Kayne Crison/Arizona City Independent Terry Burtchell, left, Arizona state coordinator for the Quilts of Valor Foundation, presents Pastor Jim Mumme with a quilt Friday at Mumme’s home in Arizona City. At right is congregation member Leanne Turner

ARIZONA CITY — Former pastor Jim Mumme was honored recently with a Quilt of Valor for his service during World War II.

During a special morning ceremony, Terry Burtchell, Arizona state coordinator for the Quilts of Valor Foundation, presented the quilt to Mumme at his home with several friends and family members present.

Mumme, who turned 89 last month, said he was 18 in 1944 when he joined the military. Ten days after graduating high school, he and some classmates all signed up. He was assigned to the Navy, and after basic training in San Diego, he learned the International Morse Code and trained to operate and repair long-distance radio equipment.

He was assigned to the USS Nassau, a 496-foot-long cargo ship that had been converted into an escort aircraft carrier.

“There were two elevators,” Mumme said, “one forward, one aft, to bring the planes up” from the lower decks to the flight deck. The planes had folding wings, so the Nassau could hold 80 planes between the landing and barge decks.

By the time Mumme was on the Nassau, it was transporting injured sailors and equipment between Hawaii, Guam, Manus, Samar, Saipan and California, refueling other ships and helping in the battles for the Marianas, Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

Mumme said he was a radioman and one day took a message that said a large group of Japanese bombers were headed toward the Nassau, which was anchored at Tacloban City in the Leyte Gulf, Philippines.

Mumme ran to the captain’s quarters. “And I expected him to sound ‘General Quarters’ and we would all go to our battle stations, but he didn’t.”

Mumme went to his battle station, a 20 millimeter anti-aircraft gun, and waited for the order.

“And as I was standing there, all of a sudden I saw, belching from our ship’s smokestacks, the densest, blackest smoke that was possible.

“In one minute’s time it was so dark over the ship that you couldn’t see across the flight deck.”

Twenty other ships were putting up smoke, too, and the Japanese planes flew back and forth for a while, then left.

Mumme said he was afraid the planes would drop their bombs on the city, but the smoke screen had been so large, it had covered Tacloban, too, saving thousands of lives.

After the war, Mumme returned home to Phoenix, where he and his fiancee, Vida Robinson, received Christ as their savior and were called to be missionaries. They married, served together and raised their children in Bolivia, Mexico and Chad while starting churches there and in Arizona. They founded a total of 10 churches in four countries. The last church they started was the Evangelical Methodist Church on Overfield Road in Arizona City, where he was pastor.

Mumme has been very busy recently. Last month he and his grandson Trevor Rhodes were part of a group of 26 World War II veterans and escorts who toured Washington, D.C., courtesy of Honor Flight Arizona.

The Quilts of Valor Foundation was begun in 2003 by Catherine Roberts from her sewing room in Seaford, Delaware. Her son Nathanael’s year-long deployment to Iraq provided the initial inspiration, and her desire to see that returning warriors were welcomed home with the love and gratitude they deserved provided the rest.

The mission of the Quilts of Valor Foundation is to cover service members and veterans touched by war with comforting and healing “Quilts of Valor.”  –original article–