Memorial Day weekend is upon us,
and I would love to honor all of my ancestors that have served our country. There are several to choose from with
involvement in the Revolution, War of 1812, and the Civil
War. You will see all of those stories
in time on this blog, but I decided to start with a story that is a bit more
recent.
My father, Robert Gordon
Scribner, attended Virginia Polytechnic Institute in 1942 where he joined the
Engineers ROTC. While at school that
first year, he was recruited for the Navy V-5 Aviation Cadet program. He
took and passed the entrance exams, but before he could join the program, he needed
permission from his parents. Against his
mother’s wishes, his father, Henry Dickinson Scribner, signed approval for
Robert (known as Bob), at 19 years of age, to enlist on December 14, 1942 in
the V-5 Naval Aviation program.
Beginning training in 1943,
Bob first went to Colgate University in New York, and the cadets were
subsequently sent to Hickory, North Carolina, Athens, Georgia, St Louis, Missouri
and Corpus Christi, Texas. On June 13,
1945, Bob graduated from the extensive training program that saw over 50% of
the cadets in his class wash out. He was
finally a naval aviator and he took his commission in the United States Marine
Corps as a 2nd Lieutenant.
After his wings were “pinned”, Bob was assigned to a squadron based in
Miami, Florida as a pilot of an Avenger Torpedo Bomber during the final months
of World War II. Bob’s next assignment
was to a carrier air group stationed at the Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) in
Santa Barbara, California where they cruised the Pacific aboard the USS Mindora for several months taking
off and landing from the carrier at sea.
By 1948, Bob was on the
Atlantic coast stationed at Quantico, Virginia flying the Vought F4U Corsair, Grumman
F4F Tigercat fighter, F7F Tigercat fighter, and R4D transport planes. At Quantico, he met his future wife, Ann Hart
Hughes, and they were engaged just before the Marine Corps sent Bob to
Tsingtao, China where his squadron flew railroad patrol in northern China. By the end of 1948, while Bob’s squadron was
in Tsingtao, Peking fell to Chinese nationalist forces led by Mao Tse Tung. And by March 1949, the squadron was forced to
leave as the communist forces were on the move.
Bob’s squadron joined a carrier between China and Okinawa, Japan, then
went on to Guam, then San Diego, and finally arrived at the MCAS in Edenton,
North Carolina by May of 1949.
On August 6, 1949, Robert
Gordon Scribner married Ann Hart Hughes in Norfolk, Virginia. They purchased their first home for $6,600 in
Edenton, North Carolina where Bob was stationed at the time. By 1951, he was transferred to the MCAS at
Cherry Point, Virginia where Bob’s squadron was sent to the air carrier, USS Oriskany in the Mediterranean Sea. For the next six months, they visited Italy,
Sicily, Crete, Greece, Turkey, Libya, Malta, Gibraltar and France.
In January 1952, Bob’s
squadron was deployed to Pohang and later Suwon, South Korea flying the Grumman
F9F Panther jet and the Boeing F-86 Sabre jet into combat. While in Korea, Bob flew over 70 combat
missions. Most of his missions were
interdiction missions, cutting rail lines, and close air support. He and his fellow Marines spent the harsh Korean
winter months in 4-man tents with a stove in the center.
It wasn’t all smooth
flying. In Bob’s memoirs, he recounts
crashing a plane in February 1952, while in South Korea. Bob was flying a plane…
“that had just come out of repair. I was only airborne about 10 minutes
when I noticed fire by my feet. I tried
to call the tower and then realized that the fire had melted all my electronics
including my airspeed indicator and radio.
I maneuvered close to the field to eject and found out the fire had also
melted the lines to the canopy ejection system.
Unable to eject, my only choice was to put the aircraft down on a
3600-foot runway or the beach. I elected
the runway because I knew I needed someone to get me out of the aircraft. I
could not lower my flaps, speed brakes or landing gear. Not having any airspeed indicator I did not
want to stall out and spin in so I held a lot of speed, people who saw it
guessed 200 knots, and jammed it down on the very start of the runway and
started shedding parts; tip tanks, wings and tail. I used the whole runway and then some and
came to rest about 200 feet off of the end of the runway. I started to take my
38 cal. Smith & Wesson, that we carried all the time, and try and shoot a
hole to escape through in the canopy when an ordnance man, Cpl DeAngelo, saw my
predicament and picked up a big rock and busted the canopy and hauled me out
just in time because after we had moved about 50 feet from the fuselage the
ejection seat blew. About that time the
Chaplin came over to the crash site to give the pilot ‘Last Rites’ as he knew
he could not of survived that crash. I
ended up with just a cut on my chin that took the Flight Surgeon three stitches
to fix.” – excerpt taken from “Robert G Scribner Remembers”
Though eligible, Bob refused to let anyone
complete paperwork for a Purple Heart after he got his three stitches on his
chin. He didn’t want his wife, Ann, to
somehow get word that her husband had been wounded.
While serving in South Korea,
Bob was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Distinguished Flying Cross
First Lieutenant Robert G Scribner
United States Marine Corps
Date: 13 Feb 1952
Location: Korea
For service as set forth in
the following:
CITATION: “For
heroism and extraordinary achievement in aerial flight as Pilot of a Plane in
Marine Fighter Squadron THREE HUNDRED ELEVEN during operations against enemy
aggressor forces in Korea on 13 February 1952. Participating in a close air
support flight in the vicinity Tosan, First Lieutenant Scribner carried out a
series of devastating bombing and strafing attacks in the face of intense
automatic-weapons fire against a concentration of enemy trucks and troops
shielded by revetments and surrounded by automatic-weapons positions,
personally scoring three direct hits and contributing materially to the damage
or destruction of twenty hostile trucks. Diving repeatedly through the enemy
fire, he persisted in his attacks until all ordnance was expended and
neutralization of the staging area was assured. By his marked courage, skilled
airmanship and devotion to duty, First Lieutenant Scribner was greatly
instrumental in dealing a damaging blow to the enemy and upheld the highest traditions
of the United States Naval Service.” – For the President, Secretary of the
Navy.
As a member of the
Distinguished Flying Cross Society, Robert G Scribner’s name is inscribed on
the Wall of Honor located along a
tree-lined walkway leading into the Smithsonian
National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center located in Chantilly, Virginia.
Bob Scribner had a long and interesting Marine
aviation career until his retirement in 1963 with over 500 carrier landings to
his name. He served in the United States
Marine Corps for 21 years before his retirement at the rank of Lieutenant
Colonel. Bob’s last assignment was as
the Commanding Officer of Headquarters and Headquarters Squadron at the Marine
Air Station in Yuma, Arizona.
In addition to the Distinguished Flying Cross,
Bob was also recognized during his career with the following decorations: the Air Medal, Navy Occupation Medal, China
Service Medal, Navy Unit Commendation, Korea Service Medal, United Nations
Ribbon, National Defense Service Medal, WW II Victory Medal, Korean
Presidential Unit Citation, and the American Campaign Medal.
* * *
* *
Key individuals:
Henry Dickinson Scribner (1880 – 1943)
Robert Gordon Scribner (1923 – 2006)
Ann Hart Hughes Scribner (1921 – 2006)
Notes:
I plan to share more of the
life story of my parents, Bob and Ann Scribner in a future blog post.
– Jane Scribner McCrary