[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 99 (Friday, June 16, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1269-E1270]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          HONORING OUR VETERANS

                                 ______


                      HON. G.V. (SONNY) MONTGOMERY

                             of mississippi

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, June 15, 1995

  Mr. MONTGOMERY. Mr. Speaker, a constituent of mine and a history buff 
recently conducted extensive research into various military heroes and 
notables, mainly involving service in the Pacific Theatre during World 
War II. I would like to share his findings with my colleagues and 
recognize these individuals for their accomplishments.

       Dear Sonny: You have the advantage of me in that you have 
     had the luxury of world travel in order to honor and see to 
     the memory and remains-recovery of U.S. veterans. I have been 
     nowhere but to the public library. It is one of the few free 
     hobbies that can be indulged by retired typewriter mechanics 
     with young families. It is interesting what you can find in a 
     public library, even one as small as the Kemper-Newton 
     Regional Library here in Union.
       You have done a splendid job of bringing to a climax the 
     honoring of U.S. veterans, both dead and alive at this 
     fiftieth anniversary of the climax of the second world war. 
     The purpose of this letter is to plead for you to bring some 
     publicity on some forgotten people, perhaps some of the 
     earliest victims of that war.
       The first one to mention has had some degree of 
     recognition, since he was the first victim of the Japanese, 
     dating all the way back to 1923. His name was Col. Earl 
     Hancock ``Pete'' Ellis, who was sent into the Pacific to see 
     what was happening out there, in the year 1923, and the best 
     evidence has it that he was poisoned by the Japanese. If your 
     high-paid liars up there in Washington will re-write the 
     Enola Gay story, I am sure they won't mind thinking up a nice 
     cover-up story to keep from offending the Japanese about Col. 
     Ellis, but it would be to your credit to have him remembered 
     as likely to be the first victim of the Pacific theater.
       Another veteran who paid a very high price for doing his 
     best job was a Navy carrier pilot named Winfield Scott 
     Cunningham. I am sure that everyone in Washington has 
     Commander Cunningham neatly swept under the rug, but his 
     service is a matter of record. He was in command of Wake 
     Island at the time of the Japanese capture of it. He was 
     placed in a Japanese prison in Shanghai, China, the same one 
     in which the Jimmy Doolittle Tokyo raid survivors were 
     detained in. He had to be telling a true story, because the 
     B-25 crewmen exchanged messages with him before they were 
     released. Both Cunningham's book, and the Tokyo Raid story, 
     back each other up. When Commander Cunningham was released 
     from prison and repatriated, he discovered to his surprise, 
     that the Marine Corps legend, as portrayed by William Bendix 
     and others in the movie ``Wake Island,'' and gently nudged on 
     its way by Capt. Devereaux and other Marine officers had in 
     effect, become ``fact'' and he was never able to get his 
     story heard or believed during his lifetime. By the time he 
     was seriously trying to do that, Gen. DeVereaux was in 
     command of the Marines, and Cunningham was completely left 
     out of the Wake Island story. Even after his death, his 
     wife was not able to get him properly recognized and 
     believed about it. You can easily read up on him by 
     referencing Winfield Scott Cunningham in the Library of 
     Congress, and by taking a walk down to the National 
     Archives and Records Service and looking at his pay stubs 
     for December, 1941. Surely the Marines did not steal his 
     pay records out of the files. Sonny, he would have had to 
     be in command of the island, because of the military law 
     that only an aviator can command where there are air 
     forces, and there was a Marine squadron of Grumman 
     Wildcats on the island. Capt. DeVereaux could not possibly 
     have been command of the island, because he was a ``ground 
     pounder'' officer and was not entitled to do it. In the 
     movie they had the island commander conveniently lie down 
     and die, so the Marines could do their thing, but in real 
     life, Commander Cunningham spent the war in a Japanese 
     prison. It would be to your credit to have this veteran 
     properly remembered, and an apology extended to his 
     descendants, for the post-war denials of his story. A 
     posthumous medal might even be in order.
       The next veteran I would have you to honor at this perfect 
     time in history is perhaps the one who contributed the most 
     personal valor of the war, outside of the contribution of 
     being maimed or killed in action. I am referring to Gen. 
     Claire Lee Chennault. He entered the war against Japan as 
     commander of the Chinese Air Force under Madame Chiang Kai-
     shek's direction, and was credited with 37 victories against 
     the Japanese in the air, even before the U.S. began 
     involvement as the American Volunteer Group in China. Under 
     Chennault's leadership, more was done with greater success, 
     with the least people and equipment, for the longest time, 
     than in any air war in history, and sadly, with the least 
     amount of credit. After fighting an almost single-handed war, 
     for eight years, Chennault was finally convinced that he had 
     more enemies in Washington than in Tokyo, and retired. His 
     story is well-documented in several books, and you can read 
     every word of it. I think it a blight on the record of the 
     U.S. military, that after being first to take command against 
     the Japs, he was not even invited to the final surrender 
     ceremony. Gen. MacArthur verified the size of the oversight, 
     forever, by looking around the battleship Missouri, and 
     saying: ``Where's Chennault?''
       The last two veterans I would have you recognize and honor, 
     if the government will admit that any honor be due, were 
     perhaps the second and third casualties of the Pacific war, 
     namely Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan, who ``disappeared'' on 
     their famous ``around the world flight.'' Sonny, I have read 
     every book I can get my hands on, to date, and hoping to find 
     more about the last flight of these two people. In light of 
     the tons of evidence, and entire lifetimes spent by 
     researchers on the subject, there seems to be little doubt 
     that these two people were working in some sort of espionage 
     role for the U.S. government when they disappeared on that 
     mission. The Amelia Earhart story, in my opinion, sets a 
     world record for the most duplicity, the most lies, many of 
     them in the highest places, the most ``fishy'' identities of 
     people, the most people claiming to do one thing and then 
     doing another, from her husband George Putnam to the 
     President 

[[Page E1270]]
     of the United States, that it honestly, as stated by Admiral Nimitz, 
     ``staggers the imagination.''
           Thank you and sincerely,
     Bob Van Devender.

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