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thedrifter
06-26-09, 07:21 AM
Published on Friday, June 26, 2009.
Last modified on 6/26/2009 at 12:37 am
WWII pilot's paintings carry story

By MARTIN J. KIDSTON
Independent Record
FORT HARRISON - It was in Bishop, Calif., when their flight training was grounded and the pilots drove to town.

While there at a local bar, actor John Wayne walked through the door, standing tall in preparation for his role in "Tall in the Saddle."

"We were whooping it up and singing songs and here comes John Wayne," said World War II pilot William Reynolds, a former Marine. "He said, 'Keep the champagne coming and put it all on my bill.' "

Then comes the rest of Reynolds' story.

"Well, to tell you the truth, I ran into an Army lieutenant who wanted me to go out to some other nightclub that night, so I missed the whole thing," Reynolds said, grinning. "I had a lovely young lady with me, and I was having a good time anyway."

Luckily, Reynolds said, his date with that lovely young lady was worth missing John Wayne.

With his wife at his side, Reynolds, now 89, sat for a short ceremony in the Armed Forces Reserve Center at Fort Harrison on Wednesday for the rededication of four paintings he rendered in 1951.

The paintings, "Tribute to Montana Veterans," honor the four major branches of service and the men who fought the "war to end all wars."

There are the Marines raising the flag at Mount Suribachi in 1945 after taking Iwo Jima, and the Battle of the Coral Sea near the Solomon Islands in 1942.

One panel commemorates the Army Air Corps attack over Northern France in 1944, while the last panel remembers the Doughboys who stormed Hollandia Beach in New Guinea in 1943.

That last painting hits close to home for the Montana National Guard, which saw nearly 1,400 young soldiers fight the Japanese in New Guinea in grueling jungle warfare.

The brave Montana men, each members of the state's 163rd Infantry Regiment, were among the troops who stormed Hollandia during their three-year push to drive the Japanese from the South Pacific.

"I hadn't really done too much painting before I did these," Reynolds said, standing beside his lifelong friend and fellow WWII pilot Jack Mahan, also a Marine, who commissioned the paintings back in 1951.

Library research helped Reynolds paint the scenes, along with his own experiences at war. He was on the deck of a ship when a kamikaze pilot slammed into the adjacent boat.

Against all odds, he flew his crippled aircraft back to his carrier, catching the arresting cable by a wing and a prayer.

He saw action in the Philippines and the South China Sea. He flew over mainland Japan, escorting dive bombers on dangerous missions. Decades later, with most of his comrades now gone, the memories still come like yesterday.

"You're flying through overcast early in the morning, nothing but a blanket of gray," Reynolds said. "Then the sun comes out and that blanket of gray turns a rosy pink on top. There's the perfect cone of Mount Fuji sticking up through the overcast, lighted up like a fire with the rising sun."

Mahan stood with Reynolds, prodding him for more stories of their days at war. The two grew up on the streets of Helena, just three blocks apart. Reynolds' father owned Reynolds' Drug Store downtown for nearly 50 years.

Reluctant to turn the attention on himself, Mahan told how he commissioned Reynolds to make the paintings in 1951. As the commander of VFW Post 116 in Helena, he wanted something to decorate the walls.

"He lived in Butte then and painted a picture every two or three months," Mahan said. "But they sold the VFW Club and tore it down. So I had the paintings sent to me when I moved to Washington."

When President Lyndon Johnson appointed Mahan to a post within the VA Administration headquarters, he was sure to hang the paintings prominently. When he left under the Carter administration and returned home, he donated the paintings to the Montana Military Museum.

But while the museum has grown these past few years, it remains too small to accommodate Reynolds' art. It was the hope of those present at Wednesday's ceremony that the museum would grow and the paintings would find their way into the exhibit.

"They can't display them because there's no room right now," said Brig. Gen. John Walsh, adjutant general of the Montana National Guard. "But we can fill these halls in the meantime, so they're not just sitting in a room and waiting until we can make the museum larger."

The effort to expand the state's military museum continues, and Russ Ritter, who heads up that effort, attended Wednesday's event, along with museum curator Ray Read and other board members.

Lt. Gov. John Bohlinger, also a former Marine, was happy to thank Reynolds for his paintings and service, along with Mahan and his contributions.

"It's through art that we record history," Bohlinger told the gathering. "It's through our art that we find out who we are. It's through our art that we state our values. I think, in your paintings, you speak of a value of courage and of freedom."

While the paintings garnered much of the attention, the stories told by the two friends, Reynolds and Mahan, earned their own share of attention.

There was, after all, the time they were saluted by a British Royal Marine and a leftenant in the Royal Navy, who invited them on board their ship.

"We ended up in the wardrobe," Reynolds said. "That leftenant footed the bill for our drinks because he didn't drink, and it would only dock him three cents American for a drink. So we each had about 24 cents American in drinks."

It was Scotch, Mahan added, and good Scotch at that.

Ellie