“I stood up, rested the bazooka on a fence post, and took time to get a branch of bamboo out of the way before I fired. It seemed like forever to sight-in and fire, as looking down the barrel of any tank cannon makes it appear twice its size. In this case, the barrel seemed to be pointing right at me and the bore looked like that of a 155mm gun.” — Cpl. Blair Musselman
GALION — The story of the Musselman Miracle has finally been told.
Chicago author Perry E. Ball, in his recently published book, tells the touching tale of Galion twins G. Blair and C. Byron “Barney” Musselman who fought in the U.S. Army in World War II. They were a bazooka team with E Company in the South Pacific — Blair the gunner, Barney the loader.
The Galion natives were members of the 35th Regiment, 25th Infantry Division. They shared the same foxhole during the Luzon Campaign in 1945. They were side-by-side soldiers whose heroics against the Japanese during the famous Battle of Lupao in the Philippines earned them silver and bronze stars.
The Musselman brothers saved their company that day. More importantly for them, they came home.
“It’s a one-in-a-million story,” said Ball, a retired U.S. Foreign Service Officer who has been working on “Cpl. Musselman’s Story,” the third in his “Men Against Tanks” series, for more than two years. “I don’t know any other story like it. That they were both together and the fact that they could both come home was a miracle.”
It was also somewhat of a miracle that Ball got wind of the story. Blair waited until 1995 — 50 years after the war ended — to painfully compile his memoirs. His wife, Phyllis, sent a copy long after he died to the 35th Infantry Regiment Association. Coincidentally, Ball’s father, Sgt. Wilbur P. Ball, served in the same regiment in G Company.
“I had met all his buddies at reunions over the years,” said Ball, who as a youngster visited battlefields and cemeteries in the Philippines with his parents and older brother. “I spent my whole life hearing about these guys, and I kept thinking, ‘You know, when these guys die, all this stuff is gonna be gone.’”
Ball reached out to the Regiment’s Association, but it wasn’t until 2016 that they sent him a copy of Blair’s journal — printed and spiral bound by the corporal himself — and he eventually tracked down his son, Tim Musselman. He was on another “war writing mission.”
“I found a gem,” Ball recalled. “I thought I’ve got to do this. It’s too good to be true. And I said to Tim, ‘Do you think you would let me write your father’s story?’ and he said, ‘Yes.’ I was so excited, one, that I found out about it and two, that they let me do it.”
Since then, Tim Musselman has sent countless boxes of war and family photos to Chicago, and Ball has spent time in Galion too, at the old Musselman homestead at 454 Grand Street, at Peace Lutheran Church where Blair and Phyllis were married and at Fairview Cemetery where they are buried.
One chapter in the book recalls the infantry’s attack on Japanese tanks that were blocking their company’s advance the morning of Feb. 6, 1945. The Musselman brothers fired seven hits on a dug-in, camouflaged tank amidst a steady stream of 47mm shells and machine gun fire at nearly point-blank range.
Dozens of soldiers in their company, under the leadership of Capt. Harry A. Mason, were killed or wounded in that bloody attack. Mason himself lost his life when he was shot in the stomach bringing the two more ammunition. For their bravery, Blair was awarded the Silver Star Medal, and Barney was given the Bronze Star.
Blair Musselman was discharged Jan. 17, 1946, returned to his hometown, and became the longtime owner of Wilson Printing Company. He and his wife had three children and enjoyed 51 years together before he died in 1999 at the age of 74.
Barney Musselman, 95, died on June 4, just weeks before the book’s publication. But his tattered combat diaries, which were uncovered a few years earlier by his son, Barney, were valuable sources for Ball, along with a basic training diary from Tyler, Texas which he titled “We’re in the Army Now.”
“He’s a real researcher,” Tim Musselman said of the author, who came back to Galion to sign copies of the book for family members and friends. “I think it’s wonderful the way we kind of all brought it together. It’s a whole family history. Dad would have loved to read this book.”
Indeed, because it’s a war story like no other, one that definitely does justice to Blair’s and his brother’s memories and the rest of the brave men in E Company.
“It is said that when an old man dies, it is like the burning of a book. It is good that these pages were snatched from the fire.” — Perry E. Ball
