We've certainly discussed this in the past, but a little different angle today. Most here are probably aware that the Cushing Library has a Flickr account, filled with amazing photos from A&M's history.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cushinglibrary/albums/with/72157624318887071

I was scanning this the other day, and I ran across an album called "Hilger".

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cushinglibrary/albums/72157624318887071/with/4678439989/

You are probably aware that John Hilger '32, was the deputy commander of the Doolittle Raid. This album had photos of Hilger on the A&M campus, in July of 1942. In several of the photos was an Ensign in Navy Whites. Took me a while to figure out that the Navy guy was George Gay '40, the sole survivor of Torpedo Squadron 8, from the Battle of Midway.

I was also wondering why all the cadets were on campus in July. But I have read that A&M went to a trimester system during the war, to graduate cadets more quickly. Can't imagine attending class in those uniforms during a College Station summer.

Trivia: Gay was assigned to the Hornet, and would have watched Hilger and the other Raiders take off. One wonders if the (at least 6) Aggies on board ever had a small muster.

John Hilger biography

George Gay biography

More trivia, both were cremated, Hilger's ashes scattered in the Pacific off of Newport Beach, California. Gay's in the Pacific, at the same spot where his comrades died on June 4, 1942.

A few photos below, go to the Hilger album for more.

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You are probably aware that John Hilger '32, was the deputy commander of the Doolittle Raid.

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I was actually not aware so I really appreciate this post.

I remember first reading about the raid as a kid. What I learned was that the raid didn't have much strategic or tactical value but was a good morale boost back home. I've read a couple of books about Midway in recent years that told how Doolittle's raid was enormously important from a strategic viewpoint. The start of the turning point of the Pacific War.

I loved marching through that north tunnel

Big morale booster in the USA at the time!

In the current Ukraine/Russia War, we have heard the presumed Ukrainian strikes across their border into Russia as morale boosting operations. I imagine the Doolittle strike would be like Ukraine hitting Moscow if Moscow was on the other side of the world from it.

Canyon hits another home run with his post.

I love photos of the campus and the Corps in the WWII days. My father '44 was on campus during this visit.

Hilger looks like an intelligent, friendly guy who is enjoying returning to campus.

In a few of the other photos you see guys with broad smiles on their faces, which you often don't find in documentation of these serious moments.

This is a wonderful treat for me.

As an Aggie that was previously assigned to the 34th Bomb Squadron, I'm not sue how I didn't know Doolittle's #2 was an Aggie. Thanks Canyon for the link. I'll go get lost in the album when the kids go to bed tonight.

One of the most important things that came from the raid was the large amount of radio traffic that the US was able to intercept. The Japanese Navy had been running in almost complete radio silence for years. You can't decode messages if there's nothing to intercept. Intelligence gained during the raid had a direct impact on the US Navy's ability to conclude that Midway was the next objective for Japan.

ABATTBQ87 said:

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I loved marching through that north tunnel

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I could do an entire thread on that tunnel. Breaks my heart it was not retained in some fashion.

But $ad to $ay, we all know the re$on for it$ demi$e.

I have my father's yearbooks 1940-1944 and so I looked up a couple of the guys escorting Hilger and Gay.

As I thought they would be, a number of the photos in the folder Canyon pointed us to are in the yearbook for 1943.

The fellow escorting Hilger was WW Cardwell, Cadet Colonel of the Corps. You will notice that he is wearing three diamonds, not four. At some point in the past they boosted the seniors in rank, so that companies that were once commanded by a captain became commanded by a major, etc.

The other fellow is JR Adams. Notice that although he is a Cadet Captain and a senior, he is not wearing boots and is wearing a different belt buckle than Cardwell.

Some cadets could not afford boots. Some seniors did not wear them every day.

A quick glance at the photos shows several seniors who are not wearing boots. Not having boots might have something to do with the shift to the trimester system once the war started. Maybe the boots were on order and had not arrived yet.

He and several other company commanders are not wearing boots for their outfit photos.

(This was also true for my father, who was XO of his outfit. He bought boots, but was not on campus during what would normally have been his fourth year. The Class of '44 was enlisted en masse in late spring 1943.)

There are a lot of variations in tie color, shirt color, and buckle type that I wish I understood.

OldArmy71 said:

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I have my father's yearbooks 1940-1944 and so I looked up a couple of the guys escorting Hilger and Gay.

As I thought they would be, a number of the photos in the folder Canyon pointed us to are in the yearbook for 1943.

The fellow escorting Hilger was WW Cardwell, Cadet Colonel of the Corps. You will notice that he is wearing three diamonds, not four. At some point in the past they boosted the seniors in rank, so that companies that were once commanded by a captain became commanded by a major, etc.

The other fellow is JR Adams. Notice that although he is a Cadet Captain and a senior, he is not wearing boots and is wearing a different belt buckle than Cardwell.

Some cadets could not afford boots. Some seniors did not wear them every day.

A quick glance at the photos shows several seniors who are not wearing boots. Not having boots might have something to do with the shift to the trimester system once the war started. Maybe the boots were on order and had not arrived yet.

He and several other company commanders are not wearing boots for their outfit photos.

(This was also true for my father, who was XO of his outfit. He bought boots, but was not on campus during what would normally have been his fourth year. The Class of '44 was enlisted en masse in late spring 1943.)

There are a lot of variations in tie color, shirt color, and buckle type that I wish I understood.

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Could,it be war time rationing and uni parts came from what ever source they could get them

Excellent point. I hadn't thought of that.

Aggies were poorer back then. My dad class of '55 bought his boots from another cadet, who was graduating. He only wore them on special occasions, to keep from wearing them out. When he graduated, he sold them to another cadet.

Given the price of boots these days, we may be going back to that. I'm strongly considering donating my boots to the Corps Center boot loan program.

I wonder was this Commission ceremony? one of the pics had a bunch of guys in all whites.

One year later in 1943.

This day in 1943, US Operation Vengeance. Japanese Marshal Admiral of the Navy Yamamoto, the mastermind behind the Pearl Harbor attack, is killed when his aircraft is shot down by American P-38 fighter aircraft over Bougainville Island. #WW2

Art by Roy Grinnell. pic.twitter.com/aMLAk8ZQtX

— WWII Pictures (@WWIIpix) April 18, 2022

Loading full tweet…

BQ_90 said:

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I wonder was this Commission ceremony? one of the pics had a bunch of guys in all whites.

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I doubt that we were commissioning that many Navy guys. I wonder if they were not A&M cadets, but Navy guys brought from a Navy base on the coast.

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BQ_90 said:

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I wonder was this Commission ceremony? one of the pics had a bunch of guys in all whites.

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CanyonAg77 said:

I doubt that we were commissioning that many Navy guys. I wonder if they were not A&M cadets, but Navy guys brought from a Navy base on the coast.

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I just wish we could go back in time and document all these pictures more. To me the pics are great, but knowing the stories behind them would be even better.

I was looking thru some Aggie Band pics, and there is one a female Corps member playing a bass, but she was wearing Corps brass, so I'd love to know the story about that.

Most of these photos have no real identifying information. But if you are on the Cushing Flckr pages, there are comment boxes where you can add your info. I've done that on a couple of Band photos from my time, identifying the place or the subjects.

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+ 2 more quotes (click to expand)

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BQ_90 said:

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I wonder was this Commission ceremony? one of the pics had a bunch of guys in all whites.

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CanyonAg77 said:

I doubt that we were commissioning that many Navy guys. I wonder if they were not A&M cadets, but Navy guys brought from a Navy base on the coast.

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BQ_90 said:

I just wish we could go back in time and document all these pictures more. To me the pics are great, but knowing the stories behind them would be even better.

I was looking thru some Aggie Band pics, and there is one a female Corps member playing a bass, but she was wearing Corps brass, so I'd love to know the story about that.

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ABATTBQ87 said:

Post that picture

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/cushinglibrary/3549027672/in/album-72157618443156225/

Is it just me (and I'm a non-reg, so go easy on me), but is her Corps brass upside down?

Just almost seems like a "look at me pretending to be a BQ" kind of pic...

Quote:

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As I thought they would be, a number of the photos in the folder Canyon pointed us to are in the yearbook for 1943.

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So were these pics from 1943 not July '42. That would make more sense as having Gay in attendance literally a month or less after being shot down in the Battle of Midway in early June seems it would be hard to accomplish. Maybe I am wrong here...

Hilger and Gay visited A&M together in July 42.

The photos are in the 1943 yearbook, so they would have been taken, presumably, in 1942.

The photos are not given any special section; they are just part of several pages of "student life" and "events around the campus" sorts of photos.

Very easy for Gay to get home from Pearl once the Hornet returned from Midway. The Doolittle Raiders who came back to the states after the raid had a longer way home through China,India, Persia, Egypt, a couple more countries in Africa before taking a Clipper to Brazil then up to Florida. They got back later part of June

GasAg90 said:

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Very easy for Gay to get home from Pearl once the Hornet returned from Midway. The Doolittle Raiders who came back to the states after the raid had a longer way home through China,India, Persia, Egypt, a couple more countries in Africa before taking a Clipper to Brazil then up to Florida. They got back later part of June

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OK, that makes more sense...

From a history perspective, I would have loved a lot more back story to what the pics represent. Granted, this is a school year book made by college students which by itself can have issues. Now add in that a war is going on and details get missed.

GasAg90 said:

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Hilger and Gay visited A&M together in July 42.

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As stated in the OP

Maximus_Meridius said:

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Is it just me (and I'm a non-reg, so go easy on me), but is her Corps brass upside down?

Just almost seems like a "look at me pretending to be a BQ" kind of pic...

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Yes, her brass is upside down and her three diamonds are not aligned correctly on her collar.

Very strange. Maybe someone's girlfriend dressed up for Midnight Yell Practice or something.

OldArmy71 beat me to it.

And maybe it was fish day?

Fish day is definitely possible.

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Maximus_Meridius said:

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Is it just me (and I'm a non-reg, so go easy on me), but is her Corps brass upside down?

Just almost seems like a "look at me pretending to be a BQ" kind of pic...

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OldArmy71 said:

Yes, her brass is upside down and her three diamonds are not aligned correctly on her collar.

Very strange. Maybe someone's girlfriend dressed up for Midnight Yell Practice or something.

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Definitely not a three diamond female cadet during that uniform's existence.

There were 12 other Texans on the raid.

Plane No. 2
Lt. William N. Fitzhugh, co-pilot, and Douglas V. Radney, engineer-gunner. Born in Temple, Fitzhugh was a graduate of Galveston's Ball High and the University of Texas, while Radney hailed from Mineola and had gone to school in Mexia. The crew survived the mission without a scratch.

Plane No. 3. Whiskey Pete
Flown by Killeen native Lt. Robert Manning Gray. He had attended Texas A&M before transferring to Tarleton State. He survived the mission but was killed in action in the CBI six months later. Gray Army Airfield in named for him.

Plane No. 9 was copiloted by Texas Aggie James M. Parker, Jr. of Houston.

Plane No. 11 was co-piloted by Kenneth E. Reddy of Bowie, victim of a stateside crash five months after the raid.

Plane No. 12 was co-piloted by Thadd Harrison Blanton of Archer City, who made a career of the military retiring in 1961.

Plane No. 13 was pilot Edgar E. McElroy of Ennis, who did the same retiring in 1962.

Plane No. 14 - Hilger.

Plane No. 16 Robert L. Hite of Odell, co-pilot of the sixteenth bomber. Hite and his crewmates parachuted right into the Japanese army, two were executed as war criminals, and the other three POW's were not freed until August 1945.

Hite was the last living Texan, when he passed away in 2015 at 95. He was survived at the time by two raiders who died in 2019.

The estimated that a quarter of a million Chinese men, women and children were killed by the Japanese in retribution for aiding and abetting the Doolittle Raiders.

Maybe she was in the band but went to corps staff, based on her rank. When they go to corps staff they don't let them wear the lyre.

But I'm thinking it's someone's girlfriend because that brass looks like it was put on sloppily.

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+ 3 more quotes (click to expand)

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BQ_90 said:

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I wonder was this Commission ceremony? one of the pics had a bunch of guys in all whites.

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CanyonAg77 said:

I doubt that we were commissioning that many Navy guys. I wonder if they were not A&M cadets, but Navy guys brought from a Navy base on the coast.

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BQ_90 said:

I just wish we could go back in time and document all these pictures more. To me the pics are great, but knowing the stories behind them would be even better.

I was looking thru some Aggie Band pics, and there is one a female Corps member playing a bass, but she was wearing Corps brass, so I'd love to know the story about that.

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ABATTBQ87 said:

Post that picture

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BQ_90 said:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cushinglibrary/3549027672/in/album-72157618443156225/

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This was just a joke, no women in the 1980s band played tuba, nor were they 3 diamonds