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Erskine Ramsay Statum (1922-2007)
My Great American Hero By Scott Burchfield
Twenty-three Year Old Joins the Navy
	• 1943 Joins Navy before being drafted •Navy offered higher pay and rank than Air Force

• My Papa worked at ACIPCO in Birmingham. •He ran a charging crane. •The Navy office told him it was “crying for men like him” to operate cranes in the rebuilding of Pearl Harbor and to work in a brand new branch of the U. S. Navy.	•
• Boot Camp •Attended Naval Boot Camp at Camp Peary, near Williamsburg, Virginia • •More training at Camp Parks near Oakland, California • •Sent to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii for several weeks then…
My Papa Became a Seabee
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• Summer 1944 – Sailed to Tinian (Island in the Central Pacific) Ran a D-8 Caterpillar tractor Had to flatten the island using huge charges of dynamite Dynamite was put into holes of coral Built 6 enormous air fields for B-29 Bombers
• North Airfield Tinian -World’s largest airdrome 1945 – Four 8500 Ft. runways, 13 taxiways, and 230 hardstands Built by the Seabees (My Papa) in 6 months!
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