While recovering, Paul helped search for missing airmen like his big brother Walter. My uncle Paul stayed in the Pacific after the end of the War to recover from his wounds.
In 1946, MIA status was changed to KIA – Killed in Action – after search parties could not find a trace of Walter’s A-20. When Walter’s A-20 didn’t return to Hollandia Airfield, he and Sgt Emmick were listed as MIA – Missing In Action. Walter’s A-20 Havoc was last seen by his squadron off the eastern tip of Noemfoor, a territory now known as the Papua Province. The AAF described the weather that morning as CAVU – ceiling and visibility unlimited – and Walter and his squadron dropped their payloads on the island of Noemfoor and banked for home. They were part of a strike mission in support of General MacArthur’s summer campaign to retake New Guinea and the Philippines. Stanley Emmick was Walter’s gunner, manning the plane’s. Riordan took off from Hollandia Airfield in Dutch New Guinea piloting a Douglas A-20 Havoc. On the morning of June 22, 1944, Army Air Force 1st Lt.
Riordan, Dan and Paul’s big brother, was not so lucky. In 1944, Paul and his Battalion waded ashore on the island of Peleliu where they clashed with the enemy in a battle so fierce that it has been described by the National Museum of the Marine Corps as “the bitterest battle of the war for the Marines” The wounds Uncle Paul received on Peleliu, both physical and emotional, were so deep that he needed more than a year in Australia to recover. Riordan served as a Marine in the extreme heat and light of the Pacific. Dan made it through the War unscathed physically, but what he read on his maps and saw through his bomb sights shaped him for the remainder of his long life. So, when he enlisted the Army Air Force christened him a navigator/bombardier, and he flew his missions in six-man crews in B-25 Mitchells, the warhorse of the Pacific Theater. Riordan looked something like Glenn Ford in Pocketful of Miracles and Fate is the Hunter and could always read a map. This story starts in 1944 with three brothers leaving Massachusetts and shipping out to the War in the Pacific Theater.ĭaniel R. By 2005, both Dan and Paul preferred hardcovers that were easy on the eyes, so I bought them both large-print hardcover copies of the book.īut that’s not where this story starts. That traffic pattern changed in 2005 when I sent them both a copy of a new novel by Michael Connelly: The Lincoln Lawyer, the first book in what would become a long-running series starring Los Angeles criminal defense lawyer, Michael “Mickey” Haller.
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