Another of the articles
originally published in the June 1992 issue of Between the Lakes “A newsletter
of the Interlaken Historical Society” as part of their series Lest We Forget.
Today’s reflection was written by and honors William Holman,
On November 2nd, 1942, Uncle Sam decided it was my turn to help him out.
Early in the morning, I was off for Fort Niagara; and would you believe it? I
spent my first night in the "brig" (jail) due to the overcrowding.
The real shock came at 5:30 the
next morning when reveille sounded and we lined up for breakfast in the cold. After a few weeks
of processing, I ended up in the Air Force and was off to Mitchell Field, L.I., and then to San
Antonio, Texas.
During the next year, I was at four different flying schools,
learning to be a fighter pilot. In November of 1943, after graduation, I was
off to Panama and very lucky to be assigned to what I thought was the best squadron
flying P-39s. Our job was to meet and intercept every plane and ship
(commercial or otherwise) that approached the Panama Canal.
After a year we boarded a cattle boat and traveled through the
Canal, up through the Caribbean Sea, to New Orleans and were given two weeks
off. While home, I finally convinced Phyllis Morehouse that I was the best choice she had. (She was in Robert Packer Hospital
nursing school in Sayre, PA.) We were married, and after too short a honeymoon I
was off to Florida for three months training in the new P-51 fighters.
Next came a train trip across the U.S. to San Francisco. After boarding a troop ship, we sailed under the San Francisco
Bay Bridge for
Melbourne, Australia, up through the Red Sea, to Karachi, India. We traveled across India to Burma in an Indian
troop train that would make our freight cars look like Pullmans!
While I was in the India-Burma Theater, our job was driving the Japanese south out of Burma. This was done in close cooperation with the British
troops. We had many low-level bombing and
strafing missions on bridges, railroads, and convoys. We even used napalm
(liquid fire) on warehouses and supply dumps. Trains ran at night and were
camouflaged during the day. Even so, we would find them and go after the
locomotive first and then the boxcars.
As the war progressed, we had control of most of Burma, so we
had to travel farther south. Our longest missions (and also the longest
offensive fighter mission the entire war) carne when we flew from our base on
the India-Burma border to Bangkok, Siam (now Thailand)--a distance of over
1,500 miles. For this we carried two 110-gallon drop tanks, plus the normal
310-gallon internal tanks. There was no mid-air refueling in those days! We were in the air
over six hours and returned nearly empty. In fact, several of our planes had to land for fuel at a
dirt strip down the coast. Normal consumption for a P-51 was a gallon a
minute, plus more over the target.
 |
| Bill Holman with his P-51 Mustang, July 1944. Interlaken Historical Society photo collection |
It was a complete surprise to them, as we destroyed over twenty bombers on the ground and three in the air. We tried it a couple of weeks later, but they were there waiting and we lost five of our planes.
When the war was over, it was homeward bound for us: across the
Red Sea, Suez Canal, Mediterranean Sea, Atlantic Ocean, and into New York.
After the trip around the world, would you believe that my wife
Phyllis got caught on
the wrong side of the train tracks at Ithaca and I had to wait for the train to
continue on its journey before we could meet at 3 A.M.? We then went to Interlaken where I met my new son, Jack, already ten months old.
William Ditmars Holman died May
12, 1993 age 71. He is buried with his wife Phyllis Morehouse Holman (died
6/10/2010) at Lake View Cemetery, Interlaken, NY.
Dewitt’s Diary, Friday, May 12,
1922
Fitting corn ground today. I went
down and plowed a little berry bed up for father.
I got my hair cut today. I dug
200 strawberry plants from father’s bed today. Setting out strawberry plants
this afternoon above the orchard.
I have radishes, lettuce, and
beets up in the garden. Plenty of pieplant, asparagus in the garden.
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