Henry Erwin

The President of the United States in the name of The Congress takes pleasure in presenting the

Medal of Honor

to

ERWIN, HENRY E.
(Air Mission)

Rank and organization: Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army Air Corps, 52d Bombardment Squadron, 29th Bombardment Group, 20th Air Force. Place and date: Koriyama, Japan, 12 April 1945. Entered service at: Bessemer, Ala. Born: 8 May 1921, Adamsville, Ala. G.O. No.: 44, 6 June 1945.

Citation: He was the radio operator of a B-29 airplane leading a group formation to attack Koriyama, Japan. He was charged with the additional duty of dropping phosphoresce smoke bombs to aid in assembling the group when the launching point was reached. Upon entering the assembly area, aircraft fire and enemy fighter opposition was encountered. Among the phosphoresce bombs launched by S/Sgt. Erwin, 1 proved faulty, exploding in the launching chute, and shot back into the interior of the aircraft, striking him in the face. The burning phosphoresce obliterated his nose and completely blinded him. Smoke filled the plane, obscuring the vision of the pilot. S/Sgt. Erwin realized that the aircraft and crew would be lost if the burning bomb remained in the plane. Without regard for his own safety, he picked it up and feeling his way, instinctively, crawled around the gun turret and headed for the copilot's window. He found the navigator's table obstructing his passage. Grasping the burning bomb between his forearm and body, he unleashed the spring lock and raised the table. Struggling through the narrow passage he stumbled forward into the smoke-filled pilot's compartment. Groping with his burning hands, he located the window and threw the bomb out. Completely aflame, he fell back upon the floor. The smoke cleared, the pilot, at 300 feet, pulled the plane out of its dive. S/Sgt. Erwin's gallantry and heroism above and beyond the call of duty saved the lives of his comrades.

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/b-29-phosphorus-burne...

Henry Eugene “Red” Erwin, Sr., (May 8, 1921 – January 16, 2002) was a United States Army Air Forces airman and a recipient of the U.S. military’s highest decoration—the Medal of Honor—for his actions in World War II. He earned the award as a staff sergeant and radio operator aboard a B-29 Superfortress in the Asia-Pacific theater. During a 1945 bombing mission over Koriyama, Japan, a phosphorus bomb prematurely exploded in his aircraft and seriously wounded him. As smoke filled the plane, he picked up the burning device and carried it through the aircraft to the cockpit where he tossed it out a window. Although he suffered severe burns, he successfully saved his plane by disposing of the smoke-generating bomb.

Military service

Born on May 8, 1921, in Adamsville, Alabama, Erwin joined the Army Reserve from nearby Bessemer on July 27, 1942. Called to active duty as an aviation cadet in the Army Air Forces on February 3, 1943, he trained as a pilot in Ocala, Florida, but washed out due to “flying deficiency”. He was instead transferred to technical school at Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi, as a private first class in July of that year. He completed further radio operator and radio mechanic training in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Madison, Wisconsin, until his graduation in 1944.

On April 12, 1945, Erwin, called “Red” by his crewmates, was serving as the radio operator aboard a B-29 Superfortress named City of Los Angeles, piloted by Captain George Simeral. The plane was in formation for a low-level attack on a chemical plant at Koriyama, 120 miles (190 km) north of Tokyo, on their 11th combat mission. Along with their primary jobs, the twelve B-29 crew members had additional duties to perform. Erwin’s was to drop phosphorus smoke bombs through a chute in the aircraft’s floor when the lead plane reached a designated assembly area. He was given the signal to drop the bombs when the aircraft was just off the south coast of Japan and under attack by anti-aircraft fire and Japanese fighters.

Erwin pulled the pin and released a bomb into the chute, but the fuse malfunctioned and ignited the phosphorus prematurely, burning at 1,100 degrees. The canister flew back up the chute and into Erwin’s face, blinding him, searing off one ear and obliterating his nose. Smoke immediately filled the aircraft, making it impossible for the pilot to see his instrument panel.

The pilots could not see. The plane began a dive. It was certain that death would come, but would it be from the certain crash or the explosion from the munitions? Then the crew saw what had to have seemed to them an apparition as Irwin, totally aflame, located the burning phosphorus bomb and grabbed it with his right hand! Holding the white-hot canister against his rib cage, he somehow made his way towards a plane window by the navigator’s station. The navigator’s table blocked his progress and the seconds it took to raise it must have seemed like an eternity. Fellow crewmen remember Erwin saying: “Excuse me.” as he stumbled past them into the cockpit to throw the bomb out the window.

Erwin was afraid the bomb would burn through the metal floor into the bomb bay. Completely blind, he picked it up and feeling his way, crawled around the gun turret and headed for the copilot’s window. His face and arms were covered with ignited phosphorus and his path was blocked by the navigator’s folding table, hinged to the wall but down and locked. The navigator had left his table to make a sighting. Erwin couldn’t release the table’s latches with one hand, so he grabbed the white-hot bomb between his bare right arm and his ribcage. In the few seconds it took to raise the table, the phosphorus burned through his flesh to the bone. His body on fire, he stumbled into the cockpit, threw the bomb out the window and collapsed between the pilot’s seats.

The smoke cleared enough for Simeral to pull the B-29 out of a dive at 300 feet (91 m) above the water and turn toward Iwo Jima, where Erwin could be given emergency treatment. His crew members extinguished his burning clothes and administered first aid, but whenever Erwin’s burns were uncovered, phosphorus embedded in his skin would begin to smolder. Although in excruciating pain, he remained conscious throughout the flight and spoke only to inquire about the safety of the crew. Once at Iwo Jima, medical personnel didn’t believe he would survive.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7658512

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Alabama native Henry Erwin Sr. (1921-2002) won the Medal of Honor in World War II for his actions saving the crew of his bomber that resulted in extremely painful and severe burns that disfigured him for life. Not expected to live owing to the severity of his injuries, Erwin's medal award was expedited by the high command. Erwin did survive and became a Veterans Affairs benefits counselor in Birmingham, Jefferson County, serving in that position for many years.

Erwin was born in the small hardscrabble mining town of Adamsville, Jefferson County, on May 8, 1921. The eldest child in a large family, he was raised in impoverished circumstances. His father, who is unnamed in biographical accounts, was a coal miner who died when Erwin was age 10. He then took a job in the local coal mine commissary to help his mother, Pearl Landers Erwin, support the large family. Erwin later attended high school for two years but dropped out, joining the New Deal Civilian Conservation Corps program that was instituted during the Great Depression to put young men like Erwin to work. He led a team of many other young men in similar circumstances who were planting kudzu to stop soil erosion in north Alabama. He later worked in a Birmingham steel factory.

In July 1942, Erwin joined the Army Reserve. In February 1943, he was called to active duty and joined the Army Air Corps. He underwent pilot training in Florida but was unable to advance out of flight school. He then received technical training in Mississippi, South Dakota, and Wisconsin, where he completed training as a radio operator and mechanic in April 1944. He was promoted to corporal that August and sergeant in October. Also that year, Erwin married Martha Elizabeth Starnes Erwin, with whom he would have a son and three daughters. He was assigned to the 52nd Bombardment Squadron, 29th Bombardment Group, Twentieth Air Force, and left for the Pacific theater in early 1945.

Erwin served primarily as a radio operator in the Army's newest and most advanced heavy bomber, the Boeing B-29 "Super Fortress." It was noted for its longer range and ability to carry a higher payload of bombs compared to other U.S. bombers. By this time in the war, the B-29 was being tasked with long range missions over vast stretches of the Pacific Ocean to bomb Japan from bases on the islands of Guam, Saipan, and Tinian in the Marianas. He served on an aircraft known as the City of Los Angeles based at Guam, and it was his 10 fellow crewmembers who gave him the nickname "Red" for his auburn hair.

By the start of 1945, Erwin's unit had flown a number of missions over various Japanese cities. Accounts vary on whether it was his 11th or 18th mission, but on April 12, 1945, the City of Los Angeles was the lead plane in the formation flying toward the Hodogaya Chemical Plant at Koriyama, on the island of Honshu, Japan. It was Erwin's job to drop 20-pound phosphorous signal flares or canisters through a chute in the plane over a predetermined point to provide visual reference for the other planes in the formation. The first flare, however, did not exit the aircraft, and, burning at approximately 1,300 degrees F. (~704 degrees Celsius), hit Erwin in the face and quickly began filling the aircraft with smoke. The phosphorous also began burning through Erwin's flight suit to his skin and through parts of the aircraft, potentially to the bomb load below according to some accounts. Holding the burning canister between his arm and body, Erwin scrambled to find a window to throw out the flare which he ultimately did from the cockpit. Crew members used fire extinguishers to douse the flames, but the phosphorus had largely burned his flight suit away, had burned through his flesh to bone in some areas, and damaged his eyes. The pilot aborted the mission and landed on the recently captured island of Iwo Jima to get Erwin prompt medical treatment. He was later moved to Guam.

Such was the severity of the burns and pain and the fear of Erwin's seemingly imminent death that Gen. Curtis LeMay, the commander on Guam, swiftly signed a Medal of Honor citation and pushed for its approval, including Pres. Harry S. Truman's, in recognition of Erwin's "gallant and heroic act" to save his fellow crew members. Accounts note, however, that the only medal in all of the Pacific theater was in a locked display case at U.S. Army Headquarters in Honolulu, Hawaii. It was quickly removed and flown to Guam and presented to Erwin by Maj. Gen. Willis H. Hale, commander of Army Air Forces Pacific Area, on April 19. LeMay also had Erwin's brother Howard, a U.S. Marine on Saipan, flown to Guam aboard a plane that was piloted by Hollywood film star and Marine, Tyrone Power. LeMay would later join Alabama governor George Wallace as his vice-presidential running mate in the 1968 presidential race. Wallace also served under LeMay in the Twentieth Air Force and also flew on board a B-29 but was based at Tinian.

Erwin was hospitalized for 30 months and underwent some 40 often-painful surgeries, including skin grafts and having his eyes sewn shut for a long period. He eventually regained the use of one arm and some of his eyesight. He was promoted to master sergeant in 1945 and received a disability discharge, leaving the service in October 1947. In early 1948, he began working with other veterans in Birmingham, retiring in the mid-1980s.

In addition to the Medal of Honor, Erwin also received the Purple Heart, the World War II Victory Medal, the American Campaign Medal, three Good Conduct Medals, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with two bronze campaign stars (for participation in the Air Offensive Japan and Western Pacific campaigns), and the Distinguished Unit Citation Emblem. He was the only B-29 crewman awarded the Medal of Honor during the war. Since 1995, the U.S. Air Force has annually awarded the "Staff Sgt. Henry E. Erwin Outstanding Enlisted Aircrew Member Airman of the Year Award" to recognize career enlisted aviators for their exceptional work and leadership.

Erwin died on January 16, 2002, and was buried at Elmwood Cemetery in Birmingham. His son Hank Erwin Jr. served in the Alabama State Senate . His war-time exploits were touched on in the 1951 film Wild Blue Yonder, and he has been the subject of magazine articles and a 2020 book co-written by a grandson, Jon Erwin.