I Was There When the World Stood Still
by
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When the Japanese surrendered aboard the battleship, Missouri, on September 2, 1945 the world had been at war for six years and one day. For the first twenty-seven months of that conflict, the United States had been spared from the ravages of war and thought it was securely isolated from that devastation by the broad reaches of the Atlantic Ocean. That feeling of security came to an abrupt conclusion at 07:55, on the 7th day of December, in 1941 when the Japanese Navy made their catastrophic, surprise attack, on the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor. That base was located on the far side of the world in the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean.
The moment of that attack was the beginning of a total World War. That conflict involved more men and women, over more of the world, with more loss of more life and more destruction that any other recorded event in the history of the world. Seventy million soldiers took part in that battle and sixteen million, one in four, lost their lives. Another 18 million civilians’ men, women and children died due to the destruction brought on by the battles that were fought across their lands. Of the 16 million Americans involved in that struggle the United States lost almost 300,000 men and another 670,846 suffered non-fatal battle wounds. Thousands more died or sustained non-combat wounds during training.
I WAS THERE WHEN THE WORLD STOOD STILL is a personal account of how the attack, on December 7, 1941 put my dreams and aspirations on hold for four years and twenty days. But as you well know, I was not alone. The dreams of millions of people from around the world were put on hold for the duration of that global war and all our lives would be changed for ever.
Writing an account of the events of World War II that would express the emotions of every individual that took part in that global event would be impossible. A large segment of the people on earth at that time were involved in that conflict, in some way and each and every individual that was involved in any way was affected in a different manner. I have not tried to describe the thoughts, feelings, actions or behavior of anyone but my own. So this attempt to describe the events of those years is personal. Every individual involved in that conflict also has a different story to tell. This just happens to be mine.
Writing a version of that historic period that would please everyone would also be impossible. My account will be no exception. However, I did not fight that battle alone. It took millions of people from around the globe, hundreds of years to set the stage for the conflict that I took part in. That struggle from, 1939 to 1945, was the beginning of high-tech warfare. So the scientific research, brilliant ideas and ingenious inventions that spanned centuries, all played a part in supplying the tools for that worldwide confrontation. My story covers a very small part of all those historic milestones.
This is also the story of a very specialized unit of the United States Navy during World War Two: The Sub Hunters. All of our training and equipment were focused on just one mission: seeking out the enemy submarines and rendering them harmless to Allied ships in the Atlantic Ocean.
I have tried to give some background information on the training, equipment and technology with which we were directly involved. Much of the equipment in use when I got to the war zone was still on the drawing boards or being tested when I joined the Navy in 1942. Many combat techniques had also changed during that time. My goal was to touch on some of those new concepts we used in our little corner of the world.
It is important for me to inform the reader; this was not a one man show. To emphasize that point I have included in these pages some history on the long struggle to develop a flying machine and other tools we used during that time. It was through the dreams and experiments of many people, over hundreds of years, that led to the development of heavier than air flight. The combat aircraft we flew was a direct result of those studies and was the key factor in the battle to control the Atlantic shipping lanes during WWII.
I have tried to share some in-depth feelings that I experienced during that time. In talking with some men I served with, I discovered we all reacted in different ways to some of the same catastrophic incidents. The words in this story try to describe how I reacted. The others should write their own account of those events. We would all benefit from their efforts.
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About the Book
In September of 1942, nine months after the bombing of Pear Harbor, I joined the Navy V -5 Flight Training program, at age 18, with 15 of my hometown classmates. After completing a four-month introduction to flying at a local airport and ground school at the Arkansas City, Kansas Junior College, I was one of thirteen, from that class, to be called to active duty on February 2, 1943. I was privileged to be one of three from that group to graduate, nine months later, and wear the Wings of Gold of a Naval Aviator.
I soloed a PBY-5B at age 19 and flew that seaplane for several months before making the transition to the PB4Y -1 at NAAS Chincoteague VA in May of 1944. After completing that training my crew flew a new PB4Y -1 (B24-J) to North Africa, via the southern ATC route and joined Patrol Squadron VPB-112 on October 17, 1944. During the following three months we flew a number of Anti-Sub
1 missions in the Gibraltar Funnel area. Our Squadron was transferred to England in early January of 1945, where we joined four other squadrons of Fleet Air Wing-7.
When the war ended in Europe my crew had flown 27 missions and was sent back to the States in June of 1945 for reorganization and checkouts for duty in the South Pacific with the PB4Y -2. Before that reorganization was completed the hostilities with Japan had ended and I was released from active duty after a short stint in the South Pacific.
After returning to my hometown Kansas, my wife and I started a farming operation that included livestock and grain and grew to a 1500 acre spread. We raised three sons and a daughter on that farm and have lived in the same spot for 58 years but now leave the farming to others.
K. Ray Marrs
About the Author
K. Ray Marrs was born November 18, 1923 in a little three-room shack on the Chilocco Indian Reservation four miles south of Arkansas City, Kansas. His parents, Leo and Mildred (Mullet) Marrs, had met three years earlier just a half mile north on the Kansas side of the state line. In 1926 his family moved to Vauxhall, Alberta, Canada and they farmed in that area for three years. The family returned to the States in 1929 and moved to a farm west of Arkansas City, Kansas on "Black Tuesday" October 29, 1929; the day the stock markets crashed and the beginning of the "Great Depression."
He grew up on that farm with four brothers and a sister and attended a one room rural school. Following graduation from High School in 1941, he worked at various agricultural related jobs for several months. Ten months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he joined the Navy V-5 Pre-Flight program at Kansas City Missouri on October 10, 1942. After completing a flight and ground school program at the local Junior College with 15 of his classmates that had enlisted with him, he was called to active duty on February 2, 1943.
Following Pre-Flight School at the University of Iowa and Primary Flight training at NAS Ottumwa, Iowa, he reported to NAS Pensacola for basic and advanced flight training. He was one of three, of the fifteen with that started training, to graduate as a Naval Aviator (325775). After graduating at NAS Pensacola as a PBY pilot on November 26, 1943, he spent three months at NAS Jacksonville in operational training that prepared them for fleet duty. In April 1944, he reported ti NAS Norfolk, Virginia for reassignment. At that station he was assigned to a PB4Y -1 transition program at NAAS Chincoteague VA. At the completion of that transition, his crew spent a month in Anti-Sub Search-light training at NAS Boca Chica Florida and then his crew was, one of several, selected to fly new planes to the European/African Theater of Operation. The Navy sent several crews over the northern route while his crew delivered a War-Weary B-24 to NAS Corpus Christi, TX. On their return to NAS Norfolk they learned that one of the PB4Y-1's had crashed at sea during a devastating storm. Following that crash, the Navy sent his crew over the southern Army Transport Command (ATC) route. That route took them from the ATC Army Air Base at West Palm Beach, Florida to the island of Trinidad. From there they flew to Belem and Natal in Brazil, Wide Awake on Ascension Island, 2,000 miles east of Natal, Roberts Field in Liberia and then to Dakar in French West Africa, Marrakech and Port Lyautey in French Morocco.
The crew joined Patrol Bombing Squadron VPB-112, an Anti-Sub Patrol Squadron of Fleet Air Wing 15 in Port Lyautey, French Morocco on October 17, 1944. They flew anti -sub missions out of Port Lyautey, Gibraltar and Agadir until January 13, 1945. On that date, his crew and Squadron VPB-112 transferred to England and F A W 7 at Dunkeswell under the command of Rear Admiral, James R. (Sunshine) Reedy.
His crew had flown a total of 27 missions when the war ended in Europe. The squadrons returned to the United States in mid June 1945 and a large segment of the personnel were reassigned to Squadron VPB-112 to regroup at NAS Whidbey Island. Soon after the reorganization was complete, the war with Japan ended. He was short of points when the war ended so he had a short stint in the South Pacific before returning home.
Squadron VPB-112 was notoriously short of flight crews but had always shared an equal part in the war against the enemy submarines. They never failed to send out as many planes as the squadrons that had a full complement of combat crews. The squadron was ready to go, when called, and completed each combat mission without fanfare but it produced very few heroes. Their combat crews were finally recognized for their part in Battle of Biscay Bay, after many years but many of those brave souls never got the word.
The author returned home in mid-December 1945 to start a farming operation. K. Ray and his wife, Betty, bought a farm, near Arkansas City, Kansas, soon after his release from active duty and was named Kansas Outstanding Young Farmer in 1956 by the Kansas Junior Chamber of Commerce. For more than forty-five years, they operated a 1,500 acre livestock and grain farm in Cowley County Kansas, and have lived on that same farm for 55 of their 58 years of marriage. They have served in many leadership roles in their church, farm, school and community organizations, throughout the years because we feel this is an important part of life. They have three sons and a daughter that grew up on that farm. Each of their children are successful in each of their own endeavors, but none are involved in production agriculture.