17-Mile Field, Port Moresby, New Guinea
The day of their first mission, October 21, 1943, Dale Wilson wrote home, “We have to clear off a patch of ground and erect our tent or, as some are doing, building a shack out of swiped lumber or lumber acquired by producing a little liquor at the right place–usually at the saw mill. We are figuring on using some shale or gravel as the floor for our tent. Yesterday I cleared off a place on a little knoll which had an area a little larger than the tent on top. The water can run away from it in all directions. I picked the spot after Lt. Stack (Bombardier-Navigator) suggested we build down in a ditch just because it was flat. I dug nice drainage ditches and built up our foundation with clay. It is going to be a good place to live after we get the tent put up and fix ourselves a few little conveniences.”
The same day, the bomber’s navigator, John “Junie” Stack wrote home that they were building a place to live out of what lumber we can buy or steal. . . .If you don’t want to build one and screen it in, you can sleep in a tent and give your blood to the mosquitoes, so Wieland [pilot], Wilson [copilot], Flaczinksi (“Irish”) [I’m not familiar with this name] and myself have started one.”
The next day, Lt. Stack added, “Finished it will be a wooden, screened-in house with a tent for a roof, if you can picture that. Material is awfully hard to get, and right now we’re trying to drive a bargain to get six hundred feet of flooring for four quarts of gin. It should work out, as the Aussies have all the lumber and we have all the liquor. Right now we have the foundation nearly done on the side of a hill. It should be pretty nice when finished. Better anyway than giving you blood to the mosquitoes rather than to the Red Cross!”
Dale mentioned the mosquitoes as well. More about 17-Mile Field. Each man had a canvas cot with a mosquito net.
“Dale, like all of us, lived on a mountainside in a 16’X16’ tent,” veteran Lew Pavel wrote decades later. Four to six officers lived each tent, which had a dirt floor and one small light bulb. A light bulb! Each man had a canvas cot with a mosquito net.
Dale Wilson also told about their primitive living primitive. They cleared off a knoll a little larger than the tent, dug drainage ditches so water could run off in all directions, and built up a clay foundation. “The sweat runs off you like water,” he wrote. “I actually sweat out more liquid than I can drink. We even urinate very little. I am thirsty all the time and drink water continually.”
Stack mentioned a typewriter in one letter. “The typewriter is needed, so will sign off for now.” Typewriters during the 1940s were not light weight. It’s hard to imagine, but Dale Wilson also typed letters–sitting on a cot in his tent and under mosquito netting.
This crew was lost November 27, 1943, hit by AA fire, just off Boram/Wewak, New Guinea. It was Dale Wilson’s 13th mission, Junie Stack’s seventh mission, Ted Sharpton’s one and only mission.
Information about John R. Stack is from Reading Between the Lines: Getting to Know Uncle Junie Through the Letters He Left Behind by Mary and Jim Ragsdale. Jim Ragsdale, a reporter for the Saint Paul Pioneer Press and later for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, began the manuscript before his death in 2014. His widow and the niece of Junie Stack later finished the book, which was published only for family. Mary is looking into offering it more widely as an ebook.
See also: Leora’s Letters: The Story of Love and Loss for an Iowa Family During World War II. And What Leora Never Knew: A Granddaughter’s Quest for Answers.
Thank you, Joy. These first hand accounts are riveting and emotional to read. Like touching history. Appreciate you. ❤️
Thanks, Vicki! It was fun to learn they passed that heavy typewriter around.
Yes! Amazing. 🥰
So interesting to me to read about setting up living quarters for the men. And how they did so “under fire” from mosquitoes and the hit temps.
Thank you, Kelly. All “kids” in their twenties.
Thanks for sharing this information, Joy. There is something sad about these men having to build their own housing and fight a war. I’m glad they ad the gin.
I was surprised at first, but his brother Danny and other P-38 pilots built their own stone huts the winter of 1944-45 in Italy. Thank you, John.
My uncle was a P-38 pilot as well. Based in France and England
8th Air Force? Dan Wilson was based in Italy with the 15th. He was KIA and is buried at the Lorraine American Cemetery in eastern France.
I’ll have to check about the 8th.
So sad that we lost so many good men!
Right you are, GP.
Fascinating look at an aspect of being in that area at that time.
Thanks, Eilene. I was thankful to connect in the 1990s with retirees who’d survived the war. Curtis Swan was also the pilot who sent family letters back when a crew was MIA.
Fascinating and informative, Joy, finding out how tough the warriors of WWII had it.
Thank you, Tim.
My Dad served in the Army in New Guinea and he always told me how it rained for 40 days and 40 nights.
I wonder what time of year your dad was there. Dale was there in October and November of 1943, which was their “spring.” Thank you, Dannie!
Those fellows were very resourceful!
Quite professional “nose art” on the Mitchell ! I wonder who did it. So many times I have wondered how the “Wilson kids” coped with losing siblings. Including Mom’s twin, Dale.
I’ve never discovered who did the nose art for their squadron, or whether they named their plane. They flew several different ones, but mostly the one they were flying during their last mission. I’m working on a motherline manuscript and noted that, in just over 5 years, Doris was married, lost three brothers and her dad, and had two children. Darlene’s losses and gains were similar. She said she could hardly remember your babyhood because of Danny’s loss. I don’t know how they coped, but I’m thankful their own mother and grandmother were there for them. I think that motherline was such a blessing and strength.
Later in life Mom admitted that I wasn’t “nurtured” or held much the first year or so. All those years I just figured being dropped on my head more than once would explain a few things ! Plus, at that time, Mom and Dad had 2-1/2 year old, Richard, to contend with (terrible twos?). I don’t know how well, but I managed to “struggle” through life someway !
I think Richard stayed with Clabe and Leora at Panora for at least a month after you were born.
I’m amazed at this crew’s ability to plan and build a little screened in house with flooring while sweating, drinking, and swatting mosquitoes. And they had a light bulb, so did they have a generator? 🙂
They must have had some kind of generator. They had plenty of downtime when weather delayed combat missions, and kept them busy!
[…] aboard, including my mother’s brother, Dale Wilson. I told him I am still in contact with Mary Ragsdale, the niece of the bomber’s navigator, and two great nieces of the very young Ted Sharpton, […]