Although this young hero is not a Pensacolian by birth or by marriage he did have a large group of friends and a definite connection with this city. So much so that his family donated one of his letters he wrote home just before his deployment overseas. In addition to his flight school training in Pensacola, he also shares a unique distinction with only 22 other American servicemen in the history of the United States. Many of you can probably already guess given what today's date signifies in world history.
In the meantime, US Navy LTjg Raymond Lloyd Porter was born in Marion Township, Butler County, Pennsylvania on April 22, 1921, the son of William Braden Porter (1898-1970) and Hessie Maude Sankey (1896-1928). His mother would pass away prematurely of "influenza and pneumonia" in the Butler County Memorial Hospital at the age of 32-years-old. His father supported his family before and after his wife's death working as a shipping clerk and salesman at the Rieck-McJunkin Dairy & Creamery Company.
As for Raymond, he would finish high school in c1939 and went to work at a retail grocery store. He would later enlist in the US Navy flight program on September 8, 1942, in Slippery Rock, Butler County, Pennsylvania. Since there is no indication of any college enrollment it is assumed that he became an enlisted pilot through the Navy's V-5 program. Upon completion of his flight training at NAS Pensacola he would have been promoted to Ensign. As such, he received his orders on January 23, 1945, to report to CV-14 USS Ticonderoga in the South Pacific. Upon arrival he was assigned to Torpedo Squadron VB-87 carrying out bombing missions.
On July 28, 1945, an attack force of fighters, dive bombers, and torpedo planes took off from the Ticonderoga heading for the Japanese light cruiser "Tone." The war ship was anchored just offshore in Kure Harbor, a short distance from the city of Hiroshima. Upon arrival, the dive bombers screamed down from on high as they delivered death from above followed by Porter and the torpedo planes striking from below. After sinking the enemy cruiser, they all headed back to their ship. Along the way they were joined by Porter and his gunner ARM3c Norman Roland Brissette along with a smoking engine from an anti-aircraft round. As their engine began to fail the two men were forced to land in the water and scramble into a life raft. Their buddies above stayed as long as they could before low fuel forced their departure. It wasn't long before the Japanese picked up them up. The two men were tied up and taken to the Hiroshima Military Police Headquarters (Chugoku Kempei-Tai), located in the center of the city. While Porter was kept for questioning, his gunner Brissette was moved to the Military Police Station not far away.
During his captivity, Brissette and another sailor (Ralph J. Neal) were put to work emptying cesspools while the Japanese finished their interrogations of the others. Several days went by as anxiety built about their unknown fate. Around 0700 hours of August 6th, there was an air raid alarm, something the people heard every day. No one paid any attention to something so commonplace. Then they heard the sound of three B-29 bombers approaching the city and assumed it couldn't be a bombing raid with only three planes. Then at 0815 hours, there was a huge bright, orange flash followed by a intense wave of heat. Then a tremendous concussion wave struck blowing out all the windows and doors. As it so happens, Brissette and the others were only 750 meters from the epicenter of the world's first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Instead of running into the streets Brissette and Neal jumped into the cesspool to escape the huge firestorm. But even this could not prevent the radiation poisoning that quickly followed. Other American POWs who were shot down on August 8, witnessed the men's conditions and and immense pain. They shot them full of morphine they carried with them but it was useless. Both men died before dawn on August 19, 1945, and their bodies were cremated. Miraculously, Brissette's ashes were recovered after the war and returned to his family in Lowell, MA.
As for Raymond, he had been located in the police building where he had been taken for questioning. At the time of the detonation, the entire building collapsed entombing Raymond and eight other American prisoners. Another American is said to have escaped into the streets filled with charred, screaming hordes. He was found within two days and beaten to death by the enraged mob. After the rubble was cleared Raymond and seven others were buried and finally discovered after the war. Their remains were returned to the US and buried at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery Plot 82 # 156 on November 3, 1949. Back in Japan a memorial for the POW’s killed by the atomic bomb was placed at the site of the former police headquarters in 1999. The memorial was conceived and built by a Japanese resident of Hiroshima. A plaque was placed in there and simply stated "May this humble memorial be a perpetual reminder of the savagery of war." The eight were identified as Hugh H. Atkinson, Durden W. Looper, and James M. Ryan from the downed B-24 "Lonesome Lady." There was also other fliers identified as Raymond Porter, Buford J. Ellison, John A. Long, Charles O. Baumgartner, and Julius Molnar.
Three days later. a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki with the death toll of both explosions surpassing 225,000 people. There were no Americans killed at Nagasaki but there were eight Allied prisoners who perished there. The total Americans killed at Hiroshima is estimated as twenty from the blast and three killed by the Japanese or died from radiation.
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