By Dee Longfellow
Editor
“Ever feel like you’ve been someplace before,
“Some other time, some other war…”
Following is a special Memorial Day column, on the occasion that we remember those who served, especially those who have fallen…
“Something about this place is familiar, but I’m not sure why.”
Those were the words of Rae LaVonne Powell Miller Hughes as she sat in a San Diego restaurant a few years ago with her two grown sons, Bob Miller and Ray Paul Hughes, their wives and the grandchildren.
Sharp as she was in her 80s, it took Rae a few moments to take that mental walk back through the history of her life.
At that time, Rae and her new husband Lieutenant Charles Miller were expecting their first child when the young well-experienced pilot was ordered to ship out and fly missions in the Solomon Islands campaign during WWII.
The couple bid farewell at the San Diego U. S. Naval Base, where she watched her handsome husband ride away on a ferryboat to the ship that would take him to the South Pacific. While it must have been sad, she had to find some comfort in their connection that was the future Robert Charles Miller growing in her belly.
That was the last time she ever saw Lt. Charles Miller.
Several months later, a group of pilots, Lt. Miller among them, flew to Espirito Santo to exchange old planes for newer ones at New Hibrides Island.
On their way back to the base, the group of six planes ran into stormy weather. The command leader had one pair fly up overhead and another drop below to look for clearer weather, a standard operating procedure, or SOP, used by Navy pilots during bad weather.
It’s unknown whether Lt. Miller’s plane went upwards or down on command, but the four planes that did were never seen again. The two planes that had stayed put survived.
Actually, the command leader said later he was able to see one of the planes — who knows which one — spiral down into the ocean where, from his point of view, “it looked like milk in a blender.”
If this was a movie, we’d fade back to the restaurant at this time as Rae looks across the table at her son Bob Miller, then a bun in the oven, now a father and grandfather in his 60s, sitting with his own offspring.
It then dawned on her.
Pictured are Lt. and Mrs. Charles Miller, of Rockwell City, Iowa, who were married before he was shipped to the South Pacific to serve in the Solomon Islands. The pilot never returned.
“This is the restaurant we came to eat lunch just before Charles Miller took off for the South Pacific,” she said, also remembering there was another couple with them. “Then we all walked a few blocks over to the Naval Base to see him off on that ferryboat. That’s the last time I ever saw him and that’s the last time I was here.”
Got goosebumps? It should be pointed out that the family trip to San Diego and to the restaurant, was not planned in any way, like a surprise. While familiar with the circumstances around Lt. Miller’s disappearance, it dawned on neither Bob nor Ray Paul that any restaurant or anything on their visit would have meaning to their mother; they were not taking her there for that purpose. It was simply a vacation to spend time doing tourist things.
Back to the Forties, Rae was living in her hometown of Rockwell City, Iowa, (coincidentally MY hometown!), where she gave birth to Robert Charles Miller in September of 1945. Later, she married Ray E. Hughes — yes, they were Ray and Rae. They had three children of their own, twins Becky and Cathy and their youngest, aptly named Ray Paul. (Side note: Ray Paul named his own daughter Rae Ann.)
Ray and Rae’s life-long best friends over the next 50 years in Rockwell City were Howard & Pauline Longfellow — my parents. But that’s another column…
