Dwyer before battle.

Photo found 7/26/14.

Dwyer's Passing

Dwyer Duncan passed away on 1 May 2013.  He requested that there be no funeral or service.  This page is created to share Dwyer with those who would like to celebrate him in print.

Dwyer was born in a two-room house resembling a railroad boxcar on an oil lease near Henryetta, OK, on 7 January 1922, to Winnie and Hill Duncan.  He will be missed by his wife, Helga Duncan, and daughters, Dyna Duncan and Deone Roberts; his sisters Dorothy Duncan Sellers, of New Mexico, and Deone Duncan Penquite, of Arkansas; step-sister, Joyce Grant, of Oklahoma; nieces and nephews, his brothers in the 4th Marine Division, and undoubtedly countless others.

He will also be missed by his many friends from the Borzoi Club of America.

The American Legion Post 111 in Edmond, Oklahoma, honored Dwyer at the May 16, 2013 meeting.  The National Society of The Sons Of The American Revolution will honor Dwyer at their annual congress in Kansas City.

Our salute to Dwyer will be at a future date that will be posted to this site.  On that day, if you would like to lift a glass to toast him, send up a prayer or post a remembrance, please join us in spirit.

Dwyer's cemetery marker will soon be in place at the Memorial Park Cemetery, and will be listed at Find A Grave.  The planned location is Section 54, lot 88, spaces 1 & 2.

7 January 1922 - 1 May 2013
USMC, 4th Marine Division
Purple Heart

Early Years - Dwyer's Memories

    I recall or was told much about the Duncan family, and I believe that I am the last of the bloodline to know some immediate history.  I was born in a two-room house resembling a railroad boxcar on an oil lease near Henryetta, OK, on 7 January 1922.  The location consisted of several such houses owned by the oil company that leased the mineral rights.  Tiger Flats no longer exists, but it was located Southwest of Okmulgee.  It could be reached by going about five miles West on 4th Street toward Lake Okmulgee turning south on a dirt road, and going South about five miles.  I do not know the size of the Tiger Flats area, but I heard that it was also about two miles from Henryetta.  It was only a site of oil wells with houses of oil field workers on it.  At the time it was established, horses and wagons were more common than automobiles, so workers lived near the places of work.  Workers also worked twelve-hour shifts to avoid time loss in travel.

    Stephen Hill Duncan went to Okmulgee after his discharge from the Army following WW I.  He had been working in Illinois coal mines and heard of oil strikes where fast money could be made.  He was unskilled but experienced in mining, railroad construction, and farm work.  The precise date of his arrival in Oklahoma is not known, but his first child, Dorothy, was born in that two room house on 24 May 1920.  The name of the attending physician is on her birth certificate.  That same physician is recorded on the birth certificate of Dwyer, the second child.  However, the physician was not actually in attendance but arrived after the birth.  Hill Duncan had driven to Henryetta for the doctor and did not return with him until after the birth.  A Mrs. Oral Black, a neighbor, did assist in the birth.  The Blacks and Hill Duncan family remained friends until the deaths of the Blacks, who were childless.

    According to Winnie Duncan, she was alone at my birth in an unheated house, because the natural gas lines piped from nearby oil wells were on top of the ground where they followed the contour of the land.  The raw natural gas contained moisture, and the temperature change from underground to surface caused condensation in the pipes.  That condensation gathered in the low areas of the pipes and froze to prevent the passage of gas.  Therefore, no heat was in the house.  Winnie said that Dwyer was placed next to her body under the bed covers for warmth, and the late physician said that Dwyer would have died within thirty minutes if unattended.  He was already blue in color.  The story was that Hill and the doctor leaped from the moving model-T Ford when near the house.  The car kept going until it hit a building nearby.

    Hill returned to Illinois to work and look after his parents.  Winnie said that she gathered Dorothy and two week old Dwyer and took a train to Illinois by herself.  She said that she found Chalen Duncan ill in bed when she arrived.  Selena became ill soon thereafter.  Winnie said that she had to care for everyone by herself.  There can be no doubt that she was physically strong.

    A picture of the two-room house was destroyed, but I recall it as unpainted and unattractive as a simple box shelter.  Three houses nearby were more like houses with gabled roofs and battened exteriors painted dark green.  Blacks, Godwins, and Greenfields lived in those houses and worked as pumpers on the producing oil wells.  Water wells produced strong sulfur water serving as laxative until the bodies adjusted.

    Winnie and Hill moved into Okmulgee prior to 1924, but the precise date is not known.  They bought a new two-story house properly called an airplane bungalow.  The address was 1010 N. Bryan.  A third child, Deone, was born in that house on 8 February 1924, with a Dr. Cott in attendance.  I recall that birth in the only downstairs bedroom on the Southwest corner of the house.  The living room was on the Southeast corner, and the dining room was on the Northeast corner.  The kitchen was on the Northeast corner.  A single bathroom was near the door of the ground floor bedroom and at the foot of a straight stairway leading up to a landing in front of small clothes closet.  A South bedroom and a North bedroom on the sides of the landing were the early rooms upstairs.  Each upstairs room had windows on three sides.  1010 N. Bryan was on a dirt road that was oiled annually with the dregs from the bottoms of oil storage tanks.  Graders evened the streets occasionally to reduced potholes.  The oiled street was extremely hot during summer months, and bare feet of children suffered.  The main part of Okmulgee was paved with brick or concrete, and Bryan was the first street on the West side of town that was not paved.  Bryan was also the last street on the West side to have indoor plumbing.  An alley behind 1010 had a series of outhouses located so that a horse drawn wagon emptied the outhouses periodically.  1010 was the only two-story house near that alley, and the second story provided a good watching place when physical family arguments occurred across the alley.

    Hill commuted to Tiger Flats by Model T until the depression of 1929 caused a loss of jobs in the oil field.  I recall staying on the oilrig for several days and meeting men such as Pete Prouty, Ben Greenfield, and Henry Hendrickson.

    Hill was burned severely over most of his body and permanently scarred by a gas-fired boiler that he lit by throwing a crumpled burning newspaper into the firebox.  A gas leak had caused an accumulation of the raw natural gas.  The flame burst out of the firebox and enveloped him.  Thereafter his skin was sensitive to any insect bites or point pressure, and small hemorrhages appeared.

    Dorothy, Deone, and Dwyer walked five blocks to Winson elementary school, now nonexistent.  Fights on the way home from school were almost a daily occurrence because of gangs on the West side of Bryson.  Wilson school had a consolidated class of slow learners who formed a pair of gangs that waylaid other pupils on their way home.

    Neighbors on Bryson were like relatives.  When a gathering of playing children was near a home at mealtime, all were invited to share.  The lack of radios and telephones caused the people to rely on each other for company or entertainment.  Evening gatherings by a piano were frequent, and evening walks allowed residents to join the group walking down the dirt road while chatting.

    When the depression hit, Hill went to work at the Phillips 66 refinery.  He worked on alternating three shifts.  During the time at 1010, Winnie’s sister, Gladys lived with the Duncan's for four years.  She and a roommate occupied the South bedroom upstairs.

    The house at 1010 was traded for a house at 1221 North Alabama about 1934.  The Alabama house is a single story house remains, but the Bryan house was moved to a farm and has since been demolished.

    Winnie and Hill were divorced in May 1938, and Winnie sold the Alabama house before moving to Stillwater that summer.  Dorothy had attended Tulsa University on an academic scholarship starting in 1937.  Deone and Dwyer finished high school in Stillwater.

    Dorothy dropped out of school to marry D.C. Sellers, Jr. in 1939.  He had dropped out of school at Oklahoma A & M and gone to work in his father’s bank in Drumright, Oklahoma.  Dorothy later finished a bachelor of fine arts degree at Oklahoma State University.

    Dwyer started architectural design at A & M but spent most time playing fraternity at Pi Kappa Alpha.  He worked part time and went to Atlanta to work full time while attending night school at Georgia Tech.  Returning to Oklahoma A & M and fraternity life, Dwyer goofed again on attendance and dropped out to work in the engineering department of Beech Aircraft in Wichita, Kansas.  From there, he enlisted in the Marine Corps.  

    Deone was more diligent in college and finished a bachelor’s degree in physical education.  She had married Walter H. Penquite during her third year, and the two lived with Winnie until Walter was drafted into the Army.  Deone taught physical education in Tulsa Central high school until she followed Walter.

    Hill married Vinita Faye Franklin Miller, a divorcee, in 1939.  Faye had two daughters, Joyce and Delores, and a son Edward Boyce.

    Winnie married Robert Penquite, a professor of animal nutrition in the poultry department at Oklahoma A & M in 1945.  They met while planning the wedding of Deone and Walter in 1943.  Robert Penquite joined the poultry department at Iowa State College in Ames, Iowa in 1945 and remained there as a PhD full professor until 1958.  Robert and Winnie joined Helga and Dwyer on a rural acreage outside of Oklahoma City.  The acreage was annexed by Oklahoma City and became 10724 North Kelley Avenue.  Winnie and Robert moved to Okmulgee in 1963 and lived until Robert’s death from a heart attack in 1969.  Robert was 71 and had retired at 61 following a mild heart attack.  Winnie continued to live alone on 11th Street until a doctor advised that she should no longer live alone.  She moved to a nursing home in Oklahoma City where she broke a hip.  She died from pneumonia in an Oklahoma City hospital while in traction following surgery.  She died in September 1975 at the age of 81.  She and Robert are buried in Okmulgee.

    Hill Duncan returned to oil field work after a brief retirement after the age of 65.  He worked until he had surgery for prostrate cancer.  He was living in Florida for a while but returned to Duncan, Oklahoma.  The cancer spread, and he fell at home and fractured his pelvis.  He died from a heart attack when the pain was too great in a Duncan, Oklahoma hospital.  He died in 1973 at the age of 80.

    Faye Duncan was diabetic and had lower limb blood circulation problems resulting in gangrene in both feet.  A leg was amputated in a Tulsa, Oklahoma hospital, and she died in surgery.  She is buried in Henryetta, Oklahoma in the same cemetery as Hill.  Hill is in the veterans’ area.  

Military Career - Dwyer's Memories

I enlisted the first week in Nov 1942.  I seem to recall 2 Nov 1942, but was not sworn in until Jan 1943.  I enlisted in Tulsa, OK, and was sworn in, in Oklahoma City, OK.  As the senior serial number, I was in charge of a troop train and carried all orders to San Diego Marine boot camp.  I'm still in touch with several who were on that train.  Passenger cars carrying recruits joined the train in various places.  We had cars from Texas, Iowa, Michigan, and other states.

Four Oklahomans were sworn in at the same time in Oklahoma City:  a man named Wright from Preston, a man named Bailey from Oklahoma City, an Enid man whose name I can't recall, and I.  The Enid man and Bailey washed out in boot camp and were sent home in yellow sweaters and bright blue denim trousers.

Boot camp was ten weeks and I contracted bronchial pneumonia to be hospitalized for about three weeks.  My original platoon went on, so I was assigned to another platoon to finish basic training.  Harmon L. Welke of Blue Earth, MN, had the same experience, so he and I were reassigned together to finish.  In 1995 he lived in Knoxville, IA.  He became a cook in artillery, and I volunteered for the fleet Marine force, FMF, as a rifleman.  Harmon got Sergeant's rank as a cook, and I was a buck private.  A private's base pay was fifty dollars per month less deductions.  I had no dependents, but I optioned for the maximum insurance of ten thousand dollars that cost $6.50 per month.  

After boot camp, I went to Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, CA, for training.  I was assigned to L Co, 3rd Bn, 24th Reg, 4th Marine Division as a Browning automatic rifleman until about Nov 1943, when I was transferred to combat intelligence as a topographer in Headquarters and Service Company, H&S, after it was discovered that I listed my civilian occupation as a draftsman.  It was found that I could translate aerial photos into grid maps for invasions.  Combat intelligence including scouting and liaison between rifle companies, line, and the combat command post.  I liked to volunteer for scouting and liaison to be on my own and to communicate with line company buddies in the 1st and 3rd Battalions.  I boxed and wrestled with many of them during training in California and Maine.  I also liked to volunteer as a guard when field telephone wiremen had to walk at night following the wire to find where it had been cut.  Japanese cut the wire and waited for Marines to trace the break.  Vehicles often cut the wire too.  It was wise to have a guard walk with the wireman so he could concentrate on his job.

The first landing for the H&S Co., 1st Bn, 24th Reg. was on Namur in the Marshall Islands.  Our invasion was the first in history for an assault unit to leave the U.S. for direct combat without going to another camp to train.  Roi and Namur are joined by a causeway.  Namur was an infantry base, and Roi was an air base.  The airstrip on Roi is now named after Lt Col Aquilla J. Dyess, CO of 1st Bn, 24th Reg.  Dyess was killed by a sniper on Namur and received the Congressional Medal of Honor just for breathing.  At that time false heroes could sell war bonds.

Namur was eight feet above sea level with many tunnels, two huge steel reinforced concrete block houses with walls seven feet thick and several pillbox shelters made from palm tree logs and dirt.  Those block houses, pillboxes and tunnels were relatively unmarred by bombing and heavy naval gunfire.  Metal buildings were destroyed.  Concrete buildings on Roi were damaged but usable.

My old L Company was in assault, and I recognized dead when my H&S unit landed in reverse.  Everyone was in assault immediately upon landing, but I Co. and L Co. took the brunt.  I was scratched by shrapnel in the butt on the first day but did not report for treatment.  I sprinkled sulphur powder on the wound and baked in the sun during the day.  At night on Namur I volunteered to carry wounded back to the beach for two nights in succession.  I took a break one dawn and checked my rifle while on the beach.  I found the recoil spring in three parts on my Garand M1, and I still have nightmares about rifle failure when I need it in combat.  I shot at only three men on Namur with that rifle before I discovered the failure.  At night I used a .45 semi-automatic pistol, a .30 caliber carbine, and a 12-gauge shotgun with .00 loads.  The carbine and shotgun rode on a buddy's jeep during the day.  The first thing that I killed was a wounded white pig that moved in a tunnel.  I shot at the noise with the .45.  I still have a canteen that I found on a scouting mission under the first block house on Namur.  The canteen has flesh on it from suicide grenades used by the men and women whom I found in the block house.  I could barely make it through the small opening under the block house, and I was armed only with a pistol.  I found documents.

Several Japanese took refuge in the second block house and could not be talked out.  Finally the only American tank that I saw on Namur came in and fired point blank at the steel door with a 75 cannon.  The door broke and the tank filled the block house with a flamethrower.  Burning men ran out and we mercifully shot them.

Many buddies whom I knew well were wounded or killed on Namur.  One was in B Co., and we had done bread and water brig time together.  He had more time remaining than I did when we were released to board ship and go into combat.  I was a prisoner at large, but my buddy was assigned to the ship laundry to complete his time.  I can't forget his statement, "I ain't goin' to wash them Goddamn Officer's dirty skivvies."  He was put in the ship brig and released only to hit the beach.  He was killed rescuing a wounded buddy under fire.  Only a posthumous Purple Heart.  I am still in contact with the wounded or the families of the killed.  One phoned yesterday, 22 June 1995.  He is in Iowa.

After Roi-Namur, our Division went to rest camp on Maui, TH.  After replacements and training, we went to the Marioraas Islands, Saipan, Tinian, and Guam.

I failed to mention the name of the man who refused to wash Officers' dirty skivvies.  He was George Pate from Alabama.  I am recalling names and events of more than fifty years ago, so some may not be chronological.  The first dead Marine whom I recognized on Namur was Lt Frank Reese, a schoolteacher from Kentucky.  I was told conflicting stories of his demise.  I knew a Marine from I Co., 3rd Bn who said that he would kill Reese at the opportunity.  Some said he did, but Reese's CO, Walt Ridlan, said that Reese was killed by enemy fire.  Either would be possible.

My unit, 1st Battalion, 24th Regiment, did not participate in the assault on Guam.  We watched from Tinian where we could see fires and troop ships, but it was too far away to see human forms.  We had done the assaults on Saipan and Tinian where we lost so many men that we were held in reserve for Guam to recuperate.  Tinian could be seen from Saipan, and Guam could be seen from Tinian.  Japan had entered WW I late but gained Saipan and Tinian as repatriation against Germany.  America took Guam.  The Marioraas had been Spanish possessions, and the natives spoke Spanish as well as Japanese.  Some natives, Chamarros, were light skinned enough to have freckles, due to Spanish blood mixture.  Spanish missionaries wearing white habits were on the islands.  The nuns and priests appeared pasty faced when compared with Chamarros, who later were called Guamanians.

I found an old Spanish cutlass with a brass bowl type hand shield, but someone stole it from my cache of souvenirs.  The cutlass had to be from wooden sailing ship days and was a real find.

My unit, 1st Bn, 24th Reg, was in assault on Saipan.  We barely made it off the beach when artillery, mortar, and machine gun fire hit us.  We had not grouped, so I was alone in a trench full of decomposing Japanese who had been killed by bombing and naval gunfire.  I spent the first night alone in the trench without sleep because I was alone.  Japanese fire resumed early on the second day and I took shrapnel in the left shin.  Skinny pieces went through my leggings (required in all landings), trousers and skin to slide along the bone.  I cut the shrapnel out, used iodine that I always carried, and joined my unit.  If I have to pick my worst time in combat it would be time in that shallow, sandy trench under fire with no buddy to back me up.

The Japanese were proud, stubborn fighters, but we were better.  Saipan wore on with great losses.  My best buddy, Lawrence M. Erburu, and I had spent a night in a foxhole during rain that left only our heads out of water in the fox hold.  He was still in L Co., 3^rd Bn, but he told me that he was ill and had been sent back to a command post to rest.  I was a perimeter guard on the 1^st Bn command post when I saw Larry coming.  I talked to him and asked him to share my foxhole.  Only two were supposed to be in a foxhole to split watches all night.  I got medicine from sickbay because Larry led me to believe that he had dysentery.  We read each other’s mail before dark.  I knew his family from spending weekends in Ojai, CA, with them, and I even went there without Larry after I was transferred.  I still have close contact with family survivors.  Larry and I were fraternity brothers, and I went to his USC frat house a couple of times.  We were in boot camp together and served mess duty together.  He always slept on my arm as a pillow in foxholes during training and combat.  After the rainy night I gave dry, clean clothing to Larry, and he went back to L Co.  Only enough time passed that Larry could rejoin his unit when our own artillery fell short to drop square in L Co.  I volunteered for a liaison mission with Corp. M. E. Logan of Charlotte, NC, so I could check on L Co. causalities.  Scattered letters with Mrs. Erburu’s return address sticker told me a lot.  Larry had his letters in a front pocket of his dungaree jacket, and each letter had a jagged hole.  I gathered the letters and they were lost with some of my other effects when I wounded on Iwo Jima.  Larry died instantly.  All the bodies were covered with shelter halves or ponchos and I found Larry under the second.  I wept and then cursed while M. E. Logan waited for me to get it out of my system.  That night I couldn’t sleep fortunately and killed some Japanese who were trying to infiltrate.  

While on a scouting mission with a radio man on Saipan I noticed a large number of Japanese on foot with only light arms advancing toward the 27^th Army from New York.  The 27^th had been called in to cover our left flank while Marines pushed Japanese to the North.  We had landed on West beaches near Charam Kanva sugar cane processing plant.  Marines secured the southern half of Saipan, pushed East across the island, and swung North to compress the Japanese.  The 27^th Army was supposed to hold the left flank so the Japanese could not swing behind the Marines.  Gen Ralph Smith commandeered the 27^th, and Gen Holland M. Smith commanded the 4^th Marine Division.  By the way, Army artillery killed Larry and others in L Co.  Anyhow, the Japanese that I saw were in the wide open running on foot toward the 27^th.  The Army had Sherman tanks, jeeps and other vehicles with men on foot.  As one, without firing a shot, the Army broke and ran.  Soldiers ran into the ocean where many small boats picked them up.  Men jumped from tanks and jeeps to run to our rear.  The Japanese set fire to some vehicles before advancing to a Marine artillery unit far back where Harmon Wilke was a cook.  I watched all that and reported it through my radioman.  I was in bushes atop a cliff overlooking the scene.  I was about a thousand yards from the nearest Japanese.  Holland Smith was in command, and he ordered Ralph off the field and relieved.  The 2^nd Bn, 2^nd Marines came from reserve to retake the left flank.  

I have books that describe campaigns in general, so I shall not attempt to write history.  We secured Saipan with great attrition and had ten days rest before assaulting Tinian.  We were loaded with dysentery and needed medicine to stop dehydration.

While waiting to go to Tinian, I shared a foxhole with Sil Paulini, a heavyweight boxer from MA.  We are still in contact.

I was telling him about lighting cigarettes at night to show the glow to Japanese and then waiting for action.  We did it, and sure enough, a Japanese officer tried to come in.  He met other Marines first, and he ran from man to man in the dark before someone killed him.  No shots were fired.  Sil reported it to Jim Lucas, a newspaperman, and that is how I was written up in all the Scrippe Hamond newspapers.

I went to Tinian in an amphibious tank launched from an LST landing ship tank, but Sil Paulini landed in a small boat.  An Army officer piloted Sil’s boat and would not beach it for the Marines to debark.  Sil and other Marines had to unload in water over their heads while carrying full equipment.  That unit was mortars and machine guns.  No weapons made it to shore. 

The men had to swim under water to escape Japanese machine gun fire.  All were cut badly on the coral reef.  Sil made it ashore with a knife.  I was lucky to get out of the tank on sand when the machine guns shot elsewhere.

The Japanese fell for a decoy landing on Tinian lava to the South and directed their heavy artillery there temporarily.  We were inland pretty well before we caught artillery when it was intense.  American 155 artillery firing from Saipan killed several L Co. Marines on Tinian.  About halfway through Tinian we could see Guam, and we learned that we would not be needed there.  We needed the Marinnas as bases for our heavy bombers to reach Japan.  B17s and B29s were based there later.

On the lighter side, R. H. Davis of Pittsburgh, PA, and I were on a scouting mission when we found a Japanese officer’s warehouse full of whiskey, wine, and beer.  We found a bull, yoke, and oxcart in a corral, so we yoked the bull, rigged reins to the ring in his nose with field telephone wire, loaded the cart with cases of goodies from the warehouse, and drove the load to C Co., 1^st Bn where our buddies were in assault.  The load didn’t last long, so we drove the empty cart back to the warehouse for another load.  On the way we found a cow, yoke, and cart, so we commandeered the rig for our needs.  We found a buddy guarding the warehouse, because our CO heard about the warehouse.  Our buddy looked the other way while we loaded both carts for a return to the front lines.  

Unloaded, R. H. and I chariot raced our carts back to the warehouse, but we were too late.  We didn’t know the men on guard.  Our Bn commander ordered all beer to be turned in for a Bn beer bust when the island was secured.  Each man got a half canteen cup of beer after standing in line.  He could return in line for as long as the beer lasted.  I had kept a case of bourbon whiskey in square glass decanters and some scotch whiskey.  Other fellows had buried their bottles in the sand.  After dark we retrieved our loot and partied.

When islands are declared secured, many of the enemy are still scattered and active at night.  Knowing that, a perimeter of protection is always around the various command posts.  A Sergeant who had never killed a man assigned a young replacement straight from boot camp to walk a post between machine guns for CP security.  I had a shotgun, but walking the same path back and forth at night in vegetation is asking to be waylaid.  I selected a large boulder between the machine guns and sat with half gallon of liberated saki.  The recruit didn’t drink before, but he did that night, and I challenged the Sergeant any time he checked on us in the dark.  The Sergeant wouldn’t come to the first gun. 

After Tinian I was transferred to H&S Co., 24^th Reg as regimental topographer.  I had a hut in camp that did not stand inspection because of the top-secret photos, maps, etc. revealed to others only when we were aboard ship as the way to an assault.  All was coded, but all was locked anyhow.

Iwo Jima was needed as a fighter plane base for escorting the heavy bombers in the Marianas.

Our fighter planes could stop the Japanese fighters from downing our bombers.  The Iwo Jima airstrip also saved crippled bombers that couldn’t make it back to the Marianas base.  Therefore, we attacked Iwo Jima.  The Japanese let us in without resistance so we would pile up as better targets.  The island is 1 ½ miles wide and 5 miles long, eight square miles of volcanic residue.

I was hit by shrapnel on the second day after landing.  We were taking heavy fire from all sides, because we landed in about the middle of a long side.  The Japanese were looking down on us from both ends to direct their fire.  We had no cover or concealment in the sand.  My first night I shored my foxhole with my map case and Japanese bodies.  On the second day we were taking heavy fire from our right and our left.  I was aware of machine gun fire, mortar fire and huge rockets similar to the German buzz bombers.  My intelligence CO, Arthur B. Hermenn of Baltimore, MD, was in a bomb crater when he asked me for the launching site of the vehicles.  I knew already and gave the coordinates.  He argued and called Navy big guns on a different location.  I saw the 16-inch guns hit, and Hansen asked about it when he heard the hit.  I told him that the guns were right on his target, and I repeated my original call.  The big guns hit my call, but two big rockets were already in the air.  All I could do was to watch as they fell.  One of them had to get me.

Everything is patchy from the time I was hit.  I recall some, and I was told some.  I do know that I lost my wallet with a good sum of money from my pay and three side jobs, my private pistol, and new watch.  I have inquired but no results.  My CO was responsible.

J. E. Ross of Crawfordsville, IN, said that he was the first man to see me after I was hit above the right eye.  The shrapnel went through my helmet, and I think that I recall being dizzy and sitting down to rest my head on my right arm.  Ross said that I was in that position.  Lee Hughes told Hugh Sellers later that my head was torn off and I was placed with the dead to be buried at sea.  Walter Backus of Willard, WI, tells me that later someone shouted that I was alive.  A corpsman took over.  I seem to recall the bumping as I was loaded into a landing craft to be transported to an APH assault personnel hospital.  The APH ships took us to islands and stood by to take casualties.  I went to Iwo Jima aboard the APH Ratland.  From the APH that took me from Iwo Jima I seem to recall swinging in air on a stretcher enclosed in a heavy zipped bag.  That may have been when I was taken aboard the USHS, US hospital ship, USHS Isla for surgery.  I seem to recall waking during surgery to feel tugging on my head and hearing someone say, “I got it.”  I heard a clank of metal on metal when an instrument dropped into a container.

The next thing I think I recall was bumping along and severe pain at the back of my head.  I was told later that I had been taken to an Army hospital on Saipan.  From Saipan Army hospital I was sent to a Naval hospital at Pearl Harbor.  I have no recollection of Saipan or the trip to Hanoi.  Winnie (mother) told me of a letter that she received from an attendant on Saipan.  Only part of Pearl Harbor is remembered.  I first became aware of being wounded in bed and most of what I know was told to me later.  I do recall flying to the Naval Hospital in Oakland, CA, but being there is hazy.  Many wounded were sent from CA by train to hospitals closer to their homes.  They were to be discharged there.  I faintly recall part of the train ride, but I do not recall arriving at a Naval Hospital in Norman, OK.  My speech was garbled, and I found it easier to sing or recite poetry as rote practice.  According to my parents, thirteen doctors said that I would never walk or have any social limits on my behavior.  Debilitating seizures were predicted, and my parents were told to take me home or send me to a veterans care facility for life.

Of course my parents were remarried and I no longer fit in their lives permanently.  I had been on my own for five years.  Unwilling to accept what was told to my parents, I requested and received a transfer to a Naval Hospital in St. Albans, NY, where a top neurosurgeon was.  Tests showed that I could expect no improvement, but I was walking and speaking well enough to expect progress.  I was transferred to a Philadelphia Naval Hospital where I learned Braille, one hand typing and travel by cane.  I also received a brace for my left leg.  I received an artificial eye and some cosmetic surgery on the right front of my head.  X-rays show two pieces of shrapnel in my brain.  Both are roughly ¾ inch in diameter, and one is located in the right occipital lobe governing my remaining eye.  Severed nerves in the brain caused paralysis of the left arm and left leg with consequent atrophy.  When younger I had enough other muscle to compensate, but as I grow older the arm and leg lose strength and coordination learned earlier.  Back trouble resulted from imbalance.  Doctors told me that I shouldn’t be able to walk and that I should expect to be in a wheelchair.  I was discharged from Philadelphia Naval Yard in 1946.