THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 6, 1995 TAG: 9508040201
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Olde Towne Journal
SOURCE: Alan Flanders
LENGTH: Long : 139 lines
At daybreak on Aug. 6, 1945, a lone U.S. Army B-29 flew over the coast of Japan. The bomber, nicknamed the ``Enola Gay,'' had taken off on a top secret mission from what was then the longest airstrip in the world on an obscure Pacific island known as Tinian. At the controls of the ``Enola Gay,'' Lt. Col. Paul Tibbets had one mission, to drop a single bomb over the target and get his B-29 out of the drop zone as soon as possible.
That same morning, half a world away, Lt. Elder Lee Craft of Portsmouth was convalescing at the Naval Hospital, having torn his legs badly on Tinian's coral beach during the initial assault to capture the island. His SeaBee unit, CBD 1036, had been charged with routine ``cleaning up'' around Tinian Town.
But the ``routine'' removal of war debris and the construction of temporary housing and roads were quickly and mysteriously interrupted. In his war memoirs Craft wrote, ``and then something happened. Work began on an air strip, a very long one, longer than anyone I had ever seen. But why? Why so long and for what purpose? No one knew and, if they did know, they were not talking.''
Craft and his men were used to following the first wave of an invasion force into an island. Their job was to provide immediate logistical support such as runways, temporary hospitals, storage buildings and barracks for American forces still engaged with the enemy so that reinforcements could establish a permanent ``beachhead'' during the island-hopping campaign against the Japanese in the Pacific Campaign.
Often they were called to withdraw their bulldozers and construction teams within days of a landing to prepare for another amphibious assault hundreds of miles away.
But Tinian was different.
Craft wrote in his notes that ``as the weeks and months passed, I began to wonder just when we would receive orders to push on to another island closer to Japan.'' But then his leg infection grew worse. Just as the runway was complete, Craft was ordered back home, otherwise risking the lost of his legs. At the hospital, Craft had a chance to look back over his military career, which spanned four wars.
He first enlisted in 1910 in the National Guard 4th Company, Coast Artillery, Virginia Volunteers as a private. But his love affair with things military began as an 11-year-old when he recalled: ``I witnessed on April 5, 1904, the launch of the battleship USS VIRGINIA from Newport News. It was my first close-up look at a great battleship and I decided, then and there, that some day I would join the Navy.''
After three years, he surrendered to what he described as ``a restless spirit that demanded more action.''
``So,'' he wrote, ``I began to think about the Navy again, and I finally decided to give it a try.''
After recruit training at St. Helena, Craft received orders to report to the Louisiana, after which his ship joined a battle group heading for the port of Vera Cruz to support American forces enforcing national interests during the Mexican revolution.
He later added, ``It was exciting for me. My first war!''
But later in 1912, after seeing his first U.S. casualties, he wrote, ``In my opinion, it doesn't matter if a war is a small one or a large world wide, if you lose just one man - War is Hell!''
Returning to Portsmouth, he received orders to join the commissioning crew of the battleship Arizona, a ship that would play a major role in his life long after his military service. Craft spent World War I in the Navy, after which he came back to Portsmouth and joined the shipyard as a rigger. Suddenly, on a Sunday morning in 1941, his old ship, Arizona, unexpectedly re-entered his life.
On Dec. 7, 1941, Craft and hundreds of other shipyarders were taking a lunch break and listening to the radio.
``Suddenly, the music stopped,'' he recalled, ``and the radio was silent for about 30 seconds. Then in a shaky voice, I heard the announcer say that the Japs had attacked Pearl Harbor. Of course, I didn't believe it.
``When he announced they had sunk the Arizona, I was sick. I couldn't finish my lunch. When the news was over, I swore I would go back in the Navy and do what I could to do to avenge the sinking of my old ship.''
There was just one impediment to Craft's patriotic zeal, he was by then 50 years old.
During 1943, Craft continued to appeal to local recruiters to overlook his age and poor vision, which he had sustained from a childhood accident, but he was turned down three times. On Craft's fourth try, he challenged a Navy doctor to test his eyes against his own in reading some correspondence left on the desk. When the doctor reached for his glasses, Craft demanded that he try without them. After the physician failed, Craft stood at a distance and read the messages perfectly. Suddenly, his eye examination was waived, and within 10 days Craft was sworn in as a lieutenant in the Civil Engineers Corps with orders to report to Camp Peary near Williamsburg as an instructor for stevedores.
After several months, he was able to trade positions with a member of the CBD-1036 Special ``SeaBee'' Unit that was headed for further training at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
During his three months in Hawaii, Craft wrote: ``A friend had a small launch and took me out to see the remains of the Arizona. While viewing what remained of the once great ship, I said a silent prayer for the 1,100 young men who were still in her hull and would remain forever.''
Then came classified orders bearing some strange requests.
As Craft recalled: ``Early in June 1944, I was ordered to start crating all of my cargo handling gear, including (and you won't believe this) an ice cream freezer, and the ingredients necessary to make ice cream. The name of the vessel I was to report to was not written but instead given to me verbally. My orders also included: `. . . for transportation to location, not to be disclosed.' ''
Craft's destination was Tinian Island and his secret mission was to join the construction battalion responsible for building an airstrip for the ``Enola Gay.''
Later, at the Portsmouth Naval Hospital, Craft learned that his work was a success. The B-29 had completed her mission Aug. 6, 1945. At 8:15 a.m., one bomb was dropped. In a blinding flash of light and terrible explosion, followed by a firestorm and then darkness caused by the tons of debris overhead, the Japanese city of Hiroshima disappeared, killing approximately 150,000 inhabitants.
After a failure to negotiate an unconditional surrender, on Aug. 9, a second B-29, nicknamed ``Bach's Car,'' was ordered from Tinian to drop another atomic bomb. This time Nagasaki would suffer similar destruction. On Aug. 15, the Japanese Emperor ordered his military to surrender.
After World War II, Craft returned to Norfolk and later served in the Korean War, his fourth war, as a SeaBee instructor.
Often reflecting on the part he and his men had played in getting the atomic bomb aloft, Craft reached a personal peace about what happened. He judged that atomic weapons, as terrible as they were, forced the Japanese to surrender, which prevented a very costly American invasion of the home island.
At the end of his memoir, he added: ``I was very happy. Happy because the men in CBD 1036 and myself had a small part in bringing an end to a war that never should have started in the first place. God forgives us for our sins, so I forgave the Japanese. But I can never forget what happened to the Arizona at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.'' ILLUSTRATION: AP photo
The B-29 Enola Gay lands at its Tinian Island base after its atomic
bombing mission over Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945.
Photo
Lt. Elder Lee Craft
Commanding officer of CBD 1036
by CNB