thedrifter
05-02-05, 06:32 AM
They broke jets, he fixed them
Rough landings Bouncing bombs Sad duty
By Ron Simon
News Journal
MANSFIELD -- William Miser, 74, never met Boston Red Sox great Ted Williams. But he remembers the day Williams put his Marine jet into a rice paddy during the Korean War.
"I did know Gerry Coleman, the Yankees' second baseman. I helped strap him into his plane plenty of times. Couldn't meet a nicer guy. He'd talk to you after he came back from a mission," Miser said.
In his long Marine career, Sgt. William Miser met plenty of famous people in the Marine's air arm, including a second lieutenant named John Glenn.
"Of course, officers and enlisted men don't talk that much. I just remember that red-headed officer at Cherry Point,'' Miser said.
Miser was a jet aircraft mechanic during the Korean War, working with F9F2 Panther jet fighters and the older prop-driven Corsairs.
The home base for Miser's unit, Marine Fighter Squadron 311, was K-3, or Pahong.
"It was located on top of a mountain, so to speak, as the end of the runway was a long drop. If planes didn't get airborne in time, they made that drop," he said. That's what happened to Ted Williams' jet when it made that drop into a rice paddy.
"He wasn't injured," Miser recalls.
"Pahong had a terrible smell, especially when the wind was blowing. Human waste was the main fertilizer used in growing rice," Miser said.
Then there was Gunny, Miser's pet dog, who loved orange juice and gin.
"Needless to say, a few drinks and he would lay where he passed out. You didn't dare to pet him the next day," he said. "One day I missed Gunny and was told he wound up being a meal for hungry Koreans living nearby."
Miser said that was one of the hardest things to get over in Korea.
The other was the loss of a friend who, after receiving a "Dear John" letter from his girlfriend, shot himself to death.
Miser did two tours of duty on the Peninsula during the Korean War. The first lasted 12 months and the second, served with a photo reconnaissance group, lasted 17 months.
Miser admits that between tours of duty, he managed to upset his superiors -- the second tour was a pointer to "shape up."
Life at Pahong, his usual stop in Korea, was non-combat.
"We were always on the alert during my tour of duty. I was assigned to a 30-caliber machine gun along with another Marine," Miser said. But the Chinese Army never quite made it to the Marine airfield.
But there was always some kind of excitement.
"Quite a few times planes would come in with a hung bomb, one that failed to eject from the bomb rack. As soon as the plane set down on the runway, the bomb would drop off and start bouncing down the field along with the incoming fighter. At times, the plane would pass the bomb and then the bomb would pass the plane, back and forth until the bomb would finally go off. The plane would be hit by flying parts of the bomb," he said.
It made more work for the mechanics.
Miser said the Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy lost 2,000 planes during the war, most of them shot down by enemy anti-aircraft fire. He knew many of the Marine pilots who didn't come back.
"We lost 24 pilots when they knocked out a North Korean power plant," he said.
Miser, a gunnery sergeant who served 20 years and made five cruises in the Mediterranean, said his hardest duty came when he was a Marine recruiter in Mansfield during the Vietnam War. He recruited in Richland, Knox, Morrow, Marion and Wyandot counties, with some disastrous results.
"Seventeen of the men I recruited were killed in the Vietnam War," he said.
In every case, it was his job to inform the families. He recalls one distraught father who came at him with a gun, blaming him for his son's death. Miser managed to talk the man out of using the gun, but sees the incident as a sign of how personal the war became. He said each death left him with a load of personal guilt.
At one point during the Vietnam War, he worked at a Marine base in Taiwan. He turned down an officer's commission there.
"It would have meant being put in command of a rifle company in Vietnam," he said.
A native of Beckley, W. Va., Miser had five brothers who all served in the Navy.
"I was the only Marine," he said. He also was the oldest boy in a coal-mining family that moved from one mine community to the next. By the time he was a sophomore in high school he tired of it and joined the Marine Corps in 1947.
As he recalls, he did not weigh enough to join. So, at the suggestion of his recruiter, he ate bananas, countless numbers of them, until he came up to weight. In boot training, it was milk and grits and hard physical labor.
As a new private, he flew to Cherry Point, N.C., to begin his duties, which started with his first European cruise with the Navy. As an aircraft mechanic, he served aboard aircraft carriers including the Siboney, Midway, Leyte, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lake Champlain.
Those cruises took him to every country on the Mediterranean Sea, and he took most of the available tours of places like Athens, Barcelona, Venice and Gibraltar. He visited most of the ports in the Persian Gulf, long before the Gulf War. He also visited Pacific port cities including Tokyo, Yokohama, Taipei and Hong Kong.
Join the Marines. See the world.
He married Jeanetta Marie Rutledge in 1955 and they had one son, Fred, now a doctor at The Ohio State University Hospital. There are five grandchildren.
"Two of them are enrolled at Wheaton College," Miser said.
After retirement, Miser settled in Richland County, serving as a deputy sheriff for 11 years and working in home improvements.
Some have termed the Korean War "The Forgotten War," but for Miser, it's a time he'll never forget.
rsimon@nncogannett.com (419) 521-7230
http://cmsimg.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=B7&Date=20050502&Category=NEWS01&ArtNo=505020305&Ref=AR&Profile=1002&MaxW=290
Dave Polcyn/News Journal
William Miser of Mansfield recalls his days as a U.S. Marine in Korea.
http://cmsimg.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=B7&Date=20050502&Category=NEWS01&ArtNo=505020305&Ref=V2&Profile=1002&MaxW=290
Ellie
Rough landings Bouncing bombs Sad duty
By Ron Simon
News Journal
MANSFIELD -- William Miser, 74, never met Boston Red Sox great Ted Williams. But he remembers the day Williams put his Marine jet into a rice paddy during the Korean War.
"I did know Gerry Coleman, the Yankees' second baseman. I helped strap him into his plane plenty of times. Couldn't meet a nicer guy. He'd talk to you after he came back from a mission," Miser said.
In his long Marine career, Sgt. William Miser met plenty of famous people in the Marine's air arm, including a second lieutenant named John Glenn.
"Of course, officers and enlisted men don't talk that much. I just remember that red-headed officer at Cherry Point,'' Miser said.
Miser was a jet aircraft mechanic during the Korean War, working with F9F2 Panther jet fighters and the older prop-driven Corsairs.
The home base for Miser's unit, Marine Fighter Squadron 311, was K-3, or Pahong.
"It was located on top of a mountain, so to speak, as the end of the runway was a long drop. If planes didn't get airborne in time, they made that drop," he said. That's what happened to Ted Williams' jet when it made that drop into a rice paddy.
"He wasn't injured," Miser recalls.
"Pahong had a terrible smell, especially when the wind was blowing. Human waste was the main fertilizer used in growing rice," Miser said.
Then there was Gunny, Miser's pet dog, who loved orange juice and gin.
"Needless to say, a few drinks and he would lay where he passed out. You didn't dare to pet him the next day," he said. "One day I missed Gunny and was told he wound up being a meal for hungry Koreans living nearby."
Miser said that was one of the hardest things to get over in Korea.
The other was the loss of a friend who, after receiving a "Dear John" letter from his girlfriend, shot himself to death.
Miser did two tours of duty on the Peninsula during the Korean War. The first lasted 12 months and the second, served with a photo reconnaissance group, lasted 17 months.
Miser admits that between tours of duty, he managed to upset his superiors -- the second tour was a pointer to "shape up."
Life at Pahong, his usual stop in Korea, was non-combat.
"We were always on the alert during my tour of duty. I was assigned to a 30-caliber machine gun along with another Marine," Miser said. But the Chinese Army never quite made it to the Marine airfield.
But there was always some kind of excitement.
"Quite a few times planes would come in with a hung bomb, one that failed to eject from the bomb rack. As soon as the plane set down on the runway, the bomb would drop off and start bouncing down the field along with the incoming fighter. At times, the plane would pass the bomb and then the bomb would pass the plane, back and forth until the bomb would finally go off. The plane would be hit by flying parts of the bomb," he said.
It made more work for the mechanics.
Miser said the Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy lost 2,000 planes during the war, most of them shot down by enemy anti-aircraft fire. He knew many of the Marine pilots who didn't come back.
"We lost 24 pilots when they knocked out a North Korean power plant," he said.
Miser, a gunnery sergeant who served 20 years and made five cruises in the Mediterranean, said his hardest duty came when he was a Marine recruiter in Mansfield during the Vietnam War. He recruited in Richland, Knox, Morrow, Marion and Wyandot counties, with some disastrous results.
"Seventeen of the men I recruited were killed in the Vietnam War," he said.
In every case, it was his job to inform the families. He recalls one distraught father who came at him with a gun, blaming him for his son's death. Miser managed to talk the man out of using the gun, but sees the incident as a sign of how personal the war became. He said each death left him with a load of personal guilt.
At one point during the Vietnam War, he worked at a Marine base in Taiwan. He turned down an officer's commission there.
"It would have meant being put in command of a rifle company in Vietnam," he said.
A native of Beckley, W. Va., Miser had five brothers who all served in the Navy.
"I was the only Marine," he said. He also was the oldest boy in a coal-mining family that moved from one mine community to the next. By the time he was a sophomore in high school he tired of it and joined the Marine Corps in 1947.
As he recalls, he did not weigh enough to join. So, at the suggestion of his recruiter, he ate bananas, countless numbers of them, until he came up to weight. In boot training, it was milk and grits and hard physical labor.
As a new private, he flew to Cherry Point, N.C., to begin his duties, which started with his first European cruise with the Navy. As an aircraft mechanic, he served aboard aircraft carriers including the Siboney, Midway, Leyte, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lake Champlain.
Those cruises took him to every country on the Mediterranean Sea, and he took most of the available tours of places like Athens, Barcelona, Venice and Gibraltar. He visited most of the ports in the Persian Gulf, long before the Gulf War. He also visited Pacific port cities including Tokyo, Yokohama, Taipei and Hong Kong.
Join the Marines. See the world.
He married Jeanetta Marie Rutledge in 1955 and they had one son, Fred, now a doctor at The Ohio State University Hospital. There are five grandchildren.
"Two of them are enrolled at Wheaton College," Miser said.
After retirement, Miser settled in Richland County, serving as a deputy sheriff for 11 years and working in home improvements.
Some have termed the Korean War "The Forgotten War," but for Miser, it's a time he'll never forget.
rsimon@nncogannett.com (419) 521-7230
http://cmsimg.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=B7&Date=20050502&Category=NEWS01&ArtNo=505020305&Ref=AR&Profile=1002&MaxW=290
Dave Polcyn/News Journal
William Miser of Mansfield recalls his days as a U.S. Marine in Korea.
http://cmsimg.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=B7&Date=20050502&Category=NEWS01&ArtNo=505020305&Ref=V2&Profile=1002&MaxW=290
Ellie