Max Munn Max Munn received a Bronze Star for helping to rescue five men during a kamikaze attack and starred in several sports, both in college and in naval exhibition contests. The former Lampasan was never one to brag about his exploits, though.

Jane Bumpus, one of Munn's four daughters, recently learned of her late father's secret missions in World War II with the U.S. Navy Beach Jumpers, tactical cover and deception units that operated from 1943 through the Vietnam War. While researching family genealogy, Mrs. Bumpus uncovered scattered facts about Munn, who died in 1997. She and her husband, John Robert Bumpus, have spent several years trying to learn more about the Beach Jumper's service.

When Munn signed up for the Beach Jumpers, he knew almost nothing about the type of missions to which he would be assigned -- except that they would be hazardous, Mrs. Bumpus said.

Although her father never talked about his experiences with the Beach Jumpers, Mrs. Bumpus said the competitive drive that helped him earn varsity letters in four sports at Junction High School and star in college tennis, basketball and football likely motivated him to enter an elite naval unit.

PHOTO BY DAVID LOWE Jane Bumpus displays the Bronze Star her late father, Max Munn, received for his role in the rescue of five men during a Dec. 28, 1944 kamikaze attack. "He was just a competitive person," she said of her father, the top-ranked singles and doubles player at Texas Tech University, which he attended for two years. "He always wanted to be the best at what he did, and he wanted to be surrounded by the same."

Munn paid his way through college -- an academic career that included a one-year stint at Abilene Christian University, as well as time at Texas Tech, the University of Texas and the University of Notre Dame -- by amassing a flock of 200 sheep from one Rambouillet ram his uncle gave him.

Munn studied textile engineering and accumulated about 70 credits at Texas Tech, where he joined the U.S. Navy Reserves. He then transferred to the University of Texas and played on the football team for one season under coach Dana X. Bible.

Munn had received an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy in 1942, but he never attended. Mrs. Bumpus does not know exactly why, but a note she found in which her father calculated a semester's expenses has made her wonder if monetary needs prevented him from attending the academy.

Munn did not receive a degree from UT, but he graduated from the university's V-12 program. The curriculum, which emphasized science and mathematics, prepared Naval candidates for reserve midshipmen's school -- in which Munn enrolled at Notre Dame.

He then reported to Ocracoke Island, N.C., just below Cape Hatteras. Chosen for Beach Jumper training specifically because its isolation allowed secrecy, the island was -- and still is -- accessible only by ferry, the Bumpuses said.

Commissioned as an ensign, Munn served in the Beach Jumper Unit Seven Scouts and Raiders. In Fort Pierce, Fla., the Scouts and Raiders faced swimming and stalking tests and learned martial arts and Chinese, as the late Lt. Jack Carlton, who served alongside Munn, recalled in an account posted on www.beachjumpers.com.

Carlton's account on the U.S. Navy Beach Jumpers Association Web site also mentions an afterbreakfast physical training exercise in which squads worked in unison to toss palm logs overhead.

Munn also received training in chemical warfare and bomb neutralization.

Carlton, who corresponded with Mrs. Bumpus and sent her information about her father, mentioned a diversionary strategy the Beach Jumpers used when carrying out a mock invasion on southern Luzon. Beach Jumpers mounted "chickens" -- rectangles of chicken wire, three feet high by six feet wide -- on the masts of their vessels to create deceptively large blips on enemy radar screens. A PT boat with a "chicken," Carlton recalled, looked like a destroyer on radar.

"We looked on radar like quite an armada," Carlton recalled in the portion of his memoir posted on beachjumpers.com.

Beach Jumpers also disseminated false messages to mislead enemy forces about the location of actual invasions.

Just three months after marrying the former Jean Ann Paine of Lampasas, Munn began a tour in the Philippines. The Bumpuses believe Munn's parents knew he was in the Pacific, but they probably did not have many more details than that.

Correspondence from Munn warned his family that his orders might be classified and could come with extremely short notice. One letter the Bumpuses have found is stamped "passed by Naval censor."

"They kind of kept a tight lid on things," John Bumpus said.

Munn was nearly as guarded with descriptions of his rescue efforts, even in a private journal.

Although in his diary Munn described the Japanese attack on Dec. 28, 1944, he did not explain in detail his role in the rescue of five survivors from the USS LST 750. Munn, aboard the LCI(L) 1006, went over the side of the ship with two companions, according to an official citation signed Jan. 7, 1945, to help exhausted survivors to safety on the ship.

"This was accomplished at the height of the engagement, while an enemy aircraft under heavy fire passed in close proximity," the citation said. "[Munn's] courageous response to a call above that of duty and cool self-possession in the face of danger were in keeping with the highest traditions of the Naval Service."

Munn eventually was promoted to lieutenant junior grade and finished his naval tour on the USS Missouri, the ship on which the Japanese formally surrendered Sept. 2, 1945. As part of a goodwill tour of the Mediterranean -- a region where many U.S. politicians and military officials feared Soviet influence -- the ship stopped in April 1946 in Istanbul, Turkey. There, the U.S. Navy delivered the body of Mehmet Munir Ertegun, the late Turkish ambassador to the United States. The diplomat died in Washington, D.C. in November 1944, but the war delayed the transport of his body for burial.

Munn also competed for the U.S. Navy in international basketball and tennis competitions at the various Mediterranean ports where the USS Missouri stopped. Mrs. Bumpus has a copy of a Turkish newspaper touting Munn's 1946 tennis match -- which he won -- against a Turkish champion.

Munn and his wife later moved to Lampasas, where the Beach Jumper veteran worked for his father in-law, R.J. Paine, at Lampasas Federal Savings & Loan and Paine Insurance Agency. Munn later owned the insurance agency and became president of Lampasas Federal Savings & Loan.

The Munns' seven children live throughout Texas: Mrs. Bumpus, Theresa McDonald, Susie Pringle and Karen Sugg in Lampasas; Chris Munn in Leander; Thomas Munn in Alpine; and David Munn in the Houston suburb of Cypress.

The Bumpuses, associate members of the U.S. Navy Beach Jumpers Association since 2005, plan to travel to Ocracoke Island for a reunion Oct. 22-24. As part of the gathering, a marker commemorating the Beach Jumpers' service will be dedicated.

With the number of living World War II Beach Jumpers dwindling, John Bumpus said the reunion will give him and his wife an opportunity to hear veterans' reminiscences of their service.

"I'm kind of looking forward to going to that just to see who knows what and what all they remember," he said.

Mrs. Bumpus plans to continue her search for details about her father's life and military service. Although she said family history research can be frustrating when new information proves difficult to find, she said she has enjoyed unearthing some of her father's secrets.

"It's been fun," Mrs. Bumpus said. "I like genealogy, and when it all comes together it's really rewarding."