Nephew writes song for an unsung hero
Tribute is for an uncle he never met who was killed in WWII08:52 AM CST on Sunday, January 7, 2007
When Carl David Adams discovered the picture of a handsome young sailor at his grandmother's home in the late 1950s, his curiosity was sparked.
"I wanted to know who this guy was. When I brought the subject up, it was like it had only happened 30 days ago," the Lake Highlands resident recalled. "They were devastated and overcome with grief."
The sailor was the uncle he never met, Calvin Dewitt Adams, who perished when the USS Columbia CL-56 was struck by a kamikaze dive bomber in the Lingayen Gulf in the Philippines on Jan. 9, 1945.
On his last leave at home in the spring of 1944, Calvin had taken pictures with his fiancee, Alma Lee Scroggins, and a buddy, Carl Rozell, with whom he'd gone to school in New Hope, Texas, and who enlisted at the same time he did.
Mr. Rozell was actually aboard a neighboring vessel in the Lingayen Gulf and witnessed the suicide bombing attack that killed his friend.
"They were having those air strikes just about every day – his ship got hit, and it blew the turret off the ship," Mr. Rozell said. "I saw several planes come in with suicide divers. His ship got hit twice – I didn't know that Calvin was the one that got killed on that ship until his sweetheart wrote me that his parents got notice that he was MIA."
In the end, the Allied ships had done their duty. Heavy bombardment of Luzon Island cleared the way. Eventually, the war in the Pacific ended, and the sailors went home.
"He was the only boy that went to the service from New Hope that didn't come back. All the rest of us came back," Mr. Rozell recalled.
Without remains, the family had no graveside for mourning. In 1997, Ms. Scroggins worked with Calvin's family to get a headstone placed at the Bethel United Methodist Church graveyard just outside Mount Vernon, Texas.
In 2005, attorney and sometime songwriter Carl David Adams undertook a journey to learn what happened to his uncle. What he discovered became a song, a video and a revealer of memories for his uncle's fellow sailors.
Inside the deadly first 10 days of 1945, the Columbia lost three quarters of the sailors it would lose throughout World War II, bombarded by a series of kamikaze attacks.
As the battle for the Pacific grew more desperate, thousands of kamikaze pilots were unleashed between October 1944 and the end of the war in August 1945.
At a Columbia reunion, Mr. Adams met a sailor who was one of Calvin's best friends.
"This guy had been carrying around memories of his friend, Calvin Adams," he said. "He'd been dying to tell somebody who cared and didn't have anyone to tell it to. My family knew very little about it, so all this was absolute gold information."
There's nothing like a love interest to give a song sticking power, and "Inside Ten Days" has that, said Mr. Adams. "There's a really good tear-jerking song in this story of Alma Lee," he said. "I got intrigued with this fiancee hanging on to this guy for 52 years."
When the former Alma Lee Scroggins heard about the project, she bundled up a package of memories – including the Purple Heart Calvin was posthumously awarded – and sent it to the family. She never heard the finished product, though – she died early in 2006.
Mr. Adams enlisted the help of his wife's brother, Brad Cox of Dallas Sound Lab, to finish the project. Roland Elbert of Tyler worked on the soundtrack for the accompanying video, which shows footage of the Columbia and the battle in the Lingayen Gulf, as well as images of Calvin Adams and his fiancee.
Mr. Adams took the finished product to the next Columbia reunion last fall. "Some were so taken with it they said they couldn't even speak," he said.
Since the family had never had a service for Calvin, the family had never requested a ceremonial flag.
Then the mayor of Calvin's hometown of Mount Vernon stepped in. Mayor J.D. Baumgardner, a Navy veteran of action in the Lingayen Gulf, requested an official flag, which was presented to Calvin's brother at a Rotary Club luncheon in November. The family donated the flag back to the city's collection of 50 that fly on the town square on special occasions.
For Mr. Adams' family, the song and accompanying video have been a source of comfort.
"It was my way of bringing full circle this big void in the Adams family and putting it on public display that would be respectful," he said.
"It's becoming a healing project not only for the Adams family but for the kids he served with."
J. Louise Larson is an Ennis-based freelance writer.
"Inside Ten Days" is an original video and song with a separate documentary written by Lake Highlands resident Carl David Adams. Produced with help from his wife, Sharon, family and friends, the work honors the memory of his uncle Calvin Dewitt Adams. For information, visit www.insidetendays.com.