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| Neil King presents authentic 93rd Army Air Force flag to BHSU President Tom Jackson. It flew over Spearfish in 1943 and was given in honor of Major General Homer "Pete" Lewis. |
Terry Neil King presented "BHSU During World War II" to approximately 120 people on April 3, 2018 at the Spearfish Senior Citizens Center. King is the son of the 93rd Army Air Force Training Detachment commander Neil King. Co-presenter for the program was Paul Higbee.
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| Terry "Neil" King - April 3, 2018 |
Seventy-five years ago, from March 1943 through May 1944, Black Hills State University, then known as Black Hills Teachers College, was one of 150 colleges and universities across the country (and the only one in South Dakota) that aided in America’s war effort by participating in the U.S. Army Air Force ‘College Training Detachment’ program. first contingent of
200 cadets arrived on March 1, 1943. The cadets would remain for
five months, during which time they received academic instruction from members
of the BHSU faculty.
Instruction consisted of 60 hours in each of
the following subjects: Mathematics, English, Modern History and
Geography. It also included 24 hours of Civil Air regulations and
180 hours of Physics. All of the aviation cadets had already
completed Basic Training and held the rank of Private when assigned to the
College Training program. The military phase of their training was
conducted by Army Air Force personnel, and consisted of Basic Military
Indoctrination, Infantry Drill, Military Etiquette, Customs & Courtesies of
the Service, Hygiene & Sanitation and Physical Training.
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| BHSU instructors for the cadets |
A vital component of the
five-month course involved Basic Flight Training that included 10-hours of
instruction in single-engine aircraft given by civilian flight instructors at
the local airport. For the 93rd, this activity was performed
at Spearfish-Black Hills Airport under the direction of legendary Black Hills
aviation pioneer – Clyde Ice.
At the same time, other
events or activities continued…perhaps with some adjustments due to the
times. The ‘Swarm Day’ Homecoming in 1943 was still held, but with music
provided by the “Jive Bombers”, the 14-piece dance orchestra of the 93rd.
The college newspaper, ‘The Anemone’ was still published and was now joined by
the 93rd’s own newspaper ‘Prop Wash’, written by a staff of cadet
journalists. Its pages were filled with news from the war fronts and the
Home Front, but mainly news about or affecting the 93rd.
Intramural sports, especially basketball, volleyball and softball replaced the
loss of varsity sports – with team names reflecting the times, like ‘Wings’,
‘Tracers’, ‘Gunners’, ‘B-17s’, ‘Roscoe’s Rockets’, ‘Flying Tigers’,
‘Superchargers’ and my favorite the ‘Magnetos’. In 1943, the 93rd’s
softball team won the South Dakota state softball championship, defeating the
Rapid City Army Air Base.
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| Paul Higbee shares information with an attentive group – This program lured one of our largest crowds! |
The people of Spearfish
not only ‘adapted’ to having the cadets in their community, but in many ways,
they ‘adopted’ them as well. Shortly after the 93rd first
arrived in Spearfish, residents realized that there was a need for a recreation
center, a place where the cadets could relax during their off-hours.
Residents quickly volunteered their time, effort and money to renovate a
building in the Matthews block, formerly occupied by the Zink Variety Store, to
provide the new recreation center. And, at Christmas 1943, every cadet
received a personal invitation to enjoy Christmas dinner in the home of a
Spearfish family.
The generosity and
hospitality given by the people of Spearfish was appreciated, and acknowledged,
in a letter written by a cadet and published in the ‘Queen City Mail’ on July
15, 1943. It reads: “I am speaking for the aviation students who are now
stationed at BHTC. We are away from home, but we have found here people
whom we could call Mom and Pop. You have provided us with a wonderful
place of relaxation, a place where we may enjoy games, music, dancing and food
in congenial surroundings – the Army recreation center. I know each of us
should like to thank personally those who have made this possible, but as that
is out of the question, I am sending our thanks and appreciation to you from
us all. – Signed: J.J. Neukomm.”
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Personal ancestry and
notes by Terry Neil King—To help
understand why and how the subject of today’s program came to be, to set the
stage and introduce some of the players, requires a little background information.
My late mother was Joan Sunderland. She
was born in Spearfish in 1923; she was raised and lived here until 1946. Her
parents, John and Edith Sunderland, had emigrated to America in the early years
of the 20th century from their small village in Yorkshire,
England. As some of you may know, John Sunderland owned Sunderland
Meats on Main Street from the early 1900’s until the late
1950’s. John and Edith lived in, and raised their four daughters and
one son in a lovely Victorian white-frame house on Canyon Street. In
All Angels Church, on Fifth Street, there is a stained glass window in their memory;
in 1944 my parents were married there and six years later it’s where I was
baptized. My mother had three older sisters: Kathleen who became an
educator in Denver, her first husband was James O’Neill of Spearfish, and she
later married Otis Reynolds of Sundance, Wyoming; Cecile who was married to
rancher Jesse “Buz” Driskill; and Margaret who was married to O.A. “Bud” Kelley
who owned the Kelley Motor Hotel and the Matthews Opera House
building. She also had an older brother: Fielden, known as “Skip”,
who also worked at Sunderland Meats and eventually ran the business until 1960.
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| Lt. Neil King was Adjutant for the BHTC Detachment |
In February 1943 a key figure in today’s story came
to Spearfish. His name was Neil King, my late father. He
was a Denver banker by profession who had enlisted in the Army Air Force in
February 1942 at Lowry Field in Denver. After completing Officers
Candidate School in Miami, Florida and a first assignment at Strother Field in
Winfield, Kansas, he arrived in Spearfish as a green second lieutenant, along
with three other young officers who were all transferred here with orders to
form, and then command, what would become the Army Air Force 93rd ‘College
Training Detachment (Air Crew)’ stationed at Black Hills Teachers College – now
Black Hills State University.
The others were: Captain Homer Lewis, a rancher, from
Dallas, Texas - the Commanding Officer; 2nd Lieutenant Charles
Gerlach, a cotton farmer, from Livingston, Texas - the Commandant of Cadets;
and 2nd Lieutenant Robert Lee, a newspaperman, from Miami,
Florida - the Intelligence Officer. My dad, 2nd Lieutenant
Neil King was the Adjutant. One month later, 2nd Lieutenant
Donald Ballard of Miami, Oklahoma arrived and was the Personnel Officer and
Captain William Anderson MD of Dyersburg, Tennessee joined the staff as the
Medical Officer. In November, both Lieutenant Gerlach and Lieutenant
Ballard were transferred and 1st Lieutenant John Neustadter of
Portland, Oregon joined the staff as Commandant of Cadets. Assisting
these officers was a staff of 11 Army Air Force enlisted men who would provide
the military training, indoctrination and skills for the aviation cadets who
would soon arrive.
As a child growing-up, I was fascinated with a large
black photo album of my dad’s. Contained within its pages were
dozens of beautiful, large black & white photographs, most taken by
Spearfish photographer Josef Fassbender of Black Hills Studio. Those
photos captured the images of the personnel, and much of the daily activity,
from March 1943 to May 1944 when the 93rd was on the campus at
BHTC. Images taken in and around Spearfish like the Passion Play,
Mount Rushmore, Days of ’76 Rodeo and Spearfish Canyon were also included.
In addition to the photo album there were two other
items that became more and more of an interest to me. The first was
a multi-page book/manuscript that outlined in great detail the history of the
93rd from its inception to termination. It had been
compiled by my dad in his then-capacity as Commanding Officer. Its
pages brimming with specifics about the three phases of training: Academic,
Military and Flying. Details of financial data from contract and
purchasing budgets and expenses to faculty and staff salaries; comments about
the program made by faculty members including familiar names like; Millie
Heidepriem, Lavina Humbert, Fred Guenther, Evelyn Hesseltine and Grace Balloch;
airport information, runway diagrams, maps and flight patterns with details
about the maneuvers and proficiency the cadets were required to execute and
demonstrate during their flight training. What made this manuscript
so interesting, but also somewhat frustrating, was that it was written in a
format similar to, and contained much of the same information, as the online
histories of other detachments that I had discovered when trying to locate
information about the 93rd. The second item of interest
was an ordinary scrapbook, its pages filled with newspaper articles that had
been carefully cut and pasted from local newspapers like the ‘Queen City Mail’
and ‘Rapid City Journal’. As I was to discover, the scrapbook had
also been created and maintained by my dad during his time in
Spearfish. I had seen the scrapbook many times over the years, but
had never paid much attention to it. Now, however, as I began to
read the articles, in conjunction with the history manuscript, and the always
fascinating photo album – it became clear, that contained in those three items
was everything that was needed to properly document the story of the 93rd and
the role it, the College and Spearfish, all played during the war.
~~~~~~~
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| Original 93rd Army Air Force College Training Flag |
In his journeys investigating the 93rd Army Air Force College Training in Spearfish, King made contact with retired Major General Homer I. “’Pete” Lewis, who was the commanding officer of
the 93rd in Spearfish. Major General Lewis held
the original Army Air Force flag flown at BHTC in 1943 and gave the flag to
Terry Neil King, who has now donated it to BHSU archives. It was
presented to BHSU President Tom Jackson at the conclusion of the program.
