Bates: An Ancient Family Name

By Thomas Bates

Bates, An Ancient Family Name, is a historical narrative of one branch of the Bates family. It begins in AD 1245 and follows the Clement Bates family branch to the present. The second half of this book deals with the military experiences of Clement Bates direct descendants, Robert S. Bates in World War II; the years between 1945 and the Viet Nam War of Robert Bates family and the life and military experiences in Viet Nam of Roberts son, Thomas. The narrative is a monologue of Thomas in his later years to his four grandsons two of whom are on the verge of starting out on their own life adventures.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504955812

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© 2015 Thomas Bates. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/15/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-5584-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-5580-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-5581-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015916873

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Table of Contents

FOREWORD

Chapter 1 Clement Bates-The Immigrant

Chapter 2 The Bates English Ancestry

Chapter 3 Clement Bates the Settler

Chapter 4 Listen, my children, And you shall hear…

Chapter 5 The Farmers

Chapter 6 Indiana Smith Bates

Chapter 7

Chapter 8 Robert Bates-the Italian Campaign

Chapter 9 Robert Bates and the War in France and Germany

Chapter 10 The Growing Years

Chapter 11 The Teen Years

Chapter 12 The College Years

Chapter 13 The Early Air Force Years

Chapter 14 The Nuclear Mission

Chapter 15 The Iron Bomb Mission

Chapter 16

Chapter 17 The Road Narrows

Appendix 1

Appendix 2 Support Documents & Pictures:

OTHER BOOKS

BY THOMAS BATES

The War Lectures 1861-1865

The Prairie Wars 1840-1890

Jus in Bello

TO MY GRANDSONS:

Kieran, Keaton, Rypken and Rygley

FOREWORD

This is a narrative of our Bates family lineage that I pass to you, my four grandsons, Kieran, Keaton, Rypken and Rygley, in the eighth decade of my life. Our story covers nearly eight hundred years but our family roots don’t spread over wide areas of the earth. In fact, the Bates’ have domiciled only in England and North America during this period from AD 1245 to the present. Our family branch has enjoyed some considerable wealth and honor as well as poverty and hardship. Some members and even generations of the family have received higher educations at universities such as Oxford University, Indiana University, Butler University, Valparaiso University, University of Southern California, University of California at Santa Barbara and even Midwestern State University¹ in Wichita Falls, Texas. There are generations whose accomplishments have been lost to history, or merely hidden in some ancient archives not uncovered by my amateur historical methods.

The narrative will cover many facts about our direct ancestors. We may speak briefly of uncles, aunts and cousins but extensive research and writing would take volumes to cover all of their accomplishments too. Hopefully, someone with more time remaining on their hands than I have left will attempt that humongous task. I will also include some speculation to add some drama. (After all, it is a family tradition to tell a good story despite some inaccuracy.) There will be no pure fiction. I will try to separate truth from fiction and keep the story line on the legitimate side of legend. As we travel farther and farther back in time the records become more and more sparse. The birth and death dates of an ancestor may be all that I could find from the vantage point of Southern California and the Web. In some instances I have found only a birth date or only a date of death. Occasionally, I have had to dismiss some ancestor because the data shown simply are beyond reason. For example, I was tracking one line of inquiry and found an ancestor that had a birth date and date of death 112 or so years apart. It’s pretty obvious that there must be an error in these dates. Or possibly there was a son with the same given name that had a death date but the birth date was that of his father. There are a number of Jr.’s and III’s; these II’s and III’s are very difficult to discern who did what. On another occasion, I ran across a person born several years AFTER his father had died. Now that’s what I call suspicious! Finally, on all searches I would eventually come to the end of any recorded information to permit me to go any farther.

For our branch of the Bates family, the ancestry linage is unusually unfettered with questionable information. It is so clear cut, that it is a little scary. However, your great grand-mother, Eugenia, was very much into genealogy and had collected some pictures, letters, newspaper articles and public records of ancestors going back to the Revolutionary War. There was also information readily available from your great grand-uncle Howard Bates about the migration of the family branch from the East coast to Indiana and some of the accomplishments of your (4th) great grandfather, Smith Bates, and his son, Moses. I remember some stories about your (2nd) great grandfather told to me by your (2nd) great grandmother (my grandmother) and your (1st) great grandfather (my father). And I will pass these stories on to you at the appropriate time in this narrative. These facts and stories take us all the way back to 1805, the birth year of Smith Bates; not bad for a starting point!

We will go as far as we can, probably to the thirteenth century. Then all information seems to disappear. However, not many families can trace their ancestors back nearly 800 years! But, where does one start such a literary adventure? Should I start in AD 1245 and work forward and pass through several generations with very little information and bore the reader before they get to some of the more current facts and stories? Or should I start in AD 2015 and work backward with all of the most accurate information in the first few chapters so that no one wastes their time on ancestors too far back in history to be read about, but have made some significant contributions to their society? I can leave out some of the ancestors that do not have much to share, but then the whole story becomes somewhat disconnected. Leaving anyone out seems somewhat unfair to me because all of the ancestors have made a contribution to who we are today.

I will include everyone regardless how little is known about a particular generation. If nothing else, these quiet ancestors will provide continuity to the linage and the history of their period may bring a certain understanding as to why we don’t know about them. The big question as I mentioned in the first paragraph is where to start. In an attempt to grab your interest, I am going to throw all unsolicited advice to the wind and start with your 10th great grandfather Clement Bates, the immigrant (1594-1671).

CHAPTER 1

Clement Bates-The Immigrant

We start our journey at the small but ancient village of Lydd, Kent, England located on the southeast coast of the island kingdom. It is a handsome place overlooking the white cliffs of Dover. It is 20 miles from Hastings where William of Normandy landed in AD 1066 and brought feudalism to the English Anglo-Saxon cultures. It is only 35 miles from Canterbury, the primary see of the Roman Catholic Church and later the center of the Church of England; and 65 miles from London town. Both of these latter places play very significant rolls in the long history of the English speaking world. Lydd, Kent was the domicile of the Bates family for as far back as I could trace our linage and probably even farther. The records show that your 21st great grandfather, Senior Master Bate, was born in Lydd, Kent in AD 1270. The title suggests that this ancestor of yours was a judge in one of the higher courts of the Realm. People just didn’t have much upward mobility in those days. And I want you to be mind-full of this fact so that you can grasp the fact that your Bates ancestors were a part of the landed gentry very early in the history of England.

You should appreciate the courage it must have taken for your 10th great grandfather Clement to give up this class position in society in 1635 when he sold his business, packed up his family of wife, Ann, five children (ages 14-2) and sailed for the New World. Clement brought two servants, probably indentured apprentices with him and his family. (In those days it was not uncommon for young people to sell their labor to a craftsman for the opportunity to learn his trade and/or to pay for travel expenses to America.) Clement offered to take his two apprentices to continue their training of the tailoring trade and he paid for their travel costs to New England. In those days there was no Fair Labor Standards Act to prevent this type of work arrangement. In modern America it would be considered a form of slavery. Clement’s offer would have been considered very generous in seventeenth century England.

Clement was born in Lydd, Kent in January 1594 during the reign of Elizabeth I of England, one of the truly great monarchs of all history. Only six years prior to your great grandfather’s birth Queen Elizabeth sent the English fleet to meet the Spanish Armada under the co-command of Frances Drake and Lord Howard of Effingham. The Spanish were ultimately defeated with the help of Mother Nature who conveniently cast a huge North Atlantic storm on their route from the battle area. Before that happened, however, the Spanish fleet sailed past Lydd, Kent on its way to drop anchor at Calais. Now that’s what I would call a Tall ship parade and what a sight that would have been for Clement’s parents and the town’s people standing on the shore only a few miles from the passing ships!

It is interesting to note that nine years before this great victory, Drake had commanded another daring expedition against the Spanish that literally took him around the world. He looted several of the Spanish settlements in South and Central America and captured many Spanish galleons that were laden with treasure of various kinds. On the return voyage of this adventure Drake dropped anchor off the coast of Northern California just a few miles southwest of Bodega Bay. The location on a modern map is designated Drake’s Bay.

Just after Clement turned eight years old the great virgin queen passed away leaving no immediate heirs to the throne of England. (Legend Has it that Elizabeth was not a prude about her virginity and rumors circulated that she had episodes of frolicking in the clover or elsewhere with the likes of Sir Walter Raleigh or Sir Frances Drake or both.) With her death the island kingdom was vulnerable to a resurgence of Roman Catholicism. Elizabeth and her father Henry VIII had been solid Protestants. As a fact Henry had broken from the Roman Church over divorce issues and some other ecclesiastical authority. During the last half of the sixteenth century most Catholics in England converted to Henry’s alternative religion. Also, he and Elizabeth were tolerant of other Protestant sects that were developing in England, Germany, France and the Netherlands. It is very likely that our Bates family left the Roman Catholic Church during this period.

With the demise of the Tudor dynasty, the English crown settled upon the House of Stuart. The nearest blood line of this family to the Tudor’s fell to James VI, King of Scotland, the son of Mary Queen of Scots, the sister of Henry VIII. James VI ascended the English throne as James I. James was Catholic by tradition albeit not a devout one. As James VI of Scotland, in spite of his lax adherence to the Catholic orthodoxy, he felt the episcopal hierarchy of the Catholic Church was a more loyal organization to the crown than the developing Presbyterian hierarchy. When he was crowned James I in England, he found the schisms between the Roman Catholics and several Protestant sects even more disruptive to the general welfare. This hostile environment created an explosive religious/political situation in the realm. In 1605, a conspiracy of devout Catholics including Guy Fawkes and Thomas Bates (no relation to our family line) were so upset with James’ administration of religious policies that they planted a cache of gunpowder under the venue of Parliament with the hope of destroying the House of Lords and the king. Unfortunate for Fawkes and Bates, but fortunate for the king and the House of Lords the Gunpowder Plot, as it became known to history, was foiled. The conspirators were arrested, convicted of treason, hanged and drawn and quartered.

Shortly after the plot in 1605 to assassinate James and his lords, a Protestant sect, a subset of the Puritans, that could not accept restrictions established at the Hampton Court Conference (1604) except, perhaps, the authorization of a new English translation of the Bible packed up their belongings and moved their congregation to Leiden, Holland. There they settled and some prospered at the university and the printing, textile and brewing businesses. The rural congregants were not so successful and fell onto hard times. By 1617 the leaders of the church felt compelled to move the congregation from the Netherlands. They set their sights on possibly moving to North America. After all, Jamestown had survived for ten years, the Spanish had been on the North American continent since 1565 and the French were making trading inroads and settlements north of the St. Lawrence River. In 1620 arrangements were complete and this subset of Puritans that came to be designated as the Pilgrims set sail on the English merchant ship Mayflower.

James I continued his reign marginally. He ordered a new translation of the Holy Scriptures that were published in 1611, now called the King James Version. This text was an exquisite example of English literature. However, the protestant sects at the time were using the Geneva version of the Bible of 1599 and the religious environment continued to be uncomfortable on the Sabbaths for just about everyone in the kingdom.

Clement was seventeen when the King James Version of the Bible was published and well involved in his apprenticeship at his father’s tailoring shop. He had gone to school with the other children in the family and others from the village. He was literate and coming close to becoming a journeyman in his craft. By 1614 Clement was into the family craft with his several brothers. (He had 11 siblings.) In that year James, Clement’s father, passed away; his mother, Mary, had passed in 1610. Despite of these family tragedies, Clement succeeded in his craft, married Ann Dualrymple in 1620 and started a family. Clement and his bride settled in to a successful domestic and business life in Lydd. Ann became pregnant and had several children over the next few years.

The social/domestic scene in the villages, towns and cities was not so tranquil during these years. In 1625, King James I died and left the crown to his number two son, Charles, because Charles’ elder brother who was first in line to the throne died, predeceasing James I. Charles took the throne as King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland. He was a more devout Roman Catholic than his father and could not tolerate the several Protestant sects in the kingdom. In addition, he was an advocate of the Devine Right of monarchs. This was a huge issue in the Island kingdom. The Anglo-Saxon populous had been fighting for a limited monarchy for hundreds of years before and after William of Normandy had stormed on shore at Hastings and introduced feudalism into the realm. This concept of a limited monarchy all boiled to a head in 1215 when the aristocracy forced John I to sign the Magna Carta at Runnymede that guaranteed certain liberties for the aristocrats and ultimately to the general populous. When Charles proclaimed this Devine Right during his reign he opened one big bucket of worms!

There must be some hidden gene in the Anglo-Saxon genome that screams out against tyranny. The problems with this new king started immediately after his coronation. Charles argued with Parliament about his beliefs of an absolute monarchy. He married a devout Roman Catholic and then he threw all caution to the wind and raised taxes without consent from Parliament. The Calvinists, Reformers and Puritans looked at Charles with jaundiced eyes. Charles ignored them all. He continued his abrasive activities against his own people. He failed to support the Protestants on the continent in the Thirty Years War. Over these first several years of his reign Charles managed to irritate the folks in Scotland with his rigid religious dogma and finally he even pissed-off the Irish Catholics. Charles’ religious policies were particularly uncomfortable at the yeomanry/artisan level of society. This important segment of the population (craftsmen, small farmers and store keepers and merchants) was the middle class of the time. Many of the people at this level of the society had left the Roman Catholic Church for the reforms of the various Protestant sects. They were for the most part opposed to the religious thinking and policy changes announced from the throne. Charles seemed intent not only to erode the progress of the Protestants’ reformation but also to over tax them (without representative consent).

This was a time for the successful middle class to do some serious thinking about the future of their families. Options were developing in the new world. Positive information was coming across the Atlantic at an ever increasing volume. With the increasing restrictions on the Protestants from the English Throne, more groups followed in the wake of the Brownists/Pilgrims to the Massachusetts Bay colony. Surely someone was communicating with Clement and the rest of the Bates family about the opportunities both financial and religious in this untamed continent.

By 1633 the social/religious environment in England was deteriorating to an even greater extent. Clement most likely was making his plans to move his family to New England. At that same time Clement’s older brother was contemplating moving his family across the Atlantic. However, coincidentally Ann was pregnant with Benjamin and Clement was aware of the harsh conditions aboard ship on the north Atlantic. Clement carefully forecast a move for after Ben was born and developed into at least the toddler stage. But there was a lot to be done. The tailoring business (or his share in the ownership of the business) had to be sold. The family house had to be sold. All of the house fixtures, tools, bedding and furniture had to be sold or distributed to other members of the family. Finally, Clement had to find the proper ship to book passage for his family. The selection of a proper ship, in my mind, required careful consideration. After all, they weren’t going to America on a cruise ship from the Cunard Line…

By late 1634 Clement completed all of the preliminaries for the voyage. Older brother James could see the deterioration of the yeoman classes in their native island country too. He and his family signed up along with Clement’s brood to start a new life in the wilderness of the new colony. The brothers booked their families