Henry M. Blanchard II, 2nd Lieutenant, Army Air Corps

For a very long time, I have been trying to find some information on my dad's first cousin, Henry M. Blanchard II, whose bomber was shot down over the South Pacific during WWII. Through some websites that I came across recently, I found his squadron, rank and date of death and the placement of a monument in Manila, Phillipines

Today, I came across the above picture, which shows my cousin, Mac, third from left on the top row, with the rest of the crew. The man to his left, the reader's right, is the captain of the bomber. Its hard to believe I could find such information. I am still looking for additional information.

The bombers were apparently coordinating bombing runs over Palua, where a Japanese airstrip was located. MY cousin's plane was shot down over Palau on August 25, 1944. There were no survivors and the bodies were not found. This has been a source of mystery for the family ever since.

December 9, 1941

Imagine what Pearl Harbor was like on December 9, 1941. I am sure the ships that had been hit and damaged by the attack were still smoldering in the harbor. The local surviving populace was probably still in a state of shock. At that point, most of the population of the mainland in the United States was aware of the damage in Pearl Harbor and the surrounding air bases. The attacks on the Phillipines were in full swing and we were battling to save our territories in the South Pacific from the Japanese.

I read a book which was a diary of a young man from Winder, Georgia named Rocky Gause. He was assigned to act as a radar operator, even though few people really knew anything about operating radar. When the attack occured in Manila, he and his buddy headed up to the mountains above Manila to take their posts and were ultimately captured by the Japanese invaders. Later, they escaped the Bataan Death March and ultimately made it to Australia. Its an amazing book and I highly recommend it.

Rocky Gause wanted to be a fighter pilot. Later in the war he died in a training mission. It was ironic that after making such an amazing escape from the occupied Phillipines he ultimately died in a fluke.

My dad had a first cousin named Henry McKoy "Mac" Blanchard. Mac grew up in Chattanooga and attended McCallie School in Chattanooga. Later, he attended a year at the University of Florida before he enlisted in the Army Air Corp during World War II. He was a Navigator/Bombadier in a bomber stationed in the Pacific. Growing up I knew that his plane crashed and he was not found, but no one knew much beyond that.

On December 7th, I was able to look up some military records on Cousin Mac and found some information on him. He was a liuetenant in the Army Air Corp. His plane was shot down on August 25, 1944. He remains missing. However, there is a monument to him and the other members of his crew at Fort McKinley in Manila. I would like to visit that site some day. I have never had much of a desire to visit the Phillipines, but I wouldn't mind visiting for that purpose some day.

I was born five days and fifteen years after Pearl Harbor. I understand that the USS Enterprise returned to Pearl on the 12th of December, 1941. I can only imagine what they found when they returned.