With Malice

Lee Harvey Oswald and the Murder of Officer J. D. Tippit

Dale K. Myers

ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHS AND DOCUMENTS IN THIS BOOK

The photographs and documents presented in this book have been culled from

the best available — and in many cases, original — sources.

All photographs and documents have been digitally enhanced for clarity, while

taking care not to alter the content. In some cases, documents have been

reformated to fit the page. These instances are noted as they occur.

Panoramic and composite images were created by combining two or more

photographs or video images. Although some alteration was necessary to create

these images, the overall scene as originally depicted remains intact.

All dimensional illustrations and maps were created by the author. Foliage,

street signs, and other landscape details have been excluded for clarity.

Portions of the morgue photographs have been pixelated out of respect for

family and friends of the deceased.

Dedicated to the defenders of truth

“There are some things that only the people who do them understand.”

From the movie poster, War is Hell

Texas Theater, November 22, 1963

CONTENTS Introduction

Foreword

1. THE SEARCH BEGINS

2. THE QUIET COP

3. THE FINAL HOURS

4. MURDER ON TENTH STREET

5. SEARCH FOR A KILLER

6. CLOSING IN

7. A BIRD IN THE HAND

8. PROOF POSITIVE

9. HINTS AND ALLEGATIONS

10. PROFILE OF A KILLER

List of Principal Figures

Timetable of Events

Appendix A: Color Plates

Appendix B: Maps and Diagrams

Appendix C: Autopsy Report

Appendix D: Selected Documents

Appendix E: Tippit Family Photographs and Documents

Acknowledgments

Endnotes

Selected Bibliography

Index

2013 Edition

Introduction

In 1980, Lizzie Mae Peterson, J.D. Tippit’s mother, went to a movie theater with her

daughters, Christene and Joyce, to see a screening of Coal Miner’s Daughter, the bio

film about the life of country singer Loretta Lynn.

In an opening scene, Loretta’s future husband, Doolittle Lynn (portrayed by

Tommy Lee Jones) bets a group of miners that he can drive his jeep up a steep

incline. Mustering considerable bravado, he manages to accomplish the difficult task

amid the cheers of the men gathered below.

As he stood atop the hill and waved his cap to the crowd below, Mae leaned

over to Joyce and whispered, “That’s J.D.”

To his family, J.D. Tippit was a funny prankster who loved cigarettes, cars and

horses. He rarely drank, always seemed to have his sleeves rolled up, and loved the

western-swing music of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. His favorite was “Dusty

Skies.”

“Get along doggies we’re moving off of this range

I never thought as how I’d make the change

The blue skies have failed so we’re on our last trail

Underneath these dusty skies

These ain’t tears in my eyes

Just sand from these dusty skies.”

For the Tippit family, this is a personal story. The murder of one so loved was

devastating beyond words. It was difficult for many of them to find peace in the

weeks and months after his death, in particular J.D.’s mother.

One afternoon, Mae Peterson had a vision. She lay down to take a nap and was

startled when her father, Alford Rush, who had died when she was five, and her son

J.D. appeared to her. There was a peaceful, soothing feeling about their presence,

she said, and they told her, “Don’t grieve anymore.” It seemed as if a great weight

was lifted from her shoulders at that very moment.

Other family members reported similar occurrences.

“I was having a hard time with his death too,” niece Linda Chaney remembered,

“and he came to me in a dream and winked at me, like he always used to do. It was

very soothing, and I felt better immediately.”

J.D.’s younger brothers – Don, Wayne, Edward, and Ron – idolized him. For a

long time, his brother Don dreamed about J.D. every single night.

“It’s tough,” niece Linda said. “You forget how painful it was; how much pain we

went through until you relive all this. And to see Uncle Donnie get tears in his eyes

just the other night – some thirty odd years after the fact, it just kind of brought it all

back.”

Particularly painful were the allegations that J.D. was somehow involved in a

conspiracy to kill the President or to murder Oswald.

“After Uncle *J.D.+ was killed,” niece Carol Christopher said, “you just wouldn’t

believe the people – especially if they didn’t know who we were – that would claim

that they knew something, or knew Uncle [J.D.] and would tell these big elaborate

stories that were just the biggest lies.”

Of course, anyone who really knew J.D. Tippit knew that the idea of him being

involved in a conspiracy to kill anyone was preposterous.

“The conspiracy stuff is so untrue, so totally unfounded,” J.D.’s widow, Marie,

said in a rare 2003 interview. “That was really difficult for me. Everyone that knew

J.D. knew better. That part really made me angry. But we in the family know its all

total lies.”

“People want sensationalism,” J.D.’s youngest son, Curtis, added. “Mom’s been

abused by conspiracy theories and tabloid publications, and as a result wouldn’t talk

to anybody about it for years. Too many people want to cling to a false history,

believing my father was in on something with Jack Ruby, and went to meet him, and

all this stuff. Really, it’s all kind of silly and funny. If anybody knew the facts, they’d

see how false these theories are. But a whole lot of people thrive on it.”

“J.D. being involved in a conspiracy is laughable to say the least,” his sister Joyce

DeBord declared. “It is laughable because that wasn’t J.D. in any way, form or

fashion.”

Her husband, Alvie, agrees, “Anybody that knew J.D. knew that he couldn’t be

involved. His personality just wasn’t that way.”

“No, J.D. wasn’t involved in any conspiracy,” J.D.’s boyhood friend Robert A.

‘Junior’ Ward laughed. “He was just a common man who knew only one way to make

a living and that was to work for it and treat his fellow man like he would like to be

treated himself. No, nobody will ever make me believe that J.D. was involved in any

kind of conspiracy.”

Perhaps the sharpest retort came from J.D.’s life long friend and brother-in-law

Jack Christopher.

“It’s pathetic to think that anybody could think that a working man like J.D.

would be involved in any kind of conspiracy,” Jack said firmly. “I knew him his whole

life and I know that he was not. So anybody that claims that he was involved in a

conspiracy is just guessing, making it up, or writing a book about something that

couldn’t possibly be proved whatsoever.”

A few times, early on, the Tippits attempted to tell their story to reporters only to

have their words misquoted or twisted into a lie. One writer suggested that J.D.

wasn’t bright enough to be involved in a conspiracy. It seemed like they couldn’t get

anyone to understand.

In May, 1978, a young man well-known to believers in a vast JFK assassination

conspiracy approached J.D.’s sister Joyce using a false name and asked about doing

some extensive interviews with her for a proposed book about her brother’s murder.

He told her that he was interested in getting some information on J.D. through the

Freedom of Information-Privacy Act and wanted her help. She had always been open

to talking about her brother and so she agreed. Over the course of three visits, Joyce

shared personal stories and family photographs with the young man sitting at her

kitchen table. On the last visit, his true conviction that J.D. was involved in a massive

conspiracy surfaced, and Joyce, feeling betrayed, asked him to leave. He refused. Her

husband, Alvie, heard the commotion and ran the young man off.

Her encounter with the conspiracy advocate soured the whole family on having

any more contact with persons expressing interest in J.D.’s personal life. Family

members discussed the matter and decided to quit talking altogether. Even at the

yearly family reunions, the subject of the assassination and J.D.’s death became a

closed subject.

In 1999, shortly after the publication of the first edition of this volume, J.D. Tippit’s

niece, Carol Christopher, posted a comment on an Internet bookseller’s website,

“Research excellent, accuracy correct. Thankful Mr. Myers wrote the account which

proves Lee Harvey Oswald alone killed Officer Tippit, and disproves any conspiracy

rumors.”

It was a heartening sign that the twenty-plus year family resistance to talking

about the life and death of J.D. Tippit might have begun to wane. That posting led to

an initial contact that quickly blossomed into numerous telephone calls, face-to-face

meetings, and a warm, affectionate, and truly genuine embrace from a family that

had guarded their privacy and their brother’s story for so many years.

“Reading your book brought back memories of where we’d come from – on the

farm with nothing,” J.D.’s 72-year-old sister Chris told me. “We didn’t have a lot of

pictures of him. We didn’t realize that, until he was killed. When we were kids, we

just didn’t take pictures much. It ended up not all that many.”

The few surviving pictures of J.D. and life on the Tippit farm have long since

faded. The dirt road J.D. Tippit knew in his youth is overgrown with foliage.

The farms that once dotted the countryside have vanished. And many of the

places he frequented or patrolled in Oak Cliff as a police officer have been

demolished. But the warm memories of good times and good friends linger still in

the hearts of those who knew him well, as it should be.

“I guess J.D. had a pretty good life while he was here on Earth,” his sister Chris

said. “And your book brought that all back to me. I hadn’t really put that all together,

in a long time. He had a job he liked, a home for his family, and no real problems. He

had worked hard to buy their home, and he was very proud of what he had to offer

his wife and children. It seems simple, but that is a great accomplishment for a

farmer from Red River County.”

Over the past decade and a half, I’ve worked closely with the Tippit family to trace

their family lineage, restore precious family photographs, erect a State historical

marker near J.D.’s boyhood home, and fully document the story of this forgotten

hero. At its core, it is an ordinary tale of hard work, dedication to duty, and love for

one’s family. It has been a tremendous privilege to be embraced as a friend of the

Tippit family and to be trusted to accurately tell their story and that of their dear,

departed brother, husband, father, and friend.

In addition to the family story, there have been a few changes to this edition

regarding the circumstances of J.D. Tippit’s death – additional information that was

uncovered since this work was first published, most of it bringing clarity and detail to

that final day. The most important contribution to this work, however, is the long

overdue, personal account of the ordinary man who came to be at the center of one

of the most controversial moments in American history nearly fifty years ago.

For some men, there are no banners, no fanfare; no medals that could ever say more

than what has been engraved in the hearts of those they’ve touched. In their passing

we discover that part of the human spirit truly worthy of our adoration.

J.D. Tippit is one of those ordinary men who, through extraordinary events, had

the moniker of hero thrust upon them. And although his role in America’s darkest

days will forever be remembered it is his likeable spirit that has left the deepest

impression.

Duty, honor, and love — essential ingredients of a hero of the ordinary kind.

Dale K. Myers

July 10, 2013

Foreword

People who remember the assassination of President John F. Kennedy also

remember police officer J.D. Tippit, an obscure cop murdered that same day. They

still argue about who did it and why.

Dale Myers has the best answers I have seen to these questions:

Was Tippit a conspirator with Lee Harvey Oswald in the assassination? Did

Tippit pull his patrol car up to Oswald’s apartment house and honk a warning

as Oswald was fleeing? How did Oswald and Tippit happen to meet a short

time later on a residential street in Dallas’ Oak Cliff section? Why did Tippit

stop Oswald and approach him, only to be killed by four pistol shots? Was the

pistol a revolver or an automatic? Did the two men know Jack Ruby, the

nightclub owner who fired a fatal shot into Oswald as he was being led from

the Dallas city jail? Was it really Oswald who shot Tippit?

Conspiracy buffs have had a high old time with those questions. Dale Myers is

not one of them.

Myers has researched and analyzed those questions — and more — in minute

detail. He has sought every conceivable source, interviewed witnesses, reporters,

attorneys and policemen. He has studied Tippit’s life from boyhood.

He has reviewed television footage, printed news accounts, earlier books and

police records. He has dug into the files and report of the House Select Committee

on Assassinations, which reviewed the JFK case in 1978. He has pored over the

Warren Commission report and Commission files — and has turned up some

documents never before made public.

Where testimony and evidence conflict, he has used reason and worked out

logical answers.

His account is a fascinating web of fact vs. fantasy, of the frantic confusion that

began with the shots that killed the President on November 22, 1963.

Many people refused to believe that a loner had shot both the President and the

policeman. Conspiracy theories bubbled to the surface. The theories expanded after

Ruby shot Oswald. Some saw evidence in every rumor and stray report. Many

reporters and editors pursued them and found them baseless. But dozens of books

have kept the questions alive. They persist in a cult of theorists.

I was the Associated Press Chief of Bureau for Texas, in charge of covering the

assassination and related events through the trial of Jack Ruby.

The day Kennedy and Tippit were killed, near chaos engulfed Dallas. Then,

downtown Dallas became almost a ghost town. Football games and the opera were

canceled. Stores were empty, streets deserted. Anger merged with despair. Only

police, service workers and news people seemed to be abroad.

In the AP bureau and other news offices the pace was fast, intense and focused

on what had happened. The day of Kennedy’s funeral, AP news printers fell silent as

his casket was lowered into the grave. A bugler cracked on a high note as he played

Taps. AP staffers gathered around a television set to watch, their eyes filled with

tears, allowing emotion to surface for the first time.

Then determined pursuit of facts by wire service, newspaper, radio and TV

reporters continued.

More than thirty years later, Myers has wrapped up the story. His answers make

sense. They’re supported by pillars of fact and analysis. They should stand.

Robert H. Johnson

Associated Press (Ret.)

1998

CHAPTER 1: THE SEARCH BEGINS

Lee Harvey Oswald murdered Officer J.D. Tippit. The Dallas cops believed it. The

newspapers reported it. The Warren Commission made it official and the House

Select Committee on Assassinations reaffirmed it. Why, then, do so few accept that

verdict? The assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the events that

surround it have been examined and dissected like no other event in American

history. Yet the shooting of J.D. Tippit remains one of the most overlooked aspects of

this horrific crime.

From the beginning, reports of Tippit’s death wandered from the truth. An early

United Press International (UPI) story had Tippit dying in an exchange of bullets

inside the Texas Theater:

“Police got a call that a man answering the description of the suspected assassin had

entered the Texas Theater. Patrolman J.D. Tippit and M.N. McDonald followed. An

usher told them the shabbily-dressed man had run into the theater a short time

before. They spotted the slim, balding, 5 foot, nine-inch man crouched near a red-

lighted exit door. They yelled. Patrolman Tippit fired once. Oswald fired once and

Patrolman Tippit fell dead. Patrolman McDonald then rushed Oswald and they

struggled. Oswald was subdued.” [1]

A UPI reporter had fumbled the facts in an unsuccessful rush to beat the

Associated Press (AP) with the scoop on Tippit’s death. The story was quickly

straightened out and the world soon read how J.D. Tippit, a rather ordinary cop, was

gunned down on an Oak Cliff side street just forty-five minutes after the

assassination of President Kennedy. Tippit’s murder led to a manhunt that resulted

in the capture of Lee Harvey Oswald. Although pivotal to the case against Oswald in

the President’s assassination, the murder of Officer Tippit was treated as nothing

more than a footnote in most of the nation’s newspapers. It would be ten months

before the Warren Commission brought any detail to Tippit’s final hour, but even

then much of the story was misunderstood, and Tippit himself remained an enigma.

Ironically, David W. Belin, assistant counsel to the Warren Commission, would

later propose that the murder of Officer J.D. Tippit was the Rosetta Stone* to the

solution of President Kennedy’s murder.

“Once the hypothesis is admitted that Oswald killed Patrolman J.D. Tippit,” Belin

wrote, “there can be no doubt that the overall evidence shows that Lee Harvey

Oswald was the assassin of John F. Kennedy.” [2]

Detractors of the Commission’s lone-assassin conclusion bristled at Belin’s

affirmation. In the years that followed, it became fashionable for a community of

doubters to debate every verb, adjective and punctuation mark found in the

Commission’s account of the Tippit shooting. Many eyewitness accounts of the

shooting were twisted to exonerate Oswald. Dallas police officers were painted as

bumbling flatfoots, not to be trusted. Every government report was assumed to be

full of lies and deception. It was claimed that Oswald had been framed by a zealous

police force. Some even suggested that Tippit was part of the plot to murder the

chief executive.

There have been many questions raised about Tippit’s death over the past fifty

years but few real attempts to find the answers. This book seeks to fill that void.

The records of the Warren Commission served as the jumping off point for gathering

material. Hundreds of pages of testimony and documents relating to Tippit’s death

were unearthed among the Warren Commission’s working files, many of them never

published in the Commission’s twenty-six volumes of Hearings and Exhibits. These

files supplied answers to many of the questions that have troubled past critics.

In the mid-1980’s, copies of the Dallas Police Department records from 1963 —

including Tippit’s personnel file — were uncovered at the Texas State Archives in

Austin where they were housed as part of the Texas Attorney General’s Files on the

Kennedy Assassination (TAGF). In 1992, the original Dallas police files, including

many never included in the TAGF collection, were made available through the Dallas

Municipal Archives and Records Center (DMARC) in Dallas. The combined collection

provides the most complete account of the police investigation into Tippit’s death.

Pieces to the rest of the puzzle were sought after in documents gathered

through the Freedom of Information-Privacy Act (FOIA). Many requests took nearly a

year to fulfill, which is more a testament to the bureaucracy of the system than the

stamina of the requestor. Part of the problem in using the FOIA was knowing what to

request, since blanket searches were the least efficient way of wading through the

millions of pages of material in government hands. Ultimately, the routing slips,

internal memorandums, and summary reports that were declassified revealed the

beliefs and direction of the government probe into Tippit’s murder.

The 1992 JFK Records Act led to the formation of the Assassination Records

Review Board (ARRB) which has since streamlined the process of searching for

documents relating to the Kennedy assassination. In the last few years, the ARRB has

been instrumental in making many pages of previously unavailable material

accessible to attentive researchers. These documents include material from the

House Select Committee on Assassinations, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Many of the questions relating to Tippit’s

autopsy and his military life have been answered with files released through the

ARRB.

These primary sources were supplemented with many others both public and

private. Yet, all of these investigative reports and photographs tell only part of the

story — one that is very cold and without emotion. The heart of the new material

presented in this book is the personal interviews conducted with the men and

women who were part of the day’s tragic events. It is their stories that add the much

needed, and often overlooked, human element in the assassination drama.

The shock, fear, confusion, and determination evident in the words of those who

took part in the day’s events describe a truth that was found to be legitimate,

trustworthy and, in the end, very convincing.

Arranging interviews with those who participated in the case proved challenging

on several fronts. First, locating some of the people associated with the case was a

detective story in itself. Many participants had moved to other areas of the country

and were not easy to find. Phone records, land transactions, death notices and other

public records commonly associated with genealogy research proved helpful in

tracking down some of the prominent figures in this case.

Second, a few persons were reluctant to talk about their experiences having

been hassled in the past by amateur “researchers” with a predetermined agenda.

One former FBI agent told how a researcher came to see him but seemed more

intent on telling him what had happened, rather than listen to what the former

lawman had to offer. Because of these kinds of experiences, several of those

contacted refused to talk about the case. On the other hand, the majority of the

people contacted were eager to help, and in some cases were rather astounded that

anyone was still interested in a murder that occurred so long ago. In fact, quite a few

had never been interviewed before.

Third, and probably the most difficult part of the interview process, was finding

a means of weighing the reliability of thirty-year-plus memories. It is no secret that

recollections fade and diminish — and are sometimes embellished — over time. For

this reason, contemporary records were usually given greater consideration.

Fortunately, most of the people interviewed had given statements in the days and

months after Tippit’s death. These were used as benchmarks to gauge the reliability

of more recent comments. In some cases, memories have been distorted by time

and do not match what was related in 1963 reports. Although some people might

see these discrepancies as signs of something more sinister, such minor alterations

are expected. Noting those discrepancies throughout this book is not intended as an

indictment of any person’s behavior or recollections. It is simply an effort to

accurately reflect the historic record.

Of particular importance is the new level of understanding these interviews

bring to the Tippit drama. The participants represent a diverse cross section of

attitudes and personalities. Some were reluctant and shy, others shrewd and

engaging. Yet each person supplied a much needed human voice to an event that has

become overrun with nagging doubts. For many, it was a chance to tell their story for

the first time. Others trudged down a familiar road as they spoke of friends and

events that have all but been forgotten.

Former Assistant District Attorney William F. Alexander talked about the

assassination investigation from his office in the Federal Building in downtown

Dallas. As he whittled at a Styrofoam cup, Alexander began the interview somewhat

guarded but quickly warmed up. On occasion, a question would cause the steel-eyed

investigator to stop, lean forward, and accompany his reply with a focused glare.

Then he would lean back, relax, and joke as if with old friends. Alexander’s earthy

frankness added considerable color to his story, but he never let the street-talk

undermine the sharp, analytical mind beneath his gruff exterior. He always seemed a

step ahead of the questions. A couple of times he would pause and say, “I think I

know where you’re going with this, therefore let me answer you this way…” The

irresponsibility of past writers had taught Alexander to be very cautious when

discussing the assassination. Many others shared his feelings.

Murray J. Jackson, former radio dispatcher and close friend of J.D. Tippit, offered

the warm hospitality of his living room as he discussed the events that led to his

friend’s death. Jackson brought out fading newspaper articles he had kept along with

a police yearbook that depicted many of the players in the Tippit story, including his

own youthful face. Jackson’s warm handshake and relaxed manner felt like a favorite

pair of slippers. It was easy to see why J.D. Tippit liked Murray Jackson, and in a way,

Tippit seemed more real — more human — because of him.

Paul L. Bentley, the former Dallas detective who helped arrest Oswald at the

Texas Theater, leaned back in the soft sofa of his living room. Bentley peeled open a

three ring binder which contained original copies of Dallas police crime lab photos

and gently talked about his role in the events of November 1963. Bentley’s likable

demeanor put a new face on the serious, straight-laced image of a Dallas lawman.

The ease with which he discussed the Oswald arrest and his honest attempts to

recall details underscored the genuine desire of many who, like Bentley, wanted to

help others understand what they had experienced.

James R. Leavelle, the Dallas homicide detective who led the investigation into

Tippit’s death, has always been willing to share his unique inside view of the police

department without hesitation. Over the course of ten years, Jim Leavelle has made

himself available on the shortest of notices. His expertise, frankness and easy humor

are qualities of the consummate professional. Leavelle has been both supportive and

critical of the Dallas Police Department. The portrait he paints is one of accuracy,

warts and all. It is rare to find someone so open to discussing the many successes

and the occasional failings of the 1963 Dallas Police Department.

Sadly, the written word cannot serve as a substitute for the personal experience

of having shared time with these and many of the other persons whose stories make

up this work. In an effort to capture at least some of this essential human ingredient,

much of the dialogue and memories in this book are verbatim from transcripts,

testimony, and recollections. This is their story, in their own words.

One tool that proved extremely helpful in weaving these personal experiences into a

precise account of the Tippit murder was a taped copy of the original Dallas police

radio recordings, obtained from James C. Bowles, the Dallas police radio dispatch

supervisor at the time of the assassination. These recordings contain the police radio

transmissions broadcast over the Dallas police radio on November 22, 1963.

Two channels were in operation on the day of the assassination. Channel one

carried the everyday police business — including traffic relating to the Tippit

shooting and the arrest of Oswald. Channel two contained transmissions associated

with the presidential motorcade, although after the assassination, additional traffic

reflected the continuing probe into both the Kennedy and Tippit crimes.

Channel one transmissions were recorded on a Dictaphone A2TC, Model 5, belt

or loop recorder. Channel two was recorded on a Gray “Audograph” flat disc

recorder. Both were duplex machines — one unit was set to record while the other

was on standby, ready to take over when the first unit contained a full recording.

Both devices were sound activated. Any sound, voice or otherwise, that was

sufficiently loud enough to be heard by the system would start the recording. Once

activated, the machine would record until the sound ended plus an additional four

seconds. The four second delay allowed for brief pauses between conversation

without overworking the machine, and helped conserve recording space. In effect,

neither device was designed to provide a continuous recording, although on

occasions, a nearly continuous recording could result from a rapid stream of radio

traffic.

Relating the recordings to exact times was a problem in itself. Although

dispatchers were obligated to give periodic time checks, there is no precise way to

relate the “broadcast” time with “real” time. Radio dispatchers worked off of a 12-

hour sweep-hand clock which was not synchronized to any time standard. Under

these circumstances it was not uncommon for the “broadcast” time and the “real”

time to be a minute or so apart.

In addition, each individual operator had his own method of reading the clock.

Since a time check never contained seconds, a dispatcher might provide a “time”

which was slightly ahead or behind the actual figure. For example, a recorded time

check of 1:00 p.m. could mean anything from 12:59:30 p.m. to 1:00:30 p.m. This

author found a similar practice of fudging time quite common during a ten-year

career in commercial radio.

Former dispatch supervisor Jim Bowles used a stop watch and some

mathematics to deduce a “real” time from the police recordings by comparing an

arbitrary zero base-time with the recorded time announcements that followed. A

similar technique was applied to the entire channel one recordings for this book. The

study shows that with the exception of five areas, the rapid radio exchanges that

occurred in the wake of the Kennedy assassination caused the channel one recorder

to operate in an almost continuous fashion. The result is a virtual “running clock” on

the events surrounding Tippit’s death and the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald.

It should be stressed that the recording contains no exact record of “real time.”

What it does contain is a sequence of events whose relationship to one another can

be measured. For example, a time check of 1:19 p.m. and a check of 1:22 p.m. do not

necessarily relate to “real time,” yet a stop watch review of the tapes show that the

two instances did occur three minutes apart. By applying a stop watch and some

mathematics to the channel one recordings, and comparing the resulting sequence

of events with the eyewitness accounts, a reasonably accurate reconstruction of the

Tippit murder and its aftermath was possible. The result is the real-life detective

story that follows.

Most of the mystery that shrouds the Kennedy assassination has been unwittingly

preserved by a populace unable or unwilling to look for the answers. The fact that

the official record remains scattered in government files around the country has not

made it easy to challenge what has been written in the past. Yet, the truth is there,

waiting to be discovered. Some mysteries remain, of course. That’s to be expected in

a case that has lain forgotten and neglected for more than five decades. Because

many of the participants are now deceased, including several interviewed for this

book, there are some answers that are destined to remain elusive. Still, the picture

that emerges from this weave of human recollection is remarkably clear and

consistent. More than anything, it is the ease with which these multiple perspectives

mesh together that feels the most like truth.

Lee Harvey Oswald murdered Officer J.D. Tippit. There can no longer be any

doubt about it. The truth of that statement will unfold in the pages that follow. In

many ways, this is the investigative file that was never completed.

Naturally, Oswald’s malicious desperation in the wake of the Kennedy

assassination brings that crime into clearer focus. For some, the precise nature of

Oswald’s participation in the President’s murder remains open to debate. But no

matter what role he played, Oswald’s guilt in the Tippit shooting must be hereafter

considered a historic truth.

In a cemetery south of Dallas, a hardened patch of Texas scrub grass surrounds a

bronze plate inscribed with the name, J.D. Tippit. Beneath that marker lies the

remains of a man whose death made him a hero in the eyes of a nation and lit a

bonfire of controversy that continues to rage. Perhaps this volume will bring some

understanding to this forgotten Texas tragedy and a bit of peace to a good cop.

Tippit Gravesite

Author’s photo

*A tablet of basalt inscribed with Greek and two forms of Egyptian hieroglyphics,

found near Rosetta, Egypt, in 1799. It supplied the key to the ancient inscriptions of

Egypt.

CHAPTER 2: THE QUIET COP

Sunday, September 2, 1956 — A Dallas police patrol car cruises the west end

nightclub district. Four-year police veteran Patrolman J.D. Tippit, 31, and partner

Dale Hankins, 27, scan the parking lots looking for automobile bound patrons who’ve

had too much to drink. At about 12:45 a.m., Tippit pulls his squad car to the curb in

front of Club 80 at 441 West Commerce Street. The two officers climb from the car

and head for the door on what they think will be a routine closing-time check for

drunks. Inside, they spot a man sitting alone in a booth near the front door. He

appears to be intoxicated. Officer Tippit asks the man to accompany them outside.

The man grumbles and starts to slide out of the booth. As he rises to his feet, he

suddenly draws a .25 caliber semi-automatic pistol from his belt, and tells the

patrolman to “stick ’em up.” Tippit and his partner back away slowly, as the drunk

points the gun at J.D.’s face and pulls the trigger three times without result. Tippit

and his partner quickly draw their service revolvers and fire seven shots into the

gunman until he falls to the barroom floor, dead. Officer Tippit instructs Hankins to

“call for an ambulance and tell the dispatcher what happened.” [3]

J.D. Tippit in 1957.

Warren Commission, Carlin (Bruce Ray) Exhibit No.1 National Archives, College Park,

Maryland

J.D. Tippit never intended to be a cop. It was an occupation that grew more from

necessity than anything else. Tippit was a country boy who had managed to find

employment away from the meager farm life he had known. Like any job, a

policeman’s work had its hazards. On this particular night, Tippit had encountered

the deadly kind. The man lying dead on the floor was later identified as Leonard

Garland, who was wanted by the FBI for an offense committed in another state. [4]

J.D. Tippit’s brush with Garland had made a lasting impression on the young

patrolman. One police officer recalled that Tippit was “usually careful in approaching

people” after the Garland shooting, while others often heard Tippit telling younger

officers to “always be careful.” [5]

On November 22, 1963, it was J.D. Tippit who fell victim. Officers, relatives and

friends converged on the Tippit residence to offer their condolences. Mrs. Marie

Tippit, the 35-year-old widow, seemed to be holding up well under the

circumstances. Tippit’s two oldest children, Charles Allen, age 13, and Brenda Kay,

10, were taking it hard. They were both very close to their father. Four-year-old

Curtis Glenn was young enough to be spared much of the grief.

Marie Tippit and children the day after the slaying.

Left to right: Brenda, 10; Curtis, 4; and Allen, 13.

AP/Wide World Photos

That night, Attorney General Robert Kennedy telephoned for Mrs. Kennedy and

said they were “extremely sorry and wanted to offer their deepest sympathy in this

time of grief,” adding that if his brother had not come to Dallas, Officer Tippit would

still be alive. Mrs. Tippit told him “to express my concern to Mrs. Kennedy and tell

her I certainly know how she feels. But, you know, they were both doing their jobs.

They got killed doing their jobs. He was being the president, and J.D. was being the

policeman he was supposed to be.” [6]

A few days later, Mrs. Kennedy sent a personal letter to Marie that touched the

entire Tippit family. [7]

“I wrote the letter in response,” J.D.’s brother-in-law Jack Christopher later

revealed. “Marie was distraught you might say. She was in no condition to answer

this letter. And the letter was so nice, so beautifully written by Jackie Kennedy,

saying something along the line of, ‘I feel like we were somewhat responsible for

your husband’s death because of the fact that he was killed by the same person.’

“She wrote something like ‘I hope you’re not bitter toward us because of what

happened,’ and, ‘if there is anything I can ever do, well let me know.’

“Marie said to me, ‘I just don’t know how to answer that.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’ll

do the best I can.’

“So I wrote a rough draft for her, something like, ‘There’s no bitterness, we just

have a very lonesome feeling. We love you and always have loved the president’ —

which J.D. did — and I wrote, ‘If you want to do something for me, well send me a

portrait of your family, just a picture from everyday life,’ which she did.” [8]

November 25, 1963 — Dallas police honor guards William Duane Mentzel, age 32

(left), and Truman Lee Boyd, age 34 (right), at the Beckley Hills Baptist Church on the

day of J.D. Tippit’s funeral.

UPI / Corbis-Bettmann

Shortly thereafter, a photograph of the Kennedy family at Hyannis Port arrived

in a beautiful gold leaf frame.

The inscription below the photograph read: “For Mrs. J.D. Tippit — with my

deepest sympathy — and the knowledge that you and I now share another bond —

reminding our children all their lives what brave men their fathers were — With all

my wishes for your happiness, Jacqueline Kennedy.” [9]

By early Friday evening, the Dallas widow was placed under heavy sedation.

“I just don’t know what we’re going to do,” Mrs. Tippit whispered quietly.

“I depended on my husband so much. He spent all his extra time with us and the

family got used to him making all the necessary decisions.

“The problems of raising three children suddenly seem too great,” she added.

“Older children need a father’s guidance.” [10]

The 39-year-old policeman’s $7,500 insurance policy was not enough to take his

family very far. Their plight touched the nation’s heart. Unsolicited donations began

to pour in from all over the United States. Police departments, civic groups, and the

general public collected money to help the family of the 490 dollar-a-month

policeman. [11]

In childish scrawl on one letter were the words, “This money is yours because

your daddy was brave.” Enclosed was a dollar bill. [12]

“I never saw anything like it,” one reporter said as he told how people came to

the Dallas Traffic Bureau to pay fines and before leaving, left a check for the Tippit

fund. [13]

It was even reported that two prisoners serving life terms raised $200 among

inmates of the Wynne Prison Unit in Texas. [14]

Within a few months, more than 40,000 pieces of mail totaling over $600,000

were given to the Tippit family. The largest single donation came from Abraham

Zapruder, who contributed the initial payment of $25,000 he received from Life

magazine for his home movie of the assassination. A $330,000 trust fund was set up

for the Tippit children. [15]

Sampling of sympathy cards and letters.

Author’s photo

A burial plot at Laurel Land Memorial Park in South Oak Cliff was offered by Ed

Weidner. The gravesite was in the Memorial Court of Honor, a section reserved for

those who had given their lives in some special service to the community.

Established just a year earlier, Tippit would be the first to be buried in the hallowed

plot. [16]

On Saturday, as funeral arrangements were being made, the new President,

Lyndon B. Johnson, telephoned the Tippit household. “He said they all felt sorrow for

me in my time of grief,” Mrs. Tippit told the press, “and wanted me to know that he

gave his life (for a good cause)…that the man would not have been caught had he

not given his life. He said he hoped other police departments took notice as to what

courage had been shown.” [17]

At 2:00 p.m., on Monday, November 25th, seven hundred policemen joined as many

mourners at the small red brick Beckley Hills Baptist Church to honor a man many

considered “a lovable guy.” A bank of flowers five feet high surrounded the silver

gray casket. An organist played The Old Rugged Cross as officers from Dallas, Fort

Worth, Houston, Tulsa, Arlington, and Galveston paid their last respects. Tears could

be seen on many faces. [18]

Three local television stations carried the funeral. Those that couldn’t squeeze

into the 450-seat church were ushered to Sunday school rooms to watch the service

on closed circuit television.

November 25, 1963 — Pallbearers carry the casket of J.D. Tippit from the Beckley

Hills Baptist Church toward a waiting hearse. Sergeants Owen C. Box (left), Tippit’s

first partner, and Calvin B. Owens (right), Tippit’s Oak Cliff supervisor lead the casket

as the grief stricken widow follows. The other pallbearers include patrolmen Thomas

G. Tilson, Thurman A. Ross, Charles W. Harrison and Holley M. Ashcraft.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection Courtesy, Special Collections Division, The

University of Texas at Arlington Libraries, Arlington, Texas

“Today we are mourning the passing of a devoted public servant,” said the Rev.

Claude D. Tipps, Jr. “He was doing his duty when he was taken by the lethal bullet of

a poor, confused, misguided, ungodly assassin – as was our President.” [19]

After the eulogy, Mrs. Tippit was helped forward, weeping softly. She stood for a

long moment beside her husband’s open casket. Then she turned away,

handkerchief to her eyes, and was helped from the church. [20]

Six pallbearers carried J.D. Tippit’s coffin to the waiting hearse. Owen C. Box,

Tippit’s first partner, and Oak Cliff substation Sergeant C.B. “Bud” Owens headed the

cortege. Fellow officers Holley M. Ashcraft, Thomas G. Tilson, Thurman A. Ross, and

Charles W. Harrison flanked both sides of the modest casket. [21]

A fifteen-man motorcycle escort led the way to the sloping grounds of Laurel

Land Memorial Park. At graveside, three dozen red roses were heaped upon the

casket as family, friends, and colleagues bade a tearful goodbye. [22]

After the funeral, Marie and her three children retreated to the Gasway family home

in Greenville. J.D.’s siblings traveled to the Tippit family home near Clarksville. [23]

“We went on back to Daddy’s on Wednesday,” J.D.’s sister Christene

remembered, “because Thursday was Thanksgiving and we all just wanted to be

together. We just couldn’t break up.” [24]

That gathering started a tradition that would continue for decades; a yearly

family tribute in memory of the slain officer. There was a profound feeling of loss

that first year, an emptiness beyond description. J.D. had planned to be off work to

watch football and revel in the company of his family. Instead, he lay in an unmarked

grave in south Oak Cliff. It would be nearly three months before a bronze plaque

could be created to mark his final resting place. [25]

“On Friday, we came back to Dallas and went back up to the cemetery,” sister

Christene said. “There were hundreds of flowers at the gravesite on the day of the

funeral, but when we returned Friday there wasn’t a flower in sight. You know they

don’t leave them long. And all that was there was a little mound of dirt. And we

stood there in that big empty cemetery and wondered how anyone could be buried

in such a little space.” [26]

For Marie Tippit and her children, the hardest time was the weeks just after the

murder.

“We lived at the end of the street,” she remembered. “Curtis, our youngest,

would sit by the window for hours and watch for his daddy. And that was really

difficult.” [27]

J.D.’s only daughter, Brenda, suffered from intense stomachaches and “for the

longest time, just couldn’t handle it,” her mother said. “She was terribly hurt by an

article saying she was too young to know what was going on when her daddy was

killed.” [28]

The death may have hurt J.D.’s oldest son more than anyone.

“Allen had a terrible time coping,” Marie said. “It affected him for years. He

couldn’t talk about it for a very long time.” Marie believes that her husband’s death

“was the major contributor” to many of Allen’s problems later in life. [29]

“The days and weeks and months that followed were just terrible,” Mrs. Tippit

remembered. You keep on going because you have to. You say your prayers and you

feed your children and you read your Bible and you live one day at a time, so it gets

to the point where you can live a single day without crying.” [30]

A month after the funeral, Marie Tippit accepted the Meritorious Award from the

Dallas Police Department on J.D.’s behalf. After thanking the nation for their

kindness and generosity in a televised press conference, she and her children slipped

back into their private lives.

In the years that followed, Marie focused on seeing that her children led normal

lives. She turned down numerous book offers and hundreds of interview requests in

an effort to shield them from the public eye.

“I just wanted my children to have a chance to grow up as normal, average kids,”

she said. “It’s important for kids to grow up and be themselves without being judged

by events that happen. And being in the public eye was certainly not going to help

them be normal kids.” [31]

Though she remarried twice in the years since 1963, [32] Marie never forgot the

boy from Red River County.

“No amount of time can take away the pain I feel for the man I loved,” she said.

“And for anyone who thinks I’m over it, well, they never really knew J.D. Tippit.” [33]

He was born on September 18, 1924, in Red River County near Annona, Texas. [34] His

father, Edgar Lee, was a devout Baptist earning a living on rented farm lands just as

his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather before him had done. [35] Edgar could

be bull-headed and stubborn, and he had quite a temper. [36] But he took care of his

family, provided for them, and expected them to mind him even when they were

older. [37]

Lizzie Mae Tippit, age 20, holding J.D. Tippit, age 1. (1925)

Courtesy of Robert Jack and Dorothy Christene (Tippit) Christopher

“He was pretty strict,” brother Don recalled. “If he told you to do something,

you’d better do it. He didn’t tell you but once.” [38]

Edgar Lee also was a very private man who believed that, ‘Family business was

nobody’s business.’ His sons and daughters were all raised that way. [39]

J.D.’s mother, Lizzie Mae Rush — “May Bug” to her family and friends — was a

shy woman from Tennessee. She was a sweet woman — rather timid — who often

took a back seat to her strong willed husband. [40]

They were plain folk, descended from a long line of pioneers whose sweat and

toil had shaped the backbone of America. Together they carved an existence out of

the rolling prairies of east Texas and raised a close, loving family.

In 1924, power lines, telephones and paved roads were a long way from rural East

Texas. Modern conveniences were only a dream. Water was drawn from a well,

clothes were washed in wooden barrels, family meals were prepared over a hot,

wood-burning stove, and oil lamps lit the dark.

Edgar and “May Bug” named their first born son after a character in a book that

Edgar had read about once.

“He use to read a little you know, when he was hunting,” brother Edward

recalled. “He’d read a story about a guy named ‘J.D. of the Mountains,’ and gave him

that name. I guess it fascinated him.” [41]

The initials, despite some claims over the years, never stood for anything. [42]

To young J.D., free of the worries that burdened his father, country living was a

paradise of wild flowers, fishing, hunting and adventure around every bend. Of

course, as he grew older, there were the inevitable chores that consumed more and

more of his time.

The community schools of Red River County in the early 1930s were something

right out of Little House on the Prairie* – there was a main assembly building, a one

room schoolhouse, a separate lunchroom with a well and a kitchen where you could

cook, and two privies out back for the boys and girls. J.D. attended community

elementary schools at Peince, Lanes Chapel,

Russell Chapel, and McCoy. [43]

“We went by the McCoy Community School yard – it’s gone now – years after it

had been abandoned,” nieces Linda Chaney and Carol Christopher recalled, “and the

hitchin’ posts were still out front and we saw a school desk inside that had the name,

‘J.D. Tippit,’ carved in it.” [44]

J.D. Tippit, age 11, in Altus, Oklahoma. (1935)

Courtesy of Mary Lee (Daniels) Tippit

In the fall of 1939, when J.D. was 15, Edgar and “May Bug” moved their family to

Baker Lane, [45] a three mile long rural stretch of dirt road located six miles southwest

of Clarksville. By then, two sisters and two brothers had joined the Tippit brood –

Christene, Don, Joyce and Wayne.

“Daddy farmed the bottom land,” sister Joyce DeBord remembered. “And we all

loved that place. We just thought that it was just the most wonderful secluded place.

And mother always liked a place that was surrounded by trees. And this was.” [46]

“Besides the house, there was a well for water, a barn, a hen house, a smoke

house, and an outhouse,” sister Christene Christopher recalled. “Around the back

was the pasture and a barn lot for the animals. We had pigs, cows, mules, and a

horse. And cats were always around. And then the field was on the back of the

pasture, back away from the house. Looking back, it’s like we’ve lived in two

different worlds.” [47]

Location of the Tippit farmstead on Baker Lane near Clarksville.

Author’s photo

In rural Texas, populations were scattered over many miles with little or no way

of traversing distances except by foot or horseback.

Trips into town were limited to weekends. Small communities sprang up banding

a dozen or more families together under the banner of a common school and place

of worship. Families learned to rely on each other for help and companionship.

“Every day or so,” brother Wayne recalled, “somebody’d go down to the box on

the main road and get everybody’s mail and take it down to them.”

“And if a car ever came down the road,” brother Don added, “why, everyone

would come out to see who it was.”

“Yea, and where they were going,” Wayne laughed. [48]

In Texas, cotton was king. Bringing in the money crop, as they called it, consumed

every hour of the day and required quite an effort to produce.

To begin, the land was bedded with a two-mule plow. Then a drag, made from a

big log with a chain attached, was pulled over the rows, two at a time, to flatten

them out. Planting was usually done with a one-mule planter. In two or three weeks

the cotton was up and had to be chopped in a thinning process that left the plants a

hoe’s width apart. Then the real work began.

The cotton had to be hoed to get rid of crabgrass, poor-joe gimpson weeds,

cockle burrs and sassafras and persimmon sprouts. This usually had to be performed

twice before “laying it by” ‘til harvest time. Then, the entire family would be in the

field by daybreak, bending over, picking cotton, and stuffing it into a six foot long

sack. Smaller kids would pick about 25 pounds of cotton, older ones 50 to 60 pounds

a day. A good cotton picker could pick anywhere from 200 to 400 pounds a day,

depending on the yield. [49]

There was nothing easy about farm life in East Texas. According to family members, a

typical day for young J.D. started at 4:30 a.m. By then his father Edgar was already

out in the barn doing chores and his mother, “May Bug,” was cooking breakfast on

the wood-fired stove.

J.D. would head out to the back pasture to get the mules, wading through a

waist-high, dew-covered field of tall grass. He’d be soaked by the time he got them

back to the barn to be fed. While the mule team ate, the family sat down to

breakfast.

“For some reason, you didn’t think you could exist if you didn’t eat a great, big

breakfast,” J.D.’s brother-in-law and boyhood neighbor Jack Christopher

remembered. “You had biscuits, ham or bacon, eggs, gravy, churned butter, syrup or

some kind of jelly, and coffee.” [50]

After breakfast, J.D. would harness the team and head out to plow. The little

ones would wrap their hand around a hoe handle and go down to the field by

daylight to start hoeing the cotton or the corn. No one had a watch or had any way

to tell time, but when they could “stand up straight and step on the shadow of their

head with one foot,” they knew it was twelve o’clock noon and time for dinner.

Their mother always had dinner ready by the time they got back to the house.

Most of the time there was pork meat, beans, something out of the garden, and corn

bread – always corn bread. They drank milk, never tea.

After dinner, Edgar would take a thirty-minute nap on the porch. The kids didn’t

want to waste their “fun time,” so they’d play while he was asleep.

Then, it was back out to the field where they’d work until sundown.

“If you’d been plowin’” Jack remembered, “you’d bring the team back, take the

harness off, rub ’em down and feed ’em corn on the cob and oats. You had to feed

the team good because they’re what made your livin’ for you. And we had names for

all of them. Even the cows had names – Juney, Beauty, and Daisy.”

Finally, they’d “do up the work” which consisted of milking the cows, feeding the

hogs and chickens, cutting the wood and getting everything ready so that you

wouldn’t have to do it in the dark the next morning.

J.D.’s sister Christene was the best at milking the cows. She’d pet them and give

them nubbins – little ears of corn – while she milked them.

“They liked her milkin’ ‘em,” Jack recalled. “She’d say, ‘Back your leg.’ And they’d

do it. And they gave good milk because they liked her.”

The last meal of the day was usually small, consisting of leftovers from the noon-

time meal. [51]

“The farming then, of course, is not like it is now,” Jack said. “All of it was done

by hand. And let me tell you, whenever it came time to go to bed, nobody had to

rock you to sleep.” [52]

The Tippit children and their cousins on Baker Lane — L to R: (Back row) Wilburn

Harland Causey (with goggles), age 12; U.J. Mauldin (with fedora), age 10; J.D. Tippit,

age 16; William Edgar “Alton” Mauldin, (with cap), age 21; Della Mae Causey

(hidden), age 15; (Middle row) Donald Ray “Donnie” Tippit (with cap), age 10;

Dorothy Christene “Chris” Tippit, age 13; Doney Janett Baker, age 15; Sol Leonard

Causey, age 7; (Front row) John Wayne Tippit, age 4; Joyce Florenze Tippit (with

hands on face), age 7; Billy Gee Causey, age 5; and Carl Gene Baker, age 5. (ca. 1940)

Courtesy of Linda Mae (Christopher) Chaney

Families were close in those days and J.D. spent many enjoyable hours in the

company of brothers, sisters, and cousins. Money was scarce and the Tippits learned

to enjoy the simple pleasures, like their mother’s home-made pies. It was a well-

known fact that J.D. wasn’t above bargaining for an extra piece from one of his

siblings with some phantom cash.

“Well, J.D. would eat his piece of pie and some of us younger ones would save

part of ours,” his sister Joyce remembered fondly. “Later on J.D. would come around

and try to talk us out of ours by offering to buy part of it. Of course, he didn’t have a

dime, but he would tell us that he would pay us whenever he got some money.

“Wayne was his favorite victim,” she laughed. “That was a real inside joke

between the two of them. J.D. would always eat all of his own pie and then talk

Wayne out of his.” [53]

One of J.D.’s favorite relatives, a favorite shared by all the Tippit children, was their

mother’s brother, Uncle George Rush.

“Going to see ‘Mammie’ and Uncle George was just such a treat for us,” sister

Joyce recalled. “They always seemed so happy to see us, too.”

George and his mother Margaret “Mammie” Rush had come to Texas from the

Smokey Mountains of Tennessee in 1913. Uncle George was a terrific banjo picker,

and after family dinners he would often entertain his guests. But to his young nieces

and nephews, Uncle George will always be remembered as a master storyteller.

George Gray Rush, age 51, and J.D. Tippit, age 16, pretending to be a big game

hunters near Clarksville, TX. (1940)

Courtesy of Robert Jack and Dorothy Christene (Tippit) Christopher

“It was always tales of Tennessee,” Joyce remembered, with a twinkle in her

eye. “We knew every trail, every hill, and every hollow. And he always ended every

story, with an elaborate fabrication about how he got into it with a big bear. It’d

chase him up a tree or in a cave. And then he’d watch us to see our reaction, and

when we’d say, ‘Ah, Uncle George!’ why then he’d laugh and stomp his foot.

“I think J.D. was a lot like Uncle George. He was a prankster, and a cutup, and a

ham. He always loved being with folks who he could cutup with; people who

understood his humor, and all his inside jokes.” [54]

In 1934, Fulbright, Texas, located 13 miles southwest of Clarksville, was a thriving

town with two cotton gins, two banks, and a two story brick high school. J.D. rode

the bus there to attend high school after completing his early education at the

McCoy Community School. [55] It was at Fulbright High that he met his future wife,

Marie Frances Gasway. [56]

He was shy and reserved when away from family and friends and some mistook

his quiet side for fear. But, the rowdier school boys soon learned not to mess with

“Uncle Fudge” – a nickname J.D. hung on himself. [57]

“It wasn’t his nature to be tough or anything like that,” brother-in-law Jack

Christopher recounted. “I think everybody has two natures. J.D. could be just as soft

and kind as anybody you ever saw, and he could have a temper. But as far as starting

trouble and stuff of that nature, no.” [58]

Advanced schooling was a rarity in rural Texas in those days. Like their fathers

before them, farming was the ultimate destiny for most of the school boys in Red

River County. It seemed that way too for J.D., who struggled to keep his grades

above passing. In May, 1940, at the end of his sophomore year, he quit school and

settled in behind the family plow. [59]

In 1942, Lemuel Christopher, his wife Mary, and their eleven children, moved to

Baker Lane and the farm next to the Tippits. The Christopher and the Tippit families

were quite a bit different in temperament. The Tippits were rather reserved, but the

Christopher’s were loud and boisterous!

Jack’s father, Lem, owned a little general store in the Lone Star Community, the

kind with sawdust covered wood plank floor boards. And Jack’s mother, “Mamaw,”

was just a big kid herself who read funny stories to all her kids and had a ball right

alongside them.

“When they rolled out of those wagons,” niece Linda Chaney laughed, “they

literally split the country wide open.” [60]

It didn’t take long for the Christophers to become acquainted with their

neighbors.

“J.D. and I just hit it off,” Jack Christopher recalled. “He was a little older than

me, I was 16 and he was 18, but we found out that we had just about everything in

common. He liked to fish, and I liked to fish. He loved to hunt and I loved to hunt. He

loved the same music that I liked, which was Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. And

he liked western picture shows, which I liked and still do. And, we just became

inseparable friends. And I just loved the guy. I always called him ‘Tip’ from the very

first time I saw him.” [61]

Fulbright High School, Fulbright, Texas, (ca.1945) and J.D. Tippit (inset), age 17. (ca.

1941) The two-story brick building had a wood shop and a gym. A tornado destroyed

the school in 1959-60.

Fulbright H.S. courtesy of Katy Van Deaver; Inset courtesy of Joyce Florenze (Tippit)

DeBord

Jack and J.D.’s personalities, their character, everything about them just meshed

immediately.

“They had a friendship and a closeness that even brothers don’t have,” J.D.’s

sister Joyce recalled. “Both of them were funny, humorous; and always playing jokes

on each other. And when they could pull a joke on the other one, well that was even

funnier.” [62]

Robert Jack Christopher, age 17, and J.D. Tippit, age 19, in front of the courthouse at

Levelland, TX. (Fall, 1943)

Courtesy of Robert Jack and Dorothy Christene (Tippit) Christopher

“Jack and J.D. were always pulling pranks on each other,” brother Wayne said.

“They were up at the Birmingham community school one time and J.D. broke the

bridle bits on that old horse he had. He got mad and threw the bits out into the

pasture. And Jack got those bits and took ’em and wrapped ’em up and gave J.D.

those old broken bits in the next Christmas drawing at the school.” [63]

“J.D. was mischievous, alright,” Jack laughed. “He liked to pull tricks on people.

And I did too, I guess. One time, he said, ‘Come on, I’ve got an idea.’”

The pair made their way over to a dozen or so horses that were tied up and J.D.

started loosening all the saddle cinches, knowing that the riders would unexpectedly

be dumped to the ground when they mounted and rode off. Jack joined in and as

they went along he spotted J.D.’s own horse named ‘Bill.’ A devilish grin crept across

Jack’s face as he reached down and loosened ol’ Bill’s saddle cinches along with the

rest.

“Well, a little while later the party was goin’ pretty good,” Jack chuckled, “and

J.D. decided he was going to do a little trick riding for us, you know, do a Buck Jones*

mount. So, he got up on ol’ Bill and started to ride away real fast and over come the

saddle on top of him and ol’ Bill just kept on a goin’ down the road.”

Embarrassed, J.D. took off his hat, threw it down and said, “Whoever did that

just stomp this old hat and we’ll have it out right here. Fist to fist.”

“Naturally I had something else to do about that time,” Jack laughed. “Until the

day he died, I don’t guess I ever told him about loosening ol’ Bill’s saddle cinches. [64]

“But there’s no question that J.D. was a good horseman,” Jack added fondly. “He

was a good rider. I was a good rider. We rode together often. That Sorrel horse of his

stood about fifteen hands high. And ol’ Bill could run like the wind. He held a high

head. It was a beautiful thing.” [65]

J.D. and Jack did everything together. Hunting and fishing in Red River County was

plentiful. And there was no shortage of fond memories and funny stories.

“We did lots of hunting,” Jack remembered. “One time we found six possums in

a tree. We thought they were dead. We pulled ’em out and were going to skin ’em

and sell the hides and all this stuff and make us a whole bunch of money. We

brought ’em home and laid them out on the ground there and went in to eat dinner.

“When we came back out, why there wasn’t a possum to be seen anywhere.

They probably went back to the same tree and went back to bed. I don’t know.

Needless to say we didn’t get to sell any possum hides.” [66]

There were plenty of places to fish around the farm. Most of the time, the two

boys fished Scatter Creek and Cuthand Creek. Sometimes they had to slip by the

Belcher boys – the moon shiners, who were making something called, ‘Blanton Creek

Bourbon’ and ‘Ol’ Busthead’ — to their favorite fishing spot. [67]

There was one place along Cuthand Creek that they called the ‘Henry Hole.’

“I remember one time my Dad, Tip, and I were down there spending the night

fishing,” Jack recalled, “and I forget who else was there but they were all excited and

told my Dad, ‘We’ve got a big catfish on the line.’ It was dark and my Dad said, ‘Now,

everybody take it easy. I’m gonna sneak down there and see how big he is.’ Well, he

went down there and came back and said, ‘That thing must be huge. I’ve never seen

such a catfish in all my life.’

“So, J.D. and I went down there to see this big catfish. Anyway, it turned out to

be a big, soft shell turtle that they’d hooked in the foot. And the way his shell was

sticking up out of the water looked like two eyes. We laughed about that for years.” [68]

Edgar Tippit would get cross with J.D. and Jack because he didn’t want them hanging

around the Bakers or hanging around those bootleggers, the Belchers. He didn’t

want them smoking either. But both of them smoked from the time they were kids. [69]

“J.D. loved cigarettes ever since he was twelve years old,” Jack said. “We didn’t

have money to buy what we called ‘ready-rolled’ cigarettes when we were kids. So

what we did is we’d sneak and buy Prince Albert tobacco and roll our own cigarettes.

We must’ve smoked a million of them things, I’m telling you. Later on, we smoked

Camels. The last bunch J.D. was tangled up with was L&M’s. He was a heavy smoker

later in life – pack and a half a day; maybe two packs if he was working late at night.” [70]

In the early 1940s, Baker Lane was alive with families from north to south. There

were Bakers, McGuires, Christophers, Tippits, Pickles, Wards, Watsons, and other

families. [71]

Ironically, there was a Mr. and Mrs. John Kennedy [72] living on Baker Lane in

those days.

“They lived across and down the road from us,” Jack’s sister Zella related. “Mrs.

[Lillie] Kennedy was a sweet lady. But her husband [John K.] was always bragging

about fighting in World War I with General John J. ‘Black Jack’ Pershing. The way Mr.

Kennedy told his stories, General Pershing could not have commanded the battles

without him. He was General Pershing’s ‘right hand man.’ The adults paid Mr.

Kennedy no mind. But some of the young people were tired of Mr. Kennedy’s tall

tales.” [73]

There were very few things to entertain the young people of Baker Lane. Some

nights they would get together and just walk up and down the road, laughing and

talking and enjoying each other’s company.

One late fall evening, Jack and Mary Ethel Christopher, J.D. and Christene Tippit,

and neighbor Doyle McGuire had been over to Robert A. “Junior” Ward’s house

playing dominoes and listening to the radio and on the way back had to pass by the

Kennedy residence.

“As they approached Mr. Kennedy’s house they began laughing about General

Pershing’s ‘right hand man.’” [74]

Doyle picked up a big ol’ hard clod of black dirt and threw it onto the tin roof of

his house. It sounded like a cannon going off. Suddenly, Mr. Kennedy appeared in the

doorway and fired two rounds from his shotgun as the Baker Lane teens dove for

cover, and then lit out. [75]

“I was good friends with him,” ‘Junior’ Ward recalled, “and later he told me that

he wasn’t trying to shoot anyone, he just wanted to let the young people in the

neighborhood know that he was ‘awake and alert.’ Nobody got hurt, of course,

though it caused quite a commotion in the community. But, nobody tossed a clod of

dirt on his house anymore either.” [76]

After America entered World War II, J.D.’s father, Edgar, left the farm to work at

the war plant in Hooks, Texas. Jack’s father, Lem Christopher, shipped out to Pearl

Harbor as a blacksmith to aid in the recovery of the war ships that had been bombed

to the bottom of the harbor during the Japanese sneak attack. Back home, Jack and

J.D. were left to work the farm, a burden heavy with responsibility. The demand for

cotton, to support the war effort, was at an all time high and the need to produce a

bountiful harvest was keen. [77]

For the teenagers of Baker Lane, the war seemed far off. Amid the monotony of hard

work, they still managed to find time for occasional fun, giggles, and merriment.

One source of amusement for the young people of the area was “play” parties

that would often materialize informally. They consisted of made up games and old

favorites that harkened back to their ancestors from the southern mountains of

Tennessee and Kentucky. [78]

“We were about fifteen or sixteen,” Jack recalled. “There was horse racing, foot

racing, pop the whip, drop the handkerchief, and spin the bottle where you’d spin

the bottle and whoever the bottle pointed to, why then, you’d get to go walking with

them out in the moonlight.”

“Down to a certain place,” sister Christene smiled. “Then you’d turn around and

come back.”

“The entertainment that we had was usually very simple,” ‘Junior’ Ward said.

“We’d hitch the horses to the wagon, put hay in the wagon and all the youngsters

would get in, and we’d ride around. Sometimes, other communities would have

parties and we’d attend theirs or they’d come to ours. We all more or less just

enjoyed being together.” [79]

“Most of the time we would meet at somebody’s house out in the yard,” Jack

explained “Not in the house at all hardly, unless it was raining or something. It was

kind of a yard party. Sometimes we would get out in the middle of the dirt road and

build us up a campfire – the roads were hardly used then. We didn’t have no

refreshments or anything.

“Sometimes we would just go to somebody’s house and listen to the radio. We

used to listen to Lum and Abner, Amos and Andy, Fibber McGee and Molly, Bob

Hope, Bing Crosby, and others. You could see ’em in your mind’s eye. Not everyone

had a radio, of course. And you could hardly hear the programs for all the static

you’d get out there in the country.” [80]

Families were constantly socializing at community events in those days. Pie suppers

or basket suppers were held to collect money for the Sunday school or the church to

help cover expenses.

“The way it worked,” Jack explained, “is the girls would bake a pie or a basket of

fried chicken, stuff of that nature and cover it up. You weren’t supposed to know

whose it was. Then, the boys would bid on them and the highest bidder got to eat

lunch or dinner or the pie with the girl that made it.

“Most of the time the boys knew whose pie it was anyway,” Jack laughed. “The

girls would get around and tell their boyfriends how it was going to be marked so

you didn’t have to eat with someone you didn’t want to.” [81]

“They were having this pie supper one time,” ‘Junior’ Ward laughed, “and they

set this pie on the ledge of the window there and it just looked so tempting and none

of us had any money and so we decided we’d at least eat a pie before the night was

through. And we did.” [82]

It turned out to be both an inside and outside job.

“It was in the summertime and it was hot, and the window was up and didn’t

have a screen on it,” Jack remembered. “J.D. went in there, and shoved the pie onto

the window sill and ‘Junior’ was outside and reached in and got it, and we cut a path

down to the creek and ate it.” [83]

“I think the statute of limitations has run out on it,” ‘Junior’ Ward laughed. “We

got by it all right. Community people like that — out in the country — they gave the

teenagers a lot of slack then, you know?” [84]

Town Square, Clarksville, Texas.

Author’s Collection

Saturday afternoon was a big day for the families living along Baker Lane. Most of

the time they didn’t have to work Saturday afternoon. That’s when they’d go to

Clarksville; a small community of about 4,000 people founded in 1837 and located six

miles northeast of the Tippit farm.

The town square was the focal point. Folks would come to town, buy goods, and

then pass the afternoon walking around the square greeting people they knew, just

as their grandparents had done a hundred years earlier.

The Tippit and Christopher teens usually went to town together and spent the

afternoon walking the square and taking in a movie at one of the local theaters.

“You could go to the movie for a dime in those days,” sister Joyce remembered.

“There were two shows – the Avalon and the State. The Avalon was a little more

affluent; they showed a little more of the newer movies and things. So usually we’d

go there.” [85]

“We’d take a quarter to town and have more fun on that quarter than most

people have on twenty dollars today,” brother Wayne added. [86]

The Christophers didn’t have a car, so J.D. would borrow his Dad’s car on

Saturday and drive all the teens from both families into town.

“Daddy would always lecture J.D. about taking good care of that car,” Joyce

remembered, “and not be hot-rodding in it and all of that.” Did he listen?

“Sort of,” she laughed. [87]

J.D. loved westerns and all the stars of his day but his favorite movie star of all

time was Clark Gable.

“He wanted to be just like Gable,” Jack said. “In fact, I know that week to week

he could grow an instant mustache because one time his Dad come in and said, ‘I

saw J.D. in town and I didn’t even know who he was.’ He said J.D. had painted a

mustache on his lip and he didn’t even recognize him.” [88]

As they grew older, the Baker Lane teenagers, affectionately known to each

other as “The Baker Lane Gang,” would hang out in Clarksville until after dark on

Saturday nights, enjoy a burger and a Coke, and catch the late show at the Avalon

Theater. Then, they’d head home under the stars in J.D.’s borrowed car.

There wasn’t a church as such to attend in rural Red River County. Most of the time,

a circuit preacher would come and hold a revival meeting and a lot of people would

go every night for a week till he left. But then, at other times the people of the

community might not attend a service but once or twice a month.

“Whatever the denomination was we went to it,” Jack Christopher recalled. “We

didn’t know the difference. If it was Baptist or a Methodist or a whatever, we went

to that service.” [89]

The families living on Baker Lane usually attended services at the Birmingham or

Lone Star Community Schools, making their way down muddy roads in large groups

of a dozen or more.

Avalon Theater, Clarksville, Texas.

Author’s Collection

On Saturday, May 8, 1943, while heading to church services, something unexpected

happened to the young people of Baker Lane.

“A group of us were going to a church meeting in the next community,” ‘Junior’

Ward recalled, “and we were walking down Baker Lane and Jack’s younger sister,

Mary Ethel, suggested that she and I race to a bridge that must have been fifty yards

ahead. Of course, I was fairly fleet of foot and so I was quite a bit a head of her when

I reached the bridge and I looked back and she was lying on the side of the road

about half way between me and the rest of the group. And I thought she had just

gotten tired and so I ran back to her, getting there at about the same time the others

did. We thought maybe she had fainted or something and so we dampened a rag in a

nearby pool of water and tried to revive her, but it just wasn’t working.

Looking north along Baker Lane today with Mary Ethel Christopher (inset), at age 14.

(ca.1943)

Courtesy of Linda Mae (Christopher) Chaney

“So, Jack, J.D. and I picked her up and carried her down to the end of Baker Lane

and around the corner, south there on Highway 37, to the house where ex-Sheriff H.

Ross Smiley and his wife, Eva, lived. We told Mrs. Smiley what had happened and she

had us bring her in and lay her on the bed. And then she told me to go get Mr.

Smiley. He was in the next room lying down. I went in and got him and he came out

and being much older than the rest of us, and being an ex-Sheriff – he had seen

things before – and he told us right then and there that the girl was dead.

“It really shook us up. She was fourteen. She had a wonderful personality; just

smiling all the time. Very outgoing. A beautiful young girl.” [90]

Word spread that Mary Ethel had been the victim of an apparent aneurysm. The

family would never know the exact cause for sure — an autopsy was an expense no

one on Baker Lane could afford. [91] The shocking and heartbreaking death of one so

young galvanized the entire community and carved deep impressions into J.D. and

the young people of Baker Lane.

That summer, J.D., his sister Chris, and best friend Jack, accepted the word of

the Lord at a revival meeting held by E.W. “Buck” Verner and his wife Jewell at a

tabernacle erected near the Birmingham Community School, north of their farms. [92]

“We called it a tabernacle,” Jack related. “This was made of wood. But it didn’t

have no sides, you know, just posts all around and a top to keep the rain off you.” [93]

“We were baptized in *John+ Cagle’s Pool, near Highway 37. It was an old rock

pit. They mined the white rock out of there to build the road into

Clarksville. That was a white rock road at one time. It wasn’t paved. They made it

all the way to Bogata with that white rock. Boy, you could see a car coming a mile

away. It looked like one of those desert scenes in the movies.” [94]

In June, the Tippits faced a crisis of their own. Edgar Lee and Mae separated and filed

for divorce, a scandalous thing in those days. Despite a brief attempt at

reconciliation, J.D.’s parents parted for good, his mother moving to Oklahoma City to

live with her sister, Sadie Hamilton. [95]

J.D.’s oldest sister, Christene, took on the motherly duties around the Tippit

household. The younger siblings shuttled back and forth between Oklahoma and

Texas for more than a year until they finally settled for good in Red River County with

Edgar and his new wife, Mary Lee Daniels. It was a sad and hard time for the Tippit

family, one that was especially trying for the oldest son. [96]

In the fall of 1943, J.D. and Jack headed down to Andrews, Texas, and hired out

to pick cotton.

“My uncle lived down there and he had about 500 acres of cotton,” Jack

recalled. “And you can imagine that’s a pretty good job. I was seventeen and J.D. was

nineteen. We did it for the adventure of it. We worked for him for a while and then

moved on to a place called Sundown, which was near Levelland in West Texas, where

we hired out to the Chicago Bridge and Iron Company building 85,000 gallon crude

oil storage tanks. We worked out there until close to Christmas time when a blue

northern blew in and froze cattle standing on their feet. So, we came on home.” [97]

J.D. and Jack loved to be around people who were colorful and one source of

amusement for the pair was the Bakers, who owned a large farm and much of the

land on Baker Lane. The head of the family was James and Emma (everyone

pronounced her name, Emmer), whose grown boys were notorious for knock down

drag out fights that drew Jack and J.D. like a magnet.

On Christmas day, 1943, after they’d eaten dinner with their own families, J.D.

suggested they go down to the Bakers for a little fun and see if any “fireworks”

developed. They arrived at the Baker house and were sitting on the front porch

when the Bakers’ 21-year-old cousin Doyle McGuire showed up and got into it with

one of the Baker boys over a saddle that he had “borrowed” leaving the complainant

without one.

“He was out there giving Doyle a cussing,” Jack recalled with a grin, “and Doyle

was threatening to beat him up and out come Clara (Baker) McGuire, Doyle’s

mother, a wisp of a woman like her own mother and she was holding them both

apart – both these men weighed 150 to 200 pounds a piece.

“Well, me and J.D., the whole time we were punching each other with our

elbows and laughing, you know. We were having fun.”

Just when they thought the situation would get out of hand, Grandma “Emmer”

Baker, the 76-year-old matriarch of the family, who was nearly on her deathbed with

pneumonia, suddenly appeared in the doorway, barely able to stand. Emma Baker

weighed no more than 90 pounds, but she knew how to handle the tall, big-boned

Baker boys.

“Grandma come out and gave the whole works a ‘blue cussing’ and run ’em all

off,” Jack laughed. “It was nine miles to town, and it’d been raining for a month, and

she told Doyle, ‘I’m gonna have you prosecuted if it costs me a walk to town with

pneumonia!’ And man, that was the funniest thing. Every time we’d think about it,

well me and Tip would die laughing about the fiasco at the Baker place on Christmas

day. But, that was like the Bakers. That was Baker Lane.” [98]

Emma (nee Igo) Baker, age 72, and James Wilburn Baker, age 73. (ca.1939)

Courtesy of Michael Baker

The life of innocence on Baker Lane was drawing to a close by the end of 1943. J.D.

had grown into a rather handsome young man — ruggedly built, with a tanned

complexion, dark eyes, heavy lips and thick black hair. Childhood memories and

teenage anxieties were giving way to thoughts of an uncertain future.

A faded page from his sister Christene’s memory book records the signatures of

the close-knit Baker Lane gang who together learned the value of hard work and

friendships; lessons that would last a lifetime. Each signed their name along with a

phrase or nickname they were known by. In the lower right corner of the page, J.D.

scrawled his own ironic remembrance.

“J.D. was always talking about how he was going to go someplace,” Jack

remembered, “and everyone was going to miss him when he was gone. That’s why

he wrote, ‘My farewell.’” [99]

For J.D., it was the end of an era.

A page from Christene Tippit’s Memory Book signed by the Baker Lane “Gang”. (ca.

1943)

Courtesy of Dorothy Christene (Tippit) Christopher

In early 1944, Edgar Lee moved his family to a rented farm in the Birmingham

community, and the Tippits said goodbye to Baker Lane and the life they had loved

so well.

For J.D., the war was beginning to weigh heavily on his mind. Although he knew

it was important to the war effort that boys like himself needed to stay home and

farm cotton, many of his friends had joined or had been drafted into the service. As

the war dragged on, J.D. grew a little touchy about his rightly deserved farm

deferment.

“Batesville was a well known place along Highway 82,” pal Jack Christopher

explained. “They had two stores. One was the Wilson store, and the other one was

Bates’ Store – from which the town was named. We used to go there and catch a bus

to Clarksville for a dime. Well, anyway, Mr. [Thomas M.] Bates, ran the store and we

knew him real well. And his wife [Lula] was always asking J.D. why he wasn’t in the

service. Of course, J.D. was a big ol’ guy, you know, six foot tall and I know he looked

a whole lot older than I did. She’d say, ‘Everybody else is in the army, why aren’t you

in the army, J.D.?’ And he’d say, ‘Well, they just haven’t called me yet. I’m sure I’ll go

whenever they do call me,’ you know. The next time we’d go in there, she’d ask

again, ‘Why aren’t you in the army, J.D.?’ And one time he told me, ‘I’ve had enough

of her, you watch me this time.’ And sure enough she asked, ‘Why aren’t you in the

army?’ And he said, ‘Why aren’t you in the WACs! They’re still takin’ ‘em, you know.’

And she got mad and said, ‘Well, I never,’ and went on into the back of the store. She

didn’t ask anymore after that.” [100]

J.D. Tippit, age 19

Courtesy of Joyce Florenze (Tippit) DeBord

Not long after that, J.D. learned that his Baker Lane pal, Jack Christopher, would

also be joining the ranks of the fighting force in Europe. The farm deferment that had

kept J.D. out of the fighting and on the front lines of cotton production didn’t seem

to be sacrifice enough.

“J.D. and I talked about everything,” Jack recalled. “And at one point he said, ‘I

could get another deferment, but I just don’t feel right about it. All these other guys

are out there. They’re going into the army, training, and going over seas; you’ll be

going, too.’ He said, ‘I just don’t feel right being on the outside any longer.’” [101]

Company D, 67th Battalion, Infantry Replacement Training Center (IRTC), Camp

Wolters, Texas

J.D. Tippit (inset and front row, fifth from left), age 20. (December, 1944)

Courtesy of Mary Lee (Daniels) Tippit

J.D.’s sister, Joyce, remembers the day in April, 1944, that he made up his mind

to do something about it.

“He’d been acting like he had something on his mind,” Joyce recollected, “and

he was real edgy, which wasn’t like him because he was a pretty carefree, happy-go-

lucky kind of guy. Anyway, on this particular day he had gone to the field to plow and

something broke. And he came in, turned the team of mules loose in the pasture,

and went into town. When he came back that evening, he told the family that he’d

enlisted in the army. And I remember it was like a burden had been lifted off his

shoulders.” [102]

On July 21, 1944, nineteen-year-old J.D. Tippit reported to the induction center in

Dallas, Texas, and headed off to begin seventeen weeks of basic training at Camp

Wolters* near Mineral Wells, Texas — one of the nation’s largest training centers

which covered 7,500 acres and carried a troop capacity of 24,973. [103]

While J.D. was away, his best friend and Baker Lane pal, Jack Christopher,

married J.D.’s sister, Christene. [104]

On leave in early December, 1944, [105] J.D. told his new brother-in-law about his

intention to join the airborne and train to become a paratrooper — America’s new,

elite fighting force. J.D. knew it would require a strenuous training period, but it was

something he wanted to do — perhaps, something he felt he needed to do to make

up for the years of farm deferments. [106]

“If something needed to be done, J.D. never slacked on doing it,” Jack recalled.

“His service record bares that out. Let me tell you, being a paratrooper is some of the

roughest stuff in the army. And he volunteered for that. That says a whole lot about

his character.” [107]

Robert Jack Christopher, age 18, and Dorothy Christene Tippit, age 17. (January,

1945)

Courtesy of Mary Lee (Daniels) Tippit

At twenty, J.D. Tippit rode the rails to Fort Benning, Georgia, to train with the 17th

Airborne Division. Training to become a paratrooper was a very big deal during

World War II, as it is today.

It consisted of four grueling weeks designed to push a man’s mental and physical

endurance to the breaking point. More than half the volunteers washed out in the

first two weeks. For those who volunteered for the program, basic training seemed

like a picnic compared to the endless hours of pushups, rope climbing, tumbling

exercises, long day and night runs, and combat training. If you failed to make the

grade in any area of training, you were out – no second chances. Those who survived

were considered the elite of the Army’s fighting force. [108]

J.D. made six qualifying jumps loaded down with combat gear between early

January and mid-February, 1945, at altitudes of 1,200, 1,000, 800, and 600 feet. And

he was not immune to the fear that crosses men’s minds as they circle the jump

field, writing in his training handbook, “I am scared most” while on the way to the

jump field. [109] But, he did what was necessary, and earned his wings as a

paratrooper. [110]

On March 7, 1945, J.D. shipped out to France aboard the U.S. Army transport John

W. McAndrews to join parachute infantry replacements for the 513th Battalion, 17th

Airborne. [111]

In the early morning hours of March 13, when the convoy was 160 miles

northwest of the Azores Islands, tragedy struck. The French aircraft carrier Bearn lost

its steering due to an electrical failure and swung into the bow of the John W.

McAndrews, ripping a forty foot wide gash from deck to keel. The onrushing waters

of the North Atlantic swept 81 of the one hundred and thirty four men sleeping in

Hold No.1 into the sea. The rest, including J.D., scrambled to safety. Thirteen men

were subsequently rescued, 68 vanished beneath the heavy seas. [112]

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