©
Bill Eisenhour Funeral Home
5005 SE 29th Street, Del City, OK, 73115
(permission granted)
John Watson Branch, Jr.
April 20, 1921 - July 11, 2020
John W. Branch Jr. Rejoins his Band of Brothers
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be rememberèd—
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers…
— Henry V, Act IV by William Shakespeare
On the evening of July 11, 2020, John W. Branch Jr. passed away in his sleep and rejoined his Band of Brothers.
John was born April 20, 1921, in Duncan, Oklahoma, to Cleytus and John W. Branch. His father worked in the oil industry, and they moved around Oklahoma to where his father was needed. This was during the Great Depression, and John spent the summers of his youth picking cotton for a dollar a day. In 1938, John graduated from Ada High School and then studied Mechanical Engineering for two years at Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State University).
Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, John enlisted in the U.S. Army. Since he had a pilot's license, he was asked to join an elite group of soldiers who were being trained as the Army's first glider unit at Twentynine Palms California's Condor Field. John was in the 42-43 class of glider pilots and was nicknamed Johnny. "Only Sissies Need Engines" was the class tagline. It was expected that glider pilots would suffer some of the highest casualty rates of the war.
From Twentynine Palms, John shipped off to join the 76th Squadron of the 435th Troop Carrier Group in England. John first saw combat when he landed behind enemy lines at Normandy on the morning of June 6, 1944, D-Day, where he landed with the 82nd Airborne close to Sainte-Mère-Église. This landing is portrayed in the movie "The Longest Day" with John Wayne playing Lt. Col Vandervoort, the CO of the 2nd Battalion, 505th PIR of the 82nd Airborne Division, who broke his ankle in a poor glider landing. John fought behind enemy lines for three days until his unit finally linked up with units coming up from Omaha Beach.
John was unaware at the time that he was fighting at approximately the exact spot where an ancestor in 1066 set sail from Normandy with William the Conqueror and participated in defeating the English army at the Battle of Hastings or within a few hundred miles of where 530 years before another ancestor with a similar name as John's fought as a Man-at-Arms with Henry V defeating the French during the Battle of Agincourt in what is considered one of England's greatest military victories. The quote above is from the St. Crispin Day speech by Henry V in the Shakespeare play by the same name which was given on the eve of the battle.
John's next combat mission was in August where he participated with the 1st Airborne Task Force in Operation Dragoon, an invasion of the South of France. It was considered an Allied success, liberating most of Southern France in just four weeks while inflicting heavy casualties on the German forces.
In late September, John participated in Operation Market Garden where he landed with the 101st Airborne in Holland. This was the largest airborne assault in history. Even though some objectives were achieved, the airborne units suffered heavy losses due to the mistaken belief of Allied Command that the German units were weak in this area. Instead, the airborne assault which was lightly armed encountered several Waffen SS Panzer divisions. This landing is portrayed in the movie "A Bridge Too Far" and in the HBO series, "Band of Brothers."
In December, John spent Christmas sitting on the airstrip waiting for the weather to clear so he could be part of an airborne drop into Bastogne to relieve the 101st Airborne. Fortunately, Patton's Third Army made this risky airborne assault unnecessary. In March 1945, John participated in Operation Varsity which was an airborne assault to cross the Rhein. He was awarded the Bronze Star for bravery during this assault.
Subsequent to the end of war in Europe, John was crossing the United States to participate in Operation Downfall, the invasion of Japan, when the war in the Pacific ended, and he met his future wife, Barbara Jean McKerrigan, his partner for 66 years.
Barbara and John were married October 3, 1945, in Alliance, Nebraska. They then began an adventure which included airborne training at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, followed by work as a U.S. Army ship engineer in Seattle, Washington, and as a pilot with a ferrying squadron at Tinker Air Force Base in Midwest City, Oklahoma, where John flew practically every airplane in the United States arsenal.
When the Korea War started, John was sent to Korea where he joined the 6147th Tactical Control Group and functioned as a forward air controller. The squadron was nicknamed Mosquitoes because of the size and lack of armaments of their airplanes. John also served in the trenches of Korea as a forward controller ensuring the ground troops received the artillery and air support they needed. He won a Distinguished Flying Cross in Korea.
Subsequent to the Korean War, John joined the Strategic Air Command where he was the Command Pilot on a B-47, the first jet bomber in the Air Force arsenal, for approximately nine years. His crew twice won the SAC Bomber Competition and the Fairchild Trophy.
With his retirement from the Air Force as a Major in 1963, John returned to Oklahoma to raise his family and ultimately start an air conditioning, heating and plumbing contractor business which he successfully operated for more than 40 years.
For the last few years, he has lived quietly with his son and GreyGal's feral cat family which includes Alfie the Great, Popsicle, Count Catula, and Miss Z, among others.
Barbara, John's parents, all three of his siblings and the majority of his Band of Brothers have already started their new adventure which John is racing to catch up with beginning on July 11, 2020. He is survived by his three children, Judith Ann McKnight, John Dennis Branch and Jean Rae Ratterman; seven grandchildren, Melissa Warsaw, Amy Evers, Thomas, Patrick and Samuel McKnight, and Chelsea and Ian Ratterman; and six great grandchildren, Lauryn and Noah Evers; and Ryder, Finley, Caitlyn and Michael McKnight. After a short service on Friday morning at 9:00 a.m., at Bill Eisenhour Funeral Home, John will be buried at the Fort Sill National Cemetery in Elgin, Oklahoma.
John received the following medals — Distinguished Flying Cross; Air Medal with four Oak Leaf Clusters; Bronze Star; European, African, Middle East Campaign Medal with various campaign stars; Distinguished Unit Citation; American Campaign Medal; World War Two Victory Medal; Korea Service Medal; United Nations Service Metal for Korea; Armed Forces Reserve Medal and National Defense Service Medal.
John was a member of the Choctaw Tribe.
What John learned over his long life can be summed up in the words of USMC Major General Smedley Butler, the most decorated soldier in United States history, "War is a Racket!"
In lieu of flowers, please make donations to the ASPCA.
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