Jacket’s travels jog war memories

The Facebook message from a stranger baffled Jeb Reid, if only for a few minutes.

The sender was curious if the World War II-era U.S. Army Air Corps jacket he’d just purchased belonged to Reid’s father. Reid wasn’t even aware the garment that had hung in the closet of his parents’ Oklahoma City home for almost as long he could remember was gone.

Turns out a decade or so ago his niece, Katy, fancied the waist-length coat as a fashion statement, got permission to take it and wore it for a while.

“She apparently saw the uniform and just thought it would be a cool thing to be wearing,” Jeb Reid said. “Kind of retro.”

The jacket got around. During a trip to New Mexico to visit a friend, Katy’s car broke down and she was forced to make the return trip by bus. She had to pack light, so she left the jacket behind with her friend, who eventually either sold it or left it behind when she later moved.

A collector in Texas bought the jacket, then sold it to Chris Johnson, an Ohio-based collector. Jim Reid’s name had been sewn into one of the pockets. Working solely with that information, Johnson worked the internet, found an obituary, got Jeb’s name from

it and searched for him on Facebook.

“I never knew my dad’s jacket was AWOL,” Reid joked. “But it’s pretty neat.”

Jeb confirmed details to Johnson, including his father’s service in the China-Burma-India Theater during the war, signified by a patch on the jacket. The jacket also included rare harpshaped lapel pins.

“He (the collector) was intrigued by that,” Jeb said. “The condition of the jacket was pretty pristine and those lapel badges are unique. Apparently, he had seen it at a show the year before, thought about buying it, but didn’t. And then he saw the guy again late last year at a convention and decided to go ahead and purchase it.”

Johnson, 35, of Cincinnati, has been collecting World War II memorabilia for a quarter century. His father even uses the items to help facilitate his teaching at a nearby community college.

In the case of Jim Reid’s dress jacket, the harpshaped insignia on the lapel are rare, worn by the small number of people who played in military bands during the war. Reid’s jacket was unique in other ways as well, Johnson said.

It was custom tailored overseas. Even the patches are different, made in theater.

This is the first time Johnson has traced the origins of a uniform he’s acquired, but said he plans to keep doing so.

“It’s not just a uniform,” Johnson said. “There was a man or woman behind that and they had motivation to serve and volunteer for our country.”

Grounded

The elder Reid traveled an unusual path through World War II. He wanted to be a pilot like his father, a friend of Wylie Post, and perhaps fly B-17s in Europe or elsewhere. He enlisted in 1943 and did his basic training at Randolph Field near San Antonio. Afterward he entered flight school there, but a future in the air wasn’t to be.

Six months later, his days as a pilot came to and end when he couldn’t distinguish the colored lights on the landing strip during a nighttime mission.

“It turned out he was color blind,” Jeb Reid said. “They washed him out of flight school.””

How Jim Reid got that far remains a bit of a mystery. His wife of more than 50 years, Elaine Reid, said he figured out a way to defeat the colorblindness test they gave when he enlisted.

“He and a friend did something to the test,” Reid’s widow said. “I’m not really sure what that was, but when they found out he was color blind, the doctors really wanted to know how he got past it.”

His flying days over, Jim Reid landed the posting some might envy. Turns out, the base marching band needed a drummer. Reid had that covered. Not long after he’d enrolled at Oklahoma A&M in the late 1930s, he’d formed a dance band called the “Varsitonians.”

The band played college gigs, and its ranks included guitarist Barney Kessel, who would go on to play on records for everyone from Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland to the Monkees and The Beach Boys.

“The beauty of it was they found out he was a musician and immediately plugged him into the marching band as a percussionist,” Jeb Reid said. “My mom always said my dad’s musical ability is probably what helped him survive the war.”

Jim Reid went on to coordinate logistics for flights over “The Hump,” a treacherous route flown by heavily loaded transport aircraft over the eastern end of the Himalayas to help supply war efforts against the Japanese. Nearly 600 aircraft and more than 1,500 fliers were lost in the area during the war. Reid took the dangerous flight at least once, and perhaps more.

“The attrition rate for pilots and crews was absurd,” Jeb Reid said.

A piece of history

Jim Reid never talked much about his service, his son said.

He was the classic “Greatest Generation,” kind of guy, Jeb Reid said.

“Low key. He just kind of kept his head down. He was the bread winner and that was his job and that’s what he did.”

The jacket hung in the closet for as long as Jeb and his two sisters could remember.

“Anytime you’d have to dig something out of the closet, you’d see it,” he said.

Nobody knows why Jim held onto the jacket. He never wore it, and rarely if ever took it out.

“I guess that was his way of reminding himself of what he had been through, which was really a blessing in a way,” Elaine Reid said. “I don’t know that he ever heard a gunshot.”

He never became a pilot, but Jim Reid found joy behind a drum kit. He played gigs with a band well into his later years. He died in 2005.

“When he got behind the drums, he came alive,” Jeb Reid said. “That was something he truly loved.”

Elaine and Jim met after the war on a blind date.

“My friend, Pat, was a singer and my other friend, Mary, were roommates and I would visit them,” Elaine Reid said. “They loved Jim’s sense of humor so I went out with him.”

It was a natural match. Eventually, Elaine decided Oklahoma A&M was a good landing spot for her college studies.

“We became friends and then we fell in love,” she said.

Jim, who had initially gone to college as an engineering major, changed his mind later after meeting a foreign correspondent during the war. He went on to work for The Daily Oklahoman as a reporter for three decades covering city hall, and writing an automotive column among other jobs. He was inducted into the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame in 2002.

Jeb Reid doesn’t want his father’s jacket back.

“People have asked me that,” he said. “But what would I do with it? I’d put it back in our closet or on a mannequin. This is a guy who cherishes it, and who is keeping my dad’s story alive.”

Johnson feels fortunate to have the jacket.

“From everything I’ve learned, his father was an exceptional man who had a great ear for the drums but also a great heart for journalism and reporting. He lived an extraordinary life. People served in so many different ways and this is a piece of that history.” Do you have photos, letters, diaries, mementos or a good tale you’d like to share with our readers related to World War II? If so, drop us a line at mpatterson@oklahoman.com.

Also, visit the Memories of War special coverage page for all content related to this project.