Category Archives: World War2

Thoughts and Ramblings: Too fat to put on booties, Pie Face, Seven Oaks, Berthe DeBretagne, Old Sparks Cemetery, moved in the 50s, and thanks to Albert.

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Well, I’ve been dieting again. The main reason is that I couldn’t bend down and put on the booties during the Historic Homes Tour in Galveston. Actually, this makes me think of all the food I grew up eating. There were many good places in Port Arthur, but I stand by my Hartmans, Monceauxs, and Fish Net picks. I also want to mention Pie Face. Her jambalaya was not of this world in the 1990s. This was when she was cooking in the Jefferson City Shopping Center. It was the old Ted’s Record Shop. I know that she was previously located near Church’s Chicken on Bluebonnet. Pork Jambalaya that only an angel from Heaven could have cooked, and sweet tea for $5.

As a kid, my family didn’t travel much. As I stated a few weeks ago, we were the poor sods who ate sandy hotdogs on McFaddin Beach, so I don’t know the appetite of North Jefferson County or even the other counties in SETX. Except for Tyler County, we all know that your Pickett House is almost a religious experience. Our Boondocks was too. What was your favorite dining spot in the counties that make up SETX, and is it still around?

When traveling along Twin-city Hwy, just before the point where Hwy 366 connects to it, you will see seven Oak trees planted back in the 1980s in a circle near the train bridge. TxDOT did not do this landscaping. The tribute to the seven astronauts who perished in the Challenger explosion in January 1986 was made by the Nederland Historical Society. I’ll give a shout-out to William D. Quick for this. When I first heard about the disaster, I was on the same porch where I saw a formation of T-6 Texans all dressed up to look like Mitsubishi A6M Zeros for the Tora, Tora, Tora airshow at the Jefferson County Airport. I also saw Air Force One in 1980. The president was here doing what politicians do. I’m still in awe of the planes but don’t care for politicians unless it’s Winston Churchill. I will go on record to say that I’m pro-peanuts, though.

Last weekend I used my time wisely. It had been a while since I updated my files–what a weekend of filing! Nine months of files uploaded and sent to the database for humanity. You’re welcome. There were many interesting things waiting to be uploaded, such as several Port Arthur News clips of Mrs. Hugo DeBretagne. She was quite a patriot, I believe. If you have followed this blog, you’ve seen me mention Hugo J. DeBretagne. She was his mother. Although I haven’t done an in-depth article on H.J., it remains an ongoing project. Below I offer a storyline for this family and hope to expand it in the future.

The father, Hugo S. DeBretagne, fought in WWI and found a bride in Belgium, named Berthe. After the war, they lived in Port Arthur and had two sons, Hugo J. and James. Throughout the 1920s and 30s, there are many mentions of Berthe DeBretagne giving public speeches or heading the Women’s Auxiliary. Since she was mentioned more than her children and husband, I can only assume that she was a go-getter.

In the 1940s, both sons enlisted and were sent to fight in the Pacific. This is where it gets fuzzy for me as a researcher. I do know that James fought at Guadalcanal, but there is no mention of Hugo. The only information I could find is for the Battle of Tarawa. Hugo J. DeBretagne was killed in action on the third and last day of the battle (November 23, 1943). His brother James survived the war. He died in 2008, but I am yet to find his story. Mrs. DeBretagne continued to be in the spotlight with the Women’s Auxiliary in the newspapers, but in 1946 she divorced her husband and went her own way. I will not attempt to explain this decision because I can’t. It is what it is. Berthe eventually remarried an immigrant from Australia named William George Hay. She is buried near her son’s memorial stone in Greenlawn in Groves, Texas. This is one story I will continue to research.

Sparks Cemetery

Another group of files I uploaded was on the Sparks Cemetery and how it was moved in the 1950s. The cemetery was located on Dupont land between Nederland and Beaumont on TwinCity Highway. The McFaddins owned the ground at the time, and both they and Dupont moved all 30 residents of the cemetery to Forest Lawn in Beaumont. I will give the McFaddins and Dupont kudos for actually moving the bodies to their new resting place. There are many accounts of Beaumont cemeteries simply left underneath sites of urban expansion. I will get into that in the future.

Well, that’s it for this week. I’ll mention that I was surprised to make it in the Out and About with Albert section of The Examiner newspaper for the Memorial Service at Magnolia Cemetery. It’s better than the police beat. Au revoir.

Food for Thought in Port Arthur Texas (70s -80s)

https://www.rediscoveringsetx.com/2013/01/23/food-for-thought-in-port-arthur-texas-70s-80s/

Thoughts and Ramblings: Scary Trees, Kishi Colony, Lucian Adams, and a Rant

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I believe we’ve lost a few friends. If you’ve ever traveled down Highway FM 105, west of FM 1442 in Orange County, you might have seen some odd old trees. They looked like they would be perfectly at home on Almira Gulch’s land in Kansas/Oz, ready to grab Dorothy and her little dog “too.” I love Margaret Hamilton. They were Camphor trees planted by Toraichi Kishi, brother of Kichimatsu Kishi, who immigrated from Japan to farm rice. These trees were registered with the Texas Forest Service at some point, and according to the TAMU website, one of them was on the Texas Big Tree Registry. Now, only one colossal tree is left. The others sadly succumbed to the freeze of February 2021. These trees were apparently planted in the 1910s.

Growing up, we had a Camphor tree. When I was 7 years old, the plant was my link to traveling the seas on a boat called the Westwind. Thinking back, I have little knowledge of the TV show, but I do know that my Camphor tree smelled better than that yacht from the 1970s.

Speaking of the Kishis, a few years back, I came across a scrapbook filled with newspaper articles from the 1940s at an estate sale in Port Neches. Its owner, Miss Davis, kept many articles leading up to and during the war. One was a Beaumont Enterprise article about a young man named Taro Kishi, an American born into a family of Japanese descendants (a Nisei). His words in the article spoke of patriotism and wanting to fight against the aggressors of the United States. Still, the U.S. military was not recruiting Japanese Americans at this point. Eventually, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team was formed with Japanese Americans and fought in the Italy campaign.

As I mention the history of WWII and the Italy campaign, I have to bring up Lucian Adams from Port Arthur. He was one of twelve siblings: nine boys and three girls. Eight of the boys served during the war, and fortunately, all of them returned home. Lucian carried out many heroic acts. The first one was during the landing at Anzio, where he knocked out an enemy machine-gun position, leading his unit to advance. Lucian earned a Bronze Star for this. During another campaign in France, he knocked out three machine-gun nests all by himself, two using grenades and the other one with his Browning Automatic Rifle. For this, he received the Medal of Honor. There go a couple of tales from my “Greatest Generation file”—because they were our greatest generation!

I’ve volunteered for many organizations and will continue to do so in the future, but I am a bit irked at a few non-profits in our area. In the past, I’ve had a couple of bad experiences with these Wine and Cheese factories that communicate nice messages about supporting “our history” but treat their volunteers like cannon fodder. Admittedly, the organizations I refer to have gotten rid of the people in charge at the time, but I still have no desire to become one of their winos. I will not mention the organizations here, but if you ever see me out on the street, I would love to tell you about the dark side of this history.

My real gripe here is that someone takes time out of their life to help your non-profit, and you, as the organizer, are being well compensated. I do believe these people should be paid, but please treat your (unpaid) volunteers with respect, and know that if it weren’t for them, your organization would cease to exist. Treat us right, and we will come; treat us wrong, and you will die a horrible death.

Well, I had a whole other rant about volunteers being given a 3×5 card of historical information, but low and behold, I was just emailed three pages of facts about the house I’ll be volunteering at. I like whoever is the powers that be currently. Things are looking up. Hope to see you in Galveston this week and next. Even you, Wanda. Just wear comfy shoes. No heels!

Marine Scout Bomber Squadron 931 (VMSB-931)

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I’ve written a few blurbs about SETX during World War II, and I plan on writing a few more in the future. This era of our country and the generation to which we owe much inspires me greatly. Since childhood, I have absorbed the history told in theaters, books, and legends, but a walk through a cemetery certainly adds a human factor to the endless tales of sacrifice. Especially when the headstone in front of you is not a headstone at all, but a memorial to a fallen son or daughter who has been lost forever. As time passes and there is no one left to speak or remember their name, the life that was lived is forgotten. There are a few of these stories here in SETX, and I hope to honor these individuals in future blogs by sharing their stories. But before I delve into some of our SETX locals, I would like to bring attention to a few lost heroes who deserve to be remembered in SETX history.

It was fall 1944, and the war was still raging on both fronts. Like most periodicals across our nation, local SETX newspapers centered on the liberation of Belgium and the European theatre. The heavy fighting on Peleliu and throughout the Pacific were occasionally mentioned, but these events seemed to take a back seat to the success in Europe. It would be at this theatre that Marine Aircraft Group 93 (MAG-93) would train its pilots for battle. MAG-93 began in April 1944 at Cherry Point, North Carolina. Its first squadron was commissioned on April 15th under the command of Major John L. Dexter and was known as Marine Scout Bomber Squadron 931. Other squadrons, such as VMSB-932, would also be commissioned into MAG-93 and would spend countless hours (round the clock, for a brief time) in training centered at Jefferson County Airport. However, the Marine Scout Bombing Squadron (VMSB-931) will be our main focus in this article.

In May, VMSB-931 was transferred to Eagle Mountain Lake, Texas (near Ft. Worth) to begin their operational training. It also became attached to Marine Aircraft Group 33 (MAG-33). The squadron consisted of 18 SBD-5 (Dauntless)-type aircraft with 37 commissioned officers and 160 enlisted men. Records show that only one operational accident occurred during this period, which resulted in the damage and loss of an SBD-5. Fortunately, there was no loss of life, and the squadron continued their training through July, attaining a 43.1% readiness for combat rating by their superior.

Dauntless

By August, it was time for the squadron to begin the second phase of their training; thus, the VMSB-931 were temporarily detached to the U.S. Naval Section Base in Sabine Pass, Texas “for duty in connection with the basing of tactical squadrons of Marine Aircraft Group 33 at Jefferson County Airport, Beaumont, Texas. This duty includes gunnery, dive-bombing, and overwater navigation training,” wrote Commander John L. Dexter in the squadron’s war diary on the first of August. The next week would consist of setting up operations at their new location and finally beginning their overwater flight training on August 8th.

As most of us know, the Gulf can be very unpredictable in September, and 1944 was no exception. On September 9th, a tropical storm formed about 170 miles southeast of Matamoros, Mexico, and began to move north. All planes were evacuated out of the area to where I would assume was back to Eagle Mountain Lake. Their absence would not last long, however, because Tropical Storm Six would move northeast and make landfall at the Mississippi River Delta on the 10th with top winds of 65 mph. Needless to say, all planes were back on September 11th. Training resumed the next day, and here is where our story takes a deadly turn.

During overwater flight training off the coast of the Sabine Pass, 2nd Lieutenant Marion M. Puliz attempted to rendezvous from below the lead plane flown by 2nd Lieutenant Richard L. Savoie, resulting in a mid-air collision. Both planes crashed into the Gulf and sank in 35 feet of water. Both pilots and the two gunners, Corporal Richard R. Stoddard and Private First Class William C. Bathurst, were killed. 2nd Lieutenant Puliz’s body was the only one recovered out of the four.

More tragedy hit 931 eight days later when 2nd Lieutenant William G. Duvall “attempted a slow roll at low altitude. He lost control and went into a progressive stall, hitting the water on the left wing. Plane was observed to explode and sink immediately upon striking the water,” wrote Commander Dexter. Both the pilot and the gunner, Private First Class Albert W. Bitner, perished in the crash, and neither body was recovered.

Amazingly, there are a few newspaper accounts of these tragedies; however, with few of them offer details of the actual crashes. For instance, the Port Arthur News reports consisted of the identities of the victims and, oddly enough, a few mentions of sightings of a body a few weeks later off the coast of High Island. A search for the bodies after each accident occurred was conducted by the Coast Guard, but no remains were found.

An article dated September 27 reported that a swimmer informed the Coast Guard that he had brushed against a body while swimming just off the coast of High Island. A search ensued that lasted until 2 a.m. but was deemed “fruitless” by Coast Guard officials who, in their statement, said that the swimmer “had been mistaken.”

The following day, the Port Arthur News reported, “Louis Welch of Sabine Pass, county commissioner of Precinct 3, also reported seeing the body to Coast Guard officials. According to Welch, he sighted the body floating in the Gulf water about one mile east of the Chambers and Jefferson Counties boundary line.” Welch tried to “tow it ashore,” but a wave swept the body away. The search for the body was resumed, but it was never recovered.

Jefferson County Airport 1945

Operational training ended September 21st for the VMSB-931, and the squadron returned to Eagle Mountain Lake a few days later. But this was not the end of the Marine Aircraft Group’s training facilities here in Jefferson County, as the 932 (VMSB-932) would arrive at Jefferson County Airport on September 26th to begin their operational training as well. I am unsure where these brave young men ended up after their training, but I can only guess that a few would have participated in ending this long, drawn-out war. I researched further, but there are thousands upon thousands of war diary documents to sift through and many more rabbit holes that I find myself not capable of going down in a relatively short amount of time. One day, if time permits, I would like to continue on the trail of the 931, but plenty more tales are coming soon.

 

Sources:

Jefferson County Historical Commission archives

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Port Arthur News archives