Thomas
R. Welsh, - Paper Collection
(Submitted by
the Welsh Family and his son, Thomas R. Welsh, II)
1st Lt.
Thomas R. Welsh made his mark in the Air Force
( By Thomas
R. Welsh II – February 12, 2005 )
Moving
from the lumber business to the business of war
was a
matter of choice
for Thomas R. Welsh,
a native
of Grayling, Michigan.
It took
him just five
months after war began to get into a position
to make
this possible,
joining the Army on May
8th, 1942.
Welsh
had worked for his father, Fred R. Welsh,
as an
assistant
superintendent, at the Kerry & Hanson Flooring Mill,
in Big
Bay, Michigan prior to joining the army.
Once the
decision was made to
join up, he was inducted at
Kalamazoo,
Michigan. After basic training, he took
the opportunity
to transfer
to the Army Air Force.
His pilot
cadet training
was at Randolph Field in Texas.
He transferred
to Luke Field, west
of Phoenix,
Arizona, and
gained
his wings there with a twin engine endorsement,
and
was ready
to go to war as a fighter pilot with the rank of
2nd Lieutenant
by June 22, 1943. But that was not to be.
Rather
then heading directly
to the front lines,
he was
reassigned as a pilot trainer,
working
with new
cadets for the next 14 months.
His instruction
was directed
towards two aircraft,
both twin engine,
the Martin
Marauder B- 26 medium
bomber, and
the Lockheed
P-38 Lightning fighter.
The P-38
was the primary
plane in the instruction,
giving
Welsh lots of experience in the unique aircraft.
Training
with P-38’s took place
at Santa Maria Air Base, in California.
On September1,
1944, 2nd Lt. Welsh finally did depart for Italy,
as part
of the Fifteenth
Air
Force arriving there on September 27.
He was
assigned to the 82nd
Fighter Group,
and the 96th Squadron
based
out of Foggia,
Italy.
Foggia
is just east
of Naples, on the Adriatic
Sea, and
where
Welsh would remain
until
war’s end.
His air
combat missions were virtually all in Eastern Europe,
specifically
in the Balkans, North
Apennines, and the
Po River Valley.
Some photos
and notes
also listed Vienna, Austria and
a mission
over Germany in early 1945.
He also
had a furlough in Switzerland, date and location unknown.
Lieutenant
Welsh completed a total of 41 missions, all in the P-38, and
was
promoted to 1st Lieutenant
circa January, 1945.
He received
the European-African-Middle
east medal, with three stars,
the Distinguished
Unit Citation with
two clusters, and
the Air
Medal with three Oak Leaf clusters.
Brig.
General
Dean C. Stroher, Commander of the 15th Air Force,
presented
him with
the Air Medal.
The medal
was awarded in early 1945 for
"meritorious
achievement in aerial
flight."
A photo
article highlighting the event appeared
in the
hometown newspaper.
His squad
consisted of 20 P-38s, as did each of
the three
squads in the 82nd Fighter Group.
Planes
of the 96th squadron were
marked
with an angled black band at the end of each tail boom,
just ahead
of the
rudders.
The circular
insignia of the 96th was a rather mean looking
brown
jack rabbit poised in a jumping position with
white
boxing gloves,
on a desert background.
The radio
call sign for the squad was"Cowtail."
Interesting
news updates of Lt. Welsh appeared in his hometown
newspaper,
the Crawford County Avalanche, during the war.
They were
included in a column headed
"Our Boys
and Girls in the Service,"
and are
reprinted here as written.
From Thursday,
December 7, 1944, came this:
15th
AAF in Italy –
Second
Lt. Thomas R. Welsh, 26, son of
Mr. And
Mrs. Fred R.Welsh,
615 Michigan
Avenue, Grayling, Michigan,
has arrived
at this
15th
Air Force P-38 Lightning base
and started
combat flying as a pilot.
Welsh
flew his first combat mission escorting
heavy
bombers attacking important
military targets
in the
Vienna, Austria, area, on
November 4,1944.
The young
Lightning pilot, a former student of
Grayling
High School and
St. Johns
Military Academy, Delafield, Wis.,
was employed
by a lumber company
at
Grayling
before entering the Air Corps.
He was
a member of the
Masonic
Lodge in his home town.
Entering
the service on May 8, 1942,
Welsh
later received flight
training and
was awarded
his pilot’s wings and
commission
as a second lieutenant at
Luke
Field, Ariz., on June 22, 1943.
Lieutenant
Welsh is flying combat as a member of the
top scoring
American
fighter group
in the
Mediterranean
Theater of Operations,
a veteran
long range
organization with over
550 aerial
victories.
From January
22, 1945,came
this:
15th AAF
in Italy –
First
Lt. Thomas R. Welsh,
615 Michigan
Avenue,
Grayling, Michigan,
has been
given official credit for the destruction
of an
enemy locomotive at this
15th AAF
P-38 Lightning fighter base in Italy.
Lt. Welsh
destroyed the enemy locomotive,
in addition
to shooting up
enemy
rail cars and equipment,
in an
attack on
German
rail, communication, and
transportation
in the
Klagenfurt,
Austria, area.
The formation
of Lightnings
of which Lt. Welsh was a part,
destroyed
a total of six enemy locomotives,
14 box cars, and
inflicted
severe damage upon more rolling stock,
two railroad
station houses, and a small power plant.
The mission
was a
part of the 15th AAF aerial offensive
to tie
up Nazi
ground movements
thru-out
southern Europe.
Veteran
of 28 combat missions against the
enemy over Europe,
Lt. Welsh
flies his Lightning with the top scoring fighter
group
in the
Mediterranean Theatre of Operations,
a veteran
unit has been credited with
more than,
1,050
enemy aircraft destroyed or damaged in combat.
A
photo article, noted above
under the medals awarded to Welsh,
highlightingthe
presentation of the Air Medal
appeared
in the March 1, 1945 issue.
After
returning from the war,
Welsh received his relief from active duty on
December
14, 1945.
He remained
in the Air Force Reserve into the 50’s,
receiving
his Honorable Discharge on November 27, 1956.
He resumed
working in the lumber
industry in
Marquette,
Michigan, after
the war.
In
February, 1948, his father
purchased the Ford Dealership in Grayling.
He joined
the family business as a mechanic,
expanding
it to a gas business in 1956.
Welsh
moved to the gas station as a mechanic in 1962.
He moved
to Scheer
Motors, a full line GM dealer in Grayling,
as a "Heavy
Technician," in
March, 1967,
where
he remained until his retirementin
1983.
Lt. Welsh
was born
in Grayling, Michigan on May 14, 1918,
and passed
away on July 12, 2002,
at the age of 84,
after
suffering a stroke.
He is
survived by is wife, Marion,
and
two children,
Thomas
II (Lynn), and
Joanne (Frank) Doty,
five
grand children, and two
great-grandchildren.
His love
of airplanes, and his beloved
P-38, remained strong right to the end.
And,
although he did not remain
a pilot after the war, he flew with friends
when
he could, taking in the EAA
event in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, two times,
and enjoyed
the many fly-ins at
the Grayling Army Airfield and other
northern
Michigan airports.
AAF #
0-749555
Page 1
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