The Medals and Decorations of Captain Edward W. Bergstrom, United States Navy, PBY Pilot

The medals and decorations of Captain Edward W. Bergstrom, United States Navy, PBY pilot Robert W. Bergstrom I remember sneaking into my mother’s room with my twin brother Tom and looking in the jewelry box on her dresser. It was 1967 and my father had passed away very unexpectedly a few months before. My brother and I were looking for something in the jewelry box that we were never permitted to really see while my father was alive - his medals. I had only seen them a few times before and that was when they were on his bright, dress white Navy officer’s uniform. He only wore them for important dress reviews and his change of command/ retirement ceremony at Moffett Field, California in the summer of 1965. We opened the top of the jewelry box and saw them. We both held them in our hands and by doing so brought our father back to us for just those few short minutes. I really did not know what they were for or even what they meant. All I knew was that they were my dad’s and very important to him. As I got older the medals were still there but did not hold the same importance as they once did. I grew up and went to college. I always remembered about my dad and that he was a pilot in World War II. He flew PBYs (Figure 1) and was shot down by Figure 2: Lieutenant Commander Edward W. Bergstrom Japanese Zeros over Manila Bay at the start of World in the late 1940s. War II. That was the extent of my knowledge about my house and started a family. I had my dad’s medals on dad’s experiences in World War II. I married, bought a my bookshelf and never really gave them much thought other than the connection that they belonged to my dad. As my boys got a little older, they began to ask questions like, “what did my grandfather do in the war?” and “can I hold his medals?” Well, that is what got me started on researching what my father did to get those medals and what exactly he did in the war. My father was born Edward William Bergstrom (Figure 2) in 1916. He grew up in Duluth, Minnesota during the great depression. He was the youngest of three boys and spent a lot of time hunting and fishing in the forests outside of the city. He spent his summers on Schultz Lake boating and swimming. It was a real outdoorsman’s paradise. He went to Duluth Community College and then graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1938 with a degree in Forestry. Figure 1: Lieutenant Bergstrom and his PBY crew. Vol. 60, No. 1 27 There were no jobs for foresters at that time so he attended there is little record of where he went during this time. elimination flight training school in Minneapolis and was There is a reference to his missions in one of his first accepted into the United States Navy as a reservist. He “fitness reports” that survived. attended naval flight school at Pensacola and graduated in 1939 from class 122-C (the same class year as Marion He was awarded the American Defense Service Medal Carl, the Marine ace). His first posting was to Navy Patrol (with the FLEET clasp) for his flights during this time. Squadron, VP-13, in January 1940 as an ensign. He was The service record that I received from NARA has this then posted to VP-26 as a pilot and assistant operations fitness report that mentions this medal. It is such a faded officer. Both of these squadrons were on Ford Island, copy that I cannot read much from it. It does mention his Territory of Hawaii. I am sure life was good for him at flights in the section where noteworthy accomplishments this time. Fun, sun and women in a tropical paradise! are to be noted. While making these “recon” flights He was a pre-war PBY pilot, which meant that he was they would normally go in during cloudy days or with a not rushed through his training while at Pensacola like storm front. They did this in order to have somewhere wartime flyers were. He spent a year there and had six to hide from the Japanese defensive air patrols. One of months of water landings. He knew his stuff and how to these flights is mentioned in the Pearl Harbor Inquiry handle the big, awkward flying boat, the PBY. report done after the attack. It has a copy of a formal complaint issued by the Japanese government to the The PBY was the Navy’s “eyes in the sky” for the fleet. Its United States before the war. It describes PBYs flying job was to search for, and locate an enemy fleet hundreds over Formosa airfields on cloudy days. The Japanese of miles away from the fleet before it could attack. Flights would scramble their fighters to shoot down the intruding were long (up to 24 hours!) and for the most part, boring. aircraft. They were never successful due to the skill of He learned navigation at Pensacola and improved his the PBY pilots and the heavy cloud cover. The Navy has skill with on the job training while stationed in Hawaii. never acknowledged these flights, and even to this day This was years before any real modern navigation aids surviving pilots from Patrol Wing Ten will not confirm such as radio altimeters, sophisticated radar, Loran and making them (some of the enlisted men have confirmed other current technology was used in navigation. It them). I can only surmise that Admiral Hart himself told was celestial navigation and dead reckoning at its best. the pilots that they could never talk about these missions Sometimes they would fly close to the sea to check the and that they were sworn to secrecy. These pilots flew direction of the wind on the wave crests. If you made other types of “spy” missions at that time. They flew to even a small mistake in your calculations it could mean remote islands to drop off or pick up contacts and to take being off by hundreds of miles. You had to be good, aerial photos of critical areas. The flights continued up and he was. to the start of the war. The last ones were to Cam Ranh Bay in Indochina. They observed the assembling of the War clouds were brewing and he was in the thick of it. Japanese invasion fleet the week before it left to start He and his squadron made the long, island hopping flight World War II in the Dutch East Indies. to the Philippines in December 1940. He was by then a second pilot and was being groomed to be a Patrol Plane The intensive training and prewar reconnaissance flights Commander. They started to fly missions from Olongapo were to serve Patrol Wing Ten well during those first (Subic Bay) almost immediately after arriving in the few months of World War II. They were well aware that Philippines. The Navy (and president Roosevelt) wanted the war was to start very soon and they were prepared. to know what the Japanese were up to and the PBY was On the first day of the war (December 8th 1941 in the the plane to do it. It had the range and ability to go to Philippines) Admiral Hart knew almost immediately where the Japanese were and report on them. The plane that Pearl Harbor had been bombed by the Japanese. he was flying was the PBY-4. It was from a production He informed his Patrol Wing and ordered them to stand run of just 34 planes and was already considered obsolete. by for attack. The orders “war has commenced with It was slow, not very maneuverable and did not have self- Japan, govern yourself accordingly” went out to his sealing fuel tanks or bullet proof armor for the crew or men. They looked at each other and wondered what that pilots. Regardless of its short - comings it was the only meant. They were to find out shortly in the worst way. plane the Navy had capable of doing the job. Missions The first attacks by the Japanese against the Philippines could range from flying to Formosa (Taiwan), Indochina were conducted by aircraft flying from the carrierRyujo (Vietnam) and even south to the protectorates in the Dutch against PBYs and the Asiatic Fleet seaplane tender, East Indies. Since his flight logbook was lost in the first USS Heron, on the morning of December 8th, 1941 in month of World War II due to a Japanese bombing attack Davao on the island of Mindanao. The tender was able 28 JOMSA to escape by evasive maneuvers, but two seaplanes were would be destroyed. He issued orders for all of the not so lucky and were destroyed at their moorings. The surviving planes to head south like the Asiatic fleet did first American to lose his life in the Philippines was in weeks before to safety. My father flew to Ambon Island one of the PBYs that was lost. My father was sent out in the Dutch East Indies. The Dutch airfield on Ambon on a mission to find the Japanese carriers that morning. had a strong ground force of Australians (Gull Force). The Navy believed any attack against the Philippines He flew search missions from Ambon until the Japanese would only come from a carrier-based task force.

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