Honoring the Fallen: Sgt. James A. Wadlow
A corporal here, James A. Wadlow signed this photo “Lots of love, Snooks,” the nickname by which his family called him. It was taken while he was on detached service to Chihkiang (Zhijiang) sometime between late November 1944 and mid-January 1945.
A third aircrew member of the ill-fated 3rd Bomb Squadron mission on May 16, 1945, was recently-promoted Sgt. James A. Wadlow. From the Oklahoma Panhandle, he grew up on the family farm and aspired to become a pilot after graduating from high school. Testing after enlistment proved his capabilities as a mechanic, however, and he was trained in airplane mechanics at Sheppard Field, Texas; at Eglin Field in Tampa, FL; at Southwestern Proving Grounds in Hope, Arkansas; and at Johnson Field, Goldsboro, North Carolina. It was at Hope that he met and married Clovis Virginia Wheelis Hassell in November 1943. He shipped out three months later aboard USS Mission Bay and arrived at Karachi, India (now part of Pakistan) in late March 1944. Wadlow was assigned to the 3rd Squadron as an airplane crew chief, and he was later assigned duties as an aerial gunner on combat missions into Burma.
After the squadron moved on to China and was forced to evacuate their base at Kweilin (now Guilin) in mid-September 1944, Wadlow was attached to a detail that traveled by truck convoy to their new base farther to the northwest, Peishiyi (Baishiyi), to escape the enemy’s advance. While stopping for a few days at Liuchow (Liuzhou), he wrote a long letter to his parents that was published in his hometown newspaper. He wrote, in part:
“I don’t know much to write but this will tell you I am O. K. We have evacuated our home base and I am seeing China by jeep. There are ten of us with Captain [John C. Hinrichs Jr.] in charge, four jeeps and a weapon carrier. We are more or less on a vacation. We are having a pretty tough time of it but I am enjoying it O. K. We have the best officers in the whole lot in charge of us and we are really seeing some pretty country. We stop and camp at night and go swimming every chance we get. The rest of the boys all went by plane and train. The Capt. picked us to go with him and we have the best way of all. We had to ferry rivers and things like that and really had a time but it is fun. And the rest of the trip will be lots worse. We have 6 to 8 hundred more miles yet to go.”
He went on to describe an air raid on the previous night, and he explained that the convoy would soon be traveling through bandit country. “Please don’t worry if you don’t hear from me. I can take care of myself,” he poignantly concluded. He signed the letter, “Your Son, Love, Snooks,” followed by his full name.
On the ill-fated mission against the Japanese-held airfield at Ichang, Wadlow was in position as engineer-gunner and operated the waist guns. He died in the crash and was buried with the other five aircrewmen by Japanese soldiers in a common grave. After the war ended, their remains were recovered and moved to a cemetery in Shanghai, where they were reburied with full military honors. They were later moved to Schofield Barracks, Territory of Hawaii, before reaching their final resting places. All of them were posthumously awarded the Purple Heart. (See “Honoring the Fallen: 1/Lt. Donald J. Davis” for more details.)
On July 17, 1949, memorial services for Sgt. Jim Wadlow were held at the Baptist church in Hobart, Oklahoma, followed by reinterment at the Rose Cemetery with full military honors provided by the Hobart post of the American Legion. In attendance were his parents, brothers, sisters, and their families, as well as his widow and friends who had known him since childhood. By this time, Jeanette Davis and Clovis Wadlow had moved on past the tragedy and remarried. When Clovis bore her first son soon afterward, she and her husband named him Alton; it was Jim Wadlow’s middle name.
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