03.) G-Men & Leathernecks

Langston's nephew weighs in on the memory of the Phantom Marine. The FBI and the Marines head to Newport.

Episode Transcript

(00:09):
This is The Phantom Marine Episode threeWelcome Back. I'm Chris de Rose,
author of The Fighting Bunch and hostof The Phantom Marine. In our last
episode, we talked with Dwayne Langston, the son of William Langston and Lindos
Signiac, who was eight years oldwhen his father allegedly reappeared in the town
of Newport. He told us thathis mother had said to him that they

(00:32):
had to go on with their livesas though William were dead. Whether he
was or not. Dwayne had acceptednot knowing the truth one way or another
as an eight year old, andit appears to have satisfied him at the
age of eighty three. Dwayne alsosaid something to me that was curious,
which was that his mother felt likethe people in Newport, Arkansas were leveling

(00:52):
with her about what they encountered.I wondered. Even though William never made
contact with his wife and son again, this leaves open the possibility that he
ultimately did get in touch with hisLangston family. Remember, the man told
people that his wife and son hadmoved on without him, and that he
saw this as a good thing becauseof his war injuries. But none of

(01:14):
this would preclude him re establishing contactwith his parents and his siblings. I
spent a lot of time on ancestryand digging through old obituaries, trying to
piece together the Langston family tree,and I was able to find a nephew
of William, Willard Langston who's actuallynamed for him, and I decided to
contact him to see whether it waspossible that his uncle reestablished contact with the

(01:37):
family. My name is Willard Owen, and Willard Langston is my uncle on
my mother's side. They were brotherand sister. He was like, say,
he was my uncle, so andyou never got the chance to meet
him, right, No, No, he died before I was born.

(01:57):
He died in forty five, Ibelieve. And I was born at forty
nine. And your mother named youafter her brother, Yes, sir,
What did your What did your mothertell you about this? And what were
her feelings about the possible reappearance ofher brother in Arkansas? Not much really.
They had told me that he haddied in that someone came back to

(02:22):
new Or, Arkansas, stating thatit was him and there was a lot
of people that had recognized him therein in Newport that knew him, and
saying that it was him. Hehad changed very little other than you know,

(02:42):
other than with the stuff with thesefoot and his hands that they said
it was you know him. Soit wasn't something your mom talked a lot
about. No, so not notreally. I really don't know why,
but it was it was something thatguy. I don't know why they didn't
talk more about it, but that'sall of that I kind of I can

(03:06):
remember just growing up. You know, it was just something that they no
one to really talked about, justthat he had died. As somebody came
back saying it was him. Um, did you know your grandmother Naomi?
Well, oh, yeah, IUh we lived in uh in her a
basement for a number of years.After my father died, we moved back

(03:28):
into the house there in Jonesborough anduh it was on North Allas Street and
h we had moved into the basementand lived there for a number of years
because of my father passing away andmy mother trying to face the hospital bills
and stuff like that, keep thekeeping our family togethers. I had three

(03:51):
other sisters that was that that wasliving with us at the time. Uh.
It was my mother, three hissisters and me. And did your
grandma Naomi, ever talk about Willardwith you, not much, Just like
like I said, though, whenmy mom would talk about it, she

(04:11):
would be in the in the inthe house, or in the room with
us and just said the same thing. You know, that that he had
died on Ewold Jimma, and thatyou know somebody that was said that it
was him came back and she gotletters from him stating that he was okay,

(04:33):
that he was going to a Vahospital, and that he would get
in touch with her when he hada chance. Do you know if your
grandma believed that it was true,if it was not true, if she
wondered west for a long time shethought it was thought it was true.
I guess up until the day ifshe died. I guess after I moved

(04:57):
down here, I really didn't geta chance to visit with my grandmother because
it was a distance between us thatyou know, just kept as apart.
But for a long time it wasin her heart that she thought it was
She thought it was true, andthat she would she would have loved to
seen him again. From what Iunderstood, I thought that he had went

(05:21):
and saw his wife and found outthat she was married again, and that
he turned around and walked away,because she seems she was happy. I
wish I would have been able toknow him, and you know, because

(05:42):
of me being named after him andthat he would be him being my mother's
brother, that I would have likedto have known something about him and the
things that he had went through whenhe was you know, he had grown
up and during the war and everything. I would have liked to have found
that a lot about him, youknow, Chris, I think no,

(06:06):
I thank you for for being,you know, trying to find out about
all of this and doing a lotof the research and stuff. You know,
I really I really appreciate you.You're doing all of the all of
the the leg work and and everythingelse to get you know, to find

(06:26):
out about it. You know.Well, there you have it. The
man with the never contacted Dwayne,never contacted Linda, never contacted his father,
or his siblings or his mother beyondthe letters she received from Conway.
In January of nineteen forty six,many people searched for the man claiming to

(06:49):
be William Willard Langston. The policeof four different states, the Langston family,
and their friends, who staked outcafe and bus depots in the towns
surrounding Newport, Arkansas, a youngwidow, her son, and her new
husband, and reporters from newspapers acrossthe country. But by February the trail

(07:14):
had gone cold. No one hadheard from the Phantom Marine since a letter
he sent to the editor of aMemphis newspaper on January twenty eighth. The
Langston family returned to their jobs andtheir lives, adjusting to the new reality
that their son and brother, whomthey called Willard, might still be alive.

(07:36):
Linda Langston told her son Dwayne,that they had to move forward with
their lives as though their father wasdead, even though they might never know
for certain. On February first,newspapers reported that Marion Langston, William's brother,
had gone missing near Seattle. Marian, it was, had suffered work

(08:01):
injuries consistent with the man who hadvisited Newport. Perhaps this strange story had
a simple ending, but after theLangstons went home, After Linda returned to
her new life in Michigan, andthe police moved on to other crimes and
the press to other stories, therewere two more visits in the town of
Newport in the spring of nineteen fortysix that merrit our attention. The first

(08:26):
was from Norman L. Casey ofthe FBI. Years later, Casey would
play a walk on role in investigatingthe Kennedy assassination, but in April of
nineteen forty six, he was onthe trail of the Phantom Marine. His
final report is a trove of informationon the Langston family, a detailed analysis
of eyewitness evidence, a cryptic eliminationof a suspect, and an abrupt conclusion.

(08:54):
The FBI worked with Newport Police ChiefJohn Moore. Moore was referenced from
the very first articles on the PhantomMarine. At the beginning, he seemed
convinced, like everyone else who hadmet the man, that he was Langston.
The Chicago Tribune ran a story onJanuary twenty fourth, saying after he
began to talk, they became sureof his identity. Among these was the

(09:18):
city's police chief, John Moore,who has known Langston since the latter's boyhood.
But that same date, the UnitedPress recorded more as being puzzled and
skeptical. Also that day, Mooretold the Memphis Press Scimitar that he was
beginning to think something was funny.The man I talked with didn't look anything
like the pictures of Lenggston. Hisfather showed me yesterday, he said,

(09:41):
by the time April comes. Moreindicates to the FBI that he's convinced it
was an impostor. According to theFBI report, Bill and Naomi had six
children between nineteen o nine in nineteentwenty seven. William was the third child,
born May twenty six, nineteen seventeen, and Saul for Rock the first

(10:03):
of two boys. Langston's parents,Bill and Niaomi separated around nineteen thirty three
and later divorced. Langston left NewarkForbarian Center, Michigan, to work as
a farm hand, around nineteen thirtyfive, so about when he turned eighteen
and would have been finishing high school. It was in Michigan that Langston met

(10:26):
and married Linda Smichael. From thereport, Langston had only returned to Arkansas
for an occasional visit. The newspapersat Newport, Arkansas, which is located
near Newark, had published the factthat William Willard Langston was killed in the
Battle of Iusima, and his deathwas accepted. Chief More advised, however,

(10:48):
that since the subject's appearance at Newport, that the Langston death was being
regarded doubtfully. It is to benoted that there has been a great deal
of publicity concerning the appearance of thesubject who claimed to have been William Willard
Langston. During the subject's visit Newport, he talked with various individuals and apparently
convinced them that he was actually Langston. It is noted that none of the

(11:13):
people interviewed who had talked with thesubject recognized him from his physical appearance.
The subject made frequent reference to hisfalse left leg, but at no time
was any portion of this false legseen by any person contacted, with the
exception of Chief of Police Moore,who did not converse with the subject any
length of time. The persons contactedby the subject did not appear to be

(11:35):
very well educated and did not appearto be too intelligent. The conversations took
place, usually in beer halls wherepersons were buying drinks for the subject.
Okay, time out for a minute. This is a real nineteen forty six
g man attitude toward the people he'sinvestigating and interviewing. Having worked for thirteen

(11:58):
years in the criminal justice system botha prosecutor and a defense attorney, I
can tell you that without the testimonyof people who may not be the best
educated, without the testimony of peoplewho may be drinking maybe at other substances,
you wouldn't have much of a criminaljustice system at all. Back to

(12:18):
the report, Here, Casey liststhe names of some of the people who
interacted with the man with the limp, First off as Jimmy Allen of Newark,
who was reported by Chief More tohave seen William Willard Langston three days
before Langston was killed. Unfortunately,the report stops there. This would be
really compelling eyewitness testimony if someone whowas stationed on Iwashima with William Langston,

(12:43):
who saw him several days before hedied, and then interacted with the man
with the limp in January nineteen fortysix. So while we unfortunately don't have
more information about this really unique witnessand what he thinks, he is listed
as a believer. Next on thelist is George Crownover, who we've heard

(13:03):
from before. Cronover is an operatorof a small button cutting factory who stated
that he was the first man whohad conversed with the subject, believing him
to be William Willard Langston. Crownoverwas confronted by the subject about three pm
on Saturday, January nineteenth, nineteenforty six. The subject said to Crownover,

(13:24):
my name is Langston. Do youremember me. Kronover replied that he
did not, and then as theystood on the streets, the name of
William Willard Langston, who was commonlyknown as Willard Langston, popped in his
mind. He asked the subject ifhe was Willard Langston, and the subject
replied in the affirmative. Crownover thenmade mention of the fact that Langston had

(13:46):
been reported dead, to which thesubject replied that he had been reported dead,
but he was still alive, andthat the Langston family did not know
it yet. Crownover offered to assistthe subject in getting out to see his
father at Newark, and the subjectpassed off the remark, saying that he
would kind of like to see hisuncle Tom Langston. Crownover then carried the

(14:09):
subject into Field's cafe. Word spreadquickly that Langston was back from the dead.
A number of people approached and talkedto the subject, and the subject
conversed freely referring to his participation inthe March of Death from Batan and the
Philippines. Is captured by the Japaneseand cruelties endured by him during his capture.
The subject pointed to stains on hisfield jacket which he was wearing,

(14:31):
and stated that the stains were Japaneseblood. The subject held his hands in
front of him in a drawn mannerand stated his hands were in that condition
because he had been hung by hisfingers for several days. Agent Casey notes
that this is inconsistent with Langston's militaryexperience. Langston did not enter the service
until July eighth, nineteen forty three. Langston did not leave the United States

(14:56):
until approximately two months prior to hisdeath in March nineteen forty five, and
he was last seen by Linda Osigniacpersonally well in the United States in July
of nineteen forty four. He wasnever a Japanese prisoner, according to reliable
information available to missus Osigniac. Continuing, Crownover said that the subject was able

(15:16):
to converse freely about the family,recalling incidents happening to the family, and
the subject called the names of relativesfreely and without hesitancy. On the night
of January nineteenth, nineteen forty six, the subject went to Crownover's house and
spent the night, and because ofhis rather ragged appearance, Crownover gave the

(15:39):
subject two dollars so that he couldclean himself up. With this two dollars
received on January nineteenth, the subjectpurchased a shave and a haircut at the
Crownover house. Missus Crownover asked thesubject if he had a discharge, to
which the subject replied by pulling outa card which he did not allow the
Crownovers to examine in stating, Idon't need a discharge. Here's my dead

(16:03):
man's certificate. No further questions regardingthe discharge were asked. The subject walked
with a limp and stated that hisleft leg was off three inches above the
ankle. The subject made mention ofhis stub being sore on two or three
occasions, and also referred to asilver plate in his head. Russell McClure,

(16:25):
brother of Margie Fields, was reportedto have offered to pay for a
long distance call to be placed bysubject to William Clay Langston at Newark.
Subject declined to make this long distancecall. Chief of Police More advised that
Crownover had become so interested in detectingthe perpetrator of the fraud on him,

(16:45):
that he had later offered a rewardfifty dollars for information leading to the identity
of the subject. Now we knowthat's absolutely not true. Crownover's reward was
reported in the local newspapers. Crownoverwas absolutely conveyed instant that report that his
overnight guest was Langston. Lacy Field'scafe operator at six one seven Front Street,

(17:07):
Newport, advised that he had formerlyrun a pool hall at Newark for
several years and that he was wellacquainted with the Langston's, but that he
had not seen William Willard Langston forseveral years and had formerly believed that Langston
was dead, but from the subject'sdetailed knowledge of Langston that he is now
doubtful. Field stated that he wasbusy on Saturday, January nineteenth waiting on

(17:33):
customers, and that someone called himover and said that the subject was Langston.
Field stated that he was doubtful andasked the subject one was the last
time that he had come to Langston'shouse. The subjects stated then that it
was when he was living with hismother, and that two women, Dove
Duncan and May Jordan had been there. Fields stated that this was absolutely true,

(17:56):
and that the subject had referred tohis relatives without making any mistakes in
naming them. This was fifteen yearsago, and Field was with Dutch Vaughn,
whose name subject also mentioned as beingpresent on the occasion. So this
is incredible. You've heard me sayit before, that Lacy Field's question about

(18:17):
when or whether he'd ever gone toLangston's house. I consider that to be
the most compelling proof that the manwith the limp was William Langston. Here
we have that question and response inmuch greater detail. Lenkston didn't just remember
when it had happened. Lenkston explainedthat it was when he was living at
his mother's house, and in additionto naming Dutch Vaughan as having been present,

(18:41):
he also named Dove Duncan and MadeJordan. This isn't the kind of
story you tell your best friend ina foxhole in war that fifteen years ago,
Lacy Fields showed up at your housewith Dutch Vaughn, and Dove Duncan
and Made Jordan were also there.This is an incredibly humdrum story. It's
incredibly specific. It's fifteen years old. And it seems as though only William

(19:04):
Langston could possibly know the next witnessin the report, Miss Margie Fields,
six seventeen Front Street, also advisedthat she had seen the subject and that
he recalled that he had seen herabout three or four years ago at the
Fields Pool Hall at Newark. Shestated that she had actually seen Langston at
the time with his wife, andthat after seeing Linda Osigniac recently, she

(19:29):
recognized her as William Langston's wife,but that she had not recognized him at
the time she saw the subject.He was in the company of her brother,
Russell McClure and George crown Over.Missus Fields also referred to stories which
the subject had told concerning Japanese atrocitiescommitted against him while he was in prison
camp, and showed her his hands, which appeared drawn. Miss Fields stated

(19:53):
that she asked the subject about hiswife and child, and that the subject
had replied that I I've been toSaint Joseph to see them, and when
I walked in, my wife faintedafter she had recognized me. She is
married again. In this short section, with the testimony of Margie Fields,
we have great reasons to believe thatthe man is William Langston, and reasons

(20:15):
to believe that he's an impostor.On one hand, you have this incredibly
specific knowledge that he had seen herthree or four years ago at her pool
Hall in New York. Who elsebut William Langston would know when the last
time was that he saw Margie Fields. At the same time, this story
about showing up in Saint Joseph encounteringhis wife, his wife passing out,

(20:40):
it seems very far fetched and thisis just bizarre. Linda told the FBI
that she had married in secret onJanuary fifth, nineteen forty six, and
that prior to news coverage of herhusband's possible reappearance, her marriage was not
known to the public. Our nextwitness is Otha Cataline of Newport, who

(21:04):
advised that he had also seen thesubject on January nineteenth in the afternoon.
On hearing that the subject who wasin Fields Cafe was Langston, he approached
the subject and introduced himself, afterwhich time the subject stated that he knew
mister Cataline and that he was carland Dale's brother. He called the nicknames

(21:26):
of these brothers Spooky and Whitey,referring to Carl and Dale respectively. So,
whoever this man is, he recognizesOtha Cataline by sight, tells him
he's carl and Dale's brother, anduses their nicknames Spooky and Whitey. So
this is someone with a really intimateunderstanding of the people in this town,

(21:48):
who while they don't recognize him bysight as William Langston, they don't recognize
him as being anybody else. Andso I think between this his interactions with
Lacy Field and Margie Fields, ithas to be someone with knowledge of the
town. It can't be someone thathe met at or it can't be someone
that he knew in Michigan. Ithas to be someone from the Newport area

(22:11):
to take a look at Oatha Catalinand say you're Spooky and Whitey's brother,
your best friend in the Marines,or whoever else. You can't teach them
how to recognize the people that theysee on the street in Newport and to
remember the old nicknames of their siblings, to remember the last time you saw
Margie Fields, or to remember thecircumstances under which Lacy Fields visited your house

(22:34):
fifteen years ago. So, despiteall the problems with thinking that the wrong
man was buried on Iwashima, andthat William Langston made it back to the
United States alive. As many problemsas there are with that theory, these
incredibly specific interactions on the streets ofNewport really make it tough to believe that

(22:55):
this could have been an impostor.Back to the report, Oatha Catalin advised
the subject that Dale Cataline was dead, and the subject stated that Dale Cataline
was still alive, that they hadcome through Newport together three weeks ago,
that they had both been confined ina Japanese prison camp together, and that
Dale Cataline was now in the GreatLakes Naval Hospital. Okay, if Otha

(23:18):
is remembering that correctly, that's inconsistentwith what the man told other people,
which was that he had been backin the country for ten days. Also,
Otha reached out to Great Lakes NavalHospital to find out if his brother
was truly still alive, but theyhad no record of him there. While
Linda Osiniac was in Newport, shesat down for an interview with Chief Moore.

(23:41):
She told him that she was firmlyconvinced that the person appearing at Newport
was not her late husband. Shehad received an official notice from the United
States Marine Corps, that her husbandwas killed in the Battle of Iwajima in
March of nineteen forty five, andhad since that time been paid the insurance
benefits of her husband and by thegovernment. She and her late husband have

(24:02):
one child, Dwayne Willard Langston,age eight. She stated that she was
married to Joseph O'siniac on January fifth, nineteen forty six, in a private
wedding, and that no one knewthat she was married, with the exception
of her own father. She acknowledgedthat the marriage was a matter of public
record, but minimized the possibility thatanyone who knew her could have known it.

(24:26):
She stated that her late husband hadnever had a field jacket, which
was the type of jacket which thesubject had on at Newport. Concerning the
proof of her husband's death, shestated that she had never received anything from
his personal effects except a ring whichshe had given him and an identification bracelet
bearing his serial numb. She statedthat she was positive that it was the

(24:48):
ring which she had given Langston.Marian Langston had come to see William Willard
Langston and Linda during the year ofnineteen thirty nine, and missus O'sinney ac
stated that she had not seen himsince that time. Next witnesses Charles E.
Griffin, if Cotter, Arkansas,married to William Langston's sister, employed
by the Missouri Pacific Railroad. Hestated that he and his wife had received

(25:11):
a letter from Marion detailing a workplaceaccident where he had injured his leg.
Marian asked for and Charles sent aloan of three hundred dollars. Mister Griffin
told the FBI that his brother inlaw, Marion should definitely be a suspect.
Griffin stated that Marion had gone toIdaho five or six years ago to
a civilian conservation core camp, andthat Marian had never returned to the state

(25:34):
of Arkansas to his knowledge. SergeantBill Walker of the Arkansas State Police advised
that he had obtained a photograph ofWilliam Willard Langston made approximately two years ago,
and that this photograph had been exhibitedthe George crown Over, Lacy Fields
and Margie Fields to see whether theybelieved that this was the subject. They
didn't recognize him as the man theyinteracted with. This is intention with a

(25:56):
local newspaper article that said that aphotograph of Langston was exhibited to three witnesses
who confirmed that he looked like theman they had interacted with a Newport.
Perhaps these were three different people.Perhaps they were the same three people,
and the two reports are in conflict. Sergeant Bill Walker of the Arkansas State
Police gave the FBI three items thatcould be used for handwriting analysis. The

(26:22):
first was the drawing of the rhinocerosthat the man with the lent made for
Hayden Britta's daughter IRMA. Second wasthe envelope postmarked from Conway, Arkansas,
and third the letter inside that envelope, addressed to Naomi Hendrix. It was
noted that this letter bore a threecent stamp and that it is customary for
servicemen to write the word free onthe envelope to avoid paying postage. The

(26:45):
FBI concluded that the handwriting on theseitems did not match that of William Langston
or his brother Marian. A photographof Marion, which had been obtained by
the Seattle Field office of the FBI, was shown to Police Chief John Moore,
Lacy Fields, and Margie Fields,all of whom insisted that he was
not the man who had visited Newport. Bill Langston, William's father, and

(27:08):
his second wife, Willeen, wereinterviewed by Agent Casey in chief Moore.
Both of them said that they wereextremely disturbed mentally by the appearance of the
man claiming to be Langston. Bothof them declared that there was no possibility
that Marion had appeared in his place. In fact, they could think of
no suspects. Casey investigated Langston's cousin, Talmadge Langston, who was about William's

(27:33):
age and may have borne a resemblance, But Talmadge, it turned out,
had an airtight alibi. He wasin prison serving a fifteen year sentence for
vehicle theft. Then Casey writes,on the basis of information received from Seattle
in referenced report, Marion Davis Langstonis being eliminated as a suspect. That's
it. No additional information. Onone hand, Marion had seemed like the

(27:56):
only possible suspect. He had injuriessimilar to the man with the limp.
He would have borne a resemblance tohis brother. He would have grown up
in the same house as his brotherfor at least some of his life,
and perhaps been in a position torecognize some of the same people or remember
the same stories as his brother.He also may have had a motive,

(28:17):
which was to say, Hey,if I'm going to go around the rest
of my life with these injuries,I would rather have the glory of being
uninjured combat better then simply a guywho missed the war but got injured at
work. Setting aside the fact thatthis would be absolute torture on his mother
and his siblings and his father.But on the other hand, I was

(28:37):
never quite comfortable with Marian as asuspect. Marian's ten years younger than his
brother. I have a sister whowas six and a half years younger than
me. We had different friends,we knew different people, we have very
different experiences growing up. She wastwelve years old when I left home.
Thinking about that visit of lacy Fieldsto the Lengxton home fifteen years earlier,

(29:02):
the one with Dutch Vaughn, Marianwould have been four years old. He
would have had no recollection of thatevent whatsoever. Now I have to figure
out why the FBI has excluded him, and to see whether it's a good
enough reason that we can exclude himas well. Agent Casey took the findings
of his investigation to assistant US AttorneyWarren would would advised him that, in

(29:23):
his opinion, no laws had beenbroken. Casey was investigating the impersonation statutes,
which make it a crime to pretendto be a government official in order
to receive a benefit. Would determinethat any benefits received by the subject of
this case would have been because thegiver believed that he was William Langston,
and not because he was a memberof the Marine Corps. Therefore, no

(29:47):
violation of federal impersonation laws. Caseywrote, in view of the fact that
there does not appear to be anyviolation of federal statutes, no further investigation
is contemplated in this matter, andit is considered closed. Casey ends his
report with a comparison of physical descriptionsbetween the man who visited Newport and William

(30:08):
Langston. The subject was between theages of twenty five and thirty five,
foot eleven, one hundred and seventypounds, with dark brown eyes. His
hair was medium brown with graying edges. His complexion is listed as medium dark
smooth. His teeth were good.According to Linda. Langston was also five

(30:30):
eleven weighed between one hundred and eightyfive and ninety pounds. Had dark brown
hair. He's twenty eight years old. His teeth are described as good,
with the exception of two fillings inhis upper front teeth. Casey sent his
final report to FBI headquarters on Aprileighteenth, nineteen forty six. In his

(30:51):
synopsis, he acknowledges that the subjectwas able to converse freely and convincingly with
individuals acquainted with the Langston family anddismisses their testimony by saying most individuals contacted
by subject were poorly educated and ina beer hall at the time. There
are two things that jump out atme. The FBI is a small c
conservative institution. The agent's not goingto go beyond what he needs to write

(31:17):
in his report. And if he'sinvestigating a violation of the impersonation statutes and
the US Attorney's Office advises him,hey, there's no violation of the impersonation
statutes here. Because the people whogave him a dollar or two dollars for
this or that did so because theybelieved he was Langston and not a government
official. That's all you need towrite in your report. This strange dismissal

(31:41):
of the eyewitness testimony in this caseis totally gratuitous. Secondly, this feels
very much like an investigation that reachedits conclusion first and worked backwards from there.
Jimmy Allen met the man with thelimb. Jimmy Allen also saw William
Langston three days days before he wasallegedly killed in the Battle of Iwajima,

(32:02):
and yet we don't have an extensiveinterview with him. We just have one
sentence. You have Lacy Fields's testimonythat the man described an ordinary event fifteen
years earlier where he had come tothe house with Dutch Vaughan and Dove Duncan
and May Jordan were there. Youhave Margie Fields, who says that the

(32:22):
man accurately recalled that they had lastseen one another three or four years earlier
at her Pool Hall. And youhave Otha Cataline's account that the man recognized
him by sight and correctly identified himas the brother of Spooky and Whitey.
Yet the FBI dismisses all of thiswith cheap shots at their education level and

(32:44):
the fact that they're having a fewbeers together. Also, we know that
at least some of the information inthis report supporting the impostor theory is incorrect,
namely that George crown overcame to doubtthat the man he hosted at his
home was William Langston. On Maynineteen forty six, FBI Director J.
Edgar Hoover forwarded this report to GeneralVandergrift, Commandant of the Marine Corps,

(33:09):
saying, I thought the results ofthis investigation would be of interest to you.
The last visitor, so far aswe know, to travel to Newport
in search of the Phantom Marine wasa Marine Corps sergeant by the name of
James Atlee Phillips, who's a staffcorrespondent for The leather Neck, the magazine
of the Marine Corps. I wastipped off to this article by a small

(33:31):
newspiece in the local Newport newspaper thatleather Neck correspondents were on the ground doing
a story. It's worth noting thatPhillips could be the subject of a podcast
all by himself. He is describedin a profile by the Big Bend Sentinel
as a cult figure among a fictionado'sof pulps by thrillers. By the time

(33:52):
he arrived in Arkansas looking for Langston, he had already written a book called
The Inheritors in the Vein of f. Scott Fitzgerald focused on the country club
set of Fort Worth, Texas.Allegedly, the book is still spoken of
with distaste in that city, andmay have once been the subject of a
public bonfire. Atlee described Langston's entryto Britain's Cafe with the trademark phrase shake

(34:16):
hands with a dead man. Oneof the customers got up and broke for
the door, according to Atlee,but the rest of them just watched.
Something strange was sitting at that counter, so strange that the story of it
would go spilling across the whole countryin a few hours. Sitting there,
the man who claimed to have comeback from the dead raised a cup of
coffee in trembling hands. He beganto talk, and as he did,

(34:39):
excitement washed across Newport like a fever. The news pulled people out of the
barber shop, the pool room,and the stores. It brought them on
the run to Britain's Cafe. Thestranger watched them come in and greeted most
of them by their first names,even using nicknames that had long been forgotten.
He recalled old occurrences, picnics,and parties with the preoccupied air of

(35:01):
a man who was enjoying the past. After a while, he got up
and laboriously made his way to FieldsCafe in the same block. There he
held court again, answering questions andgreeting more people. One of them was
George Crownover, a longtime resident ofNewport. A crowd of curious people lined

(35:21):
the walls and gazed at the boywith awe while he talked. John Moore,
local chief of police, came inand the stranger shook hands with him.
For an hour. The group inthe cafe listened while the visitor in
dirty khaki talked about his return fromthe Pacific and about old times in the
little Arkansas town. One thing wascertain, the stranger knew local history,

(35:43):
as no impostor could possibly know it. He recalled particular ballgames and fishing trips,
and the stamp of intimate personal knowledgewas on everything he said, like
a later day ancient mariner. Herecalled the years before the war, and
his listeners hung on every word breathlessly, Bit by bit, brought out by
random questions, his war story beganto unfold. He was, he said,

(36:07):
a marine scout, a Iwujima.After being badly wounded, he had
been captured by the Japanese and hadescaped from them. Advancing American forces had
liberated him on a nearby island aftera period of guerrilla warfare in that period.
The stranger said he had lost hisleft foot and his hands had been
injured in Little Rock, ninety milesaway. The Associated Press teletypes began to

(36:30):
chatter. The yellow copy paper camejerking out of them with one of the
strangest stories of World War Two.The Phantom Moraines said, the dispatches had
returned from an ewo grave, andthe whole countryside was stirred by the appearance
of the grim Stranger. On thecity desks in that section, editors read
the news and their eyes narrowed thoughtfully. They were used to watching the erratic

(36:52):
flood tide of human action roll offthe teletypes in an endless stream, and
some of them hedged on this almostunbelievable story. Others flaunted it across their
papers and banner heads. Soon allAmerica read about the weird Homecoming. At
least said that he wrote this storybecause one of two things was obviously true.
Either the records of the corps wereincorrect, which was highly improbable,

(37:15):
or someone was playing the grisliest jokeof the century. The thought of an
impostor writing a letter to the motherof an officially reported dead marine claiming to
be that marine was so gruesome thatit was almost inconceivable. Yet that was
the only alternative to believing that WilliamLangston had returned from a Pacific grave.

(37:35):
Atlee and his team from the leatherNet covered over two thousand miles of Arkansas
highways and inquired in all the smalltowns along the way. They went into
the local stores and pool rooms.They sat in the beer joints and listened
to the natives discussing the case.Atlee also covered the possibility of Marion Langston
as a suspect. According to Atlee, Langston looked like his older brother and

(37:58):
had a lump under one kneecap thatmight have made him limp. He had
also been injured in an industrial accidentand his right index finger was affected.
This reminded Atlee of something that GeorgeCrownover had told him, which was that
the man with the limp had anextended index finger. According to Atlee,
Marian had been missing from his Seattleboarding house since January sixth. Police Chief

(38:22):
More is listed in this article asbelieving the Marian impostor theory, at Lee
has some doubts. How is thestranger able to call so many new people
by name, he wrote, whenmost of them he recognized had not known
the younger brother. How did thestranger know that William Langston's wife had remarried,
a fact her own family did notknow. How could the visitor,

(38:44):
if he were the younger brother,have graying hair and look thirty years old
if he were only nineteen or twenty. How could an impostor have a picture
of William Langston's wife in his pocket? And even if it was Marian who
came into Newport that January afternoon,what possible motive could a boy have in
subjecting his own mother to such grieffor no visible reason? These are the

(39:07):
knotty points that prevent snap judgment inthe baffling Arkansas case. He concludes by
writing, if the tired man whocame limping home on January nineteenth is against
all probability really p F c.William Willard Langston, The Marine Corps has
only one thought. It wants toget him home and correct its record.

(39:27):
For William Langston is a man whodeserves well of his country. He served
it well on the field of battle. If the limping man is brother Marian,
or some other figure yet undisclosed,the solution is much simpler. A
man who writes a false letter ofresurrection to a grief stricken mother deserves a
touch of intensive combat treatment by aMarine honor guard. The leather Neck and

(39:49):
the Corps wait to see what thenext development in the strange Arkansas case will
be. For somewhere the limping manmust turn up again or be turned up.
It was a reasonable full assumption forAli to make at the time,
but we know that the man withthe limp was never sighted again. While
I haven't read any of at leastspy novels, it's unlikely he came up
with anything as compelling or mysterious asthis case. If you've enjoyed this series

(40:16):
so far, please consider buying acopy of my new book, The Fighting
Bunch and join us next time aswe learn more about the Langston family,
the FBI's investigation into Marion Langston inSeattle, and how William Willard Langston found
his way from Sulfur Rock to Newark, to Michigan, into the Marines and

(40:37):
Iwajima. That's next time. Onthe Phantom Marine. I'm yours for the
truth Chris de rose bo