The pride in Teddy Draper’s voice is evident as he talks about events that helped America win the war in the Pacific 62 years ago.

Mr. Draper, who was born on a Navajo Indian reservation in Canyon Del Muerto, Ariz., was one of the Marine Corps Code Talkers who mystified the Japanese forces as the Americans battled their way toward the Japanese mainland.

“When we were at the induction station in 1943 taking the entrance tests, I told them I wanted to join the Air Force,†Mr. Draper said. “They said … I was going into the Marines.â€

Mr. Draper said he had been happy on the reservation, learning the ways of his ancestors when he and many of his fellow Navajo decided to fight for their country.

“We did eight weeks of basic training, then they sent us to Camp Pendleton for eight weeks of communications training,†he said. “We had to learn to be radio operators (and) switchboard operators who sit in the command posts, and even how to run cable.â€

“We had a lot to learn in a short time. We developed a code based on our language. It wasn’t just us talking in Navajo. We had to develop code words to make it even more difficult to break,†Mr. Draper said.

After training in Hawaii to learn how to disembark a troop ship and storm a beach, Mr. Draper and the rest of the 5th Marine Division headed west to take on the Japanese.

Then-Private Draper and his fellow Marines hit the beaches of Iwo Jima on Feb. 19, 1945, walking into a wall of Japanese gunfire that raked the sand from one end of the beach to another.

“We had nothing to hide behind,†Mr. Draper said. “They hit us with everything they had -- rifle fire, machine gun fire and artillery. It was like hail hitting the sand.â€

The Code Talker vividly recalls those first hours on the beach at the foot of Mount Suribachi. He also recalls the first time he escaped death.

“I was running from crater to crater with four other Navajo, and I felt something smack my pants,†Mr. Draper said. “I looked down and saw a bullet hole in my pants near my shin. I yelled back at the Japanese that they had missed their only chance to kill this Navajo.â€

Mr. Draper jumped into a large bomb crater and began setting up his equipment when he discovered a missing cable which was needed to connect the radios. The radios were connected to Mr. Draper’s switchboard by those cables so that commanders could issue orders to individual outposts and the outposts could report what they were seeing in the battle.

His sergeant ordered him to go back to the landing craft and get it. So, Mr. Draper had to make a mad dash 150 yards back to the water and then run back to the temporary command post.

“My sergeant told me I had earned a medal for that. I told him I wasn’t interested in a medal; I wanted to be promoted. A couple of days later, I was a corporal,†he said.

The Japanese almost made the Code Talker eat his words the second day on the beach.

“A mortar hit about 20 yards to my right and killed two men I was with,†Mr. Draper said. “It made me blind and deaf for a little while, but I went to the aid station, and they fixed me up, and I went back to work. By that time, there were only a couple of Navajo left alive to run the radios for the entire division, so I wasn’t allowed to be wounded.â€

In the explosion, a piece of shrapnel had smacked Mr. Draper on the bridge of his nose. He considers himself very lucky to be alive.

Today, Mr. Draper and the rest of the remaining Code Talkers speak to the public, educating Americans about the American Indian contribution to the war.

“When we came home, they told us we couldn’t talk about what we did because it was still secret. Everyone else got celebrations and parades, and we stood on the side and watched,†he said.

So, the Navajo formed the Code Talkers Association and began traveling around the country to let people know about their formerly secret mission. They began their public tour by marching in the Rose Bowl Parade in 1977.

“The television announcers didn’t even know who we were,†Mr. Draper said. “The announcer said we were from Arkansas, not Arizona.â€

Since that march, Mr. Draper said much of the nation, including Hollywood, has embraced his group. Though, he said, Hollywood changed the Navajo Code Talker story some to make it look better on the big screen.

Mr. Draper was finally awarded the Purple Heart in 2003 for the wounds he received in 1945.

Because of the secrecy surrounding their part in the war, many of the Code Talkers, including Mr. Draper, never received military benefits.

That was rectified in 2003 when Mr. Draper and other Code Talkers were awarded full benefits, retroactive to their time in service. He was also awarded the Silver Star at the same time.

Mr. Draper makes several speaking engagements a year on behalf of the association. Otherwise, he said he is tending to the corn, peaches, watermelon and other vegetables on his land in Chinle, Ariz.

“My 12 children and 52 grandchildren also keep me busy,†he said.

My two years in the service --- From UP in the blue, to down ON the blue

I enlisted in the Air Corps in 1944, thinking I would go into cadet training, but Uncle Sam had other ideas.Off to Truax Field,Wisc.

for airborne radio --- Chanute Field for electronics---and Boca Raton for Airborne

radar. But just as our training came to an end, so did the war in Europe .So, off to

Fort Monmouth, N.J. for shipboard radar. On completion of our traning there, we were (loaned) out to the Transportation Corps and sent down to New Orleans to be shipped out as three man crews aboard merchant ships taking supplies to Europe and bringing backG.I.s for discharge

I made four crossings, each time with a different crew. The first trip was to Marsailles,France, Which was beyond a doubt the scariest port ive ever been to.

Next, was to Le Havre, France. The third was to Bremerhaven,Germany, positively

The cleanest. We were allowed a few hours in town while the ship was loading up.

We saw shopkeepers sweeping the sidewalks AND the gutters before they were to open their shops. My last crossing was to Southhampton, England to pick up returning GI’s,AND a few hundred “English war bridesâ€. This would take a couple of days to get loaded properly, so we were granted passes to go to London. Oh Man !!!

What a city. I don’t think I will ever lose the images that were imprinted on my mind that day. Here was this big beautiful city with litteraly block on block of total ruin, and in the midst of all the destruction around them, were these people, with their heads up, carrying on with their lives. I don’t know how, after all those , dark,bleak years, you Brits could come up smiling. Don’t mean to sound Maudlin, but that is how I feel. Really your finest hour.

Chucktoo1926

Not the Doris Day you're looking for?

Biography for

Doris Day (I)

Birth name

Doris Mary Ann Von Kappelhoff

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Nickname

Do-Do

Clara Bixby

Eunice

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Height

5' 7" (1.70 m)

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Mini biography

One of America's most prolific actresses was born Doris Mary Ann Von Kapplehoff on April 3, 1924 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her parents divorced while Doris was still a child and her mother gained custody. Like most little girls, Doris liked to dance. She would, sometimes, dance with friends and, sometimes, just by herself. Soon enough she began the transition to have her dancing take her loftier heights. She had dreamed of being a ballerina, but an automobile accident ended what hopes she had of dancing on stage. It was a terrible setback. However, after taking singing lessons, Doris seemed to find a new vocation. She sang with local bands. It was while on one singing engagement, she met Al Jorden whom she eventually married in 1941. Jorden was very prone to violence and they split after two years, not long after the birth of their son Terry who would later become a record producer. In 1946, Doris met, wed, and divorced George Weidler. This union lasted less than a year. As with most singers, Doris had an agent and it was he who talked her into taking a screen test with the possibility of making motion pictures. The movie moguls of Warner Brother's Studios liked what they saw and signed Doris to a contract. Her first feature film was as Georgia Garrett in 1948's ROMANCE ON THE HIGH SEAS. In 1949, Doris made two films, MY DREAM IS YOURS and IT'S A GREAT FEELING. The contract between Doris and Warner's seemed a perfect match. All during the 1950's Doris turned in fine performances for Warner which in turn helped her to become a wonderful solo artist with hit after musical hit. Her filmmaking pace was picking up with three films in 1950 and five in 1951. It was during the latter that Doris met Marty Melcher and he adopted her young son. In 1953, Doris starred in the title role in CALAMITY JANE. The film was a success and more followed. LUCKY ME (1954), THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1956), and PILLOW TALK (1959) kept movie goers entertained. During the 1960's there was to be more success. The decade dawned bright with 1960's PLEASE DON'T EAT THE DAISIES. It was during the 60's that Doris began to slow down the pace somewhat. Her husband Marty had made deals for her to star in films she didn't really care about which led to a bout with exhaustion. The 60's wasn't to be a repeat of the previous, busy decade. Again, the films in which she appeared in were box-office success stories. Films such as DO NOT DISTURB (1965), THE GLASS BOTTOM BOAT (1966), WHERE WERE YOU WHEN THE LIGHTS WENT OUT? and WITH SIX, YOU GET AN EGGROLL (both in 1968), delighted the legions of Doris Day fans. With the death of Marty in 1968, Doris never appeared on the silver screen, but she had been signed to do THE DORIS DAY SHOW, on television, in which she played Doris Martin. The hit was, what else, a big TV hit. The run lasted from 1968-1973, whereupon Doris did only occasional appearances. Today at 75, she runs the Doris Day Animal League in Carmel, California which advocates homes and proper care of household pets. What else would you expect of America's sweetheart?

WWII Unknown Stories

This is what I remember. If it helps good, if not it's something different.

July 8, 1945 I arrived at Leyte Island, July 25, 1945 arrived at Panay Island.

Japan surrendered August 14, 1945.

Sept. 8 or 15, 1945 we arrived at Inchon, Korea and took a train to Taegu, Korea. We were the first Americans the Koreans ever saw. We marched into the Japanese compound past the Japanese guard and stopped in front of a 2-story building we were to use as our barracks. Being in the first squad we marched to each guard post, the Japanese soldier fell in the rear of our column and one of our men took over the guard post. I took guard of the ammo dump and it was raining very hard. The Japanese soldiers were very cordial and bowed to each of us as we replaced them. When we got back from guard duty the Japanese were gone. The following night we were just getting in bed and the C.O. came in and told our squad to make a full field pack (with rations), get our rifles and ammunition, because of some trouble in town. We packed up (13 in our squad) and were taken to the city hall. We just got there and were standing at the gate when up from three directions came three Japanese soldiers running at us. To us it looked like the whole Japanese army was coming at us. Those rifles of our got loaded really quick and ready. The Japanese just came up to surrender to us Americans. They were afraid of the Korean Police. We were to guard some important criminal and political papers. My guard post was two vaults and it was pitch black. Here comes the kicker!! We were the regular army troops, but the only ones there so we were given M.P. helmets, M.P. arm bands and 45 caliber revolvers and we worked with the Korean Police. We set up our radios in police stations to talk to our jeep. There was a city block of houses, built side by side, no back door, and facing the courtyard. Only one way to get in and we were there to keep G.I.'s out from this whorehouse district. I don't know how they would get in but a Korean madam would come out saying American, American and we would have to go in and check each room and kick them out. Four of us were put at an out-post many miles from town at bottom of some mountains. Every morning a jeep with a hot stove would come and make us hot breakfast, the rest of the day k-rations or one time two of us took our rifles and got a few ducks. We were guarding a large barn. One day we looked in the barn and it was full of rice bowls. Many miles away another 4-man post was guarding parachutes. The Korean toilets were oblong holes in the floor and they had Honey dippers who would take away the human waste and spread it on their food gardens, everything grew twice as large as ours. We were not aloud to eat anything that came from the ground. We did not destroy any arms; I assumed the Japanese took them home with them. There was a room that had a few things we could have, I brought back a sword. We did turn in our rifles and they dunked in some preservation gook. I left Korea Feb. 26, 1946 and was dis-charged March 20, 1946. When I was at Taegu, we (GI's) had no problems with the Korean people and knew nothing about political problems, we just wanted to go back to the states. I was in the 40th Division, 185th Infantry, Company E, 1st Platoon, 1st Squad. I have a few pictures of farmers, Korean Police, and our M.P.'s if you need them.

Alaska Air Guard rescuers pick-up missing pilot

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11/29/2004 - KULIS AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE, Alaska (AFPN) -- A civilian pilot is now home and safe after surviving six days in the Alaskan wilderness. Michael Holman had been missing since Nov. 22 and was picked up Nov. 28 by an Air National Guard rescue crew. He had been spotted the day before by a passing U.S. Coast Guard C-130 Hercules crew.

Mr. Holman, 46, walked more than 17 hours to get to an empty fishing cabin after his private aircraft was destroyed. He used a fire on a beach to signal the Coast Guardsmen and a hand held marine-band radio to tell them that he was safe. He also told them had plenty of food, water and other provisions inside the cabin, said Maj. Chris Kobi with the Alaska Air National Guard Rescue Coordination Center at Camp Denali, Alaska.

The missing pilot was outside the 4,000 square mile search zone when the Coast Guardsmen spotted him, officials said.