Delaware's Welch got first taste of combat on Dec. 7, 1941

By Jeff Brown
Posted 12/6/21

Editor’s note: Veteran journalist Jeff Brown, a retired U.S. Air Force master sergeant who is editor of the Air Mobility Command Museum’s newsletter the Hangar Digest, wrote this story …

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Delaware's Welch got first taste of combat on Dec. 7, 1941

Posted

Editor’s note: Veteran journalist Jeff Brown, a retired U.S. Air Force master sergeant who is editor of the Air Mobility Command Museum’s newsletter the Hangar Digest, wrote this story based on research gleaned from information in contemporary newspapers and other documented sources, including the Delaware Public Archives.

When it comes to the list of Medal of Honor awardees in the Air Mobility Command Museum’s Hall of Honor, Delaware World War II experts can argue there is one name missing: Maj. George S. Welch.

Maj. Welch, a native of Wilmington, was one of the first U.S. Army Air Forces pilots in the skies over Pearl Harbor during the Japanese attack Dec. 7, 1941. He is credited with downing four planes.

Maj. Welch and a buddy, Lt. Kenneth Taylor of Oklahoma, had spent much of the previous night partying and playing cards. Early that Sunday morning — it was actually Dec. 8 in Honolulu — they had returned to their rooms at Wheeler Field and began hearing the sounds of attacking aircraft.

Both men rushed out and climbed into Lt. Taylor’s Buick convertible. Avoiding strafing fire from the Japanese attackers, they made the 16-mile trip to the Haleiwa landing field in less than 15 minutes. Then, jumping into a pair of waiting Curtiss P-40B aircraft — Lt. Taylor had called ahead and ordered the Warhawks to be fueled and ready to fly — the pilots took off, still in the clothing they’d worn the night before.

Maj. Welch almost immediately shot down one of 12 enemy dive bombers and, despite one of his three .30-caliber guns having jammed, downed a second bomber with the remaining weapons. He and Lt. Taylor landed at Wheeler Field, refueled and, then, resupplied with ammo, took off once more, straight into an oncoming phalanx of new attackers.

By the time he landed again, he’d downed four Japanese aircraft. His Warhawk was riddled with bullet holes across its cowling and in its engine and propeller. One incendiary round had passed through the plane’s fuselage, a few inches from his head.

Maj. Welch escaped uninjured from the dogfights with the Japanese pilots, but Lt. Taylor received a bullet wound in the arm, while taking off on his second foray. He later was awarded a Purple Heart Medal.

By the time both men were ready for a third approach into combat, the enemy had retreated to their aircraft carriers and were steaming away from Pearl Harbor. Maj. Welch and Lt. Taylor had received their first, but not last, taste of aerial combat.

Back in Delaware, Maj. Welch was received as a hero, and his portrait hangs today in Delaware’s Legislative Hall. The elementary school on Dover Air Force Base also has been named in his honor, and a new one may be. Although both he and Lt. Taylor were recommended for the Medal of Honor, neither man has received the recognition.

The reason isn’t exactly clear, and because records detailing the award process were destroyed in a fire, it is probable they never will be.

A comfortable upbringing

Delaware records show that the future pilot was named George Lewis Schwartz Jr. upon his birth May 19, 1918, in Wilmington. A brother, Dehn Schwartz, was born two years later. However, because of still-intense anti-German sentiment after the end of World War I, their parents changed the boys’ surnames to Welch, their mother’s maiden name.

Growing up the son of a well-respected DuPont research chemist, the Welch youth enjoyed a comfortable upper-middle-class life. Active in the Boy Scouts, he also attended a private school in Wilmington and was a 1937 graduate of St. Andrew’s School in Middletown, which had been founded by A. Felix du Pont.

Though a sports enthusiast who enjoyed wrestling and rowing, George was permanently sidelined from the football team after breaking his collarbone in the first play of the first game of his freshman season. He then was named the varsity team’s water boy.

After word of Maj. Welch’s victories at Pearl Harbor were made public, St. Andrew’s headmaster the Rev. Walden Pell II recalled him as “an average student,” who was likeable and friendly but not aggressive.

“As I recall, he had a little trouble with English, but right now seems to be doing all right with the Japanese,” the Rev. Pell said.

After graduation, Mr. Welch attended Purdue University, where he decided to become an aviation cadet. Always enamored with flying, as a youngster, he had built balsa wood and tissue paper airplanes, telling his parents he wanted to be a fighter pilot and wanting nothing to do with any other type of aircraft.

“He didn’t like bombers,” Maj. Welch’s father, George Schwartz, recalled in a December 1941 interview with the Wilmington News Journal. “He preferred the faster pursuit planes.”

But getting permission to follow his dream was not easy. He continually pestered his parents, even sending them a telegram while they were on vacation in Mexico, pleading for their consent.

“We finally broke down and gave it,” Mr. Schwartz said in the interview.

With a parental blessing secured, Mr. Welch returned to Purdue, graduating with a degree in aeronautical engineering. Delaware newspapers followed his career closely with occasional short stories and a photograph of him in a soft-leather flying helmet and goggles.

Mr. Welch earned his second lieutenant’s commission Oct. 14, 1940, and was assigned to Hawaii in February 1941.

All his training left him with little time for family visits but, writing in 1995, St. Andrew’s classmate Walter “Buzz” Speakman recalled meeting him in Wilmington during the 1940 Christmas holiday, when there was little evidence of what was to come.

“The next time we heard of George, he was in every paper in the country after Pearl Harbor,” Mr. Speakman wrote.

A flyer’s tale

Maj. Welch told his own story of the attack in a May 19, 1942, interview.

Although awakened by the sound of aircraft overhead, he said he didn’t get out of bed until hearing explosions and machine gun fire.

“With about three or four other officers from the club where I stayed, I ran out — saw red circles on the airplanes and realized what was going on and that they were (Japanese) planes,” he said.

Heading into the air, he and Lt. Taylor saw little at first, except the fires at Pearl Harbor.

“Later, we noticed 20 or 30 airplanes in a traffic pattern at Ewa, the Marine landing field,” he said. “We found they were Japanese dive bombers strafing the field.

“Lt. Taylor and I shot two of those down,” Maj. Welch said, adding, “The first one I shot down, the rear gunner didn’t even turn around to face me. I got up close enough to see what he was doing. I got him in a five-second burst — he burned up right away.”

The second aircraft’s gunner managed to return fire as Maj. Welch approached, but three bursts from his working machine guns sent the bomber crashing into the beach.

Maj. Welch didn’t realize it at the time, but the Japanese pilots were just finishing what was to be the first wave of attacks. He and Lt. Taylor had landed at Wheeler Field, refueled and reloaded when the second attacks began, coming from Pearl Harbor toward Wheeler and nearby Schofield Barracks.

Taking off again, Maj. Welch shook off a Japanese pilot firing at him from behind, then managed to down an aircraft that was after Lt. Taylor.

“I had to put down my flaps to slow down to keep behind (him),” he said. “He burst into flame. Apparently, I hit the big gas tank between the pilot and the gunner. He had a terrific explosion right there and crashed.”

Maj. Welch scored his fourth victory when he spotted a Japanese aircraft flying alone.

“His rear gunner was either dead or asleep, for I didn’t get fired at,” he said.

Seeing no additional targets, Maj. Welch stayed in the air for another 15 or 20 minutes before returning to Haleiwa.

From his position above the island, the pilot got a good look at the devastation — and the Japanese tactics.

“When I looked down the hangar line at Wheeler Field, there were obviously very few, if any, airplanes left,” he said. “They were all burning, or scattered bombs had hit them and scattered them all over the place.”

The attackers had flown parallel to the hangars at a very slow speed, shooting at anything. Then, they’d circle around and follow the same pattern, Maj. Welch said.

“There was no resistance from Wheeler Field at all, so they had a perfect pattern and could pick out individual ships that they could see that weren’t on fire and shoot at them with both their 7.7s and 20 mm cannon,” he said.

Death of a hero

Maj. Welch remained on duty in Hawaii for several months, then was sent back to the United States, where he gave speeches in support of the country’s war bonds effort. He returned to combat in the Pacific Theater, eventually scoring 12 additional victories in aerial combat. Three of those took place Dec. 7, 1942, one year after the Pearl Harbor attack.

Maj. Welch’s combat career was cut short in September 1943, when he became ill with a severe case of malaria. Hospitalized in Australia, he met and married Janette Alice Williams of Sydney on Oct. 25. He was sent back to the United States after flying 348 combat missions with 16 confirmed kills.

Back in America, he continued to give war bond speeches and, after resigning his commission, flew as a test pilot for North American Aviation.

Two years after the end of the war, flying the experimental XP-86 jet-powered Sabre, Maj. Welch allegedly broke through the sound barrier two weeks before Chuck Yeager officially flew his rocket-powered XS-1 faster than Mach 1. Though there are indications that Maj. Welch succeeded in this endeavor, there’s also evidence he did not. It’s a debate that’s still unresolved more than 70 years later.

Maj. Welch continued his successful career at North American Aviation, flying increasingly advanced aircraft. He and Ms. Welch remained in California, where their family ultimately included two sons: Giles, born in 1947, and Jolyon, who arrived in 1951.

He eventually was named NAA’s chief engineering test pilot, and on Oct. 20, 1953, officially flew the new F-100 Super Sabre aircraft past Mach 1. The display before Air Force officials and the news media shattered windows, as Maj. Welch pushed the powerful jet past the 720-mph mark.

Sadly, Maj. Welch was fatally injured Oct. 12, 1954, while flying another F-100. He apparently attempted to eject from the crippled aircraft and was found alive in his parachute but died on the way to the hospital at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

His cremated remains were interred one month later at Arlington National Cemetery, with his wife, mother and several Air Force officials in attendance. An Air Force aircraft flew over the gravesite, as a bugler played taps.

In 1962, Delaware state Rep. Harris B. McDowell Jr. urged the Air Force to rename Dover Air Force Base in Maj. Welch’s honor. Told regulations would not allow that request, Rep. McDowell then suggested the service either name Dover’s new hospital or its elementary school after the ace flyer out of Wilmington.

The latter request was granted.

On May 19, 1962, Gov. Elbert Carvel, along with Maj. Welch’s parents and son Giles, were on hand as Maj. George S. Welch Elementary School was dedicated. A plaque installed that day still stands in its foyer.

Medal of Honor denied

During his career, Maj. Welch amassed a total of nine awards and decorations, including the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Silver Star and the Distinguished Service Cross, which is the United States’ second-highest award for heroism in combat with an enemy.

He was the first serviceman to be awarded the DSC in World War II.

But some feel that Maj. Welch and Lt. Taylor — who died in 2006 — are deserving of the Medal of Honor for their actions Dec. 7, 1941. There have been several unsuccessful campaigns over the years to upgrade the DSC for both men.

Most recently, in November 2014, then-Wilmington News Journal editor Harry Themal wrote, “George Schwartz Welch has been overlooked now for 73 years as a deserved recipient of the Medal of Honor.”

Mr. Themal called the lack of an award for Maj. Welch “an egregious oversight for the first American hero of World War II.”

A source no lesser than Gen. Henry “Hap” Arnold, chief of the Army Air Forces in 1941, also felt Maj. Welch deserved the medal, the editor added.

Mr. Themal noted that Army officials blocked the award in 1941 with the spurious excuse that Maj. Welch and Lt. Taylor had taken off to destroy Japanese attackers without prior authorization.

“Another reason given is that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wanted an instant hero with whom to be seen and that the Medal of Honor process would have taken too long,” he wrote.

A week later, on Dec. 7, 2014, Mr. Themal wrote that U.S. Sen. Tom Carper’s office had investigated upgrading the award but that a July 1973 fire that destroyed millions of servicemen’s records made gathering information impossible. Not only were Maj. Welch’s records lost, but any files including the original recommendation paperwork also were gone.

Additional requests from Sen. Carper and other lawmakers also were denied, Mr. Themal said.

The official explanation, in his opinion, didn’t hold water, Mr. Themal said. According to the Army, it “would need a copy of the original recommendation to determine if the original board made an error in its decision. Once a decision was made to award the DSC instead of the Medal of Honor, it was considered an ‘administrative finality.’ Despite extensive research, no one has found the original recommendation or a copy.”

To date, nothing further has been done, a fact Mr. Themal said continues to disappoint him.

“We have a lot of heroes that we don’t pay enough attention to, and here is a chance to remember what he did on Dec. 7, 1941,” he said last month.

Mr. Themal also supports any effort to christen a new elementary school at Dover AFB in Maj. Welch’s honor. The building, whose construction has been delayed by the pandemic, will stand across Old Lebanon Road from the current school.

The original Welch school will be demolished once the new one is complete. Mike Williams, a spokesman for the Caesar Rodney School District, said any decision on naming the new school is up to the Air Force, not the school district.

Mr. Themal said he thinks naming the new building after Maj. Welch will honor both his memory and accomplishments and serve as a source of inspiration for today’s students.

“I think that to have his name on the new school will give the chance for the kids who go to that school to remember who George S. Welch was and to carry his story into the next generation,” he said.

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