I've read that this film clip is included in the Victory at Sea collection. A very moving piece of history - and a reminder.
Loyce Edward Deen, an Aviation Machinist Mate 2nd Class, USNR, was a gunner on a TBM Avenger. On November 5, 1944, Deen's squadron participated in a raid on Manila where his plane was hit multiple times by anti-aircraft fire while attacking a Japanese cruiser. Deen was killed. The Avenger's pilot, Lt.; Robert Cosgrove, managed to return to his carrier, the USS Essex. Both Deen and the plane had been shot up so badly that it was decided to leave him in the plane. It is the only time in U.S. Navy history (and probably U.S. military history) that an aviator was buried at sea in his aircraft after being killed in action.
I have the DVD set of "Victory at Sea". Footage of Petty Officer Deen's burial at sea in the Avenger is indeed captured. Thanks for letting us know who it was; I begin to watch the DVDs in August to mark the end of WWII.
Posts: 4086 | Location: Fairfax Co. VA | Registered: August 03, 2015
For us former Naval persons, "this is the business we've chosen!"
Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me.
When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson
"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown
Posts: 48369 | Location: Texas hill country | Registered: July 04, 2005
_________________________ “Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters. –Daniel Webster (1782-1852)"
Posts: 19611 | Location: Foothills of the Sierra Nevada | Registered: July 27, 2004