The Flag of Freedom
My life and the lives of my family were saved by the flag of the United States. This flag came from the USS Oklahoma. I want to thank all the service men, present, past and future who have made America the place it is. The Flag has been in the cedar chest at the foot of my bed since mother died. In 2005, I decided to make more people aware of the story behind this special flag. I began speaking at schools, churches, civic and veterans groups. Everywhere I went, the flag received a standing ovation. I sent the story to the USS Oklahoma Survivors association and was invited to their 2005 reunion and was the principal speaker at the opening of the new Oklahoma Historical Society Museum. I was made an Honorary member of the USS Oklahoma family, and spent a wonderful weekend with those heroes who survived the loss of their ship at Pearl Harbor then and went on to win the war in the Pacific. I donated the Flag to the crew and they gave it to the Oklahoma Historical Society to be displayed, with its story in the State Museum.
Photo by Marcella Colburn, Chattanooga Times-Free Press
The Flag of Freedom
By John L. Odom
Delivered:
November 18, 2005
On
the Occasion of the USS Oklahoma Reunion and the
Opening
of The New Oklahoma State Museum
Freedom
is our most precious possession, except for life itself. God values our freedom
of choice and action above all else. Many Christians believe He gave His Son to
preserve our freedom of choice. Because it was completed at the very end of the
First World War and sunk on the first day of the second, the USS
Oklahoma was known as the “Battleship that never fired a shot in
anger,” but it was a ship that saved lives, including mine, by merely showing
the flag of the United States. Showing the flag has been a major task of the
United States Navy since the beginning of our Nation. God has used many means,
including the military power of the United States to save lives and further his
work.
Many Americans have only a dim view of what freedom is, because they have never experienced its lack. As a missionaries’ kid I spent much of my first fifteen years without the protection of “Old Glory.” I have experienced lack of freedom, both in situations where the government officially granted no freedom and also where there were constitutional provisions similar to ours that were either routinely ignored by the military and police or where they were set aside in the name of “national security.”
We
must always remember that our freedom is no more secure that that of the worst
criminal or “National Security Risk,” because anyone of us could be so
designated for any reason or no reason at all.
I
have heard Mother or Daddy tell the story of this flag many times. I can’t
remember when I did not know it. I have also checked the facts with Mother’s
written records. This is a story of this Flag, and is only glimpse of that war,
when and where they saw it, not a historical analysis.
In
the early 1930s Spain had a new Republican government that granted political and
religious freedom to Spanish citizens for the first time. The army and the
established church, experiencing a loss of power to the people, launched a
revolution under the leadership of Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s Fascist
party. This war, although small,
this was one of the bloodiest and most terrible up to that time, and it was the
testing ground for Adolph Hitler’s Luftwaffe, Whermacht and Gestapo.
Nevertheless, the western nations refused to help the Republican cause, thus
effectively helping the Fascists.
Wherever
the Fascists ruled, there was no civil or religious freedom. For example, it was
a capital crime to proselytize for any church other than the Roman Catholic, and
Protestants could not be legally married or buried. The birth certificates of
children of Protestant couples were stamped “BASTARD” and the bodies of
Protestants who died were disposed of in the dump. Anyone could be indefinitely
detained or summarily executed in the name of “National Security” for any
reason or no reason at all.
My
parents’ names were: Martha M. and Robert L. Odom. In July 1936, they were
missionaries of the Seventh-day Adventist church, living in La Coruna on the
north-eastern corner of Spain. My father was called “Leo” by his friends. He
had been a USN destroyer man, serving in the Asiatic Fleet and Yangtze River
Patrol before he became a Christian and a missionary.
Whatever Daddy did, he did with 100% commitment. My
brother, Robert was 6. Mother, a tiny woman only 5’2” was pregnant with me,
and set to deliver in August. Mother may have been tiny but she was absolutely
fearless when faced with danger. As a missionary it was Dad’s job to commit
what had now been defined as capital crimes.
My parents lived on the fifth floor in an apartment
building on one of the city’s main avenues. To call someone to the street door
of the building a visitor would use the large iron knocker to knock with the
same number of strokes as the floor number of the desired apartment.
When the war came to LaCoruna on July 20, 1936, the
city quickly fell to the Fascists. When the organized Republican resistance
collapsed, Daddy often left the family, sometimes for days at a time, as he went
to check on church members.
Meanwhile, the Fascists were killing people
indiscriminately. Mere suspicion was a death sentence. A favored method was by
the black-shirted execution squads that pulled people from bed at the early
hours and shot them on the street in front of their homes. Horse drawn wagons
called "cammiones de carne" or "meat wagons" picked up the
corpses on each street just about dawn each day. Bloodstains remained on the
pavement as silent reminders. Sometimes the people were taken away for
questioning and torture before execution.
Because
of the dangerous situation, in July 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt
interrupted a routine midshipman training cruise in European waters, by ordering
the USS Oklahoma to put the midshipmen ashore and speed to the port of Bilbao, on the
northern coast of Spain, to evacuate Americans. She arrived July 24. 1936.
While Daddy was away from home visiting church
members, on Aug 3, at eleven o’clock in the morning, a US Naval officer, in
dress whites, "from the battleship sent to get the refugees," knocked
on the door and told Mother that he would return at one o’clock to take her
and her family to safety. Mother told him "No, my husband is not here, I am
pregnant, we have no money, and we will stay together." The officer
returned at one o’clock and she repeated her decision. Mother never identified
the ship by name as the USS Oklahoma, but we now know from naval records that it was the
Okie.
Daddy was arrested several
times while out on the streets, and miraculously delivered each time. The most
recent occasion had been for refusing to salute the Fascist flag. He was sent
home with the warning: “I’ll send the Black-shirts to get you.”
Each of those occasions is another story.
The
Fascists then ordered all residences and businesses to decorate with the Fascist
flag and/or red and yellow bunting. Our balcony was not decorated. As an
American citizen, Daddy would not, as a matter of principle, display the Fascist
colors. About one o’clock in the
morning there were five loud knocks on the street door of the building. Again
they knocked five times; my family lived on the fifth floor. Mother whispered to
Daddy: "I'll go since it is
not me they are after.” She went to the street door and asked: "Quien?" (Who is it?) She looked through the
peephole and saw Black-shirted armed soldiers who commanded: "Decorate your
balcony with the flag immediately, do it right now!" She replied: "All
right” and went back to bed. They both trembled and prayed until morning.
They had no rebel Flag, and as a matter of principle
would not display one if they had had one. They knew that, barring a miracle;
Daddy would lose his life when the dawn revealed that theirs was the only
balcony without a rebel flag. They trembled and prayed until morning. Morning
light showed that indeed, theirs WAS the only undecorated balcony.
Quite
early that morning three Spanish men who had been in the United States and
become naturalized citizens of the United States came by the apartment and
invited Daddy, to go with them to the American Consul in Vigo. To reach Vigo
they had to cross the lines of both armies, since Vigo was still in Republican
hands. These men had, the previous day, hired a taxi and had miracously been
able to obtain safe-conduct permits from both armies. This seemed providential
as the Odom family’s money was practically gone and they had no way to get
more, plus this flag situation and prior arrests made a serious emergency. Daddy
was glad to go with them.
That night, while Daddy was gone to Vigo, at one
o'clock in the morning, Mother heard the large knocker on the street door
pound five times! That was THEIR floor--the fifth! Mother held her breath and
prayed silently. Had they come for her husband? Again and again they pounded;
five loud knocks each time. As she prayed she could hear the unmistakable sound
of rifles, rifle slings and boots. Determined not to answer, she did slip out
and look over the balcony to see who was there. By the bright moonlight
she could clearly see armed men in black-shirted Fascist uniform standing on the
street in front of their door. Again
they knocked five times. Then--what a relief to her, --The next time they
pounded they only gave FOUR strokes! Whether they had been mistaken the other
times, or whether they changed their minds, Mother never knew, but she thanked
the Lord that they did not break into her apartment! Someone did answer from the
fourth floor, and no one ever saw them again. In those days there was a word for
such people: “los desaperados,” the disappeared ones. If one did not want to
“disappear,” one did not ask about them. In fact, one hardly dared speak to
anyone, especially strangers, about anything. Even relatives and friends
betrayed one another to death.
When Daddy reached Vigo the new American
Consul, Mr. Stewart, was very glad to see him. Mr. Stewart said he had received
$200 from the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists in Washington, D.C.,
for Daddy, through the Red Cross, but he did not know how he could get in touch
with him to deliver it. How wonderful! When Daddy got home, he divided the money
with the church workers in the area, telling them to make it stretch as far as
possible, for there might not be any more.
When Mr. Stewart was told of the flag problem, he
said: “I have just the thing!” He then gave Daddy a big American flag--as
big as a bed sheet--He told him to ”Put that on your balcony, and if anybody
objects, let me know!” He stated that the flag was a gift from the captain of
the battleship that had come for refugees.
Daddy then told him of another Fascist order, that
all Spanish men were required to wear the Fascist colors in their lapel, under
penalty of death. Mr. Stewart had a solution for that problem also. One of his
staff took a little piece of white celluloid, and with colored India ink, drew
on it an American flag. Until he left Spain Daddy always wore that little United
States flag to designate his nationality. Many Spaniards told him they would
give any amount of money for the privilege of wearing those colors.
Mr. Stewart also sent word, through the British
Consul, whose office was in LaCoruna, to the Fascist Commandant of LaCoruna, a
man that Mother described as “a small beady-eyed man filled with
self-importance” that the Odoms were under the protection of the flag of the
United States, and the US fleet was just out of sight to the west and would
defend the flag! Although he had no
authority to threaten war, the threat worked! He said to Daddy “Even Norfolk
is out of sight to the West!”
The big flag was hung from the balcony, and the
Odom's were not bothered at home again!
Immediately after the flag was hung, on Aug 13,
1936, Mother began labor and walked the few blocks to the Municipal Charity
Hospital where I was born. There was no physician; they had all fled from the
city. I consider this flag to be my birth gift. It has been one of my most
treasured possessions. The Municipal Charity Hospital was located next to the
rebel-held military garrison. Across the alley from Mother’s window was a
machinegun battery. Because of a loyalist counterattack, the garrison was under
artillery fire at the time I was born. Daddy always said I was born under fire,
fifteen feet from a machine gun battery.
I have the flag; my brother has the lapel pin. Today, it is my pleasure, on behalf of my family to symbolically return the flag to the USS Oklahoma, by donating the flag to the USS Oklahoma Survivors Association, on the occasion of the opening of, and for display in, the new Oklahoma State Museum’s USS Oklahoma Room.
The color guard preparing for the ceremony.
Old glory unfurled
This is the USS Hart on which my Daddy served.
Photo was taken July 4, 1922 in San Diego CA
