Veterans Day: Peabody veteran served on Alaskan front
By ROWENA PLETT
Staff writer
Jesse Richter, a farm boy from Peabody, enlisted as a volunteer in the Army Air Corps on April 1, 1941. He was mechanically-inclined and became an airplane mechanic.
After an orientation program at Fort Douglas, Salt Lake City, he was stationed at Gowan Field, a new air base at Boise, Idaho, where he maintained an old 1932 plane.
When officers came to the base after graduating from school, Richter, who had no special schooling, was proud to teach them where things were on an airplane.
After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, his company was sent by ship to an air base at Anchorage, Alaska. They shipped out from Seattle on Christmas Eve, and each man was given a canned fruit cake. They arrived in Alaska on New Year's Day, 1942.
The officers from his company flew new planes up to the base. Many planes were lost on the way up. Some ran out of gas and the pilots were rescued.
"Navigation mostly was by looking out the window," Richter said.
After the planes came in, Richter and other mechanics began working on them. They fueled and checked them, then got into the cockpit, started them up, and checked gauges before the pilots took over for training flights.
In the cold sub-zero temperatures, special sacks were placed over the engines and heaters were placed inside to warm them for start-up.
During the next few months, several air bases were built along the chain of Aleutian Islands.
Richter was elevated to engineer status and was given the responsibility of accompanying supplies for delivery to the bases.
Weather always was a problem because fog and clouds could set in quickly to obscure the view and make landing impossible.
Plane crashes were inevitable but Richter fortunately avoided that experience.
He recalled one time when an air field was fogged in and the plane had to make an emergency landing in the snow on the other side of a mountain. A truck was sent over the mountain to pick up the supplies and mail and deliver them back to the field.
Richter was the kind of man who helped out wherever he could. He helped parachuters and bombers and was willing to do whatever he was told.
One time, he delivered a 30-gallon oil tank. Another time, he delivered strawberries and a Christmas tree. It was much warmer in the islands than at Anchorage, and when he arrived, the needles fell off the tree and strawberry juice was leaking out of the bomb bay doors.
On June 3, 1942, six months after the Pearl Harbor attack, the Japanese struck U.S. Army and Navy installations at Dutch Harbor, at the far west end of the Aleutian chain. Fog and clouds caused casualties of ships and planes on both sides as battles raged.
Japanese forces took over several Aleutian islands but were defeated at Midway Island in the Central Pacific.
It was a turning point in the war. From then on, the Allies were on the offensive. The following spring, they launched an attack on enemy positions in the Aleutians and by Aug. 15, 1943, they reclaimed the islands from the Japanese.
Richter and many other enlisted men left Alaska that month and returned to the lower-48. After several moves between bases, he was assigned to a staging area at Savannah, Ga., where enlisted men received new outfits and new airplanes were prepared for service.
Richter said it was his favorite assignment. After the planes were readied and inspected, combat troops were loaded and flew off for North Africa.
Richter later was sent to a base in California, where he didn't have much to do. He said he was offered an office job but declined. He served on a submarine patrol for 30 days, sitting behind the co-pilot and looking out the window for submarines.
One time, the pilot was flying by instruments, primitive as they were, when it began raining and he lost all sense of direction. He was able to use a ham radio frequency to get the plane safely back to base.
Richter was honorably discharged Oct. 13, 1945, and returned to the family farm at Peabody.
He took classes in agriculture in Marion under the GI Bill until the classes were discontinued. He then took six months of flying lessons from an instructor at Peabody to finish his GI training.
He eventually acquired a small farm of his own and raised chickens. He operated a hay swather for 15 years for Lloyd Darrow. He also was a Watkins salesman.
He and his wife, Lila, have been married 55 years and have one daughter and three sons. One son, Randy and wife Patti, lives at Peabody. The Richters have eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
From the time Richter joined the Army April 1, 1941, until he left Alaska Aug. 8, 1943, he kept a diary, recording weather, incoming and outgoing correspondence, daily assignments, and promotions.
During his years in service, he was promoted from private first class, to corporal, sergeant, staff sergeant, and finally, technical sergeant, and he's got the stripes to prove it.
The 85-year-old man enjoys reading his war diary and reminiscing about his days in the Army, especially the time spent in Alaska. He is proud of his service to his country.
