolds introduced USS Oklahoma survivor Ed Vezey and Lisa Ridge, granddaughter of USS Oklahoma Petty Officer Paul Nash, for comments.

(above: USS Oklahoma survivor Ed Vezey of Center, Colorado was among the speakers at the dedication ceremony.)

Signalman 1st Class Paul Goodyear, a USS Oklahoma survivor who was one of the driving forces behind the memorial, then raised the American flag above the site. The ceremony closed with a 21-gun salute, taps and the playing of Amazing Grace on a lone bagpipe.

Among the Oklahomans at the service, we saw Governor Brad Henry and First Lady Kim Henry; Treasurer Scott Meacham; U.S. Representatives Tom Cole and Mary Fallin; Speaker of the House Lance Cargill; State Representative Gary Banz; State Senator Jim Reynolds; State Representative Ryan Kiesel; and State Representative Guy Liebmann.

Also, former State Representatives Debbie Blackburn and Greg Piatt; Dr. Bob Blackburn, Executive Director of the Oklahoma Historical Society; the members of the USS Oklahoma Memorial Executive Committee, including co-chairs Tucker McHugh and Admiral Greg Slavonic; memorial architect Don Beck; Blake Wade, Jeannie Edney, and Lou Kerr from the Oklahoma Centennial Commission; the survivors and their families.

(above (l-r): Kevin King and State Senator Jim Reynolds do a “rubbing” on one of the posts at the USS Oklahoma Memorial.

The USS Oklahoma was raised in 1943, made sea-worthy and sold for scrap. In May, 1947, she sank in a storm, about 540 miles out of Hawaii, while being towed to San Francisco. She rests there now, and almost 400 of her crew members, most unidentified, are entombed at the Punchbowl National Cemetery in Honolulu.

Jeff Phister, co-author of “Battleship Oklahoma (BB-37)” writes:

Built to keep the peace, not once in her twenty-five years of service were her massive 14-inch guns fired in belligerence. She was a great ship – with a proud crew. Neither will be forgotten.

Ah hui ho (until next time), Dick Pryor

Aloha!
In the shadow of the battleship USS Missouri, moored at Pearl Harbor, more than 8,000 Oklahoma school students were part of an interactive web cast featuring two survivors of the USS Oklahoma on Thursday, December 6. Located less than 100 yards from the site of the new USS Oklahoma Memorial on Ford Island, survivors Paul Goodyear and George Brown answered questions from students at several Oklahoma schools.

A total of 124 schools signed up to watch the exclusive web cast. In addition to Goodyear and Brown, students heard from Dr. Bob Blackburn, the Executive Director of the Oklahoma Historical Society; Tucker McHugh, co-chair of the USS Oklahoma Memorial Executive Committee; Don Beck, the architect who designed the memorial; and Oklahoma State Senator Jim Reynolds, who was one of the leaders of the effort to place a memorial to the USS Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor.

(above:  USS Oklahoma survivor Paul Goodyear answers questions from Oklahoma students during the interactive web cast, live, from Ford Island, Pearl Harbor.  The USS Missouri is in the background.  It is now moored where the USS Oklahoma was located during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.  Paul Goodyear swam to safety just a few yards from the site of the web cast.)

Goodyear and Brown told students that the memorial is important to them because of the tribute it will pay to the 429 sailors and Marines who perished in the Japanese attack. The Oklahoma was one of nine battleships that suffered damage or were sunk. The USS Oklahoma, the USS Arizona, and the USS Utah were the only ships that were never returned to service.

The Oklahoma has been the only battleship without a memorial at Pearl Harbor, but that will change at 4:00 p.m. (Oklahoma time) on Friday, when the USS Oklahoma Memorial is officially dedicated. About 15 survivors and 200 family members of USS Oklahoma crew are expected for the ceremony. Governor Brad Henry, U.S. Representatives Mary Fallin and Tom Cole and U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii will be among the honored speakers. The Navy Junior ROTC from Claremore High School and Marine Junior ROTC Cadets from U.S. Grant High School in Oklahoma City will present the colors.

Join us for the web cast of the USS Oklahoma Memorial dedication from Ford Island at 4:00 p.m. (Oklahoma time) on Friday. The ceremony will be archived on the Oklahoma World War II Stories web site on Friday night, December 7.

Ah hui ho! (until next time)
Dick Pryor

Aloha!

World War II veterans, including more than a dozen survivors of the Japanese assault on the USS Oklahoma, have arrived in Honolulu for the 66th anniversary remembrance of the Pearl Harbor sneak attack and the dedication of the new USS Oklahoma Memorial.

The survivors and the first members of the Oklahoma contingent to arrive in Honolulu have been getting acquainted at the downtown Honolulu headquarters hotel and visiting some of the sites around Pearl Harbor. On Tuesday, a few of the Oklahoma survivors went to the Punchbowl, the national cemetery which is the site where the remains of 381 victims of the Japanese attack are buried in 46 graves.

(above:  USS Oklahoma survivor George Smith, the youngest crew member aboard the battleship, talks about his experiences during World War II.)

Wednesday, the survivors, their family members, State Representative Gary Banz and his wife Linda, and members of the Claremore and Oklahoma City U.S. Grant Junior ROTC program took a late afternoon cruise around Ford Island, located in the center of Pearl Harbor. Captain Taylor Skardon, Commander of the Naval Station Pearl Harbor served as tour guide, providing a vivid commentary on the history of Pearl Harbor.

(above:  Captain Taylor Skarden, Commander of Pearl Harbor Naval Station, hosted a tour of Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial.)

(below:  Members of the Navy Junior ROTC from Claremore, Oklahoma enjoy the Pearl Harbor cruise. )

On Thursday at 2:00 p.m. (Oklahoma time) we will present a 45-minute video conference live on the Oklahoma World War II Stories website. The video conference will be available worldwide, and more than 8,000 Oklahoma school students from 77 schools have signed up to participate. They will have the opportunity to hear from Director of the Oklahoma History Center Bob Blackburn, State Senator Jim Reynolds, co-chairman of the USS Oklahoma Memorial Committee Tucker McHugh and memorial Beck, in addition to being able to ask questions of two USS Oklahoma survivors. Due to the tremendous interest, the video conference has been extended to allow additional questions for the veterans from students. Thursday night at 8:00 (Oklahoma time) OETA will present its Oklahoma World War II Stories documentary, produced by Boots Kennedye and me. The hour-long documentary will also be available worldwide on the OETA website, www.oeta.tv.

We will bring the dedication ceremony of the USS Oklahoma Memorial home to Oklahoma on Friday, starting at 4:00 p.m. (Oklahoma time) on the Oklahoma World War II Stories website. We invite you to watch as the Okie and its crew receive their long-awaited recognition with a permanent memorial on Ford Island, only a couple hundred yards from the location of the USS Oklahoma when it was hit by Japanese torpedoes.

The weather has been rainy here and temperatures cooler than expected. Storms raced across Oahu last night, knocking out power to many residents and businesses and closing the USS Arizona Memorial until afternoon. Weather should improve tomorrow for the video conference, to be held near the USS Oklahoma Memorial site, a short distance from the permanent mooring of the USS Missouri, the battleship on which the Japanese officially surrendered to end World War II. Join us for the video conference on Thursday, and check back for more updates from Pearl Harbor.

Ah hui ho (until next time), Dick Pryor
(The “Okie” survivors who have made the journey include Paul Goodyear, Casa Grande, Arizona; George Smith, Olympia, Washington; Don Lester, San Diego, California; Harold Johnson; Michael Stecz, Castro Valley, California; Garland Eslick, Amarillo, Texas; James Bounds, San Diego, California; Norm Roberts, Morro Bay, California; Ed Vezey, Center, Colorado; Dick Artley, Lewiston, Idaho; Ray Richmond, San Diego, California; Bill Hendley, Wilmington, North Carolina; and Louis Egnatovich, Lake City, Florida. George Brown of Honolulu had a much shorter trip. Willie Roesler of Canyon Lake, Texas is also in Hawaii to share the activities with his surviving shipmates. Roesler was a crew member of the Oklahoma before the December 7, 1941 attack and had shipped out to Midway Island aboard the USS Medusa in February, 1941.)

 (above)  Dick Pryor with USS Oklahoma survivor Paul Goodyear, and an artist’s rendition of the new USS Oklahoma Memorial, to be dedicated on December 7, 2007 at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

As stories are told about World War II one group is sometimes forgotten, but according to many veterans, they were the real heroes of the war:  the medical units.  Doctors, surgeons, dentists, nurses, all risked their own lives to save the lives of others.  The survival rate during World War I was about 8%; during World War II it dropped to 4%; and one unit did even better – the 21st Evacuation Hospital from the University of Oklahoma.

Dr. Daniel Pearson was one of those doctors, having graduated from the University of Oklahoma Medical School in June, 1941.  I met Dr. Pearson on August 24, 2007 at his office in south Dallas.  Pearson told me that he had always planned on joining the Army if the U.S. went into war, but his draft board said they were going to take him as soon as he got through his internship (because of his low draft number), so he joined the 21st Evacuation Hospital.

“The Army had asked most medical schools to organize an affiliated hospital that could serve in the war and treat casualties,” said Dr. Pearson, ” so Oklahoma organized their’s as the 21st Evac Hospital.  It probably started out with a dozen or more doctors from Oklahoma City, then it gradually grew from there.”

Dr. Pearson trained in the desert of California, expecting to go to North Africa, where General George Patton and his tank corps were operating, but the 21st was sent to the South Pacific, instead.  Dr. Pearson set up a medical unit at Guadalcanal, several months after the invasion.  “We took care of casualties that came in from the field,” said the soft-spoken Pearson.  “About 2,000-3,000 patients.  We were there (Guadalcanal) about 40 days.  By that time we had finally pretty well filled up our quota and I think we rose to 46 doctors and about 60 administrators.”

Despite their training, the members of the 21st were not totally prepared for what they saw.  “Everything we saw was trauma.  Gunshots wounds and fragment wounds.  In civilian life you don’t see too many casualties like that.  When we got to Bougainville, especially, we had more destructive trauma.”

The 21st worked in tents, with 3 general surgical teams of 3 men to a team.  In Bougainville, they worked on 12 tables, doing surgery underground to stay out of the line of fire.  The operating room wasn’t actually dug into the ground, but was built up with walls, logs laid across and covered up with soil to make an “underground” room.

Dr. Pearson describes the conditions at Bougainville with one word:  wet.  “At Bougainville, on the side of the island where we were, average rainfall was 274 inches a year, so it rained every day.  It would get up to 90, but not bad.  We would sweat a lot, humid, and there were mosquitoes, lots of them, so we slept under nets,” Pearson said.

The unit was only 200-400 yards from the front lines at Bougainville, so the 21st got fresh battle casualties.  Pearson remembers that the casualties came in so heavy that the surgical teams worked day and night for about three weeks, operating on all 12 tables.

After a little more than a year, the 21st went to Luzon, in the Phillipines.  Once in the Phillipines, Pearson was sent to a small town named San Carlos, about 15 miles inland.  There, he set up a hospital in a Catholic cathedral that was built in 1585, but not before giving the cathedral a thorough cleaning.  “It was in good condition, and it looked like people had been kneeling on a ground floor, but actually it was bat manure (on the floor).  There were bats all over the ceiling, live bats, so we drove about 7 vehicles, trucks and other vehicles, in there and left them running until they burned out all of their gas, hoping the fumes would drive the bats out.  We scooped up the bat manure, raked it up and put in the trucks.  We got seven truck tons of that bat manure out and hauled it off.  Under the manure we found a beautiful tile floor,” Pearson said.

In San Carlos, there were about 400 cots in the cathedral and another 400-500 beds outside in tents.  The 21st stayed in San Carlos for about  40 days before heading to the New Bilibid Prison, where they cared for survivors of Bataan.  Pearson figures if he hadn’t joined the 21st he would have been among the Army soldiers sent to Bataan.  He says many in his advanced officer training class at OU wound up there.  “Close call.  Yeah, close call,” Pearson told me.

Pearson stayed in touch with his family through mail and pictures.  He left one daughter (Maureen) and his wife behind when he left for the South Pacific.  Another daughter (Diana) was born while he was gone.  He didn’t see her until she was nearly 3 years old.  

Pearson says those sacrifices were just part of the job.  “You have to accept it – just like life.  You may not like it, but there is nothing you can do about it, so you just have to accept it.  It’s an adjustment you make in your life.”

After the war, Pearson went into general practice in Perryton, Texas and later began practicing psychiatry, with an office in Dallas.  Now, at the age of 93, Dr. Pearson still practices psychiatry 3 days a week.  He says the worst part of war was being away from home for three years.  The best part was taking care of people.  “The best part,” Pearson recalled, “was that we could be a doctor.”

(above) Dr. Daniel B. Pearson with three of his children in his Dallas, Texas office.  (l-r) Maureen, Daniel, Diana.

Thanks to Judy Kelley of the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and Editor of OU Medicine for her invaluable assistance in the preparation of the story of Dr. Pearson and the “Fighting 21st.” 

Until next time, Dick Pryor

(Dr. Daniel B. Pearson was profiled on the Oklahoma News Report on November 14, 2007.  To see the story, click on “Videos” on this website and go to “OETA’s Dick Pryor interviews Oklahoma WWII veterans.) 

Pendleton Woods remembers that he was in his dormitory at the University of Arkansas when somebody rushed down the hall and said that Pearl Harbor had been bombed.  “We didn’t know what Pearl Harbor was,” he recalled, “and then we began listening to the radio, and that’s when it really hit us.”  

Within hours the United States was entering World War II and by 1942 Woods had signed up for the Army Reserve.  He remained stateside for about two years, but wound up in Germany, on the Belgian front, by October, 1944.   Woods was there just in time for the Battle of the Bulge, but he missed most of the fighting.

On December 10, 1944, while on patrol behind German lines, Woods and seven others were cut off and surrounded by a German unit.  Their squad leader was killed, another person was wounded, and the group of Americans was captured.  So began Pen Woods’ 5-month ordeal as a prisoner of war.

The captives did what they could to stay warm, sharing one blanket to keep their feet warm, and huddling together in a boxcar on the way to a German prison camp.  Woods spent 8 days on the boxcar, where he “celebrated” his 21st birthday.  He spent Christmas of 1944 inside the walls of a German prison camp before being transported to a labor camp, where conditions were somewhat better.

Woods remembers that a soldier who had served time in a Pennsylvania penitentiary, Red Martin, taught him how to steal.  “Red Martin and I had honest faces,” said Woods, “and when we’d steal stuff we’d blouse our trousers into our combat boots and put food there.  The armpit is also good.  You’d be surprised at how much food you can put under your armpit and get away with it.”

Martin gave Woods a nickname, “Steal ‘Em Blind Woods.”  According to Woods, the name was a real compliment.  “Don’t laugh,” he told me, “because that would be like Babe Ruth or Joe Louis calling you slugger, or in academic circles, it would be like an honorary degree.  The nickname I got I got from a professional.”

(above) Corporal Pendleton Woods during World War II.

Woods finally escaped on Hitler’s birthday, April 20th, during Russian artillery fire that had the Germans pre-occupied.   After five days, Woods and the others linked up with American soldiers near the Elbe River.  Ironically, Woods’ prison bunkmate was Clarence Deal, who lives in Jones, Oklahoma.  “Every day on April 20th, for some 60-odd years now,” said Woods, “I will call my prison bunkmate, or he will call me, wishing each other “Happy Hitler’s Birthday,” because that’s the day we got away from that prison camp.”

Woods believes that Germany’s biggest problem in the war was attacking Russia, because it forced the Nazis into a multi-front war.  The Germans and Russians hated each other, he recalls, and Russian prisoners were treated ten times worse than Americans were treated in the prisoner-of-war camps.

Woods doesn’t watch many movies, but he has watched the famous prisoner-of-war movie, Stalag 17.  “I thought it was phony,” Woods told me.   “In Stalag 17 they made the Germans look stupid, but they weren’t stupid, they were smart.  Stalag 17 was not real at all.  If they do it real it doesn’t make much of a movie.  It’s the most difficult period of your life.”

After the war, Woods returned to the University of Arkansas and got his degree in journalism.  He became Public Information Officer for the 45th Infantry Division and served in that capacity during the Korean War.  He achieved the rank of Colonel in the National Guard and worked for many years as Public Relations Specialist for OG&E.  Woods was chosen the nation’s outstanding ex-POW of 2005.

Until next time,  Dick Pryor

(above)  Pen Woods with OETA’s Dick Pryor.

(Pen Woods was profiled on the Oklahoma News Report on November 7, 2007.  To see the story, click on “Videos” on this website and go to “OETA’s Dick Pryor interviews Oklahoma WWII veterans.”)

“I think it’s very important for the public, our commanders, our leaders, to have pictures, both motion and stills, showing what is going on in a war,” said Ned Hockman, when I visited with him at his home last August.  “It’s making a record, to record the happenings so that the people that are paying the bills or people that are supposed to be winning the war are doing that.  That’s the contribution of combat cameramen in war.”

Hockman was one of a select group of photographers who were responsible for making a record of World War II for the U.S. War Department.  Hockman grew up in Carnegie, Oklahoma and attended Cameron College in Lawton on a football and speech scholarship.  His father had taught him photography, so he got a job as a photographer for the Lawton Morning Press.  After a year at Cameron he received a scholarship to the University of Oklahoma, and that’s where he was when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

Hockman was drafted the next summer.  He didn’t have the eyesight to become a pilot, but was chosen to serve in the U.S. Army Air Corps.  He trained at Ft. Sill in Lawton, Sheppard Field in Wichita Falls, Texas, and Lowry Field in Denver, Colorado before being assigned to the First Motion Picture Unit in Culver City, California.  The Adjutant was a young captain named Ronald Reagan.  Hockman trained in California for a year and a half before getting orders to go to his new home for the rest of the war, the China-Burma-India theater.

(above, left)  Ned Hockman, combat cameraman.

“Our assignment was to make combat coverage of all types of action of the Air Corps,” Hockman remembered.  “That included flying equipment over the hump to China and later on to Burma when we pushed the Japanese out of Burma.  Then, we would support the bombing missions.  We would cover the Air Transport Command, the B-25’s and B-24’s.  We did stories on the building of the air field, and stories on the fighters.”

It was a laborious and sometimes dangerous process.  “When I’d go out on a shoot I’d have a parachute on this shoulder, in a box my 35 mm camera, a black case with a speed graphic camera, and I carried a Thompson sub-machine gun.  So, I would waddle with that,” Hockman recalled.  “We’d go out on assignment, with 10 100-foot rolls of film in each case.  You’d take the pictures and when it was all done we’d either give it to someone who was going on the redeye or special plane that was taking film and stuff to Calcutta, or we’d call headquarters and they would pick it up.  It would take another three days or so to get it over to the Pentagon to process the film.”

Hockman says much of the film was bought from the U.S. Government by newsreels, which showed the realities of war to the people back home.  However, Hockman admits many of the shots were staged.  “In combat, you can only shoot the backs of people, you can never see the shots being fired from the front of the gun.  So, you show preparation, and you shoot to your right and shoot to your left as the troops move forward.  And then, you show the aftermath – the dead, the captors, the aftermath.  A lot of the film we shot wasn’t very good, because it’s very difficult.”

Danger was a constant companion for photographers, but Hockman told me there is little time to think about it.  “You just do your job,” he said, “and you don’t really have time to think.  You’re not paying any attention to what’s going on around you, because you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing (to get coverage).  I looked at it as a great adventure.”

After World War II, Hockman returned to Oklahoma and stayed in the Air Force Reserves.  He returned to combat status as a photographer during the Korean War.  Hockman rose to the rank of Lt. Colonel in the Reserves, and retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1981. 

In his long career at the University of Oklahoma, Hockman established the Film Department, shot film of OU football games, produced the ground-breaking Bud Wilkinson Coaches Show, hosted the National Press Photographers Association annual training for almost three decades, and photographed or produced countless other productions, including a feature film, “Stark Fear.”  He was inducted into the National Television Academy of Arts and Sciences Gold Circle in October, 2006.

Until next time, Dick Pryor

(Ned Hockman was profiled on the Oklahoma News Report on October 31, 2007.  To see the story, click on “Videos” on this website and go to “OETA’s Dick Pryor interviews Oklahoma WWII veterans.)

He sits, alone, in a dimly-lit room for hours and hours, poring over pictures, words and music.  Days, night, weekends, photojournalist Boots Kennedye is making OETA’s Oklahoma World War II Stories come alive. 

Boots and I began our journey together in July – making phone calls, meeting veterans, setting up photo shoots, taping their stories, logging interviews, gathering photographs and video, previewing music and sound effects, writing the stories, and finally, editing.  Once the script is finished and the voiceover is recorded, Boots heads to our new, state-of-the-art Nitris editing suite to put all the elements together.  It is a tedious, time-consuming process that requires the patience and skill of a craftsman.   Boots is an artist with audio and video, and the portraits he paints reflect the passion with which he works.

Boots was born in Midwest City, but considers Jones, Oklahoma his hometown.  He graduated from high school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and attended the University of Oklahoma, where he received degrees in English Literature, Native American Studies, and Film and Video in 2003.   He started producing documentaries while at OU and has worked in OETA’s Documentary Unit for about two and a half years.

(above)  Boots Kennedye ponders an edit before entering a command on the keyboard of our High Definition, non-linear editing computer. 

He has a special appreciation for our World War II project because practically everyone in his family is military.  Boots’ mother and father were in the Navy; his step-dad is a Marine who served in Vietnam.  He has a brother who is a Navy doctor, an uncle who is a Marine, a grandmother who was a military nurse, and grandfathers who served in the Army and Army Air Corps.

“I’ve been interested in war stories because of my step-dad,” Boots said.  “He carried himself like a drill sergeant and served four tours in Vietnam.”  Clearly, family and heritage are important to Boots.  And, he’s appreciated the feeling of family that he (and I) have developed with the veterans we’ve profiled.

“Hearing these stories makes you feel like part of their family,” Boots said.  “We are hearing stories that a lot of these people don’t share with anyone except their immediate family.  It is very personal, and that’s what I like about television.  Talking to people makes it more real.  You often think of World War II passively, but listening to the stories and watching the footage for weeks in preparing the stories has made World War II come alive.”

As journalism professionals, we must do our work rather dispassionately, but we have become emotionally invested in this project.  Each person we’ve interviewed has touched us, and we want to do right by them in telling their story.  The work, however, is not always easy.  “The story involving the Holocaust and liberation of a Nazi concentration camp was the hardest visually,” Boots told me.  “Watching those pictures, those emaciated faces, over and over again was hard.  I needed to take a couple of days off after that one.” 

(above)  Boots Kennedye positions the microphone during the interview with World War II veteran Pendleton Woods.

We began shooting interviews in the searing heat of the sweaty Oklahoma summer and are still working as the leaves begin to turn colors and fall.   Each story took at least a half-day to shoot.  Generally it’s taken 3-4 days to research, log and write a story.  Then, it takes Boots 3-4 days to do his magic in the editing suite.  He connects sounds and pictures, views and reviews each shot, each word, each note, tweaking the elements over and over and over again until they fit just right.

Boots and I have worked on a tight, but well-thought out schedule.  And, he has done all of this while juggling time demands and thoughts of another event - his own marriage, earlier this month.

There are still more stories to complete, but Boots and I are grateful to have the opportunity to honor “the Greatest Generation” by working on this project, and producing OETA’s second High Definition documentary, a compilation of the stories we’ve gathered.  That documentary has a premiere airdate of December 6, 2007. 

We’ve met so many great, new friends during our work – outstanding individuals who pulled together more than 60 autumns ago to win The War.  We hope you are enjoying the Oklahoma World War II Stories that are airing on the Oklahoma News Report, and will stop for a moment to appreciate the sacrifice of the people we’ve profiled and the thousands more like them. 

Until next time, Dick Pryor

Jim Norick remembers that everybody was surprised when they learned of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  He figured sooner or later the United States was going to be involved in World War II, but it still came as a shock.  Norick says he and his wife, Madalynne, were watching a movie at the Criterion Theater in downtown Oklahoma City when they stopped the movie, and announced the Japanese attack.  “I figured, well, I’m going to have to be going, I guess,” Norick said.  “Next day, at the office, everybody was talking about it.  We didn’t know what was going to happen next.”

(above) Jim Norick’s family business in downtown Oklahoma City.

Norick was working at the family’s business, Norick Brothers Printing, in Oklahoma City.  He and Madalynne had a son, Ron, who was less than a year old.  But, by the summer of 1942, Norick figured he was going into the military soon.  So, with two Naval Bases in Norman, he entered the Navy on September 1, 1942 as a storekeeper, working in the pay office.  The work was similar to what he had been doing at Norick Brothers.

“When the base first opened on the first of September,” Norick told me recently, “they didn’t have uniforms for us for a month – we just wore civilian clothes.  They didn’t have a place for us to sleep, so I rode the Interurban back and forth from Oklahoma City to Norman.  When they finally got housing down there, then of course I had to stay on-base.”

The Naval Air Technical Training Center was built in record time – four and a half months.   It was a city of more than 19,000 with enlisted men, marines, WAVES with a ship’s company of about 2,000, and was divided into two bases, North and South.  Three separate schools fell under one command, providing training for Aviation Machinists, Metalsmiths, and Ordnancemen.  Pilots received training at the North Base.

In addition to his work in the payroll office, Jim Norick played alto saxophone and clarinet in one of the two base bands.  He recalls that it was a special thrill to play under the base’s famous band director, Tex Beneke, saxophonist and conductor in the Glenn Miller Band.  Norick says Beneke had a hearing problem, so he stayed stateside during the war, providing entertainment for those on-base and their dates from surrrounding communities.

(above) Jim Norick is second from left in front row in this picture of one of the bands at the Norman Naval Air Training Technical Center.

Norick says the bands played at the Naval hospital and, every Sunday afternoon, in Building 92, the base’s large auditorium.  “It was a morale builder,” Norick said, “yes, very much.”

(above)  Dancing was a popular pasttime at the Norman Naval Air Training Technical Center’s Building 92. 

Jim Norick was at the South Base for 16 months, but left his wife and son on December 1, 1944, to go to Charleston, South Carolina for the pre-commissioning of a sea-going tug.  By April, he was aboard the tug, with floating drydock attached, heading to the South Pacific.   

It took 18 days to go from the Panama Canal to Hawaii, then it was on to Enewitok, where they dropped off the floating drydock.  Norick and his shipmates thought they were going back to Hawaii, but instead they were sent to join the invasion forces at Guam and Saipan.  He remembers that the fighting was intense.  “They (the Japanese) were beginning to fear that they might not win,” Norick told me, “the guys having to go on the beach, you’d just pray for them, because so many of them did not come back.”

Norick went on to serve in the invasions of the Leyte Gulf and the Lingayen Gulf.  During invasions, he says everyone played a part.  It was during the fighting in the Leyte Gulf that he had a chance to turn hero, by shooting down a Japanese Betty bomber.  ”First, I was the loader, putting the bullets on that needed to be fired,” he said.  “But, the guy that was on the gun was a little trigger-happy, so they shifted me and put me on a gun and put him on the loader.  So, that’s how I became a shooter.”  Norick was on a 20-millimeter gun when he spotted the Japanese bomber, traced it down and blasted it from the sky.  He had never been trained on the 20-millimeter, but he knew how to shoot.  “Prior to that I had done a little shooting, hunting quail with my dad,” he said, “but that was a little different.”

(above) Madalynne Norick with son, Ron.

While Jim was away, Madalynne kept in touch through “V-Mails” and did her part by working in the Executive Lobby at the Douglas Aircraft Plant in Oklahoma City.  “You couldn’t survive without mail,” she said.  “You needed to know that your husband was still over there, and he was working for our country and you were trying to help the little way that you could.  It was a serious time.”  

Norick was part of the invasion force waiting about a hundred miles away from the Japanese mainland when the war ended.  He thinks the invasion would have started within a week, had the United States not dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Norick returned to his family in Oklahoma in early December, 1945.  He went back to the printing business and became involved in community and public service.  He served on the City Council and was elected Oklahoma City Mayor in 1959.  He served two terms as mayor, winning a second term in 1967.   Son Ron followed him as mayor in 1987 and held the position for 11 years. 

(above) Madalynne and Jim Norick today.

Jim Norick remains involved in family business and still plays the clarinet.  He plays each week in the Nichols Hills Concert Band and has a 6-piece combo that plays at nursing homes in the Oklahoma City area.

He also tries to remain in touch with his friends who proudly stepped up and served in what he calls, WW-Deuce.  “I think the biggest majority of the American people were mad,” Norick said, “and (said) let’s get this over with, and they did what they had to do…willingly.”

Until next time, Dick Pryor

(Jim Norick was profiled on the Oklahoma News Report on October 24, 2007.  To see the story, click on “Videos” on this website and go to “OETA’s Dick Pryor interviews Oklahoma WWII veterans.)