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Long overdue, Marine honored

The 84-year-old Largo man will receive the Air Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross on Saturday for service in World War II.

By KEVIN GRAHAM
Published December 2, 2005

TAMPA - War tactics have come a long way since a 20-year-old James "Ray" Scrivener joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1942.

The use of satellite imagery to map out enemy territory didn't exist during World War II. So military strategists relied on soldiers to fly overhead with huge cameras and snap shots of the Japanese army's location - photographs they used to help plan attacks.

As an aircraft flight engineer, Scrivener flew 37 combat missions in the Pacific Theatre in one such unit. He served as a technical sergeant with VMD-254, a photo reconnaissance squadron.

When he got out of the military and got married, he thought nothing of receiving any honors for his service. Scrivener said his colonel told him that his discharge certificate "didn't reflect everything it should have." But he didn't mind much. He was ready to move on with life.

That all changed three years ago, when Scrivener reunited with a military buddy and found out that he was eligible to received the Air Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Almost 60 years later, he finally will.

During a private service at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Fourth Assault Amphibian Battalion Marine Corps Reserve Training Center in Tampa, U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young will present Scrivener with the overdue honors.

"I was glad to do it," Scrivener, 84, of Largo, said of his military duties. "I wouldn't want to do it again, but I wouldn't give the experience way."

Scrivener joined the Marines one month after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Because the legal age to join the military then was 21, he had to get his parents' permission to enlist.

He said he could have avoided the draft because he was a railroad worker, an important job to the country at that time. He decided to fight instead.

John G. Bishop, 48, self-published Cameras Over the Pacific in 2003, a book that details the work of the men in VMD-254. A copy of it is in the Library of Congress, he said.

"The work they did was absolutely critical," said Bishop, a teacher at Tallahassee Community College.

It was also dangerous.

"World War II was a pretty different mentality," he said. "You got the job done or you didn't come back alive."

In his book, Bishop tells how VMD-254 pilots were the first to fly over Truk Island using B-24s. Photographs obtained from the mission helped U.S. forces overtake the island. The 1944 Battle of Truk is considered by some historians to be one of the most significant air battles of World War II.

The Japanese army used Truk as headquarters for its combined forces. They lost 200 planes and more than 40 ships during the U.S. attack.

"We had some very good people in the outfit," Scrivener said. "I think all the men just did the job they had to do."

And now, Scrivener will have one more thing to show for it.

[Last modified December 2, 2005, 18:13:02]