Homer’s Bill Sheldon served in the United States Military in Japan from 1954 to 1957, post-World War 2 when the nation of Japan was in the process of post-war recovery. He started our conversation this week more about the general history of Homer’s American Legion Post 16 named after General Simon Buckner by sharing historical documents from the Post. Paul Jones, member of the post since 1951 and historian in 1988 composed these details:
“The American Legion Post #16 is named in honor of Lt. Simon Buckner who was a commander of the Alaskan Defense land based aviation to repel the Japanese invasion of Alaska. He commanded forces in the Aleutian Islands including the Battle of Attu and Kiska. General Buckner was the highest ranking officer killed in the Pacific Theater,” according to the post document.
The first recorded meeting of the post was in October of 1945 and it achieved permanent status in May of 1953. First American Legion posts were chartered by the United States Congress in 1919 as a patriotic veterans organization. According to the document composed by Jones and shared with KBBI, Homer’s “post 16’s greatest accomplishment was the founding and construction of the Hickerson Memorial Cemetery, located on Diamond Ridge.
After his service to the military, Sheldon moved to Alaska–originally to Kodiak Island to assist a family member with his ranch on the south side of the island and then to Homer in the spring of 1959 where he homesteaded on East End Road. Post-World War II, Sheldon was “talked into getting involved with the Alaska Air Guard.”
“...and then became a flight engineer and all that stuff with the Alaska Air Guard, and that's where I finished out my 20 years to get a little bit of retirement and insurance from the military so that, but it was that was good. We did a lot of travel, and especially in later years when we got the bigger airplanes at the Air Guard where we kind of went worldwide. And so anyway, so that was the military end of it.”
With the Alaska Air Guard, Sheldon shared some memories related to Alaska’s 1964 earthquake. He lived in Anchorage at the time and provided service assistance to Kodiak and Valdez.
“Oh, yeah, we lived in Anchorage. In fact, our house was not very far from that Earthquake Park. In fact, we took off the next morning because that after the earthquake, of course, we didn't know what was going on, but at midnight somebody was banging on the door, you know? And it was one of the guys, guys from the guard that we had been activated. And so I was on the first plane to Kodiak, because there was no communication with the Navy base down there. And so, yeah, when we flew into Kodiak, out there in the bay, there was a Super Cub on floats. It was floating around upside down, a couple houses that had been washed out by the tidal wave. Our house wasn't damaged much, and in Anchorage, but boy, it shook ... .well, I think it is still marked in downtown Kodiak, where the high water is…”
The American Legion birthday event will be held on September 6th from 3 to 7 p.m. at the Post located at 2410 East End Rd. Proceeds and donations collected from the event will benefit Veterans and Post 16 activities and projects.
