Robert "Cotton” Tuggle Jr

Robert "Cotton” Tuggle Jr. . Robert "Cotton" Tuggle Jr (4 January 1925 - 15 April 1945) graduated from Brownwood High School in 1942 and enlisted in the Navy in 1943. He was nicknamed "Cotton" because of the color and texture of his hair. Robert's experiences growing up in Brownwood were documented in the book "Confessions of the Willis Creek Gang". He was a Navy Aviation ordnanceman First Class, served aboard the aircraft carrier USS Makassar Strait (CVE-91), and was the rear gunner on a Grumman TBM Avenger torpedo plane / Navy Air Squadron VC-97. On 15 April 1945, their mission was to take aerial photos of the Japanese Navy's Ishigaki Airfield, a base for Japanese Kamikaze. Robert and his crewmates, Lt Vernon Tebo from Chicago IL and Warren Loyd from Long Island NY, were shot down and captured at Ishigaki Island, 265 miles south of Okinawa. They were dragged through the island's main village and tortured, Tuggle and Tebo were brutally bound, gagged, and beheaded by a sword. Loyd was beaten and viciously killed by more than 40 soldiers who used him for bayonet practice. Torture and execution of prisoners was a violation of the Geneva Convention of 1929. When the Ishigaki Incident became known in February 1947, the largest war criminal trial of Japanese was held, and 46 Japanese sailors and soldiers were sentenced to death as war criminals. However, only seven officers who played major roles in the brutal executions of the three Americans were hanged. The bilingual memorial monument on Ishigaki Island and the Ishigaki Incident Memorial in Fredericksburg Texas are dedicated to these fallen heroes