Pearl Harbor Anniversary

I'm writing this on the seventieth anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and America's sudden entry into the bloodiest and most widespread conflict the world has ever known. I hope that humanity never forgets the harm that evil intentions can precipitate. I was told that co-pilot of my father's crew, Lt.(jg) Robert J. Berens was on the Iowa that morning. Several other airmen of VPB-118 were there, as well. By contributing to a secure and just America and a secure and just world we honor their memory, and we honor all veterans.

Veterans Day 2011

Thanks to all those past and present of the U.S. military who have fought for our freedom, most of all to the great guys of VPB-118. May you always be remembered.

Frank Van Dyke

I received the following message from Peter Van Dyke this morning:

"It's with a mix of joy and great sadness that I have to inform you that my Dad died on Wed 3/23.

"We loved him and we will miss him greatly, but his life had become a continual struggle. He was a man of great faith and the thing he wanted most was to be with my Mom again.

"I have every belief that they are together, happy and pain free.

"He was very proud of his service to his country with VPB118."

Frank was co-pilot of Crew 13/7, piloted by PPC Lt. Cmdr. Edward G. "Doc" Binning. Frank's genial personality was a great aspect of the reunions. I am glad to have known him briefly through the reunions and to have heard him talk about his experiences as a lieutenant (jg) in WWII. A comment about the photo: I suggested this rather goofy pose, which Frank undertook in good humor.

Does anyone have spare copies of the book?

Happy new year, folks.

Periodically I get inquiries from family members regarding the question of availability of the VPB-118 book. For the last several years my answer has always been the same: the book is out of print and sold out. If there are any VPB-118 people out there with extra copies of the book that would like to get them in the hands of descendants of VPB-118 members, please contact me and we can go about setting up a process to take care of this need. Any help that can be given would be appreciated.

– Richard

Google Maps

If you haven't looked at the maps page on this site, it's worth a visit. I have links to maps of major airfields that VPB-118 spent varying lengths of time at. Google has enhanced their maps to link to photos taken on the ground. You can now get a much better idea of what some of these locations look like currently. Some of the locations, like Iwo Jima and Tinian, have preservation areas which are largely maintained as they were back in 1945. You can see the gooney birds on Midway Island and rusting guns where they were abandoned. Open each map in a new window using the link below the map and explore!

George Todd

I received this message from Pete Van Dyke, son of Frank Van Dyke:

"I regret to inform the Squad that my 'uncle' George Todd, who flew with my Dad in Binnings crew, passed away this morning. He was my Dad's best friend all these years, and I'm happy to say that they got to spend a week together in Maine in July.
We will miss him greatly."

(Date of passing was 8/16/2010)

New photo of McCutcheon Crew!

Darrel White, son of crew 11 member Glen White, supplied us with the Navy photo of Crew 11. Previously we only had a photo of the photo being taken, which was pretty great in its own right! Now we have the result of that photo session, and you can now see it here!

2010 VPB-118 Reunion

The details on this year's reunion in Grand Rapids have been finalized and the letters with the details will be going out soon. Some of the events planned are a visit to the Great Lakes Naval Memorial and Museum which has the submarine USS Silversides, the Coast Guard cutter USCGC McLane, and the new Robert G. Morin Museum. Visit their site for more information. We will pop into Grand Haven for a bite to eat and a stroll around. We will also visit the Fredrick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, which has the enormous Leonardo DaVinci bronze horse sculpture that I mentioned in a previous message, along with many other great objets d'art, no doubt.

By the way, the Silversides used to be tied up at Chicago's Navy Pier. I was glad that the Naval Museum gave her safe harbor after the folks that run Chicago decided she had to leave.

Air travel in and out of Grand Rapids should be easy, and Grand Rapids is conveniently located for many, if not all, coming in via the interstate.

If you are not on the mailing list but are a squadron member, relative, or friend of one of the aforementioned folks, please send me an email to get on the list.

I hope to see everyone at the reunion!

Grand Rapids Reunion

As I have mentioned, the VPB-118 Reunion is planned for August of this year, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. There's been a little bit of head-scratching about what the activities might be in Grand Rapids. I've pointed out that Battle Creek, not terribly far away, is where the Kellogg's cereal empire is centered. This evening I happened to look at an email newsletter that just came in and was stunned to see this enormous cast horse, designed by Leonardo DaVinci five hundred years ago. This is a modern casting of a recreation of his sculpture. I guess this would be an interesting attraction to visit! At this time I have no idea if this is under consideration, but it pretty much debunks that notion that there's not a lot of note in the area. I provided a link to the story alongside the image.

Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park Welcomes Six-Millionth Visitor

2010 VPB-118 Reunion

Word is that this year's reunion will take place before Labor Day in Grand Rapids, Michigan. There is supposed to be something in the mail soon. The reunion is for crew, family and friends (by invitation). If you are not on the mailing list but are eligible and interested in attending, please shoot me an email and I'll pass on your information!

Progress Report

I'm making a brief comment here to let folks know I'm still slugging away on the website but have to divide my time between a number of activities so progress is not as fast as I would have desired. I have upgraded the first eight crew pages to the new format and hope to have them all changed over in a short while. I hope everyone stays healthy and prosperous.

New format for crews pages

I am converting to a new look for the crews pages. You can see a preview here. It will take a while to convert all of the pages to the new look. Some of the pages with images relating to the crews will be consolidated into the new crew pages as part of the slide show plug-in on the bottom of the page. Other collections of photos such as log books and scrapbooks will be put in image galleries but will either have their own pages or will have a tab in the respective crew page. The few people that do not have JavaScript enabled will still be able to see the images, but they will all just open on one page. Thanks for visiting the site to find out about VPB-118!

VPB-118 Sub-domain

I'm loving my new site hosting situation. I created a sub-domain on my site for VPB-118. This is no biggie and as a matter of fact none of the paths on the new server are affected. If you are using bookmarks to go to the site, you will possibly need to update them, however, because I took out an unnecessary level that was on the old site (entirely my own fault). So if you have been getting "Error 404" messages, the reason is probably the new paths to the VPB-118 stuff. So I guess I should tell you the address for the new sub-domain: www.vpb-118.hypercontinuum.com.

Hosting Change

I have finished changing web hosts. This will result in considerable savings over time, plus the web server is one that I have a little more familiarity with. One immediate change you can see is if you attempt to go to a nonexistent page, you will now get a "404" error page with links to working pages. I know that shouldn't be a big deal, but I've actually worked on a couple of sites where this was not possible to implement without a lot of work!

New video coming

I just read an email from my brother, who was able to go to the reunion last weekend. He told me that he got some video interviews which means that after a short while I will be uploading the finished product to YouTube.

Adding Chronology of VPB-118 To Site

I started a chronology of the squadron a few days ago. I am only adding a paragraph or two a day because I have to synopsize the book which involves a little editing and writing on my part. Please check back to see how it's going. I plan to continue through until the end of the book and then to link from the crew pages to the chronology so that the text is not duplicated.

By the way, the complete roster of the squadron is now up on the site. An advantage of this is that when relatives try to find their veteran on the internet by using a search engine, everyone is there on one page, with the links to the rest of the site. When I first tried to find my Dad's squadron, this was not possible. Now it is.

Charlie Hodge

I just got news that Charlie Hodge has passed away. He will be sorely missed. Probably the main reason I was looking forward to the next reunion was my hopes of getting him to tell some more great stories for the video recorder. I still hope to tape some good interviews, but a great resource has been lost.

Conrad Dodl

I was doing a Google search looking for something else, and came across an obituary for Conrad Dodl. Apparently he was suffering from Alzheimer's and succumbed about two weeks ago. The obituary mentioned that he survived the shoot-down of the McCutcheon plane and received a Purple Heart for injuries received. He probably received a DFC and an Airman's Medal also for his service but that is not mentioned. I don't believe that I ever met Conrad at any of the reunions, but I note his passing with respect.

Status

I'm still working on the 118 website. However, what I'm working on now is a proper header for the various pages. I've been bothered by the lack of an actual header so am trying out some ideas. Hopefully I'll be putting something up on the site in a while.

Maybe in the mean time I'll update the formats on the crew pages; they still are set up with table-based layouts. I also am planning on switching the scrapbook images to a nicer format with javascript slideshows. I already know how to do that but the header is more urgent.

Update

I finished scanning the John Hanan (Keiser Crew) albums and am getting ready to send them back to his son, Tom. I have only posted a few images from that collection, but there are some fine images there, taken by John himself.

I have added a small amount of simple Javascript to the pages to facilitate reorganizing the site. I can change structure or content in one spot and it will show up across the site, which is a huge time-saver and allows me to try out more ideas. However, for folks with Javascript turned off the menus will no longer be visible. I should have a site map with links to it provided for those folks very soon.