Every year, the memories of World War II – its sights, sounds, horrors and triumphs – and the people who fought its battles, we’ve come to call them “the greatest generation” — are disappearing. Sadly, this past year, Hampton’s last two World War II veterans have died – Clarence Thornton at 102 and Tom Gaines at 99.

The Memorial Day Committee thought it would be fitting this Memorial Day, as a somber nod to the memory of all of Hampton’s World War II veterans, to recall the words of our lost warriors — their letters home, their shared memories in speeches and in interviews. Some of these words, like the human spirit, are light and humorous, but others, like the terrors of war, are hard to hear. We hope you will stay and listen as our readers who have some connection to the words they will read share these deeply personal words of a generation that is quickly fading into the past.

Bert Vallaincourt: I saw all the army trucks all lined up along Main Street, they were all parked. In those days they didn’t have radios like they do now. Today if an important person coughs it’s on the news. So I’m going by Elm Street and this man comes out and he’s in the army; he came out with his duffle bag, and he said, “the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor – we’re at war now.”

Sidney Marland: My own special memories flow swiftly back to Roscoe Staples who took a Japanese bullet in the forehead, not at arm’s length from me. As he fell he said, “Get down, Sid, they have the range on us.” I think of Duke Slager, whom I had asked to guide a platoon of tanks through an infantry company pinned down by enemy fire. Duke accomplished this mission, but they brought his body back on a litter. Time has erased the period of mourning now, and we celebrate their memory and their sacrifice with profound respect and honor. Those whom we honor today did not choose to die in battle, but they knew – we all knew – that was a possibility.

Charlie Halbach: Serving in the military had its good points; we learned to rely on one another, and we developed a camaraderie. We would, as some people say, “walk the extra mile.” I experienced all that and more in the 25 months I was in the military.

Richard Schenk: On the Moselle River, I watched army engineers trying to put up a pontoon bridge for us to cross. They became easy targets as the pontoons extended out into the water. Murderous shellfire would seek out and find them. We watched their bodies float down the river. New men came and took their place. This scene was repeated over and over until the bridge reached the other shore. What gave these men the strength and courage to take their fellow soldier’s place immediately after seeing him killed? It was, of course, because he could not forget what his comrade was trying to accomplish. To forget would have meant that his comrade’s efforts were in vain.

Clarence Thornton: My most memorable moment in France was when I met my brother there. I was hauling supplies to the beach where troops were arriving from Ireland. Even at a distance, I knew that walk. I caught up with them, and sure enough, it was my brother who was just as surprised to see me as I was to see him. I asked if he needed anything and he said – bullets, so I took my own gun, removed all of the bullets, and gave them all to him.

Kurt Koennicke: I enjoyed the trip over here a lot. Most of the fellows were sick, but I wasn’t. The more it rocked, the more I liked it. But the food was terrible! It looks nice here in England, but that’s where it stops. Most everything is rationed here, including cigarettes and razor blades.

Charlie Pike: Off the Philippines, my ship got torpedoed. We was 12 hours out to sea, got hit, pretty near sunk the ship. It took three days to get back to shore. I got wounded, but didn’t report it. There was a hatch sticking out of the steel wall, I was standin’ right next to it. That wall blew in and hit my arm and stuck that hatch right in my arm. It was only short but made a big hole in my arm. I pulled it out, put on a bandage. You can still feel the shrapnel in there.

Dr. Woodworth: During a brief respite from the fear and noise and wounding and dying, I was standing in the shade of a mimosa tree, spellbound by the fragrance of the yellow flowers and the cool shade in the brilliant sunshine. That night, by candlelight in my dugout, I wrote my requiem for these dead. I offer that poem of forty years ago as my tribute to the men of my unit who died.
Under the mimosa I stand
And count the leaves of the twig in my hand.
and shadows dance upon the ground
where late my comrades fell around.
Under the mimosa I hear
Their voices murmur sweet and clear
“We fought but did not wish to die”.
Under the mimosa, still, they lie.

Barney Pawlikowski: We didn’t get back to camp until eight-thirty last night. We don’t have any lights so I couldn’t write to you. We’ve been on the move so much our mail is all messed up. Perhaps we’ll stay here long enough for it to catch up to us. Well it’s getting so dark I’ll have to close. Give my love to the folks. I love you dearly and I miss you.

Steven Neborsky: I finally bought the bicycle I was planning to buy. I paid 7 lbs. for it, which would be $28. That’s probably too much money, but, boy, I can tell you it is much better than walking to the nearby town or city. The other night the Sergeant and I went to the movies in town and saw a good cowboy picture. In the newsreel they said something about New London, Connecticut, and boy, I nearly fell through the seat! I really was surprised to hear something about one of the cities near home all the way over here. Boy, oh boy!

Bob Jones: I flew a B-24 and was shot down on my tenth mission during a raid on the Polesti Oil Field in Romania on July 26, 1944. I bailed out and was hit on the head and was knocked out. I came to falling and pulled my chute. I had a backpack on, and I kind of passed out again but it jerked me and it really woke me up and I didn’t know what had happened and I looked up and saw the canopy above me and then I knew that the chute had opened and that I was ok. I was captured when I hit the ground. I spent a couple of days in a prison at a German airfield and then was put on a train and taken to a town by the name of Obaruzel outside of Frankfurt. And interrogated for four days. All you gave them was the name, rank and serial number. I also gave them my mother’s name and my religion, and that was it. I was sent to a transient camp and then to Stahlig Luf 1 in Barth, Germany. You’re in a room with 24 men. The room was only 12 x 12. That’s where we stayed for ten months until we were liberated. Sometimes you thought you’d be there forever.

Albert Schimmelpfennig: We moved to McAlester Prisoner of War Camp. German prisoners from Africa. They couldn’t feed and take care of them there so they brought them into McAlester. We had 5000 prisoners there. This one day, we were all caught up on our work, so the Company Commander come up to us and says, “Well, boys, here’s passes, go to town.” So we went to town and we asked some of the people there where the best place to eat was and they said, “The Central Café.” So we all went to the Central Café and when I went through the door, Laura was comin’ out of the kitchen with a tray on her hand. I fell in love with her right away and she did with me, too.

Mario Fiondella: My age prevented me from seeing active combat, but I enlisted in the Army as soon as I was old enough, stationed in Japan during the Period of Occupation. It was the thing to do. Young fellows were expected to serve. Nevertheless, my parents, who had emigrated to the U.S. from Italy, were not happy with my decision. All six of their sons served in various capacities in World War II.

Henry Moon: What are you thinking of as you watch the little town’s parade go passing by with little military precision and the hustle of children trying to keep up with their longer-legged elders? Most people may deny it, but deep down inside of each person, there is a pride… As long as there are little parades like ours, scattered throughout the country, I feel that these little cornerstones of rural independence and strength, will keep our country moving forward to a greater future.

Arthur Osborne: I still remember being part of the war in Europe, the struggles, the mud and cold, the fearfulness, the longing for home, my buddies being brought in wounded and dying, not ever knowing what was coming next. And then the good news, Japan had surrendered! Our ship was turned around and put into Newport News, Virginia. What a welcome we received! All over the country people were rejoicing. How I wish that our boys coming back from Vietnam could have received a welcome like we had.

Tom Gaines: In my lifetime, US troops have served courageously in five wars. In every case we can be proud of the way our soldiers conducted themselves. But this is one veteran who is not satisfied to pass another Memorial Day helplessly grieving, helplessly mourning, helplessly bemoaning our inability to stop the insane warring of people upon one another….On this Memorial Day, let us honor our soldiers by beginning the long rethinking process that will ultimately lead to universal peace.

Wendell Davis: I see an airplane streaking across the sky, with first a thin trail of smoke, and then a thicker, denser tail and 10,000 men looking up, waiting for the pilot to eject and the chute to blossom against the sky, but no ejection comes and the nose goes down and a ball of flame marks the spot where the plane hits the beach at 300 miles an hour. I see a pile of dead men, stacked like cord wood, waiting for the graves registration unit to clip their dog tags before burial. I see the charred and twisted remains of an enemy killed by a flame-thrower. I see a mine-sweeper, lifted half out of the water, breaking up as much in the air as in the sea, and fifteen seconds later nothing but a pitifully small number of men swimming for their lives. I smell the stench of rotting flesh on a tropical beach. I see a young sailor sewed up in a length of new white canvas, slipped gently over the side, starting his trip to the bottom one mile down. I hear voices talking, killing the tedium, of the long night watch. These were voices always full of hope, dreams of the future, plans, full of excitement, voices of young Americans, “when I get home”.

Arthur Pearl: Hope you are fine. I am so far. Went swimming this morning and was the water good and warm in Italy! I go to a show now and then. I’ll have plenty to tell when I get home, which I hope won’t be too long. Boy, will it be good to get back home again!

This letter was sent from Lt. Colonel Ernest Loew from the European Theatre of Operations to his soon to be wife Army Cadet Nurse Eva Jacobsohn, stationed at Fort Custer, Michigan. He had just turned 26, and she had just turned 24. Both were German Jewish refugees who joined the U. S. Military shortly after their arrival in the United States: 5 July, 1945. Somewhere in Germany: Today we buried the dead that we found in the concentration camp right outside the town. We buried them in the public square of the town, opposite the castle of the Grandduke, and the whole population as well as the captured German Generals and higher ranking officers had to attend. But before I go into details I would like to tell you a few words about the concentration camp. We found it outside of the town, alongside the road, in a wood clearing. It is just a small camp, with about ten buildings behind the usual barbed wire, and it housed 2000-3000 slave laborers. The most horrible one I have ever seen. The place was filthy and smelled of decay, of dead bodies and found turnips; gnawed on turnips were lying around on the barracks floors, in addition to their filth and the dead bodies of the inmates. You found them all over the place; piled up head to feet; in the latrine, in the so called wash room, in the barrack corners. Two hundred of them lay there, unburied, simply starved to death. Their limbs, partly fallen off their bodies already, were as thin as sticks. It was a repulsing, sickening sight. Their bodies were shrunk, only bones and skin. And over a thousand more bodies were being dug out of mass graves by the German population right then while I was up there. But six kilometers away were people living in a town as good as you can imagine, a bit rationed, but not suffering, in nice houses, with dogs and cats that had to be fed, and with good clothes to wear. I found several survivors in the camp yet, and talked to them. They still wore their striped suits, they looked more dead than alive, and their faces, regardless of age, looked old. They showed me their numbers which were tattooed to their arms, they told me of their sufferings, and even if they had not done so, the sight out there talked louder than these people could. I don’t want to tell you anymore. It is one dirt spot in the history of Germany which will never be washed off….Thus were buried 200 human beings, Dutch, French, Poles, Russians, and Jews, buried by their former oppressors and by the liberating Americans, who had come too late for them in the middle of a German town.

Leslie Jewett: Though we do not have his words, his service speaks precisely to what it is we are commemorating. Hampton’s only casualty of World War II, Leslie Jewett, whose ancestors were one of the town’s founding families, enlisted in the Army when he was 21, and died on D-Day, June 6, 1944, on Omaha Beach in Normandy, leaving behind his parents, a sister, his wife, and a son he never met. Our eternal gratitude to him, and to all of those who served our country from the Greatest Generation.