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Cold War Casualties Cry Out For Commemoration
"Reprinted with permission from the May 2004 issue of VFW Magazine."
Please direct all comments on the article to: Richard K. Kolb, Editor-in-Chief, VFW Magazine, 406 W. 34th Street, Suite 523, Kansas City, MO 64111, or e-mail: rkolb@vfw.org.
Memorials and museums haphazardly spot the landscape. Only a comprehensive museum-memorial combination can convey the magnitude of the nation’s longest war, say veterans.
By Richard Fournier
It’s the war no contemporary government official wants to remember yet recognize. After all, the nation’s former enemies are now supposedly our friends. Those in charge of transmitting historical knowledge will not even admit it was a war. Still others maintain the West did not achieve victory, or even worse, say it should not have.
A grateful nation pays tribute to its warriors by respecting their service in some permanent fashion. Traditionally, this has taken the form of memorials and museums. Just witness the much-deserved fanfare surrounding the dedication of the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Politics should not interfere with such commemoration, but it has in the case of the Cold War, our country’s longest running conflict. “In modern-day America, there is too much fashionable tampering with authentic tradition,” wrote Willie Morris, former editor of Harper’s. “This juggling with expressions of the past is reminiscent of the way the Communists are eternally rewriting history. …”
For 40 years, GIs of every service manned ramparts along Communist borders in East Europe, Northeast Asia and the Caribbean Rim. At least 384 were killed as a result of hostile enemy action in a war that was reputedly waged “without firing a shot.” Thousands of other Americans died while maneuvering to prevent global conflict.
So how have their memories been served by the nation that called them to duty? A comprehensive survey of museum exhibits and memorial reminders clearly shows the need for a single, unifying site that honors the service of Cold War veterans, especially those who paid the ultimate price for keeping the West free.
Scattered across the country—the world for that matter—are a number of relatively minor tributes. Fortunately, there are a few exceptions to this generalization. Let’s take a look at what exists today and what is required to make sure posterity fully understands the sacrifices made by Americans in uniform well beyond the parameters of the two hot wars—Korea and Vietnam—in the struggle with communism.
Starting With a Polar Bear
Some historians say the Cold War actually began at the end of World War I. If so, the first memorial to Americans killed fighting the Soviets stands in White Chapel Memorial Park in Troy, Mich. The Polar Bear Monument, dedicated May 30, 1930, remembers 56 men of the 339th Infantry Regiment and 330th Engineers—“Michigan’s Own”—killed in North Russia in 1918-1919. (All told, 146 Americans were KIA there.)
But the Cold War as most Americans know it dates back to May 1945 with the end of WWII in Europe. The first hostile American casualty, however, died on the other side of the world in China. Chinese Communists executed Army Air Forces Capt. John Birch, then attached to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), on Aug. 25, 1945. But, his name is not listed in the OSS Memorial Book, even though an officer killed in post-war Vietnam is so recognized.
In North China, between 1945 and 1948, Chinese Communists killed 13 U.S. Marines in action. Though covered by the China Service Medal, the frieze of the Marine Corps War Memorial does not list North China among its battle honors. Nor does the Marine Corps Historical Center have a display or list these KIAs on its official casualty list.
East Asia in the early years of the Cold War claimed another dozen Ameri-can lives. The government of Taiwan remem-bers an Army adviser with a memorial on Kinmen (Quemoy) Island. Another, a CIA operative killed in China, is uniquely honored by the city of his birth. The Louisville (Ky.) Cold War Memorial—perhaps the only municipal one in America—also includes “all men and women who served in the Cold War.”
Laos was a separate theater of the Cold War in 1961-62, yet the 13 Americans killed in action there at the time are named only on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Ironically, seven of the total apparently died too soon to qualify for the Armed Forces Expedi-tionary Medal (AFEM).
Korea’s DMZ from 1966 through 1969 constituted a war unto itself. Veterans of this period received the AFEM, and only recently all Americans who saw duty on the peninsula were authorized the new Korea Defense Service Medal. But only soldiers stationed in Korea see the U.S. War Memorial at Yongsan Army Garrison in Seoul along with the 2nd Infantry Division Museum at Camp Red Cloud, where this era is recalled.
The Korean War Memorial’s Honor Roll (computer data-base) in Washington, D.C., does include post-1953 deaths in Korea. Unique among state Korean War memorials, Massa-chusetts lists post-truce deaths. Names of 10 vets are inscribed on a memorial bench dedicated May 30, 2003, in Boston’s Charlestown Navy Shipyard. The Phila-delphia Korean War Memorial also lists one name from 1968.
The USS Pueblo, captured off the coast of North Korea in 1968, became an enduring symbol of the confrontation along the Bamboo Curtain. Still, its crew was not authorized to wear the POW Medal until May 1990. In a strange twist of fate, the Communists, for propaganda purposes, long publicly displayed the spy ship. Pueblo, Colo., remembers the crew with a bronze plaque at its Hall of Heroes. So does the National POW Memorial in Andersonville, Ga.
Reminders of the ‘Cactus Curtain’
Closer to home, the Caribbean soon became a cockpit of the Cold War. Alabama Air National Guard veterans of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion only recently began receiving their due. All four of the CIA-recruited airmen killed are named in the agency’s Book of Honor. The one U.S. KIA—Maj. Rudolph Anderson, Jr.—of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis is recalled with a memorial in his hometown of Greenville, S.C., incorporating not a U-2 spy plane, but a Korean War Sabre jet.
Perhaps tied with the Korea DMZ as the least-known land campaign of the Cold War is the Dominican Republic. Waged in 1965-66, the military operation there rates a place on the Marine Corps War Memorial, but did not earn an Army campaign streamer until 1992 (which was not announced until 1996). All vets of the operation qualify for the AFEM.
Tucked away at Camp Lejeune and Fort Bragg, N.C., are memorials to the dead of the 2nd Marine and 82nd Airborne divisions. The Dominican Republic Memorial at Lejeune is behind Building 2 at the southern end of Holcomb Boulevard next to monuments for Beirut and Grenada.
A memorial to the 1st Battalion of the 508th Airborne Infantry was erected soon after the operation. During the Dominican Republic Commemoration Ceremony on April 25, 1985, the memorial was relocated to outside the 82nd’s museum. A second memorial was dedicated on Nov. 27, 1996, to the remaining 82nd KIA but only after the Hutchison family insisted. The sister of 2nd Lt. Charles Hutchison was the driving force. She also placed a plaque at the U.S. Embassy in Santo Domingo in honor of the American dead.
The 82nd Airborne Memorial Museum has a fitting display on Operation Power Pack, but the Marine Corps Historical Center does not have a similar exhibit. The to-be-built National Museum of the Marine Corps and Heritage Center has no Cold War-related exhibits planned at this time.
U.S. intervention on Grenada in 1983 earned participants the AFEM. Those Americans killed there are honored with a memorial on the Grand Anse Campus of St. George’s School of Medicine. The Beirut Memorial, a separate monument at Camp Lejeune and various special operations memorials list names, too, from Operation Urgent Fury.
Veterans of El Salvador (1981-92) fought long and hard to overcome the political roadblocks thrown up in their way to winning the AFEM. A display at the JFK Special Warfare Museum at Ft. Bragg tells their story. And a memorial in Arlington remembers the U.S. dead, but none lists all their names for the public to see.
For those Americans killed in the netherworld of international Communist terrorism, remembrance is even more difficult to discern. Specific units ranging from the Air Force Security Police at the U.S. Air Force Museum at Wright--Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio, to Seabees at Port Hueneme, Calif., remember their own. The Joint Special Operations Com-mand Memorial at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., as well as the Army’s Special Ops Memorial cover casualties since 1980.
Aerial Reconnaissance Recalled
Because of the secretive nature of their duties, no campaign medal (outside Korea and Vietnam) recognizes many vets in the fraternity of aerial recon warriors. This glaring official void is unlikely ever to be remedied.
The Aerial Reconnaissance Memorial in National Vigilance Park at Fort Meade, Md., pays homage to cryptologists of all services lost in the line of duty. The aircraft and plaques that make up the park were dedicated Sept. 2, 1997. Its centerpiece preserves the memory of the 17-man crew shot down over Armenia in 1958. The nearby National Security Agency Cryptologic Memorial lists names dating back to 1952.
The National Cryptologic Museum contains three displays focusing on aerial recon. The primary one—the “Cold Warrior” exhibit—is devoted to all aircrew members KIA or MIA on missions over and around Communist borders.
A private company, Raytheon (the grounds are now owned by L-3 Communications Integrated Systems), created one of the most impressive tributes yet to Cold War veterans.
Its Reconnaissance Memorial in Greenville, Texas, memorializes crew-members from 10 missions for which the plant played a part in manufacturing the aircraft’s systems. The circular wall supporting individual plaques was dedicated Oct. 9, 1998. It includes three of the Cold War’s deadliest shoot-downs in 1956 (Sea of Japan), 1958 (Armenia) and 1969 (off North Korea).
The Air Force Museum boasts a new Cold War annex opened in the spring of 2003. At the museum’s Memorial Gardens, a Cold War memorial listing 55 members killed represents the 55th Strategic Recon Wing (SRW). Four benches represent each of its squadrons. It was dedicated in September 2003. A granite monument honors the 91st SRW.
Close by are two more memorials—one to the 1958 shoot-down in Armenia and the other to all fliers who lost their lives during the “Silent War.”
The Strategic Air Command (SAC) Memorial at Offutt AFB in Nebraska proclaims: “Sept. 6, 1996. Dedicated to those valiant strategic airborne reconnaissance crew members who gave their lives during the Cold War.” Also there is the Cobra Ball II Monument to six crewmen killed in a crash on Shemya, Aleutian Islands, on March 15, 1981. The Strategic Air and Space Museum near Omaha has an exhibit on unresolved Cold War shoot-downs and some era weaponry.
The U.S. Air Force Security Service Memorial at Lackland AFB in San Antonio is symbolized by an EC-47 aircraft dedicated in 1994. The memorial plaque listing names of those killed is located in the headquarters building.
Countries over which crews were shot down also have helped remember the lost lives. An Armenian memorial stone, or khachkar, was dedicated by the villagers of Sasnashen at the site of the 1958 shoot-down in August 1993. It had no names because the U.S. government did not provide them then.
Once the Iron Curtain was lifted, residents of the former East Germany were anxious to remember, too. The people of Vogelsberg erected a memorial complete with a plaque on stone and photos on a cross to the three American airmen killed by a Soviet pilot on Jan. 28, 1964.
Latvia has a prominent obelisk overlooking the Baltic Sea coast with a memorial plaque. Dedicated in April 2000, the monument remembers the 10 Navy aviators shot down and killed by the Soviets on April 8, 1950.
Great Britain offers the American Air Museum, opened in August 1997, at Duxford Field. Among its vast collection are Cold War aircraft and artifacts. English Heritage, a preservationist agency, hopes to make the former U.S. air base at Upper Heyford the country’s first Cold War monument. “It helps us understand that the peace we have today is a result of the Cold War,” said Frank Dixon of the Oxford Trust for Contemporary History.
At home in Arlington National Cemetery, a gravestone inscribed with five names is located in Section 2. Unveiled Aug. 19, 1950, the monument honors the airmen killed in the first fatal Cold War shoot-down, over Yugoslavia in August 1946.
A “Silent Heroes of the Cold War National Monument” has been proposed for Mt. Charleston in Nevada. It marks the site of a C-54 crash on Nov. 7, 1955, that killed 14 airmen and civilians. Proponents say it would be all-inclusive, however.
Finally, the Air Force Memorial to be built in Virginia will not list names, but will “reflect the campaigns in some fashion,” according to Pete Lindquist, vice president for operations.
Naval Aviation Recon Neglected
While Air Force recon casualties and veterans are substantially recognized, the same cannot be said of their Navy counterparts. This is true in terms of both memorials and museums.
The National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola, Fla., has “no exhibits or memorials within the museum or on the museum grounds relating to the Cold War,” says museum historian Hill Goodspeed. But at the nearby Center for Cryptology at Corry Station, the Naval Security Group (NSG) Associa--tion has maintained a display since 1998. It covers naval reconnaissance, shoot-downs (1950-69) and the capture of the USS Pueblo in 1968.
“Although we deal with the Navy,” said NSGCC volunteer coordinator William Lockert, “my intention is to have a picture of every type of reconnaissance aircraft [all services], list the type of aircraft, date and names of all service members who lost their lives flying these ‘training missions.’ ”
National Vigilance Park in Maryland does not display an aircraft representing the Navy. NSG vets would like an EC-121 to honor the 31 men killed off North Korea in 1969. (They are listed in Greenville, Texas.) But rumors indicate a Skywarrior A3D (EA-3B) may be under consideration for the park.
The “Silent Service” of undersea reconnaissance, on the other hand, is widely recognized. During the Cold War, submariners often rated the Naval Expedi-tionary Medal for operating “under circumstances which after full consideration shall be deemed to merit special recognition.”
At Groton, Conn., the Submarine Force Museum includes displays on Cold War-related events. The nuclear sub USS Nautilus forms the museum’s centerpiece.
Dedicated Dec. 6, 2002, the Cold War Submarine Memorial is located on a 2.3-acre site at Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum in Mt. Pleasant, S.C. Seven educational stations tell the submarine story along a winding path.
One station is devoted “to those who sacrificed their lives while serving in and supporting our submarine forces during the Cold War.” The USS Thresher and Scorpion are listed, which also are honored by bronze plaques at Portsmouth, N.H., and Norfolk, Va., respectively, for their crew losses in the 1960s.
U.S. Army Along the Iron Curtain
Three campaign medals cover service in Cold War Europe: the Army of Occupation (Austria, Germany, Italy and Berlin), Navy Occupation (the aforementioned plus Trieste) and the AFEM (Berlin, 1961-63). Conspicuously excluded are all the veterans—especially of armored cavalry units—who did duty on the borders of East Germany and Czechoslovakia from 1955 (U.S. occupation ended then) to 1989.
During the 1980s, the U.S. Army in Europe considered compiling GI deaths from training and other accidents in order to erect a memorial, but the project was never completed.
Some monuments, however, have taken root in German soil. The 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment (ACR) has had one at the former Downs Barracks in Fulda since 1998. Both the 14th and 11th ACR dedicated markers at Observation Post Alpha on May 14, 2000. OP Alpha, complete with a museum (including 14th memorabilia), has been developed into the premier Cold War site in Germany, thanks to the efforts of local Germans like Hans Schmidt, a vet of the Federal Border Police.
The largest of the border museums is located at Marienborn. The best known, of course, is Checkpoint Charlie Museum in Berlin. The German Army Military History Museum in Dresden naturally deals with the East-West struggle from the German perspective. Its Cold War Room opened in May 1997 and contains excellent displays.
These examples apparently are exceptions, though. “In Germany,” said Florian Weiss, curator of the Allied Museum in Berlin, “you will hardly find Cold War military themes presented in museums.” Political education is the goal, he said. Some special exhibits appear occasionally, but nothing in the Allied Museum tells the story of the famed Berlin Brigade.
Two U.S. Army museums still exist in Germany. The 1st Armored Division Museum in Baumholder has a complete room with Cold War exhibits, photos, dioramas, artifacts and uniformed mannequins, according to Director Dan Peterson. The 1st Infantry Division Museum at Wurzberg includes displays on that unit’s long stay in Germany.
Back in the States, the Army boasts an extensive museum system covering branches as well as units. But few exhibits deal exclusively with the Cold War. At least one exception is the Museum of the U.S. Constabulary housed with the Fort Riley Regimental Museum (adjacent to the U.S. Cavalry Museum) in Kansas. Its three galleries detail the history of the “First Cold Warriors, 1946-1952.”
Armor Unit Park at the Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor at Fort Knox, Ky., covers all the armored divisions and armored cavalry regiments. The 4th Infantry Division, 11th ACR and 3rd Cavalry Regiment museums contain only small Cold War displays. The 2nd ACR (Reed Museum) at Fort Polk, La., has two Cold War sections along with significant outside displays.
The private 1st Division Museum at Cantigny, Ill., plans to refurbish its Cold War section in 2005. The Field Artillery Museum at Ft. Sill, Okla., displays the 280mm “atomic cannon” of Cold War fame, as do five other museums and parks.
Considering the fact that the Army fielded 15 divisions (some for more than three decades) and five armored cavalry regiments in Germany during the Cold War, it is surprising that more attention has not been focused on them.
The newly opened National Guard Museum in Washington, D.C., has a separate section called The Cold War Era (Area 4), mentioning the 1961 Berlin mobilization, 1961 Bay of Pigs operation and 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
The National Museum of the U.S. Army, to be built at Fort Belvoir, Va., and opened in June 2009, will incorporate the Cold War in its timeline. “This chronological zone is titled ‘Containing Communism’ and begins with Greece in 1947,” according to Army Historical Foundation Marketing Director Dave Lewis.
Intelligence Operatives Remembered
Civilian intelligence personnel who worked through the CIA and the State Department played a vital role in winning the Cold War in Europe. And some died right along with their military counterparts.
CIA’s predecessor, OSS, dedicated its memorial book at CIA HQ in 1992. It lists 116 names, including one who was killed by Vietnamese Communists after WWII—Capt. A. Peter Dewey. CIA’s Memorial Wall of stars and glass-encased Book of Honor were unveiled at Langley, Va., in the fall of 1974.
To qualify for inclusion, deaths must be “of an inspirational or heroic character.” Yet this excludes contract employees, such as those who flew for Air America, no matter how heroic their feats, and thus denies recognition to many.
Names on the wall date back to 1950. Of 80 stars, 34 names still remain secret. Likewise, CIA’s museum is closed to the public, leaving its achievements hidden.
The State Department’s memorial listing is located in the lobby of the diplomatic entrance, and is maintained by the American Foreign Service Association. It includes the names of some defense attachés and Marine embassy security guards who were killed under “heroic or inspirational circumstances.” At least 14 of the honorees died during the Cold War between 1950-1992, and not in Vietnam.
Hallowed Ground
Unlike the first American casualty of the Cold War, the final U.S. hostile death in Europe attracted wide-spread publicity in the news media. Killed by a Soviet sentry in East Germany on March 24, 1985, Maj. Arthur D. Nicholson, Jr., received a hero’s return home.
He is buried in Section 7-A of Arlington National Cemetery. Inscribed on his gravestone are these words: “Killed in East Germany, U.S. Military Liaison Mission.” No mention is made of who killed him or why he was shot. This is reflective of how many Americans who preceded Nicholson in death during the Cold War are remembered.
Arlington contains the graves of at least 16 others killed in hostile Cold War incidents. A group called No Greater Love (NGL), the brainchild of Carmella LaSpada, sees to it that those who die in uniform are remembered. For instance, NGL had the El Salvador marble marker dedicated in Arlington on May 5, 1996. It also sponsors annual remembrance tributes for El Salvador and Grenada, among others.
Perhaps its most unique tribute, however, is for the Cold War on Nov. 9. “No one seems to recall the importance of the day the Berlin Wall came down in 1989,” LaSpada said. “It is a day that should be set aside nationally to honor all the Americans who served to contain communism.”
With 5 million visitors a year, Arlington National Cemetery is certainly an ideal location to permanently remember the 384 Americans killed by hostile Communist action across the globe. (All their names will be printed in VFW’s forthcoming book Cold War Clashes, a comprehensive one-of-a-kind history of these virtually unknown campaigns.)
Names Essential
Names are central to memorials with drawing power. It is the only way to guarantee the nobility of personal sacrifice and convey the scale of those sacrifices. Listing names by campaign and date complete with units also is the best means of retaining martial identity.
The essence of names was captured in a New York Times article entitled “Finding Comfort in the Safety of Names” by Michael Kimmelman. The listing of names, he wrote, is the “visual equivalent to the monotone roll-call of the dead.” Kimmelman concluded: “Memorials are above all for the families and for a community, common ground to grieve … Only the families and friends of the dead can really know what the names mean.”
Memorials play a historical role in culture. “What society values and what it wants to remember about war is reflected in the variety of social and physical settings for sacred and non-sacred memorials that exist,” James M. Mayo wrote in War Memorials as Political Landscape. “War memorials not only evoke war history, but more importantly, they evoke the history that people want to remember.”
A move is afoot to finally recognize those who waged the Cold War. A potential location for a proposed memorial and museum has been selected at the former Nike missile base in Lorton, Va. It’s a spot only 20 minutes from Washington, D.C.
Beginning with a traveling display in 1996, Francis Gary Powers, Jr., has pursued a $10 million dream ever since. “I am working for this museum and memorial not just for my dad [held by Moscow in 1960],” Powers said, “but to honor all Cold War veterans, to make sure all Cold War history is preserved.”
But how this history is preserved is the key. “The past is also what is commemorated by monuments and markers, plaques and parades, historic sites and museums,” according to Yale historian Robin Winks. “Almost always a monument is an attempt to interpret an event in which those who have erected it take pride.”
Indeed, it is. And that’s precisely what any national Cold War museum and memorial must do—evoke pride among those who served and sacrificed.
To that end, VFW Post 7327 in Springfield, Va., made a $20,000 donation in August 2002 to Powers’ project. “Those who served deserve more than a Cold War Recognition Certificate,” feels J.B. Young, senior vice commander. “It is high time that a fitting, permanent tribute be erected in a highly visible place where the public can visit it and come to appreciate the sacrifices made on their behalf in the twilight struggle against communism.”
(Post 7327 made this donation independently. VFW has not officially endorsed Powers’ project or any other such effort. That requires a national convention resolution, which the Post is reportedly planning to introduce in 2004.)
Sidebar:
Ten Galleries in a Hypothetical Cold War Museum
Listed here are campaigns that should be covered in any such museum. Far too often the focus is on armaments, politics and cultural icons instead of the people in uniform who waged the war.
Memorial historian James M. Mayo has categorized three types of military history museums: weapon, hero and warrior. “Public war museums must honor those who fought,” he wrote in War Memorials as Public Landscapes. “Honor is for people, not weapons … Warrior museums enable the public to come closer to people who had a role in history.”
Galleries with a permanent place in a “warrior” Cold War museum should include:
Morgan Line & Trieste, 1945-54
Italy, Yugoslavia, Austria, Greece, Albania
Marines in North China, 1945-1949
Border Operations along the Iron Curtain, 1945-89
Armored Cavalry, Intelligence, Signals in Germany
Czechoslovakia, 1945
Rhine River Patrol, 1950s
Berlin Crisis, 1961
Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, 1948-91
Arctic Rim Duty
Alaska, Iceland, Greenland, 1946-91
Caribbean Cockpit, 1961-1991
Marines at Guantanamo Bay, 1961-63
Alabama N.G. at Bay of Pigs, 1961
Overflights of Cuba & Sea Duty, 1962
Dominican Republic, 1965-66
Grenada, 1983
Advisers in El Salvador, 1981-91
Firefights on Korea’s DMZ, 1966-69
USS Pueblo, 1968
In Hostile Skies: Aerial Reconnaissance
Air Force, Navy, Shoot-Downs (1946-70)
Service Beneath the Sea: Submarines, 1946-1991
Guerrillas & Terrorism, 1946-1991
Philippines—Huks, 1946-54
NPA, 1970-80s
Taiwan, 1954, 1958-63
Laos, 1961-62
Congo, 1960-65
Panama Canal Zone, 1964
Guatemala, 1960s
Germany, 1970-80s
Lebanon, Iran, Turkey, Greece
Editor’s Note: Please let us know if we missed any memorials or museums to Cold War vets. Also, we look forward to your input on any issues raised in this article and what should be included in a Cold War museum.
Please direct all comments on the article to:
Richard K. Kolb, Editor-in-Chief
VFW Magazine
406 West 34th Street, Suite 523
Kansas City, MO 64111
E-mail: Rkolb@vfw.org
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