We Honor Our Veterans
How we honor those who serve
By Joseph Douglas Spencer
He couldn’t figure out why few folks came in for breakfast. Surely his eggs were good, he thought. He’d opened a breakfast joint in Brooksville Mississippi, shortly after a brief stint at University in Starkville, Mississippi on a partial tennis scholarship. His clan hailed from Indiana, so he probably just didn’t know why so few. One day a man asked him why he didn’t serve grits with his eggs.
John Douglas Hayden of Noxubee County Mississippi joined the U.S. Army Air Corps less than a year later February 4, 1941. After serving stateside he departed for Saipan October 31, 1944 and arrived November, 4. He trained as an Airplane Armorer at Lowry Field Colorado where he qualified as a Pistol Calibre 45 Marksman.
CFC Hayden participated in the Eastern Mandates, Air Offensive Japan in the Western Pacific. There he spent eight months and three days flying missions over mainland Japan in the Boeing B-29 Superfortress as a RCT Mechanic Gunner Specialist. He kept a journal of every mission in extraordinary detail, describing the crews, the casualties, the headwinds, the flak, the ordinance, dates, times, and places. He was awarded an Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters, Asiatic Pacific Ribbon with three Bronze Stars and a Good Conduct Ribbon.
Hayden departed Saipan June 30, 1945 and arrived in the U.S. July 3. His longevity for Pay Purposes was four years, seven months, 28 days, with his Mustering Out Pay a total of $300. He was also entitled to travel pay and had an ASR Score (2 September 45) 110, and Lapel Pin Issued.
John Douglas Hayden found his way back to Mississippi and married Gladys Brewster who bore him three daughters. They ended up on the Mississippi coast just across the bay from Biloxi in a sleepy fishing village, Ocean Springs. John Hayden went on to become the best egg farmer on the coast from Pascagoula Mississippi to Slidell Louisiana. If you bought eggs, you bought John Hayden Farms eggs.
My father, David Spencer, a Navy man, moved us back to Ocean Springs Mississippi from Charleston, in February 1973, during the Great Southeastern Snowstorm, to help take over the family business of farming and selling eggs.
My older sister and younger brother and I would get into big time trouble if our grandfather, John Douglas Hayden caught us getting into egg fights when we were supposed to be picking up eggs in the henhouses. All it took was one look from him to know we better not get caught again.
I never have liked grits.
Joseph Douglas Spencer
Columbia