Remember...
Gilbert Harding Walker
1923-1945
"A true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him."
G. K. Chesterton
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Remember...Gilbert Harding Walker
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Gilbert Harding Walker was born on September 28, 1923, in Gassaway, Braxton County, West Virginia. His parents were Homer Lee and Golda Perrine Walker. He was the oldest of their children, which included siblings Homer Lee Jr., George, Harold, Marie, Lyle, Wayne, Charles, and Ira.
1930 Federal Census records indicate the family was living in Rosedale in Braxton County. Mr. Walker was a driver for a gas well company. In 1940, the family was living in Worthington in Marion County. Mr. Walker was a laborer on a farm.
Gilbert finished three years of high school. On June 30, 1942, in Lewis County, he registered for military service. He enlisted in the U.S. Army on October 6, 1943, in Clarksburg. At the time, he was working for F. M. Barnhart and was a tool dresser, a trade for which the practitioner operates a machine that sharpens large drills. At enlistment, he described himself as single, with dependents. The information available does not say who his dependents were. Gilbert Walker entered the service on November 16, 1943. On July 26, 1944, The Weston Independent carried an article that reported on his furlough trip home. He was stationed at the Smokey Hill Air Base in Kansas. There, Gilbert Walker trained to be a gunner on a B-29 Superfortress. Two of Gilbert's brothers, Lee and George, were also in the military, serving in the Navy. At the time of his trip home, Gilbert Walker's rank was corporal, but he was promoted to sergeant before the end of 1944.
Gilbert Walker was assigned to the 499th Group, 878th Squadron. The plane on which he was a gunner was a B-29, known as the Hasta Luego. On January 14, 1945, the Hasta Luego departed Saipan for Nagoya, Japan, with 11 crew on board. Their target was the Mitsubishi plant located there. A series of raids conducted by the Army Air Corps was meant to destroy the manufacturing capability of aircraft engines and an assembly plant.
According to its Missing Air Crew Report (MACR 42-24647), the Hasta Luego was one of the planes hit by enemy anti-aircraft fire and enemy fighter artillery. The damage to the plane's fuel transfer system resulted in its being unable to complete the flight back to base due to lack of fuel. The plane was ditched in the ocean. The seas were rough, and the plane broke into two pieces. The plane sank in moments.
The MACR describes a dire situation for the crew. Most escaped from the plane and spent the night in rafts or in the water in their personal flotation vests, surrounded by sharks. The next morning, a rescue plane dropped a life raft to the airmen, and they were eventually rescued.
Five of the crew perished during the crash or overnight. One of them was Gilbert Walker. One of the rescued crew noted that the left and right gunners were positioned with their backs to the nose of the plane and in seats that reached only midway up their backs. The impact of the crash may have resulted in traumatic injuries to their backs that resulted quickly in death or otherwise disabled them sufficiently that they could not escape the sinking plane as rapidly as did others. Neither man in the left and right gunner position was contacted after impact. Another crew member was lost to injuries, and another, who attempted to help an injured airman who he thought was still in the plane, probably went down with the plane. Of the eleven crew, six survived what must have been a terrifying night in the vast Pacific Ocean. The MACR contains a description of the conditions: "It was a stormy night with waves 10 to 20 feet high and swells 20 to 30 feet high."
The five who could not be found after the crash were listed as "missing in action," but all eventually were given up as dead. Two additional B-29s from the same mission crashed that night. No one survived the crashes of the other two planes.
Gilbert Walker was reported missing in action by The Weston Independent on January 31, 1945. According to the MACR, those who were missing on January 14, 1945, were declared dead a year later. About two weeks before the one-year anniversary of her son's death, Mrs. Walker died of coronary thrombosis at the age of 41.
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Sergeant Walker is memorialized with a cenotaph placed in the Lewis County Memorial Gardens and is listed on the Tablets of the Missing, Honolulu Memorial, Honolulu, Hawaii. |  |
Article prepared by Cynthia Mullens
October 2021
West Virginia Archives and History welcomes any additional information that can be provided about these veterans, including photographs, family names, letters and other relevant personal history.