Honor Flight to Washington revived memories

Published 8:28 am Friday, May 8, 2009

Last Saturday I had the opportunity to visit our nation’s World War II Memorial in Washington., D.C. This one-day, no-cost trip with other area veterans was sponsored by the Southeastern Minnesota Honor Flight.

For those who might wonder how I qualified for this trip, please allow me to do some explaining.

I attended high school out in Baker, Ore., during the World War II years. While in my senior year in early 1945, I decided to take advantage of a school district policy regarding military service. This wartime policy said if a student enlisted in the military service or was drafted during the last half of his senior year, he would be given his graduation diploma.

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At that time I was 17. The only part of the armed forces accepting enlistments right then was the U.S. Navy. Several of my classmates had already become sailors. They said the Navy was much better duty than the U.S. Army and especially the U.S. Marine Corps.

To enlist in the Navy at the age of 17 would require the approval of my parents and their signatures on the enlistment forms. The alternative was to wait until I was 18 and wait for the Selective Service System (the draft board) to decide my immediate future after I became 18. Despite the opposition of my grandmother and several other relatives, my parents gave their approval of the U.S. Navy enlistment.

One school day in the late winter or early spring of 1945 I went to Portland, Ore., to take the physical examination, the last hoop between me and service in the U.S. Navy. Everything went well until the eye test. I flunked out.

At this point I had to go back to Baker, finish high school and deal with the draft board.

I was still 17 when I graduated from Baker High School. My 18th birthday came about a month later and I registered at the dreaded draft board office. Within a month I went back to Portland to take another physical examination at the same place with some of the same doctors. The Army’s eye standards must have been lower because that second time I passed. Thus, I soon became a member of the U.S. Army right at the tail end of World War II. I went to Camp Roberts, Calif., for infantry basic training.

Right at this point, let me make a little diversion.

While reviving memories of those two armed forces physical, I was reminded of the trips from Baker to Portland and back to Baker.

The mileage between those two Oregon localities was about 330 miles by railroad. Those two trips were on Union Pacific passenger trains. The routine was to leave Baker in the late afternoon, sleep in a Pullman car berth, and arrive in Portland the next morning. The day would be spent in the armed forces center for the physicals. Then the routine was to go back to the depot, get on the night train, sleep in the Pullman berth, and arrive back in Baker the next morning.

By the time I became a soldier, the Germans and Italians were defeated and the Japanese were on the verge of surrendering. What really convinced the Japanese to quit were two atomic bombs being dropped on Hiroshima an Nagasaki. The alternative for us would have been the brutal invasion of the Japanese home islands in late 1945 and early 1946.

Our mission soon changed to becoming replacements for soldiers who had been in the Army and overseas for several years and scheduled for discharges. Thus, I eventually went to a then nearly unknown place called Korea in early 1946.

In the next column I’ll have more information about our trip to the nation’s capital, plus details regarding a tight schedule based on visiting several other significant memorials during a one-day trip.

Ed Shannon’s column has been appearing in the Tribune every Friday since December 1984.