A Lebo airman who was executed by the Japanese during World War II will be recalled at the World War II Roundtable Fall Film, beginning at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in Room 408 of Plumb Hall at Emporia State University.
The film, “The Purple Heart,” is open to the public at no charge. The movie portrays Jimmy Doolittle and his Tokyo Raiders, their raid on Japan on April 18, 1942, and the Japanese trial of the eight American airmen captured during the operation.
Three of the eight, including Harold A. “Skinny” Spatz of Lebo, were executed on Oct. 15, 1942.
Spatz enlisted in the Air Force with two buddies shortly after they graduated from Lebo High School in 1939. The two friends survived the war, but Harold Spatz’s fate was not made public until 1945.
“I didn’t know for sure if he was dead or alive until after the war,” said Harold’s brother, Robert Spatz of Lebo. “I was in the service, too, at the time, in the Air Force.”
The two brothers had corresponded for a time while Robert was stationed on Guam; then, the letters stopped coming.
Robert Spatz, now 89, was two years older than “Skinny,” a nickname that had followed Harold through school.
“He was kind of (thin) growing up, but later he put on more weight,” Spatz recalled. “He didn’t look too skinny then.”
The Spatz children — Jean (now Barnett), Robert and Harold — were raised by their father after their mother died in a traffic accident while the family was visiting relatives in Pennsylvania.
Spatz described his brother as being “just like most ordinary kids. He liked all kinds of sports, of course. He was always kind of jovial.”
Robert’s wife, Caroline, agreed. She was in Harold’s class through their school years.
“He was a very good student and mixed with everybody real well,” Caroline Spatz said.
With a natural aptitude for mechanics, Skinny Spatz had trained as an aircraft mechanic at Glendale, Calif.
Staff Sgt. Spatz was a ground engineer and gunner in the Air Force, and was aboard “The Bat Out of Hell,” the 16th and last B-25 Mitchell in the mission, which left the deck of the U.S.S. Hornet, about 59 minutes after Doolittle’s B-25 took off to initiate the raid.
“During takeoff a sailor slipped and fell into the propeller of one engine and lost an arm,” according to a report in “Doolittle’s Tokyo Raiders Official Roster” at http://www.homeofheroes.com.
“The ill-fated crew successfully bombed oil storage tanks and an aircraft factory despite enemy fighter attacks, then headed on to China. Due to low fuel, Lieutenant (William G.) Farrow instructed his crew to bail out even though he knew they were close to enemy-held Nanchang city. Within an hour Lt. (George) Barr was captured and before noon all five crewmen became prisoners of war.”
The possibility that Harold Spatz had been executed hit the family and the Lebo area hard, they said.
“We later learned that he was,” Robert Spatz said. “They had to bail out over China, of course, Japanese-occupied China. They were later captured.”
President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced the execution in April 1943 “with the feeling of deepest horror,” according to a report in the Reno (Nev.) Evening Gazette.
Response to the announcement was swift, although the identities of the dead men were not yet confirmed.
In an article published April 22, 1943, The Gazette issued a plea to the public, “Let’s Avenge Sergeant Spatz.”
“What a helpless feeling came over this county and the people of Lebo last evening when President Roosevelt announced that the Japs had brutally executed some of the American airmen who were taken prisoners after the Tokyo raid,” the story stated. “Listed among the eight prisoners was Sgt. Harold A. Spatz, of Lebo.
“But today comes this thought: Let’s avenge the brutal execution of these American heroes.
“Each of us can help do it. Throw caution overboard, forget the high cost of living for one day, and buy another war bond in memory of Sergeant Spatz. Let’s designate Saturday and all next week in Lyon County as Sergeant Spatz Bond Week.”
The article asked everyone to have the bank or post office clip a slip of paper to the top margin of each bond, stating: “Purchased April, 1943, in memory of Sergeant Spatz, of Lebo.”
The article continued, saying that $18 of every $18.75 bond purchased immediately goes into planes, guns and equipment.
“Give our boys these things — they’ll avenge the brutal murders Tojo and the treacherous Japs have perpetrated.”
The Japanese had used unfounded charges to try their captives, Robert Spatz said.
“The excuse they used was they machine-gunned children ... when they were flying over Japan,” he said.
“So many people in Lebo started buying those war bonds,” Caroline Spatz added.
Spatz and two others — Lt. William G. Farrow of Lakewood, Ohio, and Lt. Dean Hallmark of Dallas — were executed at Kiangwan, China.
The families of the men were forced to wait before identities finally were released, and it was not until after the war that the remains of the three airmen were located.
According to an account in The Coshocton (Ohio) Tribune, Spatz had written a farewell letter to his father, which Robert Spatz confirmed. In the letter, Harold said he had nothing to leave his father except his clothing.
“I want you to know I died fighting for my country like a soldier,” the newspaper quoted Spatz as writing. He also asked his father to say goodbye to his brother and sister.
“Eye witnesses told how the men were shot through the head Oct. 15, 1942, while they knelt bound to crosses,” the story said.
A photograph showing the crosses and the men being executed is in one of several books Harold Spatz owns that detail the raid.
The airmen’s ashes reportedly were turned over to the International Red Cross. However, a September 1946, issue of “The Stars and Stripes” recounted finding the three airmen’s ashes in China. The three small wooden boxes containing the cremains were recovered from a shelf in a Shanghai funeral home.
The box containing Spatz’s cremains identified them as “E.L. Brister.” The misidentification was no accident.
“Names of the Americans had been deliberately falsified, as well as the date of their deaths, but the Japanese produced an official list verifying that the fictional names on the boxes corresponded to those of the executed men,” Stars and Stripes reported.
Spatz’s ashes were taken to Honolulu, Hawaii, for burial in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
“They call it Punch Bowl Cemetery in Honolulu,” Robert Spatz said. “We’ve been there a couple of times to see the grave.”
A memorial to Harold Spatz remains on display in downtown Lebo, and a park bears his name — the Harold (Skinny) Spatz Memorial Park.
“His ashes are in Hawaii,” Caroline Spatz said, “but we have a tombstone out here by his parents.
The movie, “The Purple Heart,” was released in 1944 and features the characters of the eight men captured by the Japanese, including Spatz.
A total of 80 men, grouped into five-man crews, were in the 16 B-25 bombers that took part in the raid. Many of the bombers were lost.
Crews of 11 bombers bailed out over China. One made a wheels-up crash landing in a rice paddy, while another three bombers ditched into the waters off the coast of China. One was confiscated after it landed in the Soviet Union, according to newspaper clippings and military records available.
Three men were killed leaving their aircraft the night of the raid. Eight were captured by the Japanese. One died from malnutrition and mistreatment while confined as a prisoner of war, and four POWs were repatriated at the end of the war, after 40 months of captivity. Most of those who survived went on to fly other missions.
The film depicts the men’s trial as being held at Police Headquarters in Shanghai, China, on Oct. 14, 1942. Spatz, Hallmark and Farrow were executed at sunset the following day by a firing squad of the Imperial Japanese Army, according to the movie account of the incident. Sentences for the remaining airmen were commuted to life in prison. Robert Meder died in 1943 of mistreatment and various diseases; the remaining four survived until they were freed when Japan surrendered in August 1945.
The movie stars Dana Andrews, Richard Conte and Farley Granger, among others.
Another movie, “30 Seconds Over Tokyo,” also depicts the Raiders, with Spencer Tracy playing the role of Jimmy Doolittle, Robert Spatz said.
Much of the historical documentation for this article was gathered by Brenda Lavington, of the Lyon County Historical Museum archives, and retired history professor Loren Pennington.
For more information on the roundtable film, call ESU history professor Christopher Lovett, 341-5577.
The event is sponsored by the ESU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Department of Social Sciences, Pi Gamma Mu Social Science honor Society, Phi Alpha Theta Honor Society, and the Lyon County Historical Society Museum and Archives.
Comments
We allow registered users to post comments on this Web site. To learn more about our posting policies please read our User Poster Agreement Policy.
Posted by ranchdr (anonymous) on November 18, 2008 at 7:26 p.m. (Suggest removal)
My father, Philip W George of Lebo, was a classmate of Harold Spatz. He enlisted in the Navy after the execution of Skinny Spatz and served in the Pacific Theater on the Hornet, Intrepid and Enterprise as a gunner in an Avenger -- torpedo bomber. What were the 2 buddies that Harold enlisted with and what is Carol Spatz's maiden name? My dad still lives on the ranch 5 miles east of Lebo spoke many times about Skinny Spatz's heroics.
Phil George, Halfway, Oregon
Post a comment
We allow registered users to post comments on this Web site. Our goal with this feature is to encourage thoughtful discussions about the news stories. Using the comment feature to make random attacks on people is not acceptable. Emporiagazette.com neither endorses nor guarantees the accuracy of any user contribution. Responsibility for what is posted or contributed to this site is the sole responsibility of each user. To learn more about our posting policies please read our User Poster Agreement Policy.
(Requires free registration.)