I seem to have always had a more stringent definition of what a "friend" is than most people.  I have had many great "acquaintances" in my life, some fairly meaningful, but I have truly had only two or three friends in my 78 years of living.  One of those - the first friend I had - was my brother "Rudy."  It hasn't been a conscious thing but I suppose he was the model for what I considered a friend.  He was a "tough act" to follow.

Technical Sergeant Raymond R. Carriker - 1944

May, 1921 - April, 1944

Since I was only ten years old when he gave his life for his country my memories or Rudy are part reality, part myth, and part things I was told about him by older family members.  They are as factual as such sources could make it.  Raymond R. “Rudy” Carriker was one of the hundreds of thousands of young men who came to be called “The Greatest Generation.”  Perhaps they were.  But in their minds they were ordinary American citizens who did nothing more than live up to the responsibility their citizenship required.

Most of them were born in the 1920’s; a decade that, when it began, seemed to promise those children a way of life more prosperous, more leisurely and more enjoyable than any previous generation in American history. That utopian vision turned to a nightmarish reality for those children before they reached their teen-aged years.  They spent their later childhood and total adolescence living in a grinding relentless economic depression that left many of them going to bed hungry each night.  They left their teen years to enter a world that had become engulfed in flames, blood and broken bones by a horrific all-encompassing war. A war that ended life just as it was starting for so many of them.

These young men became whatever our country needed them to be to fight the war.  Rudy volunteered to become a crewmember on a B-24 “Liberator” bomber.  He was transformed into a Flight Engineer/Gunner.  The Flight Engineer’s primary job was to monitor the instruments and let the pilots know if he saw anything troublesome.  It was an awesome responsibility but Rudy had learned very early in life to take on heavy responsibility. He assumed the responsibilities of being a Flight Engineer with pride and dedication.   Then, when German fighter’s attacked he had to juggle the Flight Engineer responsibilities with that of manning the twin .50 caliber machine guns in the top turret of his Liberator.

Rudy was a natural for that job.  As a young man he had spent hours tinkering with and keeping his “Model A” Ford running with little more than spit, elbow grease and baling wire to work with and poking and prodding through the wrecked and worn out cars in local “junk yards.”  The Army Air Corps discovered that native ability and refined it by sending him to an Army Air Corps base near Rantoul Illinois called “Chanute Field.”  There he went through an intensive course of instruction in the electrical, hydraulic, mechanical, and other systems that make up a complex aircraft. Although his grades in public school were barely average he took to the curriculum of this new field and loved it.  For some reason hydraulics especially fascinated him.  In a letter he wrote to one of my older brothers he commented that he was “acing” the Hydraulics course with flying colors without having to do much studying outside the classroom.  He went on to write that the electrical systems were more of a challenge, but with hard work he did well in that course also.

After completing the Flight Engineer’s School he joined a crew that was being assembled at Davis-Monthan Army Air Base in Phoenix AZ under the leadership of Lt. Ed Robbins.

The "Robbins' Crew in 1943

Rudy is third from left (next to bomb)

All but one member of this crew were Killed in Action on April 1, 1944

A B-24 Blasted into Two Pieces

Fatal Dive

His first assignment on that crew was as Assistant Flight Engineer and Left Waist Gunner.  Several months later Francis Loring, a young man from Toledo OH, who was the original Flight Engineer, succumbed to battle fatigue and was re-assigned to the ground maintenance crew, Robbins promoted Rudy from Staff Sergeant to Technical Sergeant and appointed him Flight Engineer/Top Turret Gunner.  Rudy was quite proud of both the rank and the trust that Robbins had placed in him.  In one of the grim ironies of life, the sole survivor of the destruction of their airplane was in the position that Rudy would have been in had he not been promoted to Flight Engineer/Top Turret Gunner.

Although Rudy was eleven years older than I, he became an ideal “big brother”. He was seldom averse to taking me along when he took his Model A out to cruise, paw through junk yards and sometimes park alongside one of his friends cars where they talked about the things older teen aged boys discuss.   Sometimes he patiently let me “help him” when he was working on his car or doing chores around the house.   When he left home to go to work and later to the Army it was not unusual for him to write personal letters addressed to me using his personal nicknames of “Don Lee” or “Bud.” Often in answering his letters I shamelessly asked for money and was rewarded when Rudy could afford it.  In his letters to me he wrote about dogs, bicycles and the troubles a young boy could have with girls.  Rudy and I bonded in a relationship that likely meant much more to me than to him.   But it was a relationship Rudy never brushed aside.

When he finished high school in the spring of 1940 he had never failed a grade or class, but his GPA was below average.  There was not enough money in the family for all the nice touches that come with a graduation so when his senior picture was taken early in the spring of 1940,he was wearing borrowed clothes except for his trousers. Below the borrowed coat, shirt, and tie, he wore blue denim trousers.

Raymond R. "Rudy" Carriker

Senior "Graduation" Picture - 1940

In the week before Commencement he rehearsed the ceremonials with all the other students in his class.  When the big night came he sat through the speeches and went through the procession knowing that when the school superintendent called his name he would walk onto the stage and be handed an attractive diploma cover.  He would then shake hands acknowledge the “Congratulations” of the School Board President and then walk back to his seat knowing he would find absolutely nothing inside the attractive cover.  He had not completed his final project in Woodworking Class.  It was a simple project; basically a large box built to stand on end with drawers built into one side and a space to hang clothes on the other.  He didn't have the money needed to finish the project so failed to get it completed by the deadline. The teacher gave him an “Incomplete;” which meant he could not receive a diploma.   He could have completed the project over the summer turned it in and receive his diploma.  But by this time he no longer had the mindset of a school boy.

Over sixty years later the Principal of Drumright High School ran a story in the town newspaper saying that he had discovered several “unclaimed” diplomas from years past.  Rudy’s diploma was in that batch.  Bill Carriker, another of Rudy’s brothers, claimed the diploma on behalf of Rudy. He finally “received” his diploma.