Allen Elliott, Lt. Col, Navy, Madisonville, KY, 1978-2013 (Active and Reserves)

Allen served in many roles during his medical career with the Navy till August of 1990 till switching over to the Army Reserves where he retired in 2013.

From 1980-1982 he was flight surgeon aboard the USS Forestall. He relates one incident during his tour of duty there:

As a flight surgeon we were responsible for flying with the aircrews and I flew a lot with the helicopters and also with my A6 squadron. Anytime I could get a flight seat I’d try to go.

We were flying what’s called plane guard, where we always have a helicopter out to rescue pilots that might have to go into the drink. So we were out there flying as plane guard around the ship when we had a mechanical malfunction and our helicopter went into the water. There were six of us that were aboard and only three of us made it out. We got rescued by another helicopter which took us back to the ship. They were all good friends and it was really hard to lose them.

One of the things I’d like to make a point about with this story is how my air wing and my battle group spared no expense of rescuing us and taking care of us as injured service members and I saw that first hand. I saw it also as a physician on the other side and personally as they took care of me and my comrades injured in that accident.

Arthur Yarbrough, SSgt, Army Air Corp, Madisonville, KY, 1942 – 1945

His first assignment was in the armor division in the Army till he volunteered to join the Air Corps where he became a flight engineer on a B-24 in Italy with the 465th Bomber Wing.

At the age of twenty-two he was the oldest member of the B-24 crew. They were coming back from Germany where they had bombed an airfield. The flack was heavy. They shot out an oil line to the pump that supplied oil pressure to whole plane. They were close to their airfield when the engines began to quit. He got his crew to the rear of the plane where they were less likely to get hurt when they crash landed.

Once on the ground the fire was raging in the front of the B-24 where he went back to and kept the fire off the pilot as he took his gear off and helped him out the cockpit window where he was able to pull him out after him. Then two soldiers drove through the two fifty caliber machine guns, which were going off because of the fire, and pulled them both out past the crash. “I wish I could know who they were. They are my heroes.”

He was hospitalized for four months to recover from his burns. He received the Bronze Star and Purple Heart for his actions that day.

Barry Young, Navy, Petty Officer Second Class, Madisonville, Ky, 1968 - 1972.

While his rate was that of a Yeoman, an officers clerk, but he was first assigned to Vietnam so he didn't work in that job then. In Vietnam, you did what they needed you to do and he worked in the Navy Fuel Division at Da Nang Air Base providing fuel to anything or anyone that needed it in support of the war. They ferried fuel by truck, boat, helicopter, pipeline or whatever it took.

He had a 18' Boston whaler and ran Da Nang River out to the harbor to test and measure fuel that came in on the large tankers.

Young recalled one night where he and two other sailors were returning from a tanker when they were fired upon by a sampan boat. As they entered the Da Nang River there was villages on the left and a break wall on the right. On the other side of the break wall there was a Sampan that they couldn't see. All of a sudden they had rapid fire from it. The bullets hit all around them, but fortunately none of them were hit. Young relates, being scared to death, we all three emptied our M-16's at the Sampan, which takes just a few seconds. Being sailors that don't get to do that very often we thought we'd got him so we went over there.

By that time the Navy patrol boats that run the harbor and aren't supposed to let him be there showed up. We wanted to throw a line on the Sampan and take it in so we'd have a confirmed kill. We didn't get to do this kind of thing and we were scared to death. But, the heavily armed patrol boat said, no he's ours. They didn't want to get caught letting the boat in. So they took him.

Bill Burden, Corporal Technician, Army, Madisonville, KY, 1941 - 1945

He served in 866 Artillery Battery B during World War II.
During the invasion of the Philippines it was monsoon season and I was on the third truck to come off the LST landing craft and the other two before me were bogged down in the sand and my buddies were sleeping under their trucks.

So, it was about three-o’clock in the morning and we woke up and there were tracers a firing and firing and the Navy was shooting parachute flairs to light up the beach line.

We were assigned to the 32nd Infantry Division, who was the initial landing outfit. This guy came running up over this bank and said to us, you guys need to wake up as the japs may come over at any time.
On top of the bank there sat this Infantry guy with an air cooled 50 caliber machine gun. The guy helping him had long, white asbestos gloves on and he was feeding that machine gun with belts of ammunition. When the barrel got red hot the guy with the gloves would take it off and put a new barrel on. When we finally got the Japanese stopped we didn’t have much room left between them and the ocean.

Later we were on the beach when General Douglas MacArthur came ashore.

Bill Cisney, Major, Air Force, Madisonville, KY, 1958 - 1979

He served in various roles through-out his career ranging from a special services officer in charge of things like the gym, golf course and service clubs in his early career, to a crew member with a minute man missile site during the cold war and many other positions.

One of the most-tense times was in 1960 when I was sitting at a football game in France when the alert sirens went off and that’s when they started building the Berlin Wall.

Tensions were really high and they thought they were going to evacuate all the non-combatants, so all the dependents were scared to death that they were going to be taken out of there.

Bill Smith, Private First Class, Army Reserves, Madisonville, KY, 1958 - 1960

He was trained as a combat Infantryman assigned to the 198th Infantry Regiment, 100th Army Reserves.

I can remember one time we were on parade one time we were on parade in August when it gets so hot where there were thousands of us who were being trained then by paratroopers from Ft. Campbell, Ky. I remember standing out there with all my gear on, M1 Rifle, pack and all the combat gear, out there in the sun which was about 100 some odd degrees and it was so hot that people were dropping like flies. You stood there at attention, but you could roll your eyes around and see people dropping left and right. I got sicker than a dog myself, but somehow I made it through the parade without dropping out.

Another time I was marking targets on the firing range. It’s where you stand in a deep trench and hold a metal disk up to mark where they hit the targets and they were supposed to hold off fire while you were marking them. I still think it was probably an instructor, but when I went to mark the target someone fired and hit the round metal disk I was holding up. That thing shook and vibrated me all over the place and scared the living daylights out of me.

Bill Whitledge, Sgt 1st Class, Army, Madisonville, KY, 1958 - 1965

He served on active duty for 18 months and the rest in the active Army Reserves.

Over the years he served in many positions but primarily ended up as a Mess Sergeant with the 100th Division, Ft. Chaffey, Arkansas.

A mess sergeant could run the Army, if he plays his cards right. The Army’s not run by the generals, but by the privates and sergeants. They can mess up a general if they want to. I could take 5 pounds of coffee and get just about anything we needed.

The military gives you a good education, better than you can get in college or anywhere else. Because you learn to take punches, how to get things done and to respect other people.

Billy Cartwright, Army, Private First Class, Madisonville, Ky, 1951 - 1953

Private First Class Billy Cartwright served as a Hospital Corpsmen.

After he finished his medical training his first assignment was as a Private with the 14th Filed Hospital Annex at Pusan, South Korea.

The Annex had about 5,000 Prisoners of War (POW), of the 14 thousand in the 14th Field Hospital during that time. All the POW's at the Annex were classified as civilian detainees.
They were young women, sometimes with babies, and young men that had not been in the military and claimed to be a citizen of South Korea. His compound had about 50 POW's that were not as sick as the other POW's and it was the work compound. Every POW, except the children, had tuberculosis (T.B.) and it was a killer. On a cold wet night they would have as many as four people to die.

He was sitting in his tent one hot summer afternoon when he heard a disturbance in the compounds binjo (latrine). Just inside the binjo curtains several of the POW's were pushing a detainees head into the pit with their feet. Rescuing the POW from the pit he cleaned him up and had him shipped out to the main hospital. The next morning a delegation of twelve POW's were at his tent saying the guy was an attorney in Seoul before he was captured. They weren't happy with him not being put to death. They said the he was a North Korean soldier and that he had been identified as a person that killed one of the other POW's mother and raped his sister. He explained to them that it was a hospital and any trial would need to be done in a court of law and told them to get back to work. He figures that was the one time he may have saved a North Korean's life.

Bob Carrico, Captain, Air Force, Madisonville, KY, 1969 - 1973

During pilot training I was soloing on a two mission flight when I bent the wing about 45 degrees on my T-38 jet about 18 inches from the outside. It made a significant impression on me in such that I can still remember a picture of that in my mind clearly to this day.

Looking out there and seeing that wing bent up and the airplane wouldn’t fly right. I was with a real calm instructor in the other aircraft and we brought it back in and landed it hot at about 200 miles an hour.
The first thing they did when we got on the ground is they had somebody hop up and look in the backseat at the G meter in the back to see if I over stressed the aircraft. I hadn’t, but I did run real close to it, 7.2 g’s and the limit was 7.3, so they didn’t get after me and I was flying again in a few days. It turned out to be a minor design problem and they eventually lowered the G rating for the airplane to extend its life.

As pilot flying EC-47’s (a then Top Secret Tactical Electronic Warfare aircraft) at over Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, from NKP Thailand he flew 75 combat missions.

Fortunately, as he puts it, “I had the same number of take offs and landings! Other than separation from my wife, it wasn’t bad duty. Out of our 22 airplanes we only lost two while I was there. If you weren’t on one of those two airplanes it wasn’t bad duty. If you were on one of those airplanes, it was a difficult situation.

Bob G. Simmons, Col., Army Reserves, 100th Division, 1965 – 1992

Bob was assigned to the Kentucky Infantry Division, all cross the state.

First position was that as a drill Sgt. and was commissioned about a year later becoming a training officer for his first job. Afterwards went through pretty much all the staff positions over the years including commander.

The biggest challenge he ever had was when he was the project officer for a major armor training exercise at Camp Grayling, Michigan. He had the opportunity to put together a task force that included not only the local battalion, but units from Hopkinsville, Paducah and all the assets that were at Ft. Campbell at the time, plus all the physical assets of the division out of Louisville. he spent 17 days there and did this major training exercise at the time the division was transitioning from infantry to armor. “I think that was the biggest task that I ever undertook.”

The biggest thrill he ever had was the opportunity to do a division briefing for General Colin Powell. He said he normally wouldn’t have been the briefing officer for the division, but General Powell announced that he would be coming to Ft. Knox and our division headquarters in Louisville and one of the full time soldiers in the division was looking for the best presentation they could give and they called him and asked me if he’d be interested in doing the briefing.

So after clearing it with the general they flew him to Louisville on a Blackhawk helicopter on the day of the presentation. It couldn’t have been more than a few months after that he became the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Needless to say I was a bit nervous.”

Brent Tyson, Corporal, Marines, Hanson, KY, 1956 -1958

Brent spent most of his time as Squad Leader for Fox 28, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines, 2nd Marine Division at Camp Lejeune, NC.

He was responsible for three fire teams and although he was assigned to Camp Lejeune he participated in operations in the Caribbean and on Panama during his two years of service.
I started out with 13 weeks at Paris Island, SC, that’s where I did my boot camp. That was hell on earth. If I had my choice of going through combat or Paris Island again, well I’d go through combat!

Buddy Brooks Sr., Lance Corporal, Marine Reserves,

Madisonville, KY, 1955 – 1966
He was assigned to the 17th Rifle Company, with a Navy Reserves out of Evansville, IN.

Brooks recalls, I’ll never forget one year we were at Camp Lejeune and we were out playing war games. There were three squad leaders, me and two others. You had the regular Marines who were playing the enemy and Tech Sergeant Rolland said why don’t we get one of those guys and tie them up? So we said alright and went out on the road and here comes one down the road and it was Capt. Hudson. He was shooting and when he came by I stuck my arm out and when he hit it he went head over heels. I remember the gun stuck up in the sand and I looked around for help and there was nobody there! When I looked back around there were those two bars and he said, boy, don’t you know you’re not supposed to use physical contact? I said, no sir and he replied, you’ll know it next time! So that next day I was cleaning pistols! I never will forget that.

Charles (C.J.) Moore, Private First Class, Army, White Plains, KY, 1944 - 1946

He was assigned to the 98th Infantry Division as an Expert Rifleman.

In 1945 C.J. was in jungle survival training in Hawaii, preparing with his unit to be part of the invasion of Japan, when they learned about the dropping of the two atom bombs, which brought about the surrender of Japan which brought about the end of World War II in the Pacific.

So he and his unit became part of the occupying force and his primary duty then was as a truck driver, which he really enjoyed as it allowed him to see much more of the county. He said the Japanese never gave them any trouble after the surrender, but he always kept his rifle close at hand just in case.

His time in country what a bit short lived however because of an accident on Christmas Eve of 1945. He recalls he and two friends decided to go to Christmas Eve Mass and when two of them were hit by a car and his leg was broken. They carried him to a field hospital, which was an old school building in Osaka, Japan. It was crushed so bad that they couldn’t set it and they had to wait for about three months before they could re-break it and then set it correctly. He was then sent back to the states where he was given a medical discharge.

Calvin Walker, Army, Corporal, Madisonville, Ky, 1951-1953

Calvin Walker entered the Army in October of 1951 during the Korean War and served until he was discharged in April 1953 as a Corporal. During his time in Korea he was with the 9th Regiment of the 2nd Infantry Division and was a heavy mortar man who participated in action at Pork Chop Hill and other battles along the front lines for 10 months, earning him two Bronze Stars among other medals.

He recalls the Battle of Porch Chop Hill.
There were several days at a time where it was constant fire and of course you didn’t do much sleeping during those times. By then I had gotten into Fire Control so at least I was in a bunker.

The forward observer was up in the line with the infantry and they’d radio you back with what they thought were the co-ordinances for where they wanted you to fire. We’d call it into the guns and they’d put one round in to see if any adjustments had to be made and then all four guns would open up and fire for effect. Of course we were below the hill firing over the heads of the infantry to the other side of the hill where the North Koreans were.

That went on for a few days and then, I guess the Koreans decided they didn’t want it after all and they retreated.
One of the worse things is the smell from the planes that were dropping the napalm bombs. It hit people and just burned them alive. It ran in the holes and in the trenches, just everywhere. It was liquid fire. It was mean stuff.

Charles Branson, MSgt, Army, Madisonville, KY, 1945 - 1972

Branson started in the Infantry and after about and year and a half I got out for a few months where he went to work for the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. Every time the mines shut down or went on strike he’d be out of work and so he went back into the Army. Since he had the railroad experience they put him in transportation where he worked various related jobs for most of the rest of his career traveling around the globe on assignments that took him to Europe, Korea, Viet Nam, Thailand and many other locations. He says he didn’t actually deliver anything, but he made it happen! Most of my time was with passengers, trains and planes mostly. The job was called movement control.

From 1971 - 1972 he was the First Sergeant for the 402nd Transportation in Long Binh, Viet Nam with detachments around the country and was responsible for traveling to them for inspections. There were times they came under mortar and rocket attack during inspections, but fortunately for him he was never injured or in direct battle during his tour.

He feels his military career was a good experience as it settled him down and wouldn’t take anything for it.

Charles Neely, Seaman First Class, Navy, Hanson, KY, 1943 - 1946

He was assigned to the USS Birmingham, a Light Cruiser, as a anti-aircraft gunner/loader.
In March of 1945 his ship was part of the bombardment of the beach at Okinawa, Japan to prepare for the invasion. After a couple months providing support for the operations on Okinawa and having several narrow misses, they got hit broadside by a Japanese kamikaze plane on the in the morning of the 4th of May.

He recalled that the plane came in from the side under where he was manning his 20mm gun when the plane crashed into the side of the ship, about where the sick bay was located and went down another deck before blowing a hole out of the other side. He said that he was in sick bay the day before where he was injured at his gun station and they told him to come back on the 4th of May so they could check his dressing. He had planned to go back that afternoon.

The explosion and fire wiped out the sick bay and ruptured the main, second and third decks of the ship. The bulkheads were blown in and a five-foot hole was blown in the starboard side below the waterline. They lost a lot of men that day, at least 100. He can still remember the dead and wounded being passed up through the hole in the ship and moved to ships that had come along side.

Charlie Crowley, Navy, Ships Cook First Class, Madisonville, KY, 1942 – 1945

Crowley was assigned to the Naval Air Station at Elizabeth City, NC. The base served as the central base for the Eastern Sea Frontier Command. It operated the largest search and rescue unit on the East Coast with 55 aircraft available for duty in a special rescue squadron.

The north end of the station was enlarged by the addition of over 100 buildings needed for the PV-1 Ventura, PBY Catalina, PBM Mariner and Free French SBD dive-bomber squadrons.
He and his unit was responsible for preparing meals for the large seaplanes that patrolled off the eastern coast of the United States during World War II.

They had a mess hall there in the hanger where they’d cook and put meals on the planes when they went out on missions. Anyone who has served in the armed forces can attest that it runs on the stomachs of its military.

He recalls one time one of the planes returned from a mission that had a hole in the bottom of the plane and they had to run it all the way on the beach to keep it from sinking.

Chrystal Brantley, Army, Madisonville, Ky, 1989 - 1991

Chrystal Brantley served as a member of the Army's 101st Airborne Division at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky from 1989 until May of 1991 in Radio Repair until she separated as a Private First Class.

Daniel W. (DW) Dockery Machinist Mate Third Class, Navy, Madisonville, KY, 1946 – 1948

He recalls when he was assigned to the engine room of the USS Furse, DD882, which was patrolling between of Tsingtao, China, Japan and Okinawa. His primary job was making fresh water from salt water, among others.

In December of 1947 they were patrolling out of Okinawa when a typhoon was coming. Their ship was actually at anchor when they got notice, so they put out to sea to ride out the storm.

Dockery shares the story, “During the typhoon the captain got a radio message to go look for an Okinawan fishing boat, which sounds crazy, but we did. Instead of heading into the storm, which would be the best way to take the storm, we took a 45 degree port turn and listed tragically for probably an hour before we got the boat righted and back into the wind. Then he got a message that the boat had been found on another island. They said that typhoon was clocked at 105 – 110 knots, which probably meant 125 mile per hour wind.

We had between 20 to 25 fuel oil tanks aboard and it ruptured at least 17 of the wells on those tanks. I suppose the captain realized that we were sitting too deep in the water and had another ship escort us to Tokyo into a submarine dry dock, where the Japanese went in and cleaned those tanks out and repaired everything and we went back out to sea.”

Darrell Qualls, Corporal, USMC, Madisonville, KY, 1961 – 1965

Qualls enlisted in 1961 with 8 other guys from Earlington High School under the buddy system.

When in high school he heard that typing was an easy class so he took it and excelled. He says that’s probably what saved his life. When he went through the Marine Corp he went through basic at Paris Island and in those days basic, with advanced training, was 16 weeks long. During his last week he had to take a test to determine his job title. He says, they had all these typewriters set out for the test. I thought, well I came in to be a rifleman, a rugged Marine. I took the test and just flew by and became an admin clerk.

In 1964, while stationed at the Marine Barracks at Norfolk, VA he went on a military exercise to Spain for war games called Steel Pike.

During the trip he was in line one day to get the on the helicopters to head out to their various duty stations that day.
There was a black guy named Porter who won the boxing championship on board the ship they were working out of and they had become good friends. There wasn’t any particular order they’d get in line, but only 12-14 guys would get on each helicopter. Qualls was further back in the line and Porter kept saying, “Qualls, come on up here and get with me” and Qualls said, no, that’s ok, I’m fine back here.

The helicopters would take off, one would veer to the left and another would be behind it and veer to the right and so forth. Somehow, one of the veered one way and the one behind it veered the same way. They went into each other and those back on the ship didn’t even know this as it took place 5-6 miles away. Both helicopters went down and 9 of the 23 aboard died. His friend Porter was one of them. Qualls says he could have easily gotten up there, “God just wasn’t ready for me to be in that spot, he just wasn’t ready for me. That’s how close to death I came.”

Dave Cross, Navy, Madisonville, Ky, 1980 - 1988

Dave Cross, of Madisonville, as he proudly displays a certificate of his promotion to Petty Officer Second Class from when he was assigned to the Submarine Tender San Onofre (ARD-30) at San Diego, CA in January of 1987. He served in the Navy from 1980 until 1988 serving on several ships during his time in service and his job was that of an Engineman.