REMEMBERING
JAMES GERALD SHIRLEY

By Joe C. Fling

The last man from Eagle Lake, and in fact all of Colorado County to die in combat in World War II was James Gerald Shirley. Shirley was born in Jacksonville, Texas on December 24, 1924. He was the son of Edward H. and Zora (James) Shirley. The Shirley family moved to Eagle Lake in 1937. His father was roadmaster for Southern Pacific Railroad in Eagle Lake and later mayor of the city. Gerald graduated from Eagle Lake High School in 1941. He was a member of the First Baptist Church.

Joining the Navy, Shirley served in aviation. He was trained as a radio operator on a carrier based bomber. At the time of his death, Shirley was classified as an Aviation Radioman, third class. In August, 1945, his crew was flying off of the Shangri-La. Shangri-La CV-38 was an Essex class carrier built at the Norfolk Navy Yard and commissioned May 8, 1944.

Heavy bombing of the Japanese home islands began after the capture of the Marianas (Saipan, Tinian and Guam) in the summer of 1944. The capture of Iwo Jima in February-March, 1945 gave the U.S. Air Corps a much needed advanced refueling and fighter support base. The Navy’s contribution of the end game against Japan was a devastating series of extended bomber strikes by Admiral Nimitz’s fast carrier attack forces. With the Japanese Navy and Air Force in ruins, by mid-July Admiral Halsey moved close enough in to shell Japanese targets with his battleships.

Admiral William Halsey commanded Third Fleet; while Vice-Admiral J.S. McCain commanded Task Group 38.4 from the Shangri-La which was his flagship. Shangri-La was engaged in these hit-and-run carrier raids from February through August of 1945.

Task Force 38 was in the waters of the Japanese home islands from July 6 to the end of the war. They played a major part in the final downfall of Japan. While the Army Air Corps from Saipan and Tinian leveled Japanese cities with B-29 heavy bomber strikes, Task Force 38 launched countless sorties from close in. They bombed Tokyo on July 10, followed by raids on Kobe, Nagoya and the inland Sea of Japan in July. More raids were sent against Hokkaido and Honshu in early August.

There was a brief stand down after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9) during which time, it was hoped, the Japanese would give up the fight. It is well documented that this was a very hard decision for the proud Japanese to reach. Only the prospect of the leveling of all of their cities and the total destruction of their society finally tipped the balance in favor of surrender. A major part of the destruction of country was being carried out by the U.S. Third Fleet.

Full deck loads of bombers from twelve fleet carriers were launched against Toyko from only a hundred miles out on August 13. Torpedo Squadron 85, including Gerald Shirley’s plane took part in these raids. Cloud cover kept them from hitting their primary target, but a target of opportunity presented itself: a submarine pen at Shimoda. Some flak was encountered and it was afterward thought that some of it had penetrated the plane’s engine area. An inquiry into the circumstances of Shirley’s death yielded the following information:

On the return trip from this last raid to the carrier, about twenty-five miles from land, and over 100 miles from the Shangri-La, the engine began to fail. Radio man Shirley and gunner Harry M. Galloway huddled in the bilge, securing their parachutes and waiting for the order to bail out. As they did so, the pilot, Richard Paland decided to try to put the plane down on the sea. Galloway clamored back to his turret, and Paland set the plane down cleanly on very rough water.

Paland and Galloway soon scrambled onto the wing, where Paland began inflating the life raft. Galloway spotted Shirley swimming beside the plane, and then clinging to the tail, where he shouted for a life jacket. His own jacket had failed to inflate and he was further hampered because he had not been able to remove his parachute harness. Before Galloway could respond, the plane nosed into the sea, and the rising tail struck him in the head. Galloway managed to regain the surface and get into the raft, but by that time, Shirley was nowhere to be found.

In a sad irony, the flight was the last mission that the crew was destined to complete. The next day, August 14, Shangri La dispatched more planes to bomb Japan, but recalled them upon receiving news that Japan had accepted American’s surrender demands. Shirley was Eagle Lake, and Colorado County’s last casualty in action during the war, and among the very last anywhere in the war.

Details of the death of this gallant young sailor were given by Harry M. Galloway, of Detroit, Michigan, the gunner on the plane. When Shangri-La docked on the west coast at the close of the war, Galloway came to Eagle Lake to relate his sympathy and the first hand account given here.

Shirley’s body was never found. It was believed that he drowned due to complications of being unable to remove his parachute harness before the plane ditched. He was survived by his parents, sister Lynn, the late Mrs. Orville Powers; and brother Sgt. E. H. Shirley, Jr. He is listed among the 18,096 names of the missing and lost at sea on the Honolulu Memorial. His name is among those of William R. Cook who went down on the Wasp in the Solomons in 1942; John Henry Stahl who died when Liscome Bay sank at Tarawa in 1943 and James Boyd Harris who died when a kamikaze crashed the Braine off Okinawa in 1945.

Shirley is also remembered by a stone on the Shirley family plot in the Eagle Lake Masonic cemetery. His stone rests near the graves of his parents.

The Headlight reported that Gerald possessed a charming personality, which endeared him to young and old alike and made him perhaps one of the best known boys in this entire vicinity. His winning smile and wonderful sense of humor kept him in the center of activities, and he leaves a void in the hearts of his many friends wherever he chanced to bestow his friendliness.

When I presented a slide show and program in honor of all of Colorado County’s World War II dead in November, 1995 at Living Hope Church, we were honored to have among other relatives, Gerald’s sister Lynn Shirley Powers as our honored guest. At the conclusion of the program Mrs. Powers took my hand and said tenderly, “I believe my parents are looking down from heaven and smiling tonight.” For me, to know the hearts of the loved ones left behind makes it all worthwhile.