On Jan. 20, 1945, a 20-year-old Airman Second Class on board the USS Essex in the South Pacific quietly went through his foot locker and began to give away his personal belongings to his shipboard mates. He gave away his “good” flight jacket, his v-mail writing paper, his candy bars and other personal effects.

The TBF-I Avenger, a torpedo bomber on which the young man was a radio operator, was built for one thing: to get up close to Japanese ships, drop its torpedo and try like hell to get back safely to the carrier.

If hit, only the pilot stood a chance of getting out alive; the two crewmen, strapped into the belly of the plane, had little if any hope. Former President George H. W. Bush, a hero of the Second World War, can attest to this, as he was a pilot of an Avenger himself and narrowly escaped death; his crew perished when his plane was shot down.

On the Essex, orders arrived for the Avengers to take off and attack Japanese ships in Hanoi harbor. The young airman was known as “Barney” to everybody because when he was born, his grandfather marveled at his eyes and said he looked like “Barney Google” from the comic strip, “Snuffy Smith.” As the story goes, Barney, a radio operator, was not scheduled to fly that day, but had a chance to earn enough hours to make Airman First Class.

The distinction was important because it meant a raise in pay of about $4 per month. Though he volunteered for the mission, he was nonetheless apprehensive as he gave away his personal effects. This was confirmed in letters his shipmates wrote to Barney’s parents.

After flying for several hours, the planes spotted their targets. They came toward the ships at tree-top level, dropped their torpedoes and returned to the Essex. Several ran into heavy enemy flak, including Barney’s plane. Trailing smoke, the plane crashed in the jungle, but pilots overhead said they spotted at least one of the crew scrambling out of the downed plane.

Several weeks later, Barney’s parents received a telegram from Uncle Sam informing them their son was missing in action. The father wrote countless letters to Washington, hoping for any information.

Months passed. Letters trickled in from Barney’s mates, telling the parents about his generosity, his cheerful manner and his popularity. A French priest who had performed last rites on an American Navy flyer wrote that it might have been Barney. Other stories came, often conflicting in information. Meanwhile, Barney’s mother’s hair had turned white, according to his two brothers, though she was only 38 and one of the “Rosie the Riviters” who manned the factories.

A letter arrived in 1946 told of how Barney had been killed in the crash, the remains found, and the government was prepared to bring Barney home. Barney had been initially buried in what was then French-Indochina. His body was disinterred and reburied in an American military cemetery in India.

Barney finally “came home” to Sayre, Pa., and was buried with full military honors. Though the family lived in upstate New York, Barney’s maternal grandmother insisted he be buried close to her in Sayre.

The coffin was placed in the parlor of the grandmother’s house, as many country folks did in those days. However, the escorting military officer informed the father discreetly that because the “dog tags” were not with the body, they really could not be sure that it was his son in the casket. Nonetheless, the father placed a chair beside the coffin and sat alone all night with what he prayed were his son’s remains.

In 1977, Barney’s mother had him re-interred in a family plot where her husband and two other sons were already buried. It seemed to her that it was necessary for the father and his three boys to be together. Her youngest son, my father, a member of the Syracuse Fire Department, had died earlier that year from injuries sustained in a fire.

Barney’s mother was often asked why she didn’t have her son buried in Arlington Memorial Cemetery in Virginia. After all, her son was a war hero. But Georgia Shirley would always reply: “You know, there are young American heroes from many wars who are buried all over the world. Some are in military cemeteries, some are in civilian cemeteries. Some, we don’t know where they are. But all these young men have the devotion and gratitude of the American people. All have honor. And you do not have to be buried in Arlington to have honor.”

Ellsworth Abbott “Barney” Shirley, Navy Airman (2c), killed in the South Pacific on his 20th birthday in January of 1945, is buried in Onondaga Valley Cemetery in Syracuse, alongside his father and two brothers. He – and thousands like him – have just as much honor as anyone buried in Arlington Cemetery.

Craig Shirley is president of a Washington, D.C. public affairs firm and is a director of the American Conservative Union; he is a former resident of Syracuse.

LOAD-DATE: January 22, 2003

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

TYPE: COLUMN

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