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Show The Gunnison Valley Gazette Page 2 Thursday, June 23, 2011 Gazette reporter earns awards from journalism organization John Hales SALT LAKE CITY—One of the Gazette's own writers received recognition for good reporting from a statewide professional organization. On Friday, the Utah Headliners chapter of the Professional Journalists (SPJ) announced reporter John Hales as recipient of awards in various writing categories. They were the latest in a string of awards Hales has garnered over his career, though much of that career—including the articles that received these recent awards—was with the Sanpete Messenger, VETERANS Continued from Page 1 country,' —with it on everyone's mind, because everyone knows somebody that's serving or has served in Afghanistan or Iraq or somewhere—'Why don't we do a grand marshal from every town in the valley?' So we took the oldest person whose served in the service still living and who belongs to the American Legion, which means veterans who served during war." Jensen said the idea to have five grand marshals was meant to be something to unify the entire Gunnison Valley for the July 4th celebration. "We just can't do it as Gunnison City alone," he said. "We've got to have the whole valley. We want this to be a whole valley celebration. We want this as a valley." which is sometimes viewed as the Gazette's competitor. "We're happy for John and his awards," said Gazette publisher Mark Henline. "And we're excited to have him now writing for our paper." Hales took first-place awards in the Religion and Values Reporting category and the Editorial category. He took second place in both Opinion Column, and Business and Consumer Reporting. He took third place in Criminal Justice Reporting for an article he co-wrote with Jon Woodard, also a former Messenger reporter. "It's nice to have awards coming to small, community newspapers," Hales said. "It's my philosophy that just because we're small, once-aweek newspapers, that's no reason to not treat our journalism or perform our jobs as professionally as they do at the Salt Lake Tribune or Deseret News. Hales continued, "Even though these awards are for articles written for the Sanpete Messenger, I'm hoping my work at the Gazette puts it in a position to win awards of its ing the machine used by the battalion to send coded messages. He also served as a squad leader. The 41st went to New Guinea in 1943 "to do cleanup after the area had been taken from the Japanese." They went back to Australia several months later to practice for beach landings. Then it was back to New Guinea to interrupt Japanese supply lines from reaching the New Guinea inland. Malmgren and his division went to Biak Island to help secure air strips that had once belonged to the Japanese but that had been taken over and used by the U.S. Air Force. His rotation over, he came back to the U.S. He departed ship in San Diego on April 18, 1945, three years to the day from when he embarked to go overseas. He was discharged on June 6 that same year. Del Mar Higham spent his World War II military service on this ship, the USS Oyster Bay. DEL MAR HIGHAM GUNNISON Del Mar Higham enlisted in the U.S. Navy after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He was called into service a few months later, in August 1942. He was assigned to the USS Oyster Bay, a torpedo-boat tender that carried fuel, ammunition and other equipment for torpedo boats. "Our first assignment was New Guinea," Higham says. "When we were off the coast of Australia, we had a submarine scare. Radar picked up a sub following us. To make matters worse, one of our main engines was out of commission. However, we managed to outmaneuver the submarine." Arriving in New Guinea, the Oyster Bay was involved in several skirmishes, Higham remembers, during Gen. Douglas McArthur's push though the Phillipines. Higham's first big battle about the Oyster Bay was the Battle of Leyte Gulf, probably the largest naval battle of the war. "This was the sea battle that broke the Japanese navy's back," Higham says. He and his boat survived kamikaze attacks, but there was another close call. Higham remembers, "The closest we came to being sunk, that scared me to death, was when we were anchored in a harbor off one of the islands. It was a beautiful, moonlit night, almost like day. We saw something streaking toward us." It was a torpedo, headed straight for the ship. "I thought, 'This is it," Higham says. But whoever launched the torpedo misjudged, and the torpedo sailed underneath the boat. Higham received his discharge from the Navy in December 1945. Dean Malmgren entered the U.S. Army on March 27, 1941 at Fort Douglas. He trained in Fort Lewis, Wash., as a member of the 41st Infantry Division. That's where he was on Dec. 7 that same year, when Pearl Harbor was bombed. The division spent the next four months guarding Washington's coast, and in April 1842 headed for service overseas. "[We] were sent to guard Australia from attack by the Japanese, because the Australian troops were in Africa fighting the Germans," Malmgren says. There, Malmgren was responsible for using and safeguard- ceived many other awards during that time. Two editorials he wrote about the gas leak—the one from last year that won the UPA award in March, as well as another one from 2007— have both received national recognition. Earlier this year, as well as in 2008, the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors named Hales among its annual Golden Dozen, a selection of the 12 best editorial writers from weekly newspapers in the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Australia. task was to patrol between California and Dutch Harbor, Alaska, looking for Japanese subs. They never found any submarines, but once bombed a whale by mistake, Watts says. While at Dutch Harbor, planes were often grounded because cold, bad weather made it impossible to start them. Sheldon experienced his first air raid during one of those groundings. "A Japanese pilot called 'Washing Machine Charlie' dropped anti-personnel bombs," writes Watts' daughter, Nancy, based on information from her father. "These raids by Charlie became a nightly event until the arrival of six P-38 pilots. One of the P-38 pilots shot Charlie down." Watts went to Douglas, Ariz., where he was crew chief on utility cargo planes (UC-78s) and advanced trainers (AT-9s). It was here that he applied for pilot training and was accepted. He bounced from place to place between California and Arizona for different phases of training, a couple months at a time. Finally, he stayed put for a year in Arizona when he became a flight instructor for new cadets. "It was very hard to get reassigned once you became an instructor because they wanted to keep you there," he told Nancy. After that, Watts went to Mississippi, Madagora Island (in the Gulf of Mexico) and Arkansas for more different kinds of training. He finally made it to the war zone when he went to Europe to fly P-51 s, doing tactical reconnaissance in England and France. He did both photo and visual recon until the end of the war in Europe after VE Day. The B-24 bomber is the kind of airplane Afton Hanson was a mechanic for while in the Navy during World War II. AFTON HANSON MAYFIELD Afton Hanson entered military service through the draft after the Pearl Harbor attack. He had just graduated from Manti High School a few months earlier. He spent basic training in Faragut, Idaho, and then went to aviation ordinance school in Oklahoma. There, he graduated with the rank of aviation ordinanceman, third class. He went to the Hutchinson Naval Air Station in Kansas, working on bombsights and automatic pilots for the B-24 bomber. Then, he "transferred to Dunksville, England, where I did ordinance on these planes," Hanson said. "[I] was here for VE [Victory in Europe] Day. Our squadron escorted the first U-boat to surrender to a British corvette [a small, lightly-armed warship]." He was transferred to Kwajalein Island, one of the Pacific Ocean's Marshall Islands. But as luck would have it, he was actually home on leave when the Americans achieved victory over Japan on Aug. 14, 1945 [VJ Day]. "[I] participated in the street dance at Manti," Hanson said. He went back to Kwajalein until his discharge in May 1946. "Actually, I was one of the lucky ones," Hanson said. "There were six boys in my class from Mayfield, and only three returned from the war. One was on an aircraft carrier that was sunk, one was killed in France, and the other one died during basic training." His own cousin was killed on an ammunition ship that was destroyed. "I consider my role in the war effort as minimal," he said. "I express my thanks and gratitude to all those who have served or are now serving in the military." Recently arrived troops of the 41st Infantry Division are reviewed by Australian Army Minister Frank Forde on 14 April, 1942. Dean Malmgren served in Australia with the 41st Division, though his battalion arrived a few weeks later. DEAN MALMGREN CENTERFIELD own in the future." Hales has recently received awards from other organizations. At the Utah Press Association's (UPA) annual convention in March, Hales received first-place awards for Best General News Story and Best Editorial, and second place for Best Sports Story and Best News Series. Both the news series and the editorial were articles he wrote about Gunnison's Top Stop gasoline leak, a topic he has continuously covered since 2007, and for which he has re- Though Sheldon Watts flew many planes during World War II, most of them were while he was stateside as either a trainee or a trainer. The one he finally flew in the European combat zone was like this one, a P-51 SHELDON WATTS FAYETTE Sheldon Watts enlisted in the Army Air Corps in February 1941 at the age of 19. After basic training he was sent to cook and bakers school, but was later reassigned as a crew chief on B-25 bombers. His Men build sandbag piers at a Leyte beach while two LSTs (landing ships, tanks) open their cargo bay doors, circa late 1944. Elwood Sorenson arrived at Leyte around the same time, brought there by the very same kind of ship. ELWOOD SORENSON AXTELL Elwood Sorenson joined the Utah National Guard in Manti in 1941, when the local unit was part of the 145th Field Artillery Regiment. He trained with the 40th Infantry Division from March to December 1941 at Camp San Luis Obispo in California. He left San Francisco for the Phillipines on Dec. 6, 1941. "Got word the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor the next morning. Back to San Francisco for one week," Sorenson writes. The division went to Hawaii, landing there on Dec. 21. "The military installations were all blown up," he recalls. Sorenson participated in the Battle of the Marshall Islands on Kwajalein in early 1944. He went back to Hawaii, then to Saipan and Tinian in the Northern Marianas Islands. He remembers a particular story from when his division made the beach head on Tinian. "A Marine captain came up to me and asked, 'What the hell are you doing with those big guns in my front line?' "I said, 'I don't know, sir, but I sure wish to hell I wasn't here.' "He laughed and left," Sorenson says. Sorenson went to Leyte Island on an LST (a landing ship large enough to carry tanks, thus, "landing ship, tank," or LST) in late October 1944. Went on LSTs again to Manduro Island and back again to Leyte. Sorenson was chosen to man the communications station for the infantry at the Battle of Okinawa, the war 's largest sea-to-land assault, as well as its last, which went on for more than 80 days. Sorenson was there at the very beginning of it, landing on Okinawa as the operation was just getting underway. "Was there in the blood, mud and rain," he says. "One of the bloodiest battles I was in." The Battle of Okinawa ended in June 1945. After that, he was on a ship headed for home when the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. He was discharged on Oct. 10 that year. |
