Taking a Stand for Maryland's History
In St. Mary's County citizens are waging a campaign to honor a Maryland hero. They are asking only that a new school be named for him. So much of Maryland's proud history has been lost to the ages much as Captain Walter Duke, flying ace, was lost for so many decades in the Burmese jungle. I think it appropriate that we take a moment to pay tribute to one of our fallen Southern warriors. The following was written by Maryland LS member G. P. Wigginton.
A Maryland Fighting Man Comes Home
On 6 August 1921, in St. Mary's County, Maryland, Walter Francis Duke was born into an old Leonardtwon family. With eight brothers and sisters, he grew up and became a popular, talented and sincere young man. His father, "Colonel" Duke, and grandfather, Confederate veteran and Point Lookout POW John Francis Duke, were highly respected civic leaders in Leonardtown, and young Walter learned well from them, forming an intense martial spirit and sense of responsibility.
Walter graduated
from high school in May 1940 and left home shortly thereafter to join
the Royal Canadian Air Force. He learned to fly, sharpened his
skills, transferred to the United States Army Air Force in March of
1942, trained more in Alabama, and by spring of 1943 was in India.
There, given new formidable Lockheed Lightning P-38 s, he became the
leading ace not only of his unit, the 459th Fighter
Squadron, but of the entire China-Burma-India theater. On 6 June
1944, now Captain Duke, returning from a mission, flew back over
the Burma jungle to seek out a missing wingman. Walter found him,
was satisfied that he was safe, and radioed, “Ok, I’m going
home.” This was his last transmission; he was never seen again.
It later transpired that a swarm of Japanese fighters pounced on him
and that Walter turned into them and knocked three down before they
got him. His Lightning crashed and was lost in the vast, almost
impenetrable jungle.
In December of 2012
a timber crew, clearing the Burmese forest, found the old wreckage of
an American fighter plane. In the cockpit were human remains. The
authorities verified that the plane was the one flown by Captain
Walter Duke, and DNA analysis confirmed that the pilot was definitely
he. It seems that after two-thirds of a century Walter’s last
words will be fulfilled: He’s coming home – and he’ll rest in
the 18th century Catholic graveyard near his hometown
rather than in some fetid, alien jungle.
He is still, we
understand, Maryland’s leading ace. He was officially credited
with ten air combat victories and that does not count the three he
nailed in his last minutes of life. He also destroyed nine more
planes on the ground. A combat report, with uncharacteristic levity,
mentioned that Captain Duke scored another coup in that while
fiercely strafing an enemy airfield, he managed to shoot up one
hostile black sedan.
Some community
leaders are requesting that a new school be named for Captain Duke.
This is good. By rights there should be one so named already. He’s
no more a hero now than he was twenty, thirty, or forty years ago.
However, Captain Duke was a warrior, a local boy informed by true
patriotism, and proud of his valiant grandfather. All this does not
endear him to modernists, so that even though old St. Mary’s County
never forgot him, many deracinated young Countians and “right
thinking” new people have not even heard of him. But no matter,
because whatever else may occur, his final homecoming will be
attended by the comforting rites of his ancient church, the condign
honors afforded him by the military, and the consoling knowledge that
a Marylander will at last be where he belongs: interred with his
ancestors in St. Mary’s County.
With apologies to
Ennius for the necessary changes, I “quote” his apt aphorism:
Moribus
antiquis res stetit Terra Mariae vetus virisque.
Roughly: On ancient
codes and on real men stood old Maryland.
G.P.Wigginton
