Island Hopping With VB-144

About the Book

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About the Author

John W. Holcomb was born in 1923 in Denver, Colorado, and on December 7, 1941, while visiting his girlfriend at his future in-laws’, heard over the radio about the attack on Pearl Harbor. And like almost everyone of that generation, he volunteered to join the armed forces. He joined the United States Navy. After boot camp, he married his sweetheart, Eunice E. “Diddy” Greenwald. After which he sailed out on the USS Altamaha to Guadalcanal as a member of a TBF torpedo squadron. After which he became a member of squadron VB-144 of Vega Ventura medium bombers and went to Midway Island and Tarawa Island and participated in the island-hopping campaign across the Pacific, bombing such places as Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Roi-Namur, and many other islands forgotten except by those brave young warriors who were there. This book is dedicated to all of them. Let us never forget. After the war, John settled down to the business of raising a family with his sweetheart. They had five children. His oldest son, Larry N. Holcomb, later volunteered to join the marine corps and served in Vietnam as a recon member and suffered severe injuries in that conflict. We will always remember and honor both of them. Stephen P. Holcomb