Tom Thompson fought a special kind of war. Psychological warfare was performed in many cases, and Tom found himself apart of this task.

He was a part of the 801st 492nd Bomb Group. They were part of the OSS ( Office of Strategic Services ). This was the predecessor to the CIA.
They trained in different types of aircraft, but only flew in B-24s and B-17’s during their service.

This is his story.

Leslie Peck was trying to figure out what to do with his life. Then the Bombing at Pearl   Harbor    gave him an opportunity to do and see things otherwise unimaginable.

Les served from 1942 til 1945. He was a member of the USS Wasp CV-7 in the Atlantic and Pacific. The Wasp was torpedoed and sunk.. a tragic event that still is very clear in his memory. He then served on the “Lucky Lady” USS Santa Fe CL-60.
He shares his first hand accounts of many historical events that will forever be written in history. He is a real honorable man and we appreciate his time talking to us.

USS Wasp (CV-7), entering Hampton Roads
Career (US)
Ordered:	19 September 1935
Laid down:	1 April 1936
Launched:	4 April 1939
Sponsored by:	Mrs. Charles Edison
Commissioned:	25 April 1940 (first Commanding Officer: Captain John W. Reeves, Jr.)
Struck:	15 September 1942
Honors and awards:	American Defense Service Medal (“A” device) / American Campaign Medal/European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal (1 star) / Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal (1 star) / World War II Victory Medal
Fate:	Disabled by enemy action, scuttled 15 September 1942
General characteristics
Displacement:	As built: 14,700 tons standard 19,116 tons full load
Length:	688 ft (209.7 m) (waterline) 741 ft 3 in (225.9 m) (overall)
Beam:	80 ft 9 in (24.6 m) (waterline) 109 ft (33.2 m) (overall)
Draft:	20 ft (6.1 m)
Propulsion:	6 × boilers at 565 psi Parsons steam turbines 2 × shafts 70,000 shp
Speed:	29.5 kn (33.9 mph; 54.6 km/h)
Range:	12,000 nmi (22,000 km) at 15 kn (17 mph; 28 km/h)
Complement:	1,800 officers and men (peacetime) 2,167 (wartime)
Sensors and processing systems:	CXAM-1 RADAR[1]
Armament:	As built: 8 × single 5 in (127 mm)/38 cal guns 4 × quad 1.1 in (27 mm)/75 cal guns 24 × .50 in machine guns
Armor:	As built: 60 lb STS conning tower 3.5 in side and 50 lb deck over steering gear
Aircraft carried:	As built: Up to 76 3 × elevators (1 at deck edge) 2 × flight deck hydraulic catapults 2 × hangar deck hydraulic catapults

Career
Namesake:	Santa Fe, New Mexico
Builder:	New York Shipbuilding Co. of Camden, New Jersey
Laid down:	7 June 1941
Launched:	10 June 1942
Commissioned:	24 November 1942
Decommissioned:	19 October 1946
Struck:	1 March 1959
Honours and awards:	13 Battle stars
Fate:	Scrapped in 1959
General characteristics
Class and type:	Cleveland-class light cruiser
Displacement:	10,000 tons
Length:	610 ft 1 in (186.0 m)
Beam:	66 ft 4 in (20.2 m)
Draft:	25 ft 1 in (7.6 m)
Speed:	31.6 kn (36.4 mph; 58.5 km/h)
Complement:	1,384 officers and enlisted
Armament:	12 × 6 in (152 mm)/47 cal guns 12 × 5 in (127 mm)/37 cal guns 16 × 40 mm guns 14 × 20 mm guns

A gentlemen from the People’s Channel, came and interviewed us for a change….here is the video.. enjoy.

Interview on 7/2/09 with Denny Schaffer 1230 WCWA

Written by Julie Ryan | | news@toledofreepress.com

Toledo-area war veterans no longer need to let textbooks tell their stories. Instead, residents and students can hear and see their narratives and learn from their experiences.

Late in 2007, Toledo natives Chris Wulf and Rick Neeley discovered their shared passion for history and began asking area war veterans to convey their stories. They founded History Documented, and gave local veterans the opportunity to document their war experiences.

Rick Neeley

Wulf said he began networking and setting up interviews in the Toledo area with the help of his father and grandfather. They take video clips from interviews and create short documentaries.

Once the veterans understand what they are doing, Neeley said, they open up to them.

Wulf said his family history inspired him to begin interviewing veterans.

“My grandfather, all my uncles and father included, were veterans of war and volunteered at VFW when I was little,” Wulf said. “I didn’t think much of it, but as I got older I realized, ‘Hey, these dads are dying off.’ ”

Neeley said there is immediacy to the project as the World War II veterans are aging, and their stories will be lost if they are not collected.

“We have a lot to learn from guys their age: their sacrifice, their dedication, their humility,” Neeley said.

Neeley said he recently interviewed a World War II veteran who had received five purple hearts. Until he spoke with Neeley, his story had gone untold, and Neeley said children need to hear it.

“We are not trying to glorify war but to show kids the sacrifice of their grandfathers and great grandfathers,” Neeley said.

Wulf said the veterans carry themselves with class and are an example of how Americans can react to today’s economy.

“They all talk about things — like the war and Depression — like, ‘Oh, it’s just a job, it’s not a big deal, it’s what we had to do.’ Compared to today, how they react to events and how we react to events: Everyone’s freaking about the deficit. But the veterans have character,” he said.

Funding for the project comes from Neeley and Wulf, which allows them to hold two interviews a week. Neeley said they would like to do more, but the cost of video recording, processing and editing, restrict them. Wulf is working to make History Documented an incorporated nonprofit.

“I hope future generations and children today would be most affected,” Wulf said. “That was our goal. I know growing up, history class was memorizing dates. I hope they can see the Vietnam War was more than two pages in a history book. I hope children and teachers can use it as an educational tool.”

Neeley said they want the project to be used in schools and they are making it visual to attract children. They are willing to do presentations in schools and at history events, he said.

“We’re looking for vets and we’re willing to travel across Northwest Ohio. We want to get the stories recorded,” Neeley said.

Wulf said they receive positive feedback. The families are thrilled, he said, because they are receiving a documentation of their history.

The documentary is available at the Ward M. Canaday Center in the William S. Carlson Library on UT’s main campus. Videos and project updates can be viewed online at historydocumented.com.

One of President Obama’s first executive orders brings new hope to a weary
group of World War II veterans and their families. Executive order number
three, commanding transparency from within the administration, may be the
turning point in their search for answers regarding an overtly covered-up
disastrous WWII air battle. Few Americans are even aware of what has been
dubbed “The Kassel Mission” of 27 September 1944, when the Eighth Air Force
lost nearly every plane from one airfield in England. Silenced at the time,
its remaining survivors hope that their new Commander-in-Chief can end their
search for answers. The Kassel Mission secret papers, if they exist, could
be one of the first challenges to President Obama’s pledge for transparency.

On September 27, 1944, the 445th Bomb Group (BG) flew 35 B-24 Liberator
bombers, carrying 9-10 men each, toward Kassel Germany. Following their lead
plane, they turned away from the rest of the division–a move which is
currently being scrutinized. The 445th dropped its bombs 1½ miles from the
University of Gottingen, later known as the birthplace of rocket science.
They were then attacked by 100-150 German fighters. Only four bombers
returned to their base. On that day alone, the 445th  BG lost one-third of
the men and planes they would lose over the course of the entire war.

Those who made it safely back were told to “keep our mouths shut.” Some
packed the experience away forever. Others began to search for answers. Five
decades later, men from nearly every state had connected with each other,
sharing stories and trying to figure out what happened. In the meantime, in
1982, German Walter Hassenpflug, who had been a twelve-year-old member of
the Hitler Youth at the time of the battle, contacted the air man he had
arrested afterwards. Navigator Frank Bertram responded and flew to Germany
to meet Hassenpflug again, this time as a friend.

It was to be the first of many such reunions between the Germans and
Americans who fought each other that day. Hassenpflug added his vast amount
of research to the growing American Kassel Mission archives. The veterans
formed the Kassel Mission Memorial Association which has since morphed into
the Kassel Mission Historical Society (KMHS). In 1990, the Americans and
their former German enemies erected a monument dedicated to the men of both
sides who died in that battle. Over 500 attended the dedication. An even
larger crowd attended a re-dedication in August 2006.

As KMHS continues to accrue information, one thing is becoming crystal
clear. The pieces that don’t fit are the ones that came from their
commanding officers. “For over sixty years, everyone accepted the story they
were told,” says KMHS president Linda Dewey, whose father was a B-24 pilot
on the Kassel Mission and later was one of the founders of KMHS. “But a few
years ago, we found government records that do not jibe with each other.”
This led to deeper research; evidence has been turning up ever since that
only brings up more questions.

“Something’s fishy,” said Bertram in a 1999 interview conducted by oral
historian Aaron Elson.

“Was the turn really a mistake?” Dewey wants to know. “Or was the 445th
meant to make that turn?” If so, as has been indicated by one source inside
Air Force Intelligence, why would they be ordered to bomb so close to the
University of Gottingen? Did it have something to do with plans and designs
for the Stealth B-2 Bomber and other experimental aircraft said to have been
stolen from the university close to the end of the war? Such possibilities
raise entirely new lines of thought that, without newly declassified
documents, can only be conjecture and speculation.

Why does any of this matter so long after the event? “So few are left now,”
expressed another KMHS member in an email to Dewey recently. “Being told
that their mission and loss of life was simply because of a mistake is a
travesty if it is not true, depriving them of the dignity and honor they and
their next of kin are due.”

“They deserve to know the truth,” Dewey adds, “the real reason they went
through such a horror. In any case, at the very least they deserve to be
honored for following their leader, obeying his orders and fighting to the
bitter end.”

In 2008, Dewey went straight to the Chairman of the Senate Armed Forces
Committee, Senator Carl Levin, requesting declassification of all documents
still classified on the Kassel Mission. Levin currently serves as liaison
between the Michigan-based organization and the Air Force. After four
go-rounds, the most recent response dated December 23, 2008 states that the
Air Force has turned the case over to its Freedom of Information Act
department. Under FOIA, the Air Force has only a few weeks to come forth
with the requested documents which could solve a mystery that has plagued
the embattled veterans for most of their lives.

“It’s time these men had definitive answers,” says Dewey. “It is our hope
that the president’s new executive order will help to shed light on this
unfinished story of a military disaster now 65 years old, and bring closure
to these men of honor, transforming the Kassel Mission from a little-known
but significant black mark in history, to an icon of truth and honor for all
Americans, everywhere.”

Linda Alice Dewey, President
Kassel Mission Historical Society

Warning: Explicit language

We also are willing to sell sell a DVD copy of the interview ( which is better quality ) to anyone who would like one. Teachers or students if your interested please contact us.

History Documented is now Trademarked!

We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season, and wish everyone the best new year.

Despite the economy we are still working hard to save history. I currently am working on editing a 3 hour interview.

I just wanted to share some pictures I took on Veterans Day 2008. We set up displays, and gave a talk about our mission.

Update: We have some more interviews coming to you before Christmas. I have had computer issues and school work to catch up on.  I would like to take the time to apoligize to all the Veterans we have not had a chance to interview yet. We are not funded by the government or any orginaization. We do take donations, but Rick and I are not sales people. Our goal is to save History, not to beg for money. We hope people understand that and find our cause worthy of their donation.

Time is key, with nearly 1,500 WW2 Veterans dieing a day. We have made it a priority to interview older Veterans first, but again we interview all Veterans.

History is often overlooked, and misused. Winston Churchill once said

“The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.”

With every interview we learn much more than I have time to type.

We wish everyone a Happy Holiday, and hope this Thanksgiving that we remember to be thankful for our freedom.