2, Friday | November 11, 2011, Bangor Daily News
Soldier served in New Guinea K Company enjoyed Italian hospitality in 1945
By Warren Worcester
By Harold Wyner
I was inducted in July 1943 and given three weeks to get my affairs in order. On Aug. 11, I was sent to Fort Devens, Mass. A few weeks later, we were sent to Camp Wheeler in Georgia for 17 weeks of infantry basic training. At the end of training I was given a 15-day delay en route to San Francisco, which allowed me five days at home in Maine. Arriving at Fort Ord, Calif., we boarded the USS Monticello for the South Pacific. Later we were in Milne Bay, New Guinea. I joined the 34th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division, at Goodenough Island. After training we landed in Hollandia, New Guinea for our first campaign. Then the 24th Division went to Biak Island to help the 41st Division. I contracted malaria on Biak and returned to Hollandia until we headed for our next campaign. On Oct. 20, 1944, we invaded Leyte in the Philippines. It took until Jan. 17, 1945 before the island was secure. During this campaign I was the radio operator for Col. Red Newman, commander of the 34th Regiment. He was wounded on Leyte and sent home. Our next campaign, we landed at Subic Bay, Luzon. From there we went to Mindoro Island for rest and replace-
I am a veteran of the 10th Mountain Division. I am from World War II. I was in K Co. I had the B.A.R., or the Browning automatic rifle. This is a very large gun that is operated by three people. I was the shooter. I knew my job, and I think I did it well. We entered the war just north of Bologna [Italy] and fought all the way up into the north of Italy. Half way up the Lago di Garda, K Co. was given the order to capture Benito Mussolini, the fascist leader of Italy. Mussolini had a summer palace on the west side of Lago di Garda. Our intelligence told us that Mussolini was packing and planning to flee to Argentina, so we were ordered to capture him before he had the opportunity to get away. What we didn’t know was that the Italian partisans had arrived the day before us. The partisans captured Mus-
Warren Worcester of Southwest Harbor fought with the Army in New Guinea and the Philippines. ments. We left on an LST for Mindanao and were there when the war ended. I came down with hepatitis and was flown to Leyte Island and hospitalized for a couple of months. When I left the hospital, I boarded a converted Liberty ship for Los Angeles. Thirty-six days later we arrived at LA. A couple weeks later, I was flown to Newark, N.J. and then sent to Fort Devens. I was discharged and arrived home on Jan. 26, 1946, about four months before my 21st birthday. Former Tech Sgt. Warren Worcester lives in Southwest Harbor.
Harold Wyner solini and his mistress and killed them both. Then they put their bodies on display in the town square, hanging them from their feet. So we crossed Lago di Garda by duck boat and stormed the castle only to discover that we were one day too late!
Oh well, such is war. By dawn, we were “viva Americanos” to all the locals and were given a riotous welcome. The villa was a large and sumptuous affair, but the kitchen was very rough, although to a bunch of soldiers living on K rations, it looked like a culinary dream. A sizable amount of our company was given free run of Mussolini’s villa, but many of us were taken in by the locals who wined and dined us for 10 days and nights. Oh, what nights! K Co. enjoyed the west side of Lago di Garda, then we were discovered (or remembered) by our superiors and spent the next few weeks fighting the Germans up the south side of Lago di Garda. War is hell, but the members of K Co. got a 10-day vacation on the west side of the lake in a palatial villa, and a surprise liberation. Harold Wyner lives in Hampden.
Chemistry grad commanded medical company By Capt. George Fricke It was September 1940. I was back in my hometown of Buffalo, N.Y., carrying a brand new diploma in chemistry. It took only a few days to find a most suitable job. The work was enjoyable. Occasionally a fellow worker was lost to the draft. Because I did not want to be pushed around by the military’s whims, I visited the local recruiting office to check out any interesting possibility. It wasn’t very long before they offered me a spot in an Army hospital in the Panama Canal Zone. I accepted, and April 1941 found me aboard an Army transport en route to Colon, Panama, for recruit training. I was sent to a Coast Artillery training camp, but the training was cut short as my eventual outfit — the station hospital near Colon — had no trained pharmacist. Although I was not a pharmacist, I had absorbed enough information to handle the type of medications required. But I was soon returned to the main-
Capt. George Fricke served with a medical collecting company in Europe during World War II. land for additional training, which led to my commissioning as a lieutenant in the newly formed Medical Administrative Corps. This led me to a hospital unit being set up for deployment overseas. In 1942, our first assignment was in Casablanca in French Morocco. My unit, an Army hospital, served the local port units and treated ill soldiers coming ashore from the arriving transport ships. I was in charge of much of the day-to-day operations of such things as maintaining the tents and buildings in good shape, overseeing the electrical system, and commanding the enlisted personnel. Eventually I was transferred to the outfit that took over all the personnel eventually destined for duty in Europe. This outfit was dissolved as soon as troop ships could safely travel across the Med, and I was transferred to a medical battalion preparing for European duty. My new outfit was a medical collecting company, a unit of ambulances prepared to move casualties from areas of
action to rear-echelon units for additional treatment or evacuation to the rear. Later, after the Allies invaded southern France, I worked more and more with the French civilians around Nice, doing such work as arranging local foodstuffs or sitting in on public health meetings. Thank goodness for my ability in their language! I also wound up coordinating all the daily medical reports for all the American units along the Mediterranean coast. But the war kept moving north, and we began to go into areas of Germany, and here’s where our original duties near the front lines really began. My duties took me away more from my outfit, usually with a few ambulances helping out field hospitals that needed extra vehicles. About this time, our commanding officer was sent back to the States because of a family problem, and I became the outfit’s commander. It was a great outfit, and I was proud to claim that we had no disciplinary problems at any time. Then we got the good news: The war in Europe was over! Then we were turned into a holding hospital where convalescing patients awaited air transportation to the United States. We had to borrow some doctors, mostly majors, and here me only a captain, but we all worked very well together. Just before I was told that I was going home, the outfit and I were given a special award for meritorious service by the surgeon general of the American forces in Europe. Ike was in attendance and congratulated me. So my entire military service ran just under five years, mostly overseas, plus one year in the United States. Yes, there were times that were tough on the family, probably more so on them than on me. However, I learned a lot and became a man.
Bangor Daily News, Friday | November 11, 2011, 3
Exploding bomb wounded sailor on USS Wasp Newport Marine is 3rd generation By Janice Peavey My dad, James Thomas Savoy, was just 17 when he and a childhood friend, Gerald Mckay, got permission from their parents to enlist in the Navy. It was on Aug. 22,1943. He was a radar man on the USS Wasp, “The Mighty Stinger.” It was an aircraft carrier that sent out many airplane missions and also fought off many kamikaze attacks against the ship. On march 13, 1944 the Wasp was hit with a 540-pound bomb that exploded in the galley. My dad’s clothes were blown off, and he received a huge gash on the top of his head. He still has the scar. Because he had to go and get his head sewn up, he was separated from
of his family to serve in military
his buddies. They didn’t know whether he was dead or alive. They were very relieved and happy to see him a couple of days later. Casualties from the hit were over 100 dead and 200 wounded. After the war, the USS Wasp flew numerous mercy missions to deliver supplies to our prisoners of war in Japan. Later the Wasp was converted into a huge barracks with the installation of more than 4,100 bunks to bring back the Gs waiting in Italy and England. My mom and dad were childhood sweethearts, getting married while he was on leave on Dec. 18, 1945. According to Janice Peavey, 86-years-old James Thomas Savoy lives “at home in Brewer with my mom, Hazel, and their two cats.”
James Savoy was 17 when he joined the Navy in August 1943.
East Millinocket soldier saw action in France in World War I By Peggy Daigle
Horace E. Nisbett
My grandfather, Horace E. Nisbett, enlisted in the regular army in April 1917 at age 20. Horace was single and worked as a papermaker at Great Northern Paper Co. in East
Millinocket. He was sent to Fort Ethan Allen in Vermont for basic training. Horace went overseas for his first and only time on Aug. 18, 1917 as a member of the American Expeditionary Forces. I believe he was sta-
tioned in France for most of his tour of duty. He fought on Aug. 27, 1918 at the Battle of Thierville and on Aug. 29 at the battle of Babecourt. He returned to the States on Jan. 3, 1919, after spending about 17 months in Europe.
After graduating from Nokomis High School in Newport in 2006, Michael Louis Smith of Newport enlisted in the Marines and trained at Parris Island in South Carolina. According to his aunt, Suzanne AuClair of Rockwood, he represents the third generation of his family to serve in the military: his father, Michael Wayne Smith, and grandfather, Louis Smith, both served in the Navy. Smith deployed to Ramadi in Iraq for seven months in 2008 and served with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard the USS Nassau in 2010. Married to the former Dana-Jo Gardner, he is now assigned to the 1st Explosive Ordinance Co. at Camp Pendleton, Calif. On Sept. 18, 2011, Sgt. Smith graduated from the Explosive Ordnance Disposal School at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. He will deploy to Afghanistan in 2012. Suzanne AuClair reports that “from the time he was very young, Michael wanted to join the Marine infantry, much to the fear and pride of his grandparents. Now he is fulfilling his own dream.” Smith follows in the footsteps of his father, who was on active duty with the
Marine Sgt. Michael Louis Smith graduated from Nokomis High School in Newport.
Navy when he “died in a motorcycle accident while stationed in the service in Italy … one month before Michael was born,” AuClair writes. “So Michael never knew his father.” Michael Smith is also the son of his mother, Cynthia, and her long-time partner, Michael Peete. He is the grandson of Louis and Lorraine Smith of Dixmont and Gerry and Sylvia Robertson of Carmel.
4, Friday | November 11, 2011, Bangor Daily News
U.S. government broke its promises made to 1950s-era veterans By Brian Swartz CUSTOM PUBLICATIONS EDITOR
Born in Eastport in 1933, Harry Boone joined the Air Force at a Bangor recruiting station in 1951. In exchange for agreeing to place his body on the line to protect America, “I was promised free health care for life,” he said. Boone kept his part of the bargain by
retiring as a master sergeant in 1971. But the federal government did not meet its obligation, he indicated; “so far” that promised free health care “has cost me a little over $40,000,” said the 78-year-old Boone, who lives in his Down East hometown. “It changed over the years,” he said. “There are new gimmicks all the time,” including “Tricare for life. That’s another lie.”
After completing basic training at Sampson Air Force Base in upstate New York, Boone planned to attend a weather observer school. On Dec. 18, 1951, “a sergeant came in and said, ‘We need 50 volunteers for air police school at Camp Gordon, Ga.’” Before Boone could open his mouth, the sergeant chimed, “Boone, Harry,” so off to Georgia went Boone for eight weeks of training that began in January 1952. Upon graduation, Boone anticipated orders to Korea. Instead, the Air Force sent him to an American air base in England. During his Air Force career, Boone served at bases in Greenland, French Morocco, Idaho, Maine, and Newfoundland. “I loved the travel. I loved meeting new people all over the world. The first 10 years, I spent about eight years overseas,” he said. When 1971 came, however, “I went in there for 20 years to retire, and I was coming back to Maine, and I
did.” Moving to Bangor, Boone worked there before returning to Eastport in 1978. He later bought into a convenience store, which he ultimately “owned for 27 years until it was time to retire and draw Social Security.” When Boone retired, his monthly retirement pay was partially tied to Social Security. When he turned 62 and started collecting Social Security, he was told by the Social Security Administration that “for every $2 you make, we’re going to take $1.” By then, the government had broken “its promise of free lifetime medical care” for military retirees, Boone said. After retiring, he had enrolled in Champus, “the government-run health insurance” program. “You stayed in that until age 65, when they transferred you over to Medicare,” Boone said. He enrolled in Tricare about 10 years ago; today Medicare is the pri-
mary payor for his health-care coverage, and Tricare is the secondary payor. “Medicare does not always pay 100 percent, usually 80 percent or less,” Boone noted. He must pay a deductible. When military retirees doggedly complained to their Congressional representatives and senators, Congress “created Tricare so it would pick up all the expenses that Medicare didn’t cover,” Boone said. “But in the last five years, they’re (the Defense Department) trying to reduce costs” by cutting Tricare. Angry as he is at how much that “free” medical care has cost him, Boone really reserves his strongest opinion for those federal bureaucrats who consistently propose charging retirees more money for that same “free” care. “You promised us something. Dammit, keep your word!” he said. “You promised us this,” he said, speaking directly to those bureaucrats. “You should honor your word.”
Belfast sailor “told off” his skipper in WWII By Eugene Kirby Military service is a tradition with the Megquiers of Bangor. For 20 years, Ron Megquier (left) served as a Navy storekeeper. Ron and his mother, Rose Megquier, posed for a family photo in June 2010 with Ron’s son, Army 2nd Lt. Elliott Megquier. He graduated from Husson University in spring 2010 and received his commission through Army ROTC at the University of Maine.
For serving with honor, courage and strength of character, we thank you.
We especially acknowledge our Husson family of Veterans and those still active in the military.
1 College Circle • Bangor ME 04401-2999 www.husson.edu • 800-4HUSSON
a call would come down from the bridge, saying the captain wanted a progress report. We had estimated an hour, but that During World War II I served on the destroyer escort USS time had gone by, and things were getting tense. Reuben James as an engineer in the forward engine room. The Another call from the bridge demanded, “How much ship was a member of a “hunter/killer group.” longer?” Our duty was to search for and destroy German submarines I asked the chief engineer, “How much longer?” as we accompanied convoys in He responded, “Tell him to the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterkeep his shirt on!” ranean Sea. I relayed the message verbaOne day we had a breakdown tim, and the voice on the phone in an engine room and had to asked, “Do you know who separate ourselves from our you’re talking to?” group because we could not “I do, now, Captain, sir,” I USS Reuben James (DE 153) keep up. Another ship in our replied. division screened for submarines while we made the repairs. I believe I am the only sailor to have told the captain of his I was in the No. 1 engine room with the chief engineer and ship to “keep your shirt on!” Eugene Kirby lives in Belfast. other mechanics trying to get the engine going. Every so often
Bangor Daily News, Friday | November 11, 2011, 5
“Screaming meemies” caught American soldiers near Elbe River By Milton Dyer Jr. It was on a Sunday, during my sophomore year at the University of Maine in Orono, that we heard the news that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. Soon President Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced that he hated war and his wife, Eleanor hated war, but we must fight for peace. The men of our country were ready and willing. I left college and went into the service on the train from Rockland. After some training, our orders came, and we went up the gang plank of the Queen Elizabeth, along with a crew of 1,000 men, and the large vessel filled with troops. After seven days spent sailing across the Atlantic without incident, we landed in a seaport, The Firth of Clyde, in Scotland. It would take a book to relate all the travels and experiences of the 580th Anti-Aircraft Battalion, but the most interesting part was the final days in Germany. We set up our anti-aircraft guns to protect a bridge. After eight days we learned that the 1st Army had crossed the Rhine, so we moved again to protect a pontoon bridge over which supplies were carried. The front was about 4 miles away, and we could see the guns go off. We kept moving to protect bridges and railheads over which supplies were sent. Then we were told to move again to support the infantry crossing the Elbe River, That night we convoyed by blackout up to the Elbe. As we pulled over side of the road, we heard German shells coming over. The next morning about 6 a.m., three German ME-109s went over and must have spotted us lined up along the road. We dug foxholes, and about 9 a.m. “screaming meemies”* were flying through the air. We wished then that the fox holes were about 10 times deeper than they were. Five of the men did get hit running to their foxholes. The medics and our Lleutenant gave first aid to the
wounded, and even a wounded soldier was helping. About that time the German people were running way from the Russians, and we had to stop them from crossing the Elbe River. Our battery was called on to send a sergeant and 20 men over to the other side of the Elbe River to make the German people pull over into fields and wait. There were thousands of German men, women, and children trying to get away from the Russian, and there were about 100 of us. They left their weapons at the front and got on anything that had wheels, hurrying to the American side for protection. We did send the badly wounded ones across. Even at a time like this, funny things happened. I was walking through to make sure there was no trouble when all at once I heard a woman’s voice say, “Pardon me, soldier, do you have 12 spoons I could use to eat dinner with?” I was stunned, first to hear such perfect English and second because of her request. I told that we didn’t have any. She replied, “Well, how the devil do you eat?” Finally I told her that we were rugged and ate out of tin cans. With sympathy she said, “That’s too bad.” On my way out the gate, another woman said, “Excuse me, please, but do you have the correct time?” We stayed for a day directing traffic and getting the children back to their mothers. One German came up to me and tried to tell me that he was French and they made him fight, but he certainly had a German accent. Well, the war was over in Europe. We waited for orders, hoping this time that it would be back to the United States, which was home sweet home! Many years later after I had retired from the state highway eepartment in Augusta, we moved to a home in Rockland. I used to walk five miles a day. One day a man who lived a couple of houses from me stopped to
talk. He had a German accent. Our conversation somehow lead to World War II, and he told me that he was so happy when he saw the American GIs at the end of the war. He was in a field getting away from the Russians. I told him I was one of the American GIs in that field. We became very good friends and neighbors. *Rockets fired by a Nebelwerfer mortar.
Milton E. Dyer Jr. lives in Camden.
PHOTO BY KATHERINE FERNALD
After graduating from Mount Desert Island High School in 2010, Sam Johnson (left) and Ethan Blake of Somesville enlisted in the Marines through the Buddy Program. Today, Private First Class Johnson is an anti-tank, anti-armor specialist stationed with the 2nd Tanks Division at Camp Lejeune, N.C. Lance Corp. Blake is a machinegunner stationed at the Bangor Naval Base, Kitsap Silverdale, Wash.
6, Friday | November 11, 2011, Bangor Daily News
Burning fuel barge caused Navy aviators to abandon their “ship” By Brian Swartz
July 11, 1944. Hailing from Chicopee, Mass., Lester Slate joined the Navy as an aviation cadet in 1942. After completing Life got a little too, well, shall we say advanced training, he joined Patrol “warm” for a Navy pilot and his crew on Squadron 208 (VP 208) in Key West. The squadron flew PBM Marlins, a large seaplane with twin engines. “We were [flying] anti-submarine [patrols]” out of Key West,” recalled Slate, who lives in Exeter. To refuel and resupply planes and crews logging long missions, the Navy established advance bases at Royal Island in the Bahamas and on Grand Cayman Island. “It was late in the afternoon [on July 11] when we got the call [that] a submarine had been sighted in the Grand Caymans,” Slate said. His plane and its 12-man crew were tapped to fly to Grand Cayman Island and look for a submarine while en route. “We landed there after dark,” with the pilots easing the PBM to a smooth landing on Capt. Lester Slate flew with the Navy the ocean and taxiing the plane during World War II and with the Coast to a mooring, he recalled. CarGuard during Korea and Vietnam. rying 1,500 gallons of high-
CUSTOM PUBLICATIONS EDITOR
octane aviation gas, a refueling barge “came up under the [port] wing and started refueling” the plane, Slate said. The barge was tucked beneath the wing’s engine nacelle, which contained four depth charges. “A rearming barge was to starboard,” said Slate, the plane’s junior pilot and assigned navigator. “About 15 minutes into refueling, the refueling barge caught fire. I hollered to the guys in back to untie the barge. “Flames were almost coming through the hatch,” he quietly said, briefly closing his eyes at the memory. As crew members leaped into the rearming barge, the plane captain (an enlisted sailor) untied the front rope of the refueling barge and pushed it away from the PBM. Unfortunately the barge drifted beneath the plane’s tail; the flames “melted the beaver tail off the back end of the engine,” Slate said. “At least it got out from under the engine nacelle; we were afraid the heat would cause those depth charges to explode.” Slate waited for the rearming barge’s coxswain to start the barge’s engine and “move us away from the plane.” The nervous sailor broke off the engine key, however, and the stranded PBM crew listened in the fire-lit darkness as another
crew member screamed for help after diving from the plane into the water. Then a PBM mechanic crossed the wires on the rearming barge’s engine, which started. The coxswain steered the barge around the plane to rescue the “drowning” crewman, who was by that
time being assisted by the plane captain. Close inspection after dawn on July 12 revealed that the PBM “was flyable. We flew it back to Key West,” Slate said. “We never saw a sub. The fire at Grand Cayman [Island] was just two days before my 22nd birthday.”
Soldier fought with 2nd Armored By Bill Sawtell Born on Oct. 16, 1907, Jim McGrath attended the district school in North Brownville, where he lived most of his long life. Jim worked in the woods, in the dowel mill, and in other mills, helped build bridges, and later constructed a number of buildings. He volunteered for service in July at the age of 34 years and nine months, six weeks after getting married. He went to basic training at Fort Bragg. He was trained as a heavy machine gunner (.50 cal) and was assigned to the 2nd Armored Division, his unit being sent to North Africa, landing in Morocco on Christmas Eve 1942. They fought in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia under the command of Gen. Omar Bradley. They were then sent to Sicily, fight-
ing from the south to the north coast. Jim’s friend, Heinrich Wansink from Brownville Junction, was killed in Sicily. From there, they were sent to England. The 2nd Armored landed in Normandy on D-Day+4. Jim got home to Brownville Junction on Oct. 8, 1945, eight days before his 38th birthday, getting to see his daughter, Florence, for the first time. She was two years and seven months old. When Jim got home, he was still a PFC. “I always wondered why he was never promoted to a higher rank,” says his son, Dan. “Late in Dad’s life I learned he had turned down a promotion to sergeant because he did not want to carry out orders that could cost others their lives.” Jim worked for the Canadian Pacific Railway as a car inspector for 45 years. He died Jan. 3, 2006 in Dover-Foxcroft.
Cole La Land nd Transp Transport ortation ation Museum Museum Open Everyday 9-5
●
May 1st - Nov 11th
Homee ooff tthe: Hom he: State of Maine WWII Veterans Memorial Maine Korean Veterans Memorial Maine Vietnam Veterans Memorial Maine Military Order of the Purple Heart Memorial 405 Perry Road Bangor, ME 04401 (207) 990-3600 www.colemuseum.org
Interstate 95 - Exit 182A Follow the Signs to the War Memorials Join oin Us for Ou Ourr Vet Veter erans ans Day Day Com Comme memor morati ation on on N Nov. ov. 11th!
Bangor Daily News, Friday | November 11, 2011, 7
God called B-52 aviator to the priesthood in 2004 By Fr. Robert Reagan This story is not really about me. It is a story about God; I just happen to be in the middle of it. I am a disabled Vietnam vet, the chaplain for American Legion Post 94 in Greenville, and a semiretired Roman Catholic priest assisting at seven churches from Jackman to Pittsfield. I began my military service with the Air Force in 1969. I went through ROTC at the University of New Hampshire and received a commission upon graduation. To me, the B-52 Stratofortress was the most awesome weapon system in the world. The most interesting and challenging crew position was that of navigator/bombardier. After almost two full tears of training, I became a certified Combat Crew member and was assigned to the 42nd Bomb Wing at Loring Air Force Base in Limestone. The routine called for flying training missions for two weeks, spending one week on nuclear alert duty, and then flying two weeks of training missions. One weekend while on alert, our crew was informed that we were to download our munitions, “mission plan” a non-stop flight to Andrews AFB in Guam for Monday – and don’t tell anyone. Thus began my rotation to conventional bombing missions over Southeast Asia. The routine was simple: fly a bombing mission, return to Guam, have a meal, get some sleep, and fly the next mission. Believe me when I say that we dropped a lot of bombs and did a lot of damage.
Called to the priesthood in 2004, Father Robert Reagan (above) was a certified Combat Crew member (inset) on a B-52 Stratofortress during the Vietnam War. My tour of duty ended like it had begun: with a phone call. Somehow I felt as though I did not return as the same person. This time I was being called back to Loring to become a flight examiner and test navigator for the newly developed AGM-69 Short Range Attack Missile. I knew that I wanted to make the Air Force a career, but that remaining a Combat Crew member was not the route to take. I asked if the Air Force would let me change career fields, and they said, “No.” They had invested too much money training
me for the B-52. I transferred into the Air National Guard, went to law school on the GI Bill, and returned to active duty as a Jag (a military lawyer). It was interesting and challenging work. My first assignment included duty on a federal anti-terrorist task force in support of the Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid, N.Y. It was at this time when I noticed my health declining. The underlying problem was never diagnosed. Eventually I was told that I was going to have to be medically discharged. This was one of the saddest days of my life. I returned to Maine and went to work at Maine Maritime Academy as the college’s attorney, director of personnel, and professor of management. My health started to decline further. Once again, I was forced into a medical retirement. One of the crew members I had flown with at Loring had retired to Florida; he talked me into moving down there. He said the change of climate would be good for my health and life would be a little easier. I moved there and my health did seem to stabilize a bit. I became active in my local parish, enjoyed being able to be of service, and then the strangest thing happened: God tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to become a priest. This was the farthest thing from my mind. I had never had any desire to do anything like that. I discovered, however, that once you are called that you can’t say “no thanks, I have other plans.” I applied to the Diocese of Orlando and was
A B-52F Stratofortress drops its bombs on a specific target during the Vietnam War. Father Robert Reagan flew such missions before “God tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to become a priest.”
turned down because I was too old. I tried another Florida diocese and got the same answer. I was 52 at the time. My pastor advised me to go speak to the bishop directly. I thought, “What am I going to say to him, ‘Hello, Bishop, I think your policy stinks!’” I finally got up the nerve to make the appointment and met with him for about an hour. The next day, I got a call from the vocations director. I was no longer too old! I spent the next four years living in a dorm room studying theology. I was ordained a priest in May 2004 and was assigned to a parish in Orlando. It’s funny how things work out. The pastor of that parish was the vocations director who had originally turned me down. Apparently he asked the bishop to assign me to his parish. This parish was unique. It had one church building, but two different congregations: one American
See REAGAN, Page 10
8, Friday | November 11, 2011, Bangor Daily News
Perham sergeant experienced the fury of war 20-year-old veteran writes his mom By Susan Dahlgren Daigneault “The worst was night patrol. The captain would call over to me and say, ‘Eddie, pick four men and go out.’ I was a platoon leader at this point. With all of the constant German shelling, we lost a lot of men. You’d get really tired, played out, and pull back for a while. But you knew you’d have to go back. You get so tired, so discouraged that after awhile, you take chances that you probably shouldn’t. I got away with it. Others got hit.� (Edward C. Dahlgren) By late January 1945, the Texas 36th Infantry is dug in along the swollen banks of the Moder River in Alsace-Lorraine in the east of France, an area then under German occupation. On Feb. 1, Private Thomas J. Kersey of Presque Isle, along with his platoon leader, Sgt. Edward C. Dahlgren of Perham, are crossing a field with the rest of their squad when they see German soldiers in the distance. A shot rings out, close this time to Dahlgren’s helmet. He hears a thud and looks. “Oh, God, no, no, no.� Kersey is down with a bullet clean through his helmet; he’s dead. Now the cool and calculated Dahlgren is enraged. Why Kersey, with his young wife and two young sons waiting for him back home? On Feb. 11, tired and discouraged and sick of the cold and wet, Dahlgren and his men enter Oberhoffen while under orders to clear out the Germans who are holding another American platoon hostage. By the end of this long day of fighting, Dahlgren will have killed at least 8 Germans, wounded many more,
Sgt. Edward C. Dahlgren of Perham won the Medal of Honor for his bravery during a fight at Oberhoffen, Germany. and captured 39 prisoners of war. His actions will have saved countless American lives and for his bravery on this day, he will receive the Medal of Honor, our nation’s highest military award. He will live to return home to Maine. On Nov. 5, 1945 he boards the train in Portland, where he has been staying with his sister, to travel to northern Maine. When the train pulls into Caribou, there is no parade, no hero’s welcome. Only two uncles are there on the platform to take him home. Sick with jaundice, still recovering from a recent kidney stone attack, he is as thin as a rail, unable to sleep without being awakened by horrendous scenes of war; his hands shake, and he stutters when he tries to talk. The war has come home with him. And he still has one more duty to fulfill. He checks the telephone book for a
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number, calls her, and arranges for a visit the next day. He borrows his Uncle John’s car and drives south to Presque Isle. He easily finds her house. She opens the door for him, invites him into her kitchen, and offers coffee. He tells Mrs. Kersey that her husband was a good soldier, a brave man. He tells her about her husband’s last days, of the conversations they had in the evenings where Kersey talked with longing for his wife, his sons, and his home. And he tells her that her husband didn’t suffer when he was shot on Feb. 1. His last duty done, Edward Dahlgren would go on to live a long life in northern Maine, but the war would stay with him throughout his life. He would struggle to find an acceptable answer to the question of how a soldier who endures horrendous battlefield experiences can live a life worthy of his survival. Despite the many medals he received for heroism on the battlefields of Europe, he never considered himself a hero. Heroes were the ones, like Private Kersey, who didn’t make it home. When he retired, with too much spare time on his hands, his war returned with fury, and what we now know as PTSD would become another battle he had to fight. Although his war happened many decades ago, my dad’s story is extremely relevant today with so many of our young soldiers returning home with PTSD. Susan Dahlgren Daigneault is a retired school counselor living in North Berwick. She has written a book about her dad’s life: In the Shadow of a Mountain: A Soldier’s Struggle with PTSD.
By Hugh Aaron
form or another — either before or after digestion. Now everyone has recovered, Editor’s note: While “traveling from as evidenced by the heated crap games, Hollandia, New Guinea to Mindoro, serious card games, solemn reading, Philippine Islands� on April 6, 1945, 20- industrious writing, laughing, and remiyear-old Hugh Aaron wrote this letter to niscing at dusk. his mother. “The future looked grim I’ve strung my jungle hammock still,� he recalls 66 years later. “At the across an aft mooring winch amid a nest time we couldn’t even imagine the bomb of such hammocks. I sleep like a babe— that ended it. I arrived home almost that is after I trained the damn thing to respond to my maneuverings. nine months later.� Dear Mom, We left the dock in such haste that we If from my penmanship I seem to be were unable to batten down all the drunk, attribute it to the roll of the ship. equipment on deck. A pair of us built We are several days at sea, and reconciled quarters with spectacular ingenuity across two pontoons. It to all the inconveniencconsisted of cots set es that at this stage of under a canopy made the game is old stuff for from a shelter half and us. a poncho. After we got You might call our out to sea and mean voyage, as someone just swells, the pontoons did, a Coney Island began rocking, then beach party. All over separating. Scrambling the deck, all over and to save their gear and under the equipment, their new home, the spilling into every two fellows struggled imaginable (and to hold the pontoons unimaginable) nook together and prevent and cranny is infantry them from going over gear and its somewhat the side. Meanwhile, grimy owners. Tiers of Hugh Aaron collected his despite our seasickness cots strung along the bulkheads fill the dank wartime correspondence and bloated faces, we stifling holds, but we in “Letters from the Good laughed ourselves still War.� sicker. So help me it prefer the air and the sun, and yes, even the rain, as we strip was a veritable clown act. On this voyage we have an exceptiondown to take a freshwater shower al menagerie on board. There are three though it is cold and cutting. For the first few days I felt woozy, and bitches that dash wildly from one caress many felt sorely worse. Our first meal on to another, six new born pups that are board, supper, went over the side in one mercilessly manhandled, a monkey that sits on its haunches screeching, a multicolored bird in a cage that screams for its native haunts, a duck that waddles bewildered about the deck, and a few humans that behave like animals. You call Franklin Park a zoo? Baloney. We get news regularly. The invasion of Okinawa gave us a premature thrill of optimism, because it’s so near mainland Japan. The appalling American European offensive made me leap with glee. Oh, if it would only be finished over there. The end, so unreal until now, begins to be conceivable. The futility of a year ago was terrible. The ocean is both to my port and starboard gaze. Every time I look at it and into it I’m reminded of washday back home and the tub swirling with bluing water. The sea is yet bluer, iridescent. It’s all so clean, chaste, untouched. Who can believe that all the world’s waste empties into it? A twinge of nostalgia took hold of us during the hours that the land’s outline grew misty. Altogether our stay at that spot wasn’t unpleasant. Everything we left behind, we built or witnessed. I felt like brushing my hands against each other and saying “There, that’s done.� Our second year overseas has begun. May this be our next to last voyage. May this be that once more, one more job, then home. Love, Hughie
Bangor Daily News, Friday | November 11, 2011, 9
Marine thanked God for returning safely to Maine Booby trap could ruin a soldier’s day By Leroy Peasley I joined the United States Marine Corps at Augusta in December 1942 and reported to the train station on Jan. 6, 1943. I was sworn into the Corps the next day. Boot camp at Parris Island, S.C. was from Jan. 7-March 18. From April 1943 until June 1944 I was a guard at ShangriLa, President Roosevelt’s retreat in the Catoctin Mountains in Maryland. I was one of 103 Marines working with the Secret Service to guard the president when he came to his retreat. In June 1944, I was shipped to Camp Lejeune, N.C. for jungle training. After two weeks of training, I was shipped with my buddies to Norfolk, Va., where we embarked on the USS Baxter on June 19. We disembarked at Hawaii on July 8 and moved to a staging area for about two weeks. On July 23, we embarked on the USAT Aconcagua and sailed for Guam on July 24. We disembarked at Guam on Aug. 16. I was assigned to the 3rd Platoon, Easy Co., 2nd Battalion, 3rd Regiment, 3rd Marine Division. We actively patrolled against Japanese forces from Aug. 17 to Nov. 2. I was also a scout and took many patrols and set up road
Leroy Peasley was 19 when he posed for this photo in Hagerstown, Md. in 1943. blocks at night. I embarked on the USS Calloway on Feb. 10, 1945 and sailed north to Iwo Jima. We took on wounded, and I helped bury some of them at sea. We sailed back to Guam on March 8, 1945. From April 5-17, I participated in the 3rd Marine Regiment’s operations in the field, in action against the remaining Japanese forces in order to sweep them from the southern portion of Guam. After the A bombs were dropped on
Japan in August, Japan surrendered. I shipped out on Dec. 1, 1945 aboard the USS Hampton (APA 115), and I volunteered to work in the galley cleaning the metal trays the Marines ate on. We finally reached San Diego on Dec. 15 and disembarked the same day. We were issued a new set of “greens” because we lost ours on Guam. We were given liberty. Later we boarded a big troop train with two engines to haul it. We had a chance to see the beautiful states in the West as we passed through them. I was discharged with a promotion to corporal on Jan. 1, 1946. Another discharged Marine and I rode together on an old coal-burning train, and he got off at Freeport. As the old train rumbled along, I looked out of the window at my beloved State of Maine, and I thought, “How lucky I am,” because many of my buddies were lying in their lonesome graves, thousands of miles from home. The old train finally pulled into the Rockland Depot, and I shouldered my sea bag and stepped down onto the land. Rockland was where I was born. It was very cold out, and I was shivering, and then I smiled and thanked God, “I’m really back in Maine!” Leroy Peasley lives in Rockland.
On behalf of all of us at Dirigo Pines
Thank you, Veterans, for your service to our country.
(207) 866-3400 9 Alumni Drive • Orono www.DirigoPines.com
By Greg Hughes
bearers, and seven riflemen with M-16s. While maintaining radio silence, we In September 1969, the helicopters moved through the jungle single file, had inserted us into the jungle on a each man [placed] 10 meters apart. I felt recondo mission to locate and report a a tug on my right foot; a monofilament known POW camp in a Viet Cong trip wire was hooked to a grenade just 2 stronghold. feet away! I heard the metallic click as In our patrol, there was the point the handle popped from the grenade. It man, M-79 [grenade launcher] man, turned out the grenade was a dud; it myself with an M-60 machine gun, our didn’t blow up. radiotelephone operator, two ammo Both the point man and the M-70 man had stepped over the trip wire and were unaware of its presence. We blew up the booby trap with an M-26 fragmentation grenade and continued on our mission. Everyone on our patrol agreed that I was lucky and that it wasn’t my time to go. As it turned out, we did locate the POW camp and called in a team from the 5th Special Forces Group (the “Green Berets”) to assist us in our successful effort to retrieve our POWs. Some say that we did not win that war, but we certainly won every battle ever fought in that PHOTO COURTESY OF GREG HUGHES god-forsaken place. Greg Hughes served with the 9th While stationed in Vietnam in 1969, Greg Hughes was a machinegunner Infantry Division in Vietnam. He lives in Allagash. assigned to the 9th Infantry Division.
10, Friday | November 11, 2011, Bangor Daily News
Houlton sailor was eyewitness to 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba Editor’s note: This article was excerpted from a Houlton Pioneer Times article written by Joseph Cyr. HOULTON — Fifty years ago, Torrey Sylvester of Houlton was a 24-year-old member of the United States Navy serving on the destroyer U.S.S. Conway. In April 1961, Sylvester was heading to the Caribbean on a secret mission that would become known as “The Bay of Pigs,” an invasion that was an unsuccessful military action performed by a CIAtrained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba with support from the U.S government. The action was an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro and lasted April 17-19, 1961. Since then, Sylvester has often wondered what had become of the group of Cubans, particularly one young man whom he formed a bond with while
sharing a room on the ship. That man was Blas Casares, a University of Oklahoma student who dropped his studies to volunteer as a frogman for the CIA. Sylvester and Casares shared many conversations in the days after the failed military operation. Upon returning to Norfolk, Va., Sylvester sent a letter to Casares to check on his well-being, but never received a response. For years, he never knew if his letter ever made it to his Cuban friend. So imagine Sylvester’s surprise when he received an email a few months ago from Casares, looking to catch up on the 50th anniversary of the attack. Casares’ email also included an attachment of the very letter Sylvester sent to him all those years ago. “It blew me away that he had saved this letter,” Sylvester said. “I just picked up the phone and called him. He
Reagan
casian in a church filled with 400 Vietnamese congregants. It was life changing to say the least. I was struck by God’s sense of humor and sense of justice. I had been given an opportunity to atone for some of the killing I had done in my earlier years. It struck me as interesting that I had started out my career being paid to kill Vietnamese — and now I was being paid to save their souls.
Continued from Page 7
and one Vietnamese. One Sunday, the priest who normally presided at the Vietnamese mass was not available, and I was asked to stand in for him. It is impossible to accurately describe what it felt like, standing up as the only Cau-
had been searching for me, but didn’t know my whereabouts.” Sylvester graduated from the University of Maine in Orono on June 1, 1959, and signed up to be a member of the U.S. Navy the very next day. He attended officer’s boot camp in September in Newport, R.I. He completed four months of intensive training, earning an ensign commission. Sylvester first set foot on the USS Conway in January 1960, and that ship served as his home for the next 37 months. During peacetime, his ship was assigned as a “down-range recovery ship” for all the Mercury 7 space missions, plucking such astronauts as Alan Shepard, Don Slaton, and Gus Grissom from the ocean after their historic space missions. But his assignment on April 17, 1961, was shrouded in mystery. He knew something was up since the Conway’s hull number of 507 had been painted out, as had the ship’s name on the stern. “We had no idea what was going on,” Sylvester said. “We were ordered to the coast of Honduras, which took about a day’s steam from Cuba. There, we escorted three C2 tankers and freighters carrying members of Brigade 2506, which were Cuban rebels.” “We were about six miles off the
At the 2011 Conway Veterans Association reunion, Torrey Sylvester (left) of Houlton holds a Brigade 2506 flag with Henry Agueros, a Cuban exile. coast,” Sylvester said. “We could hear all the gunfire and traffic on the radio asking for air support. We couldn’t fire a single shot, and therefore the rebels got their butts kicked.” Sylvester said he remembers about 36 rebels who managed to avoid capture and made their way to the beach. Casares had avoided capture and was waiting on the beach to be extracted. “Our ship was given the order to go in and look for any survivors,” said Sylvester. “Our CO asked for volunteers
to take our boats in and pick up any survivors. I was single, so I stuck my hand up to volunteer. We took two 26-foot, motor whale boats, which are powered by a diesel engine.” Sylvester said he had a .45 handgun and a Thompson submachine gun. He along with two other individuals were in one whale boat, while a similar threeman crew was on a second whale boat. “We motored in and didn’t see anybody,” Sylvester said.“I got out and stood on the beach and waited for close to an hour. I can tell you we were all sweating bullets. Finally, we saw a group of about 36 guys come out of the woods. We got all the guys on board without incident.” Sylvester said he formed a kinship with Casares, who spoke fluent English, albeit with a Cuban accent, as the two shared a room on the return trip to the United States. In July 1961, he wrote Casares a letter, but after not getting a response, he forgot all about it. Sylvester said Casares, along with a few other officers, were given immediate American citizenship, provided that they enlisted in the military. Casares volunteered for the Navy and ultimately became a Navy underwater demolition technician (also called a “frogman”). He later became a businessman in Miami, Fla.
Thank you to those who served. Our nation's veterans made an eternal sacrifice for the freedoms we enjoy. We salute their efforts and are forever grateful.
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Bangor Daily News, Friday | November 11, 2011, 11
12, Friday | November 11, 2011, Bangor Daily News
“You craphead, you was dead when I left you,” soldier told comrade Editor’s note: In 2000, Andrew D. Russell interviewed his uncle, Ora Glidden, at Glidden’s home in East Millinocket. This article is excerpted from that interview. Born in East Millinocket in 1922, Ora Glidden attended Schenck High School and received a draft notice from the Army in October 1942. He opted for the Marines. Sent to Parris Island for basic training, Glidden recalled that “it was tough.” After graduating from boot camp, Glidden transferred to Camp Lejeune, N.C. and trained initially as a radio operator and then as an MP. Later “I shipped over to Hawaii.”
As his ship sailed toward Saipan, which his unit would invade, Glidden watched Coast Guard crews con their Higgins assault boats alongside the ship at 6 a.m. daily. Marines would “crawl down those [landing] nets” and the Higgins boats would “circle the ship all day,” practicing to line up for the attack on Saipan. Glidden was assigned as a squad leader to the Mortar Platoon, G Co., 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment. At Saipan, “we got onto the beach (Red Beach)” in the first wave, “and they (Japanese) had all their guns. They had this marked off exactly right to that
beach. All their artillery would fire and [the shells would] land right in the boats. Right in them Higgins boats. Blew them all to hell. “I had my M-1 [rifle] and ammunition strung everywhere,” Glidden indicated. As the Marines hit the beach, “they kept hollering, ‘Down! Down!’ You’d be down [in the sand], they’d still holler, ‘Keep down!’” The Marines advanced across Saipan. Glidden was involved in fighting, including a night patrol that saw a comrade named Donahue shot and apparently killed. After checking Donahue and deciding that “he’s dead,” Glidden “took
Mainer honors dad who sailed on LST-464 By Jeff Rose I’d like to share the following in memory of my Dad, the late Harold Rose of Appleton, and those he served with. Dad was an Electrician Mate 1st Class in the Seventh Fleet of the U.S. Navy during World War II. His active duty included service aboard USS LST-464 during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The following information is taken from an Action Report by the commanding officer of the USS LST-464 regarding the Battle of Leyte Gulf, fought from Oct. 24-Dec. 15, 1944, which saw the introduction of kamikaze attacks in a last ditch effort by the enemy in the Philippines. The LST 464, specially outfitted to act as a floating battle-
site 100-bed hospital (without protective status), admitted over 2,700 Army and Navy personnel during the 1½-month long battle. The transfer and care of dying and wounded was not limited to corpsmen. “All hands worked tirelessly in protecting and ministering the patients,” often under enemy fire. The crew gave up their bunks during times of overflow and slept on the deck. “Every man and officer did a remarkably fine job in defeating the enemy and reclaiming from death hundreds of American lives who would have perished.” My hat is off to one crew from the past who made a difference. Well done, Dad! Jeff Rose lives in Appleton.
the fella back with me, and I give him to the captain and the corpsman there.” Glidden returned to his foxhole. “It wasn’t 20 minutes [later that] Donahue comes, jumps in the hole with me.” Looking at Glidden, Donahue said, “You craphead, you leaved me up there.”
Glidden replied, “You craphead, you was dead when I left you.” A Japanese bullet struck and penetrated Donahue’s helmet and “made a complete circle” around the helmet liner before dropping out. The concussion dropped Donahue in his tracks.
War ended late for an enemy pilot Eighteen minutes after Admiral William Halsey Jr. announced on Aug. 15, 1945 that the Empire of Japan had surrendered, Don Ross’s warship got in a last crack at an enemy plane and pilot. Ross, who currently hails from Orland and Fort Walton Beach in Florida, joined the Navy on Jan. 6, 1944. He was later assigned to the USS Bennington (CV-20), an aircraft carrier. The Bennington saw duty in the Pacific Theater of Operations, and Ross served aboard her there. He provided a copy of “Ben-Trav-Log No. 6,” a generic press release that provided detailed information about where the Bennington sailed and fought in 1945. On Aug. 15, 1945, while operating “in an area approximately 150 miles off Tokyo,” the Bennington launched its “first strike, a fighter sweep” at 4:27 a.m. to attack a military airfield and a freight train. Targeting the Tokyo Shibaura
Electric Plant, “the second strike … was launched, but was recalled before reaching the target,” Ben-Trav-Log No. 6 reported. Word had reached the fleet “that the Japanese had officially accepted the Potsdam peace terms,” the press release noted. “Combat Air Patrols (CAP) were continued as scheduled, but all strikes against the Empire were cancelled.” Yet Japanese aviators still threatened the American fleet. “A ‘Judy’ (a Japanese Navy bomber) was shot down … at 1123 (11:23 a.m.), and other bogies were reported,” according to Ben-Trav-Log No. 6. “Other bogies were reported, but faded” from the radar screens. At 1:01 p.m., “Admiral Halsey broadcast news of the Jap[anese] surrender,” the press release reported. “At 1315 (1:15 p.m.), a bogey (unidentified aircraft) was reported, and four minutes later it was shown down by the CAP.”