Lt. Gen. James V. Edmundson, 1915-2001

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From the Longboat Key Observer, (between Tampa Bay and Sarasota, FL):
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General surrenders
Lt. Gen. James V. Edmundson, 1915-2001
Wednesday, June 20, 2001

James Valentine Edmundson, the retired three-star Air Force lieutenant
general who for his country flew 181 combat missions in three wars, lost
a battle he could not win - his fight with bone cancer. He died at 4:30
a.m. Tuesday, June 19, at his home on Longboat Key. He was 86. Monday
was his birthday.

With Edmundson's death, the United States has lost one of its most
valiant war heroes and dedicated patriots and citizens. In his 36-year
career in the U.S. Army Air Corps and U.S. Air Force, Edmundson survived
107 combat missions in World War II, 32 missions in the Korean War and
42 in the Vietnam War. He survived Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Midway
and Guadalcanal. He earned three Distinguished Service Medals, seven
Distinguished Flying Crosses, eight Air Medals, three Legions of Merit,
the Silver Star, Bronze Star and Purple Heart. His junior officers and
wing mates revered and worshipped him, not for his gallantry, but forhe
way he treated and respected them.

Except for his family and country, Edmundson loved nothing more than he
loved flying. He once wrote that when he was first strapped, at age 21,
into the cockpit of a Boeing PT-13 for training lessons, "I knew what I
wanted to do for the rest of my life." For the next three decades, he
flew 137 different types of military planes. One of Edmundson's proudest
moments was in 1945 when he flew as the lead pilot in a formation of 500
B-29s passing over Tokyo Bay as the Japanese signed their surrender on
the deck of the USS Missouri.

On Longboat Key, to which he and his wife, Lee, retired in 1973 from
MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Edmundson was a favorite son. In his 28
years on the Key, he was a town commissioner twice, from 1974-77 and
from 1985-86, during which time he served as vice mayor and mayor. To
win his second term, he defeated the late Kit Fernald in Longboat Key's
closest election - Edmundson won by four votes. It was a contest that
pitted the strident, anti-development Fernald against Edmundson, who
stood as a voice of reason and moderation. Despite their differences,
Edmundson cast a tie-breaking vote on a historical ordinance - proposed
by his former foe, Fernald - calling for a referendum on the town's
density laws. Edmundson questioned the measure but voted to let the
voters be heard. "We are servants of the people," he said. Over the
years, Longboaters recognized Edmundson's citizenship and patriotism
with the Kiwanis Citizen of the Year award, Longboat Key Center for the
Arts' "They Make a Difference" award and in 1999, The Longboat
Observer's Lifetime Achievement Award.

For the past two years, Edmundson's struggle with his illness was that
of a drawn-out battle with an overwhelming enemy. As he did as a bomber
pilot, Edmundson refused to give up. Told of the pessimistic prognosis
of his illness, Edmundson tried acupuncture and other less conventional
therapies and treatments. "He said, 'Let's go for it,' daughter Celia
Edmundson said. Over the past half year, as his health worsened,
Edmundson experienced small victories amid larger defeats. He wasealthy
enough in the spring to accept an award and deliver a speech at the
Longboat Key Center for the Arts' second annual "They Make A Difference"
gala. Intermittently, he would stand as the greeter at the 7:30 a.m.
breakfasts of the Longboat Key Kiwanis Club. This was the post he manned
for more than 20 years - greeting each arriving member with a firm
handshake, smile and a deep-voiced, "Good morning, good to see you." But
by late May, as the much-touted "Pearl Harbor" movie debuted,
Edmundson's health began fading progressively. Invited to see the movie,
he declined. He felt unable, he said, to sit through a three-hour movie
about an event that he witnessed first hand. He said he knew what to
expect anyway. "I suspect it will be more Hollywood than factual," he
told The Longboat Observer. Ever the stickler for military rules,
Edmundson also pointed out a Newsweek cover photo touting the new movie.
"I pick up three uniform violations just on the cover," he said.

Two weeks later, Edmundson sat calmly, stoically for the last time in
his easy chair facing Sarasota Bay at the end of Marbury Lane on the
north end of Longboat. Though his mind remained lucid, his eyesight had
faded to the point he couldn't read to keep up on current events. Frail
though he was, he was not too weak to extend a handshake to a visitor.
On his birthday, Monday, June 18, he slipped into a semi-coma. He
touched the hands and face of his two children for the last time.

Edmundson's life was an American story. You wouldn't have expected him
to be a highly decorated war hero. He was born June 18, 1915, in
Hollywood, Calif., into a family of modest means. His father worked in
the back end of the movie business. Edmundson graduated from Santa
Monica High School, where he played football, but not with any
particular distinction. He earned an associate's degree from Santa
Monica Junior College and took a summer course at the University of
California. When he was 21, Edmundson was working the graveyard shift as
a timekeeper at the Douglass Aircraft plant in Santa Monica. In a
collection of stories about himself, he wrote:

"I have no artistic talent, no mechanical aptitude or motor skills. My
formal education, at best, is mediocre. I was not born with natural
athletic ability. I have no burning ambition driving me and am not a guy
blessed with either courage or initiative."

But he loved planes. "Watching the large numbers of military planes
rolling off the production line set me thinking," Edmundson wrote. "With
so many good military airplanes being turned out, there must be a pretty
good demand for somebody to drive them." He sent letters to the
secretaries of the Navy and Army. The Army responded first, sending
Edmundson to Randolph Field near San Antonio, Texas, where he became a
Flying Cadet.

He wanted to be a fighter pilot. He loved the maneuverability of the
small planes. But shortly before World War II, a superior told Edmundson
that if he wanted to see combat action, he would have to become a bomber
pilot. Bombers were going to lead the way, Edmundson was told. He took a
transfer and found himself stationed as a first lieutenant in the 31st
Bomb Squadron, 5th Bomb Group, 18th Bomb Wing at Hickam Field near Pearl
Harbor. On Thanksgiving Day, 1940, Edmundson married Lee Turner, a
diminutive young woman living in Hawaii.

On Pearl Harbor Day, Edmundson earned the first of his war medals - the
Purple Heart, recognition of being wounded in action. A Japanese bomb
fragment struck him in the head while he was trying to rescue crew
members from a B-17 that had landed in the middle of the runway, split
in two and then caught on fire during the mayhem of the first Japanese
attack. He told The Longboat Observer that at first he thought he was
dying. He took cover under the plane and sat down to die. When he
realized the wound was not fatal - just the size of a 50-cent piece -
Edmundson went back to work. This was the first but far from the last of
Edmundson's encounters with the enemy.

Three World War II missions stand out in Edmundson's illustrious career.

Five weeks after the Pearl Harbor disaster, with all of the United
States still in shock and desperate for good news, Edmundson became one
of the first American bomber pilots to sink a Japanese submarine.
Edmundson spotted it surfacing about 110 miles off the coast of Oahu and
with quick action bombed it onto the ocean floor. The Pentagon, however,
didn't acknowledge the sinking until mid-April. Edmundson said "the
brass" back home didn't believe he and his crew had sunk the vessel.

Later, in August 1942, near the Solomon Islands, Edmundson and his crew,
along with two other B-17s, found themselves flying side by side with
seven Japanese Zeroes. Newspaper clippings recount that four of the
Zeroes peeled out of formation and began attacking Edmundson and his two
wingers. The U.S. planes shot down the first three. But then the fourth
came up behind Edmundson's B-17. Flying his 70-ton bomber as if it were
one of the fighter planes in which he trained, Edmundson dived 4,000
feet right on the tail of the Zero. His gunners shot him out of the sky.
Few could believe the feat. But rather than seek credit and tout his
accomplishment, Edmundson, as always, was quick to give credit to his
crew mates. He told reporters: "The pilot just sits up there like an old
man in a rocking chair."

A few weeks later, Edmundson's superior, Col. L.G. "Blondie" Saunders
and an Adm. John McCain awakened Edmundson and his crew around 3 a.m. as
they slept in netting under the wing of Edmundson's bomber. A Japanese
cruiser off the coast of Guadalcanal was wreaking havoc on U.S. Marines,
decimating the troops. McCain and Saunders needed volunteers to go after
the ship. "I had the only plane bombed up and ready to go," Edmundson
recalled a month ago.

With only half a load of bombs, Edmundson and his crew flew three hours
from their jungle air strip in the New Hebrides islands to the location
of the ship. In heavy fire from the ship, Edmundson and his team
destroyed the cruiser. When the victory was certain and it was time to
fly home, Edmundson circled around, dropped his altitude and flew along
the shore of the island. Marines crowded the beach waving and cheering
at Edmundson and his crew. To their delight, and his, Capt. Edmundson
tipped his wings at his fellow countrymen. Adm. McCain hugged Edmundson
and cried.

To step into Gen. Edmundson's home office was to walk into world and
aviation history. Treasured swords, cigarette holders, goblets,
cufflinks and dozens of other gifts, plaques and acknowledgements from
world dignitaries line Edmundson's shelves. All of his medals and models
of the planes he flew sit on display. As you toured the room and pointed
to memorabilia, Edmundson would recall the exact occasions - meetings
with the Shah of Iran, princes of the Middle East, heads of state of
European nations. These were the memories and collections of a factory
timekeeper who had risen to commander of the U.S. Air Force's 57th Air
Division; director of operations of the Strategic Air Command; commander
of the 17th Air Force at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, a position that
put Edmundson in charge of 90% of the Air Force's tactical air units;
and finally three-star lieutenant general.

Except for his cropped-top haircut, Edmundson in his later years would
be difficult to think of as a high-ranking military man. About 5 feet 7
inches in height, medium build, he was not an extrovert with a take-
charge personality. Some of his colleagues and friends would substitute
"Gentle Jim" in place of "Gen. Jim." He was modest. Edmundson explained
in a series in The Longboat Observer in 1999 that he was able to rise to
three-star general because of one particular talent: "I happen to be an
expert at breaking airplanes, sometimes into quite small pieces, and
walking away from them," he wrote. Edmundson crashed eight times; after
each, he was promoted.

In 1973, after the encouragement of one of his MacDill Air Force Base
superiors to check out Longboat Key, Edmundson and his wife became full-
time residents of the Key. Like many, the retired general considered
Longboat paradise. He built a home that overlooked Sarasota Bay - and
lived there 28 years.

Edmundson became active in Longboat affairs a year after moving to the
Key. In 1974, he was elected to the Town Commission, serving until 1977.
He spent four years as a member of the Longboat Key Planning and Zoning
Board, during the period of Longboat's most prolific growth. He joined
the Longboat Key Kiwanis Club in 1975 and became its president in 1986.
One of his favorite activities was writing his weekly column in The
Longboat Observer, "Generally Speaking," later renamed "Afterburner."

For eight years, Edmundson would drive in his cream-colored Chevrolet
Camaro to The Longboat Observer office each week to drop off two, neatly
typed pages of commentary on current local, state, national and world
affairs. His grammar and spelling were impeccable, the clarity of his
writing incomparable, his logic and facts always well-grounded.

But it was Edmundson's content that riled the newspaper's readers. The
retired general, although in the employ of the government his entire
career, delivered knifing criticism against government bureaucrats,
state and national politicians and others who advocated more government,
more wealth redistribution and less freedom. Edmundson's critics often
responded with letters demanding that the newspaper yank his "right-wing
ranting." He would only chuckle and wink, energized to write even more.
When his illness made it difficult to keep up the weekly pace of
writing, Cee Edmundson recalled that the general still would read his
daily newspaper and mutter at the breakfast table, "That's a column."

Despite his decorated and public careers, Edmundson kept much to
himself. He had a fondness for pet birds, a result of a bird he and his
brothers rescued when they were children in California. Edmundson often
walked around the house with a bird on his shoulder, and it was just as
common to see him wiping droppings off his arms and shirt.

Cee Edmundson said conversations at the family dinner table were always
fascinating lessons in world history. And although it was unspoken, she
and her older brother, Edwin, knew that part of the expectation in the
Edmundson household was to be prepared to discuss current affairs.
Rarely, did her father share many of his inner thoughts and emotions
about his experiences. Cee Edmundson said they talked more in the past
few weeks. When she notified The Longboat Observer in an e-mail of some
of his life's highlights, Cee Edmundson closed her note with her summary
of her father's life: "Jim Edmundson lived his life with both integrity
and courage."

Edmundson was married to the late Lee Turner Edmundson for 59 years. She
died in 1999 after suffering herself from a two-year illness. Gen.
Edmundson is survived by his daughter, Celia Edmundson; his son, Edwin
J. Edmundson; his daughter-in-law, Lea Edmundson; his two grandchildren,
Shelley and Scott; his brother and sister-in-law, Al and Barbara
Edmundson; and his brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Clem and Barbara
Turner.

Donations in his memory can be made to the Kiwanis Foundation of
Longboat Key, a not-for-profit organization that donates funds to
Manatee and Sarasota charities, Box 9132, Longboat Key, FL, 34228. No
services will be held.

©2001 The Longboat Observer
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