PURESOME REMEMBERED

That fluttering sound you detected on May 20 was the flapping of wings greeting a new arrival far-far above the contrail level.

 

Commander Jack D. Woodul, USNR (Ret) died at his New Mexico ranch after a prolonged illness at 85.  He left a huge gap in the lives of his beautiful, talented wife Carolyn, their two sons, and thousands of admirers.

 

Jack Woodul was an intriguing mixture.  He was of medium height, compact and muscular with a perpetual gleam in his eyes.  He’d been a devoted marathoner until his knees gave out.  

 

On the outside he was wry, humorous, and personable.  On the inside lurked Youthly Puresome, naval aviation’s Everyman Junior Officer, the sort you want beside you in a food fight, fist fight, or dogfight. 

 

In some 35,000 hours aloft, Jack flew a wide variety of aircraft.  He went to war in A-4 Skyhawks aboard USS Independence in 1965 and resented the hell out of the U.S. Navy for denying him a second helping.  So he went Reserve, flying Crusaders and Phantoms when he wasn’t working his way up the Delta (“Grits Airways”) ladder from flight engineer to transoceanic jumbo jet captain, rated in five airliners.

 

I flew with Jack twice, in his speedy Bellanca (dubbed “Giuseppe,” you can look it up) and his overpowered Air Cam that jumped off the ground although Jack insisted he got nose bleeds above 50 feet. He was a smooooth pilot.

 

Jack’s Navy service included a tour as an A-4 instructor at Jacksonville, Florida, where he trained a wide variety of pilots.  They included future Senator John McCain (Jack was unimpressed) and the first class of Israeli Skyhawk pilots (Jack was highly impressed.)

 

Jack conceived Youthly Puresome for a twenty-year feature in The Hook, quarterly journal of the Tailhook Association.  He and I received our lifetime achievement awards in 1998, the year our World War I epic was copyrighted. (Read on for more details)

 

At annual Tailhook meetings Jack held down the Skyhawk suite, a “ready room” for convivial gatherings whether attendees had flown A-4s or not.  The variety was exceptional, including regulars Captain Royce Williams who received a much-belated Medal of Honor early this year at 101, and the colorful Commander Bart Flaherty, a former State Department operative whose foreign relations began in the rear cockpit of a Phantom over North Vietnam.

 

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Jack’s fellow warrior and soul mate is Roy “Shadow” Stafford.  He set a near-unique record, transitioning from enlisted Marine infantryman in Vietnam to RF-4 Phantom aviator.  His Black Shadow aviation shop in Florida provided world-class restorations to the museum community.  He recalls:

 

“Naval Aviation has lost an incredible Brother. For decades he brightened our lives with tales that made us laugh… at ourselves and others. He was irreverent…yet intuitive about things in life that most of us could relate to.  As long as we live, we will all remember the ‘Tales of Youthly Puresome.’ 

 

“I am deeply saddened, for I have also lost a dear friend.  A man who encouraged me and would always take the time to share his wisdom and knowledge. He was like a big brother to me.  I will forever be grateful to Barrett Tillman for introducing us to each other. It was a true life blessing.

 

“We all have our ups and downs in this thing called life… but in some of my darkest times… he never failed to make me laugh. Oh dear God, what a blessing… The Man made me laugh… he made me LAUGH! Again, what a blessing it was to open The Hook and read his latest gift.  I might add that besides the humor, each gift contained a little nugget that only us Naval Aviators could relate too. That made it even more special. He was truly unique and one of a kind!

 

“To his family, thank you for sharing him all these decades.  I know he was proud of you and loved you dearly. 

 

“God Speed Puresome.  We will always remember you and be a little jealous that only “The Big Guy” will be enjoying your tales first hand! Until we meet again… All the Best! Thanks for the memories!

 

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From another longtime colleague, Lieutenant Commander Rick Morgan of the EA-6B Prowler community:

 

“Heard this morning that my good friend Jack Woodul has passed. Jack was from Portales, and a New Mexico ROTC grad who became a Naval Aviator.  He flew A-4s with VA-86 in Vietnam and then left the regulars to work with the Reserves in F-8s and then F-4s, all this while he rose through the ranks at Delta to become an international pilot in 767s.  

 

“Jack was a one of a kind; a friend from the first meeting (Hook '96) and well known from his work in The Hook as "Youthly Puresome", which covered his many adventures in the business. 

 

“His wife Carolyn has movie star good looks and is a beautiful person. They were married before ROTC midshipmen were allowed to have brides and hid it from the Navy.

 

“He was big on nicknames.  Carolyn got hers when he was feeling playful as an airline captain and she was wearing her new mink coat with a cabin announcement after landing. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are pleased to have on board that famous Italian movie actress, Tunita del Mundo. She's wearing a mink coat in first class. Be sure and say hello.’

 

“I feel like a better person knowing both of them and will miss his wit and opinions in E-mails and other correspondence. He represented everything I love in Naval Aviation.” 

 

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With our unindicted co-conspirator Commander R.R. “Boom” Powell, Jack and I conducted a years-long project to produce a World War I novel, Duel Over Douai.  Email evidence indicates origin around 2009, e-published in 2021 and the print edition in 2024.  

 

https://www.amazon.com/Duel-Over-Douai-novel-aviation-ebook/dp/B09KXBVKCP

 

Aside from our collective aviation experience—Boom had flown Great War replica aircraft—we cast each of ourselves as characters in the novel.  Boom was the Brit, I was a German princeling, and Jack was George Armostrong Cody, a Texas mankiller who fled to the European war via Canada.

 

Jack’s character was self-descriptive when Cody told an obnoxious Brit, “I am no gentleman.  My mother taught me to read and write.  My father taught me what it was to be a man.  I have lived a rough life, but it is important to do what is right…You don’t abuse machinery or animals, and you take care of those you choose to run with.”

 

In person and in print, Jack described the warrior aura of Little Bighorn: ghostly trumpet triplets wafting on the wind that rustled the long grass where Yellow Hair died with his command.

 

He was especially fond of animals, from his flock of “goatlets” to large canines (“Buddy Moose Dog” et al) plus horses.  He guarded them all with a Winchester .30-06 zeroed to several rocks on Rancho Delmundo.

 

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Jack was warrior down to his DNA; he declared himself “De Portales Gonsleenger.”  His family provided combatants to America’s wars “because that’s what men do.”  His father Parker, an Army colonel, was wounded in Italy.  An uncle (also Jack D.) was a B-17 gunner who froze to death in the English Channel in 1944.

 

In that regard, Jack identified with Gary Sinise’s “Lieutenant Dan” in Forrest Gump.  Moreover, Jack’s arrival in Valhalla must have been a bittersweet experience after leaving his earthly realm.  It’s intriguing to imagine those among the reception committee.  His father and uncle; George Custer and Crazy Horse (callsign of a Navy Reserve colleague); Captain Wynn Foster (“Captain Hook”); Captain Steve Millikin (Silver Star helicopter pilot and Hook editor), and USS Independenceshipmates amid other Navy losses.

 

And imagine Jack’s devoted mother with world-class bicyclist brother (“Beel the heepie boy” consultant to Kevin Costner’s American Flyers), and so many others.

 

He remains irreplaceable.

DECAPITATION AND BOMBING LITTLE PEOPLE

 Courtesy of American Thinker:

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/04/decapitation_and_bombing_the_little_people.html

 

Eighty-three years ago this month, sixteen U.S. Army fighter planes took off from Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands on a long-range mission of strategic assassination.

Their target: Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Japanese Combined Fleet commander who oversaw the Pearl Harbor attack.

Based on detailed intelligence, the Americans flew a near-perfect mission, intercepting Yamamoto’s flight as it descended toward Bougainville on an inspection trip.

I knew the mission commander, Colonel John Mitchell, who said, “I couldn’t navigate that well again if my life depended on it.” The fact was, Isoroku Yamamoto’s life did depend on it. The pilot who downed his plane was my fellow Oregonian, Colonel Rex Barber.

Despite its spectacular success, Operation Vengeance exerted little effect on the course of the war. Japan was bound to lose with or without Yamamoto.

Bombing the Little People

Airpower’s seminal prophet was Italian General Guilio Douhet, who influenced British and American airmen from World War I onward. All too aware of the massive bloodletting in the Great War, Douhet theorized that bombing enemy cities and production centers would cause the populace to force its leaders to capitulate with far less attrition.

He was wrong.

Germany tried to influence events with its aerial campaign against England 1915-1918. Though impressive technically, the Zeppelins and bombers achieved little, and losses forced an end to the effort.

Between 1940 and 1944 about 70,000 Britons died under German bombs, missiles, and rockets. London never came within shouting distance of calling a halt to the war.

However, bombing works both ways. Estimates vary widely, but probably between 300,000 and 500,000 Germans were killed by Allied bombing that destroyed dozens of cities. Yet Adolf Hitler never considered surrender, as he knew his likely fate. Instead, two years almost to the day after the Yamamoto mission, with his capital in ruins and surrounded by the Red Army, the Fuhrer shot himself. His successor, Admiral Karl Doenitz, surrendered a week later.

Returning to the Pacific:

One night in March 1945 General Curtis LeMay’s B-29 Superfortresses burned down one-sixth of Tokyo and killed more than 80,000 people. Emperor Hirohito saw what he saw and smelled what he smelled -- and the war continued another five months. In all, at least 300,000 Japanese perished from bombing, fire storms, and A-bombs. By then nearly two-thirds of the country’s urban-industrial area was incinerated.

But Tokyo’s doom-laden war cabinet was deadlocked that August, forcing Hirohito to intervene. He never explained his reasoning, though personal and family survival may have influenced him.

The record is crystal clear: despots simply do not care about the little people. Even though little people produce the weapons of war.

Governments are built to last. They perpetuate themselves with a hierarchy ensuring continuity when heads of state are removed. Four U.S. presidents (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy) were assassinated by lone actors, and three others (Ford, Reagan, and Trump) survived their attacks.

Successors to slain presidents left a mixed record. Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction era after the Civil War likely mirrored Lincoln’s intention while another Johnson -- LBJ -- succeeded JFK to mismanage the Vietnam morass.

Whether Iran was involved in the attempts on Donald Trump remains unknown, but statements from Tehran seem to support the concept.

Boots on the Ground

U.S. campaigns for regime change have succeeded when U.S. troops physically removed anti-American dictators. Prime examples are Reagan’s 1983 Grenada occupation with six Caribbean allies (the date is now a national holiday), and GHW Bush’s invasion of Panama in 1989 that deposed narco-lord Manuel Noriega.

This January a spectacular commando raid seized Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro for trial in the U.S. for his massive drug operations. Citizens danced in the street.

In 1986 the U.S. targeted Libyan dictator Muamar Gaddafi in retaliation for his terrorist actions. He escaped on that occasion but died in a 2011 coup supported by NATO aircraft.

Israel has routinely struck enemy leaders in Gaza, dating at least from 2004. In the past two years five Hamas figureheads have been killed in Gaza and one in Iran.

Ten or more Hezb’allah leaders have died under Israeli bombs in Lebanon since 2024. But as of last year, Western intelligence sources placed the group’s strength at perhaps 90,000. However, Israeli air strikes have inflicted thousands of casualties among civilians.

In 2020 Iran’s General Qasem Soleimani was killed in a drone strike directed by President Donald Trump. Soleimani, second only to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, was consulting with Iraqi officials in Baghdad. But mainly Trump’s first administration focused on the ISIS caliphate in Syria and Iraq, leading to the death of the emir Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2010. The organization declined in numbers and influence but still remained active.

In his two terms, President Barack Obama authorized more than 500 drone strikes that killed perhaps 4,000 people in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya, including at least 320 civilians.

In 2011 President Obama approved the mission that slew 9/11 al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

Together, the U.S. and Israel executed eye-watering precision strikes against the Iranian leadership in 2026. Supreme Leader Khamenei, who escaped harm in the Soleimani strike, was killed with about 40 senior leaders. His son and successor reportedly was badly injured in another strike. The American campaign, Operation Epic Fury, began in February focusing on Iran’s missile capability while essentially destroying the air force and navy.

Today, Hezb’allah and Hamas remain intact while ISIS exists in a reduced status. How the current campaign against Iran will proceed remains to be seen. Regime change has been an open U.S. goal, but the hard-core Islamists in Tehran have no qualms about hanging or simply killing thousands of demonstrators. A frequently quoted number for the last massacre early this year is 30,000 or more -- a lesson on what can happen when government retains a monopoly on violence.

So where does that leave us?

Where From Here?

Deprived of its conventional military, Iran retains two means of fighting the war: its apparently dwindling stock of missiles, and its large inventory of sea mines. All the while, Tehran’s decades of terrorist funding and its determination to achieve a nuclear capability drives U.S. and Israeli policy. The image of such weapons in the hands of religious zealots who do not fear death remains a chilling concept.

 

SEVENTY-THREE YEARS FOR A MEDAL OF HONOR

   

 

Sea of Japan, 1952: A U.S. Navy F9F-5 Panther was the bogey in a furball featuring half a dozen Soviet MiG-15s which, the Panther pilot had been assured, never ventured over water.

 

California, 1956: Cruising at 32,000 ft at night, the North American FJ-3 inexplicably lost its windscreen and canopy.  The violent wind twisted the pilot’s helmet 180 degrees, rather restricting his forward vision.

 

El Centro, California, 1957: Flying an F9F on a banner-tow takeoff, the pilot was too low to eject, sustaining multiple fractures of the neck and back which, by all rights, should have ended his flying career.

 

Key West, Florida, 1965: The Phantom was on long final, both engines on fire with one shut down and the other in burner, and the rear cockpit empty. 

 

Any of the foregoing would provide a There-I-Was tale.  But all involved the same remarkable aviator.

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I’ve known or met about a dozen Medal of Honor recipients and wrote two books on the subject:      

 

Above and Beyond: The Aviation Medals of Honor (Smithsonian Press, 2001) and Heroes: U.S. Army Medal of Honor Recipients (Caliber Press, 2006).  But until this month I did not know a contemporary recipient of the nation’s highest military award.

 

Captain E. Royce Williams, USN (Retired) received the Medal last week during President Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address.  First Lady Melania Trump draped the pale-blue ribbon with bronze pendant around Royce’s neck.  He’s 100 years old and received the award 73 years after the event.

 

Mr. Trump also awarded the Medal to Army Chief Warrant Officer Eric Slover who was seriously wounded in the spectacular January 3 operation seizing Venezuelan strongman Maduro to face criminal charges in the U.S.  Slover overcame four bullet wounds to continue leading the mission in his MH-47 Chinook helicopter.

 

(Sidebar: Slover’s eight weeks from the action to presentation provides a significant contrast to Williams’ 73 years.  I only find two faster awards among more than 100 aviation Medals of Honor.)

 

Little known is that Royce’s South Dakota connections included the Foss family, and Royce’s brother became a Marine Corps aviator.

 

Royce received his wings of gold at the end of World War II and flew Hellcats, Corsairs and Bearcats before transitioning to jets.  During the Korean War he flew Grumman F9F Panthers with VF-781 aboard USS Oriskany, logging 70 missions.

 

In 2009 Royce and I wrote his entry in The Hook magazine’s “Where Are They Now?” series.  As far as I can tell it was the first open-source account of Royce’s November 18, 1952 dogfight that lasted an eternal 35 minutes. (Most jet combats are determined in two minutes or less).  When the Evil Empire collapsed in 1990, former Soviet records became available.  In large part the declassification was achieved by one of Royce’s former commanding officers, the late Vice Admiral Dave Richardson whose intelligence background influenced the National Security Agency to release some details. 

 

The mission began as a combat air patrol from Oriskany, sailing within range of the Soviet bastion on Kamchatka although Russian aircraft rarely ventured as far as U.S. task forces.  But when radar plotted multiple bogies about 80 miles distant, Royce’s four-plane division was vectored out.

 

From there things went sideways.  One of the Panthers developed mechanical trouble and turned for base with its wingman.   Royce and Lieutenant (jg) Dave Rowlands intercepted only 40 miles from Oriskany, caught at a serious altitude deficit. 

 

In the wrapped-up, churning dogfight Royce only had about 20 seconds worth of 20mm ammunition.  He used it wisely.

 

The Navy remains conflicted as to who did what in Royce’s epic mission.  The original press release did not credit Royce with any victories but here are the official results based on subsequent debriefs:

 

Lt. Elmer Royce Williams: one MiG-15 destroyed and one damaged.

Lt(jg) John Davidson Middleton: one MiG-15 destroyed.

Lt(jg) David Morris Rowlands: one MiG-15 probable.

 

Recently U.S. researchers found that the MiGs were from a Russian Navy fighter regiment.  The admitted losses were two pilots killed in action and one fatally crashed upon return.

 

The long-long trail to Royce’s Medal of Honor began with award of the Silver Star in 1953.  After a years-long effort aiming for a Medal of Honor upgrade, Royce received the Navy Cross in January 2023.  But his legion of admirers and supporters continued pressing for “the big one” and ultimately, they prevailed.

 

The Medal of Honor warrant specifies armed combat with an enemy of the United States, demonstrating “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of one’s life above and beyond the call of duty.”

 

Royce has always downplayed the “above and beyond” aspect, saying “I was just trying to stay alive!”  Outnumbered by superior aircraft, he could not disengage so he had to stay in the fight, whittling down the odds while taking hits.

 

(Seldom noted: Royce’s straight-wing F9F-5 was markedly slower than swept-wing MiG-15s, which had a higher ceiling and outclimbed the Panther at least two to one.) 

 

Demonstrating superb airmanship, rather than ejecting, Royce kept his stricken Panther under control at 170 knots (about 40 more than the usual landing speed) and planted it on Oriskany’s deck to snag an arresting wire.  Thereby he saved the U.S. Treasury at least $140,000 ($1.7 million today).

 

Some accounts state that Royce’s jet (Navy BuNo 125459) was so heavily damaged that it was pushed overboard.  But despite more than 250 holes in its airframe the “Grumman Iron Works” product was sent ashore for repair, remaining until 1959. 

 

Royce’s subsequent good-deal assignments were the Air Force Fighter Weapons School and the Navy Fleet Air Gunnery Unit.

 

Following nonflying “payback” assignments, in 1963 Royce upgraded to Vought’s F-8 Crusader, the navy’s first supersonic aircraft.  Commander Williams assumed command of VF-33 during a Mediterranean cruise, subsequently transitioning to the two-seat McDonnell F-4 Phantom.  He reported to his second war in 1965-66, leading Air Wing 11 aboard USS Kitty Hawk.

 

Due to his lingering 1957 injuries, Royce lost his pilot rating but qualified as a naval flight officer, the first NFO air wing commander.  Among subsequent duty, one of the most gratifying was running the Navy’s POW-MIA affairs office.

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Back to sea, Captain Williams conned USS El Dorado, the Pacific Fleet’s amphibious command ship.  He and Cam thoroughly enjoyed two years in Japan before Royce retired in 1975.

 

Or so he thought.  Recalled to duty in 1981, Royce became commodore of a West Coast training convoy.  For a supersonic aviator, the transition was surprisingly fun.

 

Royce closed his logbook with 4,000 flight hours and more than 500 landings aboard 12 carriers. 

 

He remains one of America’s finest aviators with a devoted circle of friends and admirers.