Legion of Merit citation for Stephen Grabin

Stephen Grabin is known in the family as a war hero. I've previously posted a short article (https://upanddownthevalley.blogspot.com/2009/08/stephen-grabin.html ) about him - he arrived in Australia in Feb/March 1942, and served as an aircraft mechanic (grease monkey) in the US Army Air Corps.

U.S. World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946

Name: Stephen R Grabin
Birth Year: 1923
Race: White, citizen (White)
Native State or Country: Pennsylvania
State of Residence: Alaska
Enlistment Date: 7 May 1941
Enlistment State: Pennsylvania
Enlistment City: Wilkes Barre
Branch: Air Corps
Branch Code: Air Corps
Grade: Private
Component: Regular Army (including Officers, Nurses, Warrant Officers, and Enlisted Men)
Education: 4 years of high school
Civil Occupation: Semiskilled mechanics and repairmen, motor vehicles
Marital Status: Single, without dependents
Height: 68
Weight: 145

 


Transcript

Sergeant STEPHEN R. GRABIN, (13025637), Air Corps, United States Army, for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services in New Guinea from 5 November to 14 December 1942. Sergeant Grabin, with five enlisted men and an officer, was a member of a party which flew from Port Moresby to Bena Bena to secure valuable parts from three crashed airplanes. From Bena Bena the group undertook a fifty-mile journey through jungle, carrying sufficient rations for six days only. After proceeding through hostile territory, they located the crashed aircraft and began to salvage parts. Although their food supply was exhausted, they stayed on, completely rebuilding one aircraft and clearing a strip so that the aircraft could be flown out. So much equipment was salvaged that it was necessary for two hundred native carriers to make two trips in bringing it out. Sergeant Grabin's courage in the face of extreme hardship was a substantial contribution to the salvaging of much valuable equipment when it was vitally needed during this critical period. 

Home address: Mrs. Anna Grabin (mother), 107 Cousin Street, Eynon, Pennsylvania

Transcript

RESTRICTED

HEADQUARTERS IN THE FAR EAST

GENERAL ORDERS - EXTRACT - A.F.O. 501 

20 AUGUST 1944

Legion of Merit Awards - Section 1

1. LEGION OF MERIT . By Direction of the President, under the provisions of the act of Congress approved 20 July 1942, and Executive Order No. 9260, 29 October 1942, the Legion of Merit is awarded by the Commanding General, United States Army Forces in the Far East, to the following named officers and enlisted men:

Sergeant STEPHEN R. GRABIN (13025637), Air Corps, United States Army. For exceptional meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services in New Guinea from 5 November to 14 December. Home address: Mrs. Anna Grabin (mother), 107 Cousin Street, Eynon, Pennsylvania.

Staff Sergeant PAUL J. GRIMOORIS (13022624), Air Corps, United States Army. For exceptional meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services in New Guinea from 5 November to 14 December. Home address: Mrs. Florence Gromooris (mother), 1428 16th Avenue, Altoona, Pennsylvania.

Staff Sergeant JOHN D. SCOTT (6994292), Air Corps, United States Army. For exceptional meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services in New Guinea from 5 November to 14 December. Home address: Mrs. Mabel G. Scott (mother) 112 Maine Street, Brattleboro, Vermont.

Staff Sergeant PAUL L. WATKINS (13022624), Air Corps, United States Army. For exceptional meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services in New Guinea from 5 November to 14 December. Home address: Mrs. Rosie Watkins (mother), Timblin, Pennsylvania.

By Command of General MacARTHUR, etc.

This is informative. So Stephen Grabin and several others were flown in, hiked behind enemy lines, salvaged aircraft parts, and rendezvoused for fly them back to Port Moresby. What I cannot tell from these documents is what unit these men served in. Did many aircraft mechanics receive the Legion of Merit? 

I've searched any sign in newspaper reports - no luck so far - but I have found it mentioned in two books.

First, the Official History of Australia in the Second World War, Volume VI – The New Guinea Offensives (1st edition, 1961), describes the Bena Bena area and, remarkably, in setting the scene it mentions Grabin's mission:

Transcript

At Bena Bena itself was a crude pre-war airstrip about 1,200 yards long, a fact known to the Japanese. The plateau would be strategically valuable to either side: for the Allies occupation of the plateau would help them to outflank the main enemy positions in the Huon Peninsula and Finisterre Mountains and provide emergency or advanced airfields ; for the Japanese, occupation would place them on the high ground on the flanks of the main route through upland New Guinea, the Markham-Ramu valley. Early in 1943, however, both sides were recuperating after the fierce battles of the previous six months, and their resources were strained by the Wau-Mubo campaign.

Realising how close the Japanese had come to establishing themselves at Wau, and how much more difficult it would be to expel them from the interior of New Guinea than from the periphery, the Australians decided that they must occupy the plateau before the Japanese did so, even though only a small force could be employed. The Americans were interested in the plateau's potentialities, particularly since August 1942 when Lieutenant Hampton of the Fifth Air Force landed four American technicians on the rough Bena Strip to collect parts from a crashed Mitchell near by, and picked them up four days later..

But perhaps the best tribute is that fact that this mission was described by General George Kenney, Commander of the Fifth U.S. Air Force in the Pacific, in his book "Air War in the Pacific: The Journal of General George Kenney, Commander of the Fifth U.S. Air Force". While the men aren't named (and as officers this is usual), the fact the story occupies almost 2 pages of his book demonstrates:

Transcript

    An old sergeant of one of the B-25 squadrons came to see me. He said, "General, we got five B-25's out of commission for lack of wheel bearings. If they sit around here, the Japs will come over some day and burn them up sitting on the ground."

    "Sergeant," I said, "I know about it and there just are no wheel bearings in supply anywhere here or in Australia."

    "But, General," he replied, "I know where there are some wheel bearings. Last month, a B-25 was show near Bena. There is a Lieutenant Hampton over with the troop carriers who knows about a field near there and if you will let him take me and three other guys, some rations, a kit of tools, and a couple of tommy guns and some ammunition with us, we'll salvage the bearings and some other stuff off that B-24 and do ourselves some good instead of waiting around here until we get taken out. That B-25 didn't burn and we might get a lot of good loot out of her."

    Bena Bena was up on a plateau in the middle of New Guinea, inhabited by the partially reformed cannibals discovered there by explorers and gold seekers about twelve years before. We were not sure how many of the natives of Bena Bena were for us and how many were for the Japs. Lieutenant Hampton was the hotshot troop carrier pilot who was supposed to be able to land and take off a DC-3 transport out of a good-sized well. The field at Bena Bena at this time was not much, but it could be negotiated easily by Hampton and, with a little luck, by any other good transport pilot. The only complications were that we didn't know whether the Japs were patrolling the area or not and there was always the sporting proposition of flying an un-armed transport, with no rubber-covered, bulletproof gasoline tanks, within easy range of Jap fighters at Lae and Salamaua. But the sergeant was right. We needed those wheel bearings.

    Whitehead was with me. We talked it over, and Whitehead suggested that Hampton fly the sergeant and three grease monkeys in under cover of the next strike we put down on Lae and Salamaua. I agreed.

    The next morning the little expedition flew to Bena Bena, where Hampton left the four men and made a date to meet them four days later. That was the time the sergeant estimated it would take home to get to the wrecked B-25 and finish his salvage job.

    Four days later, Hampton landed again at Bena Bena. He and the copilot sat in the plane, engines running, tommy guns stuck out the windows, and ready for a quick getaway if things began to look suspicious. There was no sergeant, none of his gang, and no natives. An hour went by. It looked as though the estimate of the situation had been bad. Maybe the Japs had the Sergeant and his three men. Maybe the natives had decided that the white man had lost the war and had joined the Japs. Maybe there was a meat shortage at Bena Bena. Maybe-

    Hampton had just about decided that something had gone wrong and it was time to think about getting out, when the sergeant came running all out of breath out of the jungle trail onto the field and yelled, "Hold everything, Lieutenant. The gang will be here in just a minute. We got delayed because we found a wrecked fighter plane about five miles east of here and we got a lot of good loot out of that, too."

    A few minutes later the "gang," consisting of the other three men and a hundred natives, appeared, loaded to the limit with everything they could stagger under. They had brought back most of both wrecked airplanes. Wheels, landing gear parts, ailerons, rudders, fins, pieces of aluminum sheet cut from the wrecks for future repair work, propeller parts, instruments - and the precious wheel bearings.

    Three hours later the flying "air depot" landed at Port Moresby. Three days later five B-25's and three P-39 fighters joined the list of aircraft in combat commission.

Truly remarkable. Not sure I'll be able to find more detail than this!!

So - a few points to follow up on. Which B-25 was shot down? Which P-39. This should be solvable through searching.

While unit did these men serve in? Not sure how to find out.

What happened to Stephen Grabin's fellow Legion of Merit winners?