Honoring one who gave his all
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Food for Thought
Judge of Probate Richard Dean
October is almost gone, and we are fast approaching November and the beginning of celebrations of numerous holidays and events. Some happy, some funny and some somber.
November 1 is All Saints Day. Different religions and cultures celebrate this day in many ways. Some remember the saints for which there is no special day, others reflect on loved ones who have passed, and some visit and repair the graves of deceased family members.
November 4 is Will Rogers Day and Sadie Hawkins Day. Will Rogers was an American humorist who poked fun at our government. He would have a field day if he were alive now. Sadie Hawkins was from the Al Capp comic strip “Lil’ Abner.” Sadie wasn’t able to find a husband, so her father arranged a foot race in which Sadie would chase the town’s bachelors. If she caught one, he would have to marry her.
For 2023, November 5 is the end of Daylight Saving Time and the switching back to standard time.
November 11 is Veterans Day. The day I want to highlight. It began as Armistice Day on November 11, 1919. Over time the name and the day/date has changed and is now on November 11. This day America recognizes its military veterans for their service to our nation. The phrase “All gave some; some gave all” is fitting as I start the focus of this column.
I want to honor one of those who gave his all to this nation and his fellow Airmen. I will even provide a tidbit that brings a tie to Coosa County, Alabama.
The person is Archibald Mathies. While serving as Vice Commandant at the College for Enlisted Professional Military Education (late 1990s) at Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base, we dedicated and re-named our Keesler Air Force Base Academy the Mathies Noncommissioned Officer Academy. At the functions leading up to the dedication, I had the honor of meeting and spending time with Archibald’s only surviving brother (David) and sister-in-law (Dorothy) and gained some real insight into the man Archibald Mathies.
They told me he liked to be called Archie and that he had a mischievous, fun-filled streak in him. They said he was a young man full of life and lived life to its fullest. Dorothy also whispered to me that while Archie was home on leave in November ’43, before going to Europe, he would sneak out of his parents’ house to jump on the fender of the community bus to catch a ride “to the local honkytonk.” They also informed me Archie had served at Maxwell Field, Alabama, for a short time during his training.
Archie was born in Scotland in 1918, and while a child, immigrated with his mother and stepfather to Finleyville, Pennsylvania. Growing up in the small town of Finleyville (population in 1940 was 699, today estimated at 375), there wasn’t much opportunity, and Archie became a coal miner. On October 1, 1941, Archie enlisted in the Army Air Corps.
Following approximately two years training as a B-17 Flying Fortress mechanic and flight engineer, Archie received orders assigning him to the 8th Air Force and subsequently to the 510th Bomb Squadron, 351st Bomb Group, Royal Air Force Base Polebrook, England.
On January 18, 1944, Archie was assigned flight engineer and ball turret gunner for the crew of a B-17 named the “Ten Horsepower.” On February 17, 1944, Archie was promoted to the rank of Staff Sergeant. On February 20, the Ten Horsepower crew was assigned a mission to bomb industrial targets in Leipzig, Germany.
It was on this mission that Archibald Mathies would earn the Medal of Honor. The Ten Horsepower had sustained heavy damage from enemy ground antiaircraft fire and aggressive air attacks. In addition to the plane’s damage, the crew suffered casualties. The co-pilot was dead, the pilot and radio operator were severely wounded and unconscious, and the plane was described as “being held together by a thread and a prayer.”
Archie left the ball turret to render aid to his wounded fellow crewmen. However, realizing their plane was pilotless, Archie rushed into the then bloody cockpit and, using the limited knowledge of piloting he had gained in flight engineer school, grabbed the controls and pulled the big B-17 out of a nosedive that would have surely resulted in the total loss of the crew.
After getting the plane’s flight stabilized, Archie and the crew miraculously made it back to England. However, no one on board had experience landing a B-17, much less one with the major damage the Ten Horsepower had suffered.
Archie and the navigator (Walter Truemper) managed to contact the tower and describe their desperate situation. They flew the Ten Horsepower over the airbase where ground and tower personnel observed the devastating damage the plane had suffered. After observing the damaged B-17 from another plane flying alongside, Archie’s commanding officer ordered Archie and the crew to bail out and ditch the plane. However, the pilot who was still alive was so badly wounded they could not take the chance of egressing him from the plane.
Archie and Truemper refused to leave behind the wounded pilot to die in the ditching of the B-17. They flew the plane over the field, and all crew members who were able were ordered to either be tossed with a parachute from the plane or to jump from the plane.
After most of the crew had bailed out, Archie and Truemper attempted to land the plane. After two unsuccessful attempts and with it getting late, they were ordered to attempt to land at a less populated airfield nearby, a place called Denton Hill. On their third attempt, the plane crashed, killing Archie and Truemper. The pilot survived the crash, but died a few days later. For their unselfish devotion to fellow Airmen and gallantry at risk of life above and beyond the call of duty in action against an enemy of this nation, Archibald Mathies and Walter Truemper were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
Now for the tie to Coosa County. In a conversation with Mr. Joe Collins (from Richville), one of Coosa’s WWII veterans, I started to tell him this story after he informed me he had been stationed at Polebrook, England. Shortly after I began, Mr. Joe said, “I was there that day when that boy tried to land that plane. They flew over the airfield, and everyone who was able bailed out of the plane.”
As Mr. Joe spoke, I had goosebumps. Archie’s heroic efforts were a significant part of Air Force/Air Corps history and drilled into me from the time I was a young Airman. When I entered the Air Force in 1974, Archie was one of only five enlisted Air Force personnel to have received the Medal of Honor. To meet a person from Coosa County who was there on that eventful day and able to relay firsthand the incident, I was humbled. It is truly a small, small world.
This Veterans Day, think of Mr. Joe, think about the heroes who sacrificed beyond the call of duty, and thank a veteran to whom we owe so much.
