December 30, 2022 • 17 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Bruce Wigo—the former CEO of the International Swimming Hall of Fame—is here to share a story of an unknown American WWII war hero.
Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
To search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to
the iHeartRadio app, to Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts. From General George Washington to Autie Murphy, history's
(00:31):
greatest war heroes gave everything for their country and embodied
the meaning of bravery with their incredible acts of selflessness.
Bruce Wigo is here to tell a story of an
unknown American war hero. Let's take a listen. In two
(00:51):
thousand and five, I was lucky enough to be chosen
to be the new president and executive director of the
International Swimming Hall of Fame in Fort Dale, Florida. And
I'd always been had a fascination with Benjamin Franklin, who
himself was a renowned swimmer during his lifetime. And one
of the first things that I did at the International
Swimming Hall of Fame was going to their rare book room,
(01:13):
where I found a book called The Art of Swimming
by the great seventeenth century scientist Melchesedic Thieveanau. And in
Franklin's autobiography, this is the book that he used to
teach himself how to swim. One of the great puzzles
of history has been Benjamin Franklin, greatest research physicist and
scientist of the eighteenth century, no scientific education, no education
(01:38):
past the age of nine. It's been long overlooked about
the influence of swimming on Benjamin Franklin. Swimming as was
presented in that book, is presented as physics, as fluid dynamics.
And then later in life a kid with no science
education whatsoever outside of this book which taught him about
(01:59):
specific gravity and Archimedes principles of buoyancy and flotation, positive buoyancy,
negative buoyancy, and the impact of currents. And when Benjamin
Franklin becomes recognized as the greatest research scientist of the
eighteenth century for his work in electricity, three terms that
(02:19):
he coined that we still use today are electrical current
and positive and negative. And where did he get it from?
He got it from swimming, his experience of swimming. And
in the introduction of that book I read an amazing
piece it said that in modern times, referring to sixteen
(02:40):
ninety nine, the greatest swimmers and divers in the world
were the Africans and Native Americans. It was for them
that our ladies owe their pearls. It's for them our
merchants owe the recovery of treasure and merchandise and anchors
lost at sea. So I grew up in the nineteen
(03:01):
fifties and at the time you didn't see many black swimmers.
Most people assume that black people couldn't swim. Swimming was
entirely segregated in the United States. But my very first
swimming meet in the nineteen fifties was at the Christian
Street YMCA, which was formerly a colored y. So this
(03:23):
was we swam against a team that was black, and
the team that I was on, the Germantown YMCA, was
part of the Philadelphia Swim Directors Society, which was the
first integrated swimming league in the United States. So these
formerly colored YMCAs, which were now just YMCAs, competed against
the white wise. So the idea that blacks couldn't swim
(03:45):
and that there wasn't part of a history was something
that was foreign to meet. And when I went into
the Swimming Hall of Fame after reading this book, I said,
where is this history? It doesn't seem to exist. It
was all about the evolution of competitive swimming, which was
something developed in Europe, and it was purely a European
sport and an Asian sport. The Japanese were great swimmers
(04:07):
as well, So one of my first missions at the
Swimming Hall of Fame was to rectify this absence of
black swimming history. So on the Internet, late at night,
when I wasn't doing the work to raise money and
save the Hall of Fame, I started doing some searches
Negro swimming, Negro drowning. I came across a reference to
(04:32):
a trading card number one twenty nine, and the only
description of it was Negro swimmer toes survivors. It was
part of a set of World War Two commemorative cards,
a sort of patriotic version of baseball cards printed by
a company out of Philadelphia, Gum Inc. So it came,
as you can imagine, with a piece of gum, and
(04:54):
it was kind of a bonus to buy their gum.
There wasn't any pick on the card or any other reference.
But on eBay I found a number of WARB Gum's
cards for sale, but not number one twenty nine. So
I contacted a few sellers and card collectors and one
was kind enough to send me a scan of the
card which showed a picture of a black man and
(05:18):
shark fins out in the water and a rope tied
to a raft with a whole bunch of wounded sailors
on it. So now I had some other keywords for
my Google search, Solomon Island's USS Gregory French mess attendant.
And from there the story really took off. On ancestry
dot com and on newspapers dot com. I found the
(05:42):
service records, the enlistment records, which told more about this
man named French, the Pittsburgh Courier, which was one of
the national black newspapers at the time. I mean newspapers
were segregated. Everything was segregated in the United States at
that point in time. During the First World War, Woodrow
Wilson's aggregated the Navy. Black people were no longer allowed
(06:03):
to serve as officers or even sailors. They were relegated
to service as mess men's stewards and porters in the Navy.
Previous to this, starting back in the Civil War, where
twenty five percent of the Union Navy were African Americans,
and they were officers and sailors and some of them
were heroes all the way up until the First World War,
(06:23):
when Woodrow Wilson segregated the Navy. The story first came
to light when Robert n Adrian, a young ensign who
was on the S S. Gregory, told a reporter from
the Associated Press about how a powerful twenty two year
old negro mess attendant named French swam through shark infested
waters towing to safety a raft loaded of wounded seamen
(06:47):
from the USS Gregory, a destroyer that had been sunk
by Japanese naval gunfire near Guadalcanal. And you've been listening
to Bruce Wigo tell the story of oh, a whole
lot of things, first his journey into swimming and ultimately
to the Swimming Hall of Fame, and then to a
(07:08):
story about Charles Jackson French. When we come back, more
of this story, the story of an unknown hero in
World War Two. Here on our American Stories. Here at
(07:31):
our American Stories, we bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business,
faith and love. Stories from a great and beautiful country
that need to be told. But we can't do it
without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but
they're not free to make If you love our stories
in America like we do, Please go to our American
Stories dot com and click the donate button. Give a little,
(07:53):
give a lot, help us keep the great American stories coming.
That's our American Stories dot Com and we continue with
our American stories. Let's pick up where we left off
(08:14):
with the story of Charles Jackson French, the twenty two
year old mess attendant who was on the U S. S.
Gregory when it was sunk by the Japanese near Guadalcanal.
Here again is Bruce Wigo, the former CEO of the
International Swimming Hall of Fame Nsin. Adrian was the only
(08:35):
one on the bridge to survive and floated over into
the water as the ship sank below him. He heard
voices and found a life raft filled with twenty four
wounded men. Adrian, though superficially wounded, was able to hang on.
According to the press reports, he knew that if they
floated to shore, we'd be taken as prisoners of war,
(08:56):
and then French volunteered to swim the raft away from shore.
He stripped off his clothes and asked for help to
tie a rope around his waist so he could tow
them to safety. Adrian told him it was impossible that
he would only be giving himself up to the sharks,
and French responded that he wasn't afraid. He was a
powerful swimmer, and he swam all night, six to eight
(09:18):
hours until they were eventually rescued by a landing craft.
After the story appeared in the papers, Adrian repeated it
on a national radio program and Gum printed the card,
and the world began to learn more about the heroic
efforts of Charles Jackson French. Through military records, it was
(09:39):
recognized that he was actually a twenty three year old
orphan from form in, Arkansas who had moved to Omaha,
Nebraska to live with his sister, and he enlisted in
the Navy in nineteen thirty seven. The trading card described
him as a human tugboat, and he received a warm
welcome and a royal welcome from citizens of all races
in Omaha, Nebraska. After the story came out and a
(10:00):
high decoration was assured, finally it was issued. It came
in May of nineteen forty three in the form of
old letter of commendation from Admiral William Halsey, then commander
of the Southern fleet. The survivors felt that he deserved
a higher tribute, possibly a Congressional Medal of honor, at
least the Silver Star Navy Cross. And then in two
(10:22):
thousand and nine I came across a book Black Men
in Blue Water, written by Chester Wright, and in there
was an interview with Charles Jackson French, who told his story.
And I'm reading from directly from the book. So after
he told of the story of rescuing all these that
then he changed from laughter to what the author had
(10:44):
troubled discerning it was anger, frustration, and tears. On questioning him.
After waiting a minute or two, French responded in more
subdued angry voice, and I'll use the language that was
directly from the book. So I'm reading this is not
my parody. When we was picked up and the hurt
ones was taken to be worked on, we was taken
(11:04):
to the rest camp with the others. I heard they
came up with some of that wild rati you colored
boy mess. I was told you've got to go over
there with them colored boys to stay. And then some
of them white boys what was on the raft and
other sailors from the Gregory's crew said he ain't going nowhere.
He's a member of the Gregory's crew, and he damned well,
(11:25):
we'll stay right here with the rest of us. Anybody
who tries to take them anywhere had been ready to
get a beating and be ready to go to general quarters,
meaning ready to fight with all of us. The boy
who did all the talking was either from Alabama or Georgia,
according to French. So for near on five minutes there
was a standoff. Us covered with oil and grime, and
(11:47):
our hair and all of our clothes, and dirt in
our eyes, and them clean Master of arms folks. We
must have looked like wild men anyway. One of them,
the Master at Arms, said them fools mean it, Just
leave him alone. We got other folks to help them.
Crackers retreated and tucked their tails and left. The conversation
(12:08):
with Charles Jackson French occurred shortly after the Korean War.
The author Chester White, attempted to probe the cause for
such intense emotion concerning the incident that happened years before.
French's shoulders shook, tears coursed down his cheeks, and all
the author could get from him was them white boy
stood up for me French, according to friends residing in
(12:31):
San Diego, was claimed by alcoholism. From close questioning of friends,
it would appear that he returned from the Pacific War
stressed out from seeing too much death and destruction. So
in telling this story, I first published it on Swimming
World magazine, and I believe swim Swam the two big
internets on there. And then I get an email from
(12:54):
a couple who were retired Navy. One was a Navy
seal and one was Chief Petty Officer Kevin and Kim
mcnah who read the article and they had been wanting
to do recognize war heroes that maybe were unrecognized, and
they picked up on the story and they started doing
their own research, and they came across the family of
(13:15):
Ensign Robert Adrian, who was the first one to tell
the story of the US Gregory's connection. And there were
newspaper articles about Adrian going on NBC radio telling the
story of how this Negro seaman whose he only knew
(13:37):
the name was mess man French. Now I'm in the
studio with Ns Bob Adrian of Ontario Park. Madrian. Yours
was certain usual rescue. Yes, it was a pretty lucky break.
I can assure you would all a man on that
raft are grateful and French for his brief action off
(13:57):
block in a Latina, we have accredited the plantiff provision
of the Navy. So the Mickness contacted the family of
Robert Adrian, who had himself, over the years been doing
his best to get French recognized for what he had done.
So in the newspaper articles that I found French had
been recommended for a higher honor, the Navy Cross or
(14:20):
the Congressional Medal of Honor by Captain Adrian on these
NBC broadcasts and interviews in any event, Contacting the Mickness,
contacting Judy Decker, the daughter of Captain Adrian, and other
family members, found that there was a record that was
given to Captain Adrian after his broadcast where he told
the story of French, and they re enacted a dramatization
(14:42):
of the events that led to the sinking of the
Gregory ch escape people all right, yeah, we are just
(15:16):
keep right. So in really incredible feet of bravery, French
described later that you know, he felt the fish under
(15:39):
the water, the sharks, but you know, they didn't like them.
Apparently they didn't like black meat. It's kind of French's response.
And French also described that he'd rather be eaten by
a shark than by tortured by the Japanese. So this
story starts to take wings. The Olympic Trials in twenty
twenty one were held in Omaha, Nebraska, Charles Jackson French's hometown.
(16:03):
So reporter Steve Lewin from the Omaha Journal Andrew Osaki
from the television station in Omaha picked up on this
and created a little mini documentaries on WKET and wrote
about it extensively. And a guy by the name Malcolm Nance,
I guess an author, forwarded the story on to Congressman
(16:23):
Don Bacon of Omaha, and he picks up the idea
and says, cheez, we ought to do something about it,
and came up with the idea of naming a post
office after Charles Jackson French in Omaha, Nebraska, in the
area where Charles Jackson French lived at the time. And
at the deadline for this, Senator Ben Sas signs onto
the bill, and so the bill passes. They're going to
(16:45):
name the post office, but the Navy at this point
also picks up and names the rescue training pool at
the Navy base in San Diego, the Charles Jackson French
Rescue Training Base, and they award him the Navy Cross,
you know, at seventy five years after his story event
and Charles Jackson French, I have to believe, is one
(17:05):
of the most inspiring stories of all and a terrific
job on the production and storytelling by our own Greg Hangler.
And the special thanks to Bruce Wigo for sharing the
story of an unknown American war hero now known to
you and well. I love what he says about the
risk he was taking bringing his men away from the
(17:27):
Japanese shorelines. I'd rather be eaten by a shark than
tortured by the Japanese. And of course those white boys
stood up for me, Charles Jackson French said, And of course,
seventy five years later, Charles Jackson French gets the Navy Cross,
something he deserved right from the beginning. The story of
(17:48):
Charles Jackson French is told by Bruce Wigo here on
our American Stories
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
To search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to
the iHeartRadio app, to Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts. From General George Washington to Autie Murphy, history's
(00:31):
greatest war heroes gave everything for their country and embodied
the meaning of bravery with their incredible acts of selflessness.
Bruce Wigo is here to tell a story of an
unknown American war hero. Let's take a listen. In two
(00:51):
thousand and five, I was lucky enough to be chosen
to be the new president and executive director of the
International Swimming Hall of Fame in Fort Dale, Florida. And
I'd always been had a fascination with Benjamin Franklin, who
himself was a renowned swimmer during his lifetime. And one
of the first things that I did at the International
Swimming Hall of Fame was going to their rare book room,
(01:13):
where I found a book called The Art of Swimming
by the great seventeenth century scientist Melchesedic Thieveanau. And in
Franklin's autobiography, this is the book that he used to
teach himself how to swim. One of the great puzzles
of history has been Benjamin Franklin, greatest research physicist and
scientist of the eighteenth century, no scientific education, no education
(01:38):
past the age of nine. It's been long overlooked about
the influence of swimming on Benjamin Franklin. Swimming as was
presented in that book, is presented as physics, as fluid dynamics.
And then later in life a kid with no science
education whatsoever outside of this book which taught him about
(01:59):
specific gravity and Archimedes principles of buoyancy and flotation, positive buoyancy,
negative buoyancy, and the impact of currents. And when Benjamin
Franklin becomes recognized as the greatest research scientist of the
eighteenth century for his work in electricity, three terms that
(02:19):
he coined that we still use today are electrical current
and positive and negative. And where did he get it from?
He got it from swimming, his experience of swimming. And
in the introduction of that book I read an amazing
piece it said that in modern times, referring to sixteen
(02:40):
ninety nine, the greatest swimmers and divers in the world
were the Africans and Native Americans. It was for them
that our ladies owe their pearls. It's for them our
merchants owe the recovery of treasure and merchandise and anchors
lost at sea. So I grew up in the nineteen
(03:01):
fifties and at the time you didn't see many black swimmers.
Most people assume that black people couldn't swim. Swimming was
entirely segregated in the United States. But my very first
swimming meet in the nineteen fifties was at the Christian
Street YMCA, which was formerly a colored y. So this
(03:23):
was we swam against a team that was black, and
the team that I was on, the Germantown YMCA, was
part of the Philadelphia Swim Directors Society, which was the
first integrated swimming league in the United States. So these
formerly colored YMCAs, which were now just YMCAs, competed against
the white wise. So the idea that blacks couldn't swim
(03:45):
and that there wasn't part of a history was something
that was foreign to meet. And when I went into
the Swimming Hall of Fame after reading this book, I said,
where is this history? It doesn't seem to exist. It
was all about the evolution of competitive swimming, which was
something developed in Europe, and it was purely a European
sport and an Asian sport. The Japanese were great swimmers
(04:07):
as well, So one of my first missions at the
Swimming Hall of Fame was to rectify this absence of
black swimming history. So on the Internet, late at night,
when I wasn't doing the work to raise money and
save the Hall of Fame, I started doing some searches
Negro swimming, Negro drowning. I came across a reference to
(04:32):
a trading card number one twenty nine, and the only
description of it was Negro swimmer toes survivors. It was
part of a set of World War Two commemorative cards,
a sort of patriotic version of baseball cards printed by
a company out of Philadelphia, Gum Inc. So it came,
as you can imagine, with a piece of gum, and
(04:54):
it was kind of a bonus to buy their gum.
There wasn't any pick on the card or any other reference.
But on eBay I found a number of WARB Gum's
cards for sale, but not number one twenty nine. So
I contacted a few sellers and card collectors and one
was kind enough to send me a scan of the
card which showed a picture of a black man and
(05:18):
shark fins out in the water and a rope tied
to a raft with a whole bunch of wounded sailors
on it. So now I had some other keywords for
my Google search, Solomon Island's USS Gregory French mess attendant.
And from there the story really took off. On ancestry
dot com and on newspapers dot com. I found the
(05:42):
service records, the enlistment records, which told more about this
man named French, the Pittsburgh Courier, which was one of
the national black newspapers at the time. I mean newspapers
were segregated. Everything was segregated in the United States at
that point in time. During the First World War, Woodrow
Wilson's aggregated the Navy. Black people were no longer allowed
(06:03):
to serve as officers or even sailors. They were relegated
to service as mess men's stewards and porters in the Navy.
Previous to this, starting back in the Civil War, where
twenty five percent of the Union Navy were African Americans,
and they were officers and sailors and some of them
were heroes all the way up until the First World War,
(06:23):
when Woodrow Wilson segregated the Navy. The story first came
to light when Robert n Adrian, a young ensign who
was on the S S. Gregory, told a reporter from
the Associated Press about how a powerful twenty two year
old negro mess attendant named French swam through shark infested
waters towing to safety a raft loaded of wounded seamen
(06:47):
from the USS Gregory, a destroyer that had been sunk
by Japanese naval gunfire near Guadalcanal. And you've been listening
to Bruce Wigo tell the story of oh, a whole
lot of things, first his journey into swimming and ultimately
to the Swimming Hall of Fame, and then to a
(07:08):
story about Charles Jackson French. When we come back, more
of this story, the story of an unknown hero in
World War Two. Here on our American Stories. Here at
(07:31):
our American Stories, we bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business,
faith and love. Stories from a great and beautiful country
that need to be told. But we can't do it
without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but
they're not free to make If you love our stories
in America like we do, Please go to our American
Stories dot com and click the donate button. Give a little,
(07:53):
give a lot, help us keep the great American stories coming.
That's our American Stories dot Com and we continue with
our American stories. Let's pick up where we left off
(08:14):
with the story of Charles Jackson French, the twenty two
year old mess attendant who was on the U S. S.
Gregory when it was sunk by the Japanese near Guadalcanal.
Here again is Bruce Wigo, the former CEO of the
International Swimming Hall of Fame Nsin. Adrian was the only
(08:35):
one on the bridge to survive and floated over into
the water as the ship sank below him. He heard
voices and found a life raft filled with twenty four
wounded men. Adrian, though superficially wounded, was able to hang on.
According to the press reports, he knew that if they
floated to shore, we'd be taken as prisoners of war,
(08:56):
and then French volunteered to swim the raft away from shore.
He stripped off his clothes and asked for help to
tie a rope around his waist so he could tow
them to safety. Adrian told him it was impossible that
he would only be giving himself up to the sharks,
and French responded that he wasn't afraid. He was a
powerful swimmer, and he swam all night, six to eight
(09:18):
hours until they were eventually rescued by a landing craft.
After the story appeared in the papers, Adrian repeated it
on a national radio program and Gum printed the card,
and the world began to learn more about the heroic
efforts of Charles Jackson French. Through military records, it was
(09:39):
recognized that he was actually a twenty three year old
orphan from form in, Arkansas who had moved to Omaha,
Nebraska to live with his sister, and he enlisted in
the Navy in nineteen thirty seven. The trading card described
him as a human tugboat, and he received a warm
welcome and a royal welcome from citizens of all races
in Omaha, Nebraska. After the story came out and a
(10:00):
high decoration was assured, finally it was issued. It came
in May of nineteen forty three in the form of
old letter of commendation from Admiral William Halsey, then commander
of the Southern fleet. The survivors felt that he deserved
a higher tribute, possibly a Congressional Medal of honor, at
least the Silver Star Navy Cross. And then in two
(10:22):
thousand and nine I came across a book Black Men
in Blue Water, written by Chester Wright, and in there
was an interview with Charles Jackson French, who told his story.
And I'm reading from directly from the book. So after
he told of the story of rescuing all these that
then he changed from laughter to what the author had
(10:44):
troubled discerning it was anger, frustration, and tears. On questioning him.
After waiting a minute or two, French responded in more
subdued angry voice, and I'll use the language that was
directly from the book. So I'm reading this is not
my parody. When we was picked up and the hurt
ones was taken to be worked on, we was taken
(11:04):
to the rest camp with the others. I heard they
came up with some of that wild rati you colored
boy mess. I was told you've got to go over
there with them colored boys to stay. And then some
of them white boys what was on the raft and
other sailors from the Gregory's crew said he ain't going nowhere.
He's a member of the Gregory's crew, and he damned well,
(11:25):
we'll stay right here with the rest of us. Anybody
who tries to take them anywhere had been ready to
get a beating and be ready to go to general quarters,
meaning ready to fight with all of us. The boy
who did all the talking was either from Alabama or Georgia,
according to French. So for near on five minutes there
was a standoff. Us covered with oil and grime, and
(11:47):
our hair and all of our clothes, and dirt in
our eyes, and them clean Master of arms folks. We
must have looked like wild men anyway. One of them,
the Master at Arms, said them fools mean it, Just
leave him alone. We got other folks to help them.
Crackers retreated and tucked their tails and left. The conversation
(12:08):
with Charles Jackson French occurred shortly after the Korean War.
The author Chester White, attempted to probe the cause for
such intense emotion concerning the incident that happened years before.
French's shoulders shook, tears coursed down his cheeks, and all
the author could get from him was them white boy
stood up for me French, according to friends residing in
(12:31):
San Diego, was claimed by alcoholism. From close questioning of friends,
it would appear that he returned from the Pacific War
stressed out from seeing too much death and destruction. So
in telling this story, I first published it on Swimming
World magazine, and I believe swim Swam the two big
internets on there. And then I get an email from
(12:54):
a couple who were retired Navy. One was a Navy
seal and one was Chief Petty Officer Kevin and Kim
mcnah who read the article and they had been wanting
to do recognize war heroes that maybe were unrecognized, and
they picked up on the story and they started doing
their own research, and they came across the family of
(13:15):
Ensign Robert Adrian, who was the first one to tell
the story of the US Gregory's connection. And there were
newspaper articles about Adrian going on NBC radio telling the
story of how this Negro seaman whose he only knew
(13:37):
the name was mess man French. Now I'm in the
studio with Ns Bob Adrian of Ontario Park. Madrian. Yours
was certain usual rescue. Yes, it was a pretty lucky break.
I can assure you would all a man on that
raft are grateful and French for his brief action off
(13:57):
block in a Latina, we have accredited the plantiff provision
of the Navy. So the Mickness contacted the family of
Robert Adrian, who had himself, over the years been doing
his best to get French recognized for what he had done.
So in the newspaper articles that I found French had
been recommended for a higher honor, the Navy Cross or
(14:20):
the Congressional Medal of Honor by Captain Adrian on these
NBC broadcasts and interviews in any event, Contacting the Mickness,
contacting Judy Decker, the daughter of Captain Adrian, and other
family members, found that there was a record that was
given to Captain Adrian after his broadcast where he told
the story of French, and they re enacted a dramatization
(14:42):
of the events that led to the sinking of the
Gregory ch escape people all right, yeah, we are just
(15:16):
keep right. So in really incredible feet of bravery, French
described later that you know, he felt the fish under
(15:39):
the water, the sharks, but you know, they didn't like them.
Apparently they didn't like black meat. It's kind of French's response.
And French also described that he'd rather be eaten by
a shark than by tortured by the Japanese. So this
story starts to take wings. The Olympic Trials in twenty
twenty one were held in Omaha, Nebraska, Charles Jackson French's hometown.
(16:03):
So reporter Steve Lewin from the Omaha Journal Andrew Osaki
from the television station in Omaha picked up on this
and created a little mini documentaries on WKET and wrote
about it extensively. And a guy by the name Malcolm Nance,
I guess an author, forwarded the story on to Congressman
(16:23):
Don Bacon of Omaha, and he picks up the idea
and says, cheez, we ought to do something about it,
and came up with the idea of naming a post
office after Charles Jackson French in Omaha, Nebraska, in the
area where Charles Jackson French lived at the time. And
at the deadline for this, Senator Ben Sas signs onto
the bill, and so the bill passes. They're going to
(16:45):
name the post office, but the Navy at this point
also picks up and names the rescue training pool at
the Navy base in San Diego, the Charles Jackson French
Rescue Training Base, and they award him the Navy Cross,
you know, at seventy five years after his story event
and Charles Jackson French, I have to believe, is one
(17:05):
of the most inspiring stories of all and a terrific
job on the production and storytelling by our own Greg Hangler.
And the special thanks to Bruce Wigo for sharing the
story of an unknown American war hero now known to
you and well. I love what he says about the
risk he was taking bringing his men away from the
(17:27):
Japanese shorelines. I'd rather be eaten by a shark than
tortured by the Japanese. And of course those white boys
stood up for me, Charles Jackson French said, And of course,
seventy five years later, Charles Jackson French gets the Navy Cross,
something he deserved right from the beginning. The story of
(17:48):
Charles Jackson French is told by Bruce Wigo here on
our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.