OgBlog.net

OgBlog.net

THERE IS MORE THAN ONE VARIETY OF HEROISM…...

Paying a debt is one…...

Let WWII P-38 pilot Fred Hargesheimer’s story show you what that means.

image

The Japanese fighter caught the American pilot from behind, riddling his plane with machine-gun rounds. The left engine burst into flames. It was time to bail out.

He yanked on the release lever but the cockpit canopy only half-opened. He unbuckled his seat belt, rose to shake the canopy loose and was instantly sucked out.

Swinging beneath his opened parachute, he plunged toward a Pacific island jungle of thick, towering eucalyptus trees, of crocodile rivers and headhunters, into enemy territory, and into an unimagined future as a hero, “Suara Auru,“ Chief Warrior, to generations of islanders yet unborn.

Hargesheimer landed half-way down a 4,000 foot mountain, fortunately unhurt, and with his survival kit intact.  Still, all the food he carried was a couple of bars of chocolate…..and over the next 10 days, he finished them and was reduced to eating snails, roasted over a small fire he had to keep going once his matches ran out, as he camped in a native hut beside the river.  When he was found by native islanders, after a full month on his own, he was weak and haggard.  The hunting party showed him a note from the Australian Army, letting him know that these guys had rescued other lost airmen, but that evening’s wild dancing and singing brought memories of headhunter stories to Hargesheimer’s mind…..until he recognized the tune of one of the songs - Onward Christian Soldiers - and could let himself relax, at last.

His rescuers, risking the torture and death of their families should the Japanese discover what they were doing, took him to their village on the coast, gave him a place to stay, fed him, hid him from search parties, doctored him (including providing him with breast milk when he was too sick with malaria to eat), and after 8 months, delivered him to a submarine arranged for by Australian commandos operating in the area.  So far, the story is typical of perhaps hundreds occurring in this part of the world during WWII.  The difference is what came after…....

Unlike so many others, Fred Hargesheimer not only didn’t forget…..he acted on his knowledge of the debt he owed to a village and a people. 

He returned to civilian life after the war ended in 1945. By then he had married Dorothy Sheldon of Ashtabula, Ohio, and by 1949 they had three children — Richard, Eric and Carol. In 1951, he took a sales job with a Minnesota forerunner of computer maker Sperry Rand, his employer ever after.

But the people of Ea Ea never left his mind. He corresponded with a missionary to learn how they had fared. He studied and restudied international air schedules.

“The more I thought about my experience with the people in New Guinea, the more I realized what a debt I had to try to repay,“ he says.

In 1960, with the family vacation money and the family’s blessing, Hargesheimer made a solitary, 11,000-mile journey back to New Britain, biggest outer island of Papua New Guinea, then Australian-run, now independent.

He found the village, visited with the chief and others, including the young woman who had provided him the milk that saved his life, and her son….now 16 years old.  Somehow “Thank you”, while a start, simply wasn’t enough.  Back home, he learned from missionaries that the people needed a school more than anything…..and Fred Hargesheimer became a fund-raiser, talking to relatives, speaking at Rotary and other service clubs, meeting with church groups - constantly telling the story of his rescue, and of his rescuers’ need.  In three years he raised $15,000.00 (this is the early 1960s, remember, as you look at that sum) and in 1963 he and his son traveled back to New Britain, and oversaw the building of the first permanent school building in the area.  He arranged for teachers and equipment, and in 1964, the school opened with 40 students in its four classrooms. 

Fred wasn’t finished….back in the States, the word got out to the media, and he used the publicity to raise MORE money; so in 1969 was able to provide a library and a clinic for the people of the island where his life had been saved by selfless love and invincible courage.  Then, in 1970, with their children raised and off on their own, Fred Hargesheimer and his wife MOVED to New Britain to teach in the school he had built for the islanders he loved.  They stayed four years, but even after returning home in 1974, Fred continued to visit every few years, even after his wife died in 1985.

In 2006, Fred made his last trip to New Britain, at age 90…..he went back in part because the wreckage of his P-38 fighter had been located up on the mountain, but he also dedicated another library, and visited the (much-expanded) Airmen’s Memorial School.  One of the early graduates of the school has now taken over management of Fred’s foundation, and its work will continue even after he can no longer guide it. 

As he looks back from his Grass Valley, Calif., retirement home, Hargesheimer says he often mused over the word “if.“ Why, for example, didn’t the Japanese pilot finish him off as he floated helplessly down beneath his parachute?

In 1999 he got an answer. With the help of World War II history buffs, he located Mitsugu Hyakutomi of Yamaguchi, Japan, the pilot who records show downed his P-38. He was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease but his wife recounted by mail that her husband had said he could never shoot such defenseless enemy flyers.

“The Japanese pilot gave me the opportunity to get involved in something worthwhile, and for that I’m ever grateful,“ he says.

This modest man says he has many people to thank as he draws nearer the end of a long, perilous, challenging road from 1943. “These people were responsible for saving my life. How could I ever repay it?“

It came down to that, and perhaps to the psalmist’s words of gratitude, “My cup runneth over.“

“I wasn’t a millionaire,“ says Mastah Preddi. “But I was very rich.“

And that’s a Hero…...if the word has any meaning at all.

READ THE WHOLE THING and DONATE to assist in the Foundation’s future activities.

Hat Tip: Thanks, Thorvald!

Posted by on 03/09 at 12:12 PM

  1. This was such a LOVELY story!

    Posted by laura  on  03/11  at  07:24 PM

  2. Indeed….I suspect that there are others to be dug up.  But with our WWII vets dying at 2,000/day (I think I read that, somewhere) we better learn about them pretty soon…..

    Posted by Earl  on  03/11  at  07:44 PM

Name:

Email:

Location:

URL:

Smileys

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?

Next entry: RACE IS STILL A HOT-BUTTON ISSUE IN THE U.S....AT LEAST WHEN THERE'S POLITICAL ADVANTAGE IN IT.....

Previous entry: HEROES DO WHAT'S NEEDED -- REGARDLESS OF CIRCUMSTANCES

<< Back to main