by Larry Colton
He quickly headed for the exit. On the sidewalk in front of the bar, a wino approached him. “Hey, sailor, how about buying me a bottle of wine?”
“Sure, why not?” Gordy replied.
Using money the Navy had advanced him on his back pay, he bought a bottle of the cheapest rotgut he could find at a nearby liquor store and handed it to the wino.
“Wanna swig?” asked the wino.
“Sure,” answered Gordy.
For the next hour, he and the wino sat on the curb, passing the brown-paper-bag-wrapped bottle back and forth, barely saying a word. When it was empty, Gordy stood up, thanked the man for his time, and then caught a bus back to Oakland.
The next day he was awarded a Purple Heart.
Gordy beamed as he drove his shiny ’41 Buick down Main Street, accompanied by his brothers Willie and Larry and a friend, Ray Vanderver. It was October 1945 and he was back home in Yakima. He’d paid the pretty penny of $1,500 for the Buick, using up almost a third of the back pay he’d gotten from the Navy.
To Gordy, it seemed everyone back home had changed, especially his mom. Her hair had turned completely gray; having three of her four sons in the war had taken its toll. They’d all received Purple Hearts. When the brothers picked Gordy up at the bus depot upon his return, he barely recognized them. They were grown men, not the boys he remembered.
Since he’d been home, his routine was pretty much the same every day—sleep late, eat a big breakfast, and then go cruising in his new Buick with his brothers and friends. In the evenings they’d usually end up at Dopey’s, a restaurant and hangout for young people; if they were lucky they’d meet some girls. With his back pay in his pocket and a nice car, he had lots of new friends. He rarely talked about the nightmare he’d been through.
Once, a woman asked him what it was like in prison camp, but when Gordy started to tell her about the starvation, beatings, and death, she screamed: “Stop, stop! I don’t want to hear about that.” After that he decided to stop talking about it, concluding that most people would rather ignore the fact that people could act that way or hope that it never really happened.
Gordy wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his life after his leave was up. One option was the Navy. He’d started dabbling with taking pictures, so maybe he could try to be a photographer’s mate. But he wasn’t confident that he was good enough or that the Navy would agree to it. Staying in the submarine service was another possibility, but that seemed unlikely, too, given that he hadn’t been able to pass the qualification tests prior to the sinking of the Grenadier.
Going to college was another option. The passage of the GI Bill in June 1944 now made it possible for returning servicemen to have their entire education paid for. It was being hailed as one of the most significant pieces of social legislation of the century, for its positive impact on both the economy and its recipients. Many economists were predicting a post–World War II economic depression as the country tried to convert its wartime production levels to those of peacetime. Gordy went to Yakima High to check his transcripts, but left discouraged. For one thing, he learned he was still a year and a half short of getting his diploma. But what dissuaded him even more was seeing all the high-school kids in the halls. He was only twenty-two, but after what he’d been through, he felt decades older.
The prospects of finding a job didn’t look too rosy either. With so many returning GIs flooding the market, jobs were scarce. Gordy’s previous work history was unimpressive—jobs in high school delivering papers, picking fruit, and cleaning an ice rink weren’t likely to impress potential employers, and four years in the submarine service without learning any real marketable skills wasn’t likely to have employers lining up either. He figured he couldn’t count the two years he’d spent slaving in the steel mill in Yawata. He laughed at the thought of writing them for a recommendation.
On this day, he was content to do a little joyriding. Heading north out of town, Gordy had no real destination other than to be back in town that evening to go to Dopey’s.
Suddenly a Chevy coupe coming in the opposite direction turned left immediately in front of him. Gordy slammed on the brakes, but it was too late. The cars collided, launching Larry through the front windshield and Gordy into the steering wheel (laws requiring seat belts were many years in the future).
Gordy staggered out of the car to survey the damage. The other car was crushed, and its young driver and his girlfriend appeared seriously injured. Larry was bleeding profusely from the cuts to his head; Willie and Ray, although badly shaken, appeared okay. But Gordy’s Buick, his pride and joy, was beyond repair, and he had a stabbing pain in his side. Plus, a witness was accusing him of driving drunk.
Gordy sat at the side of the road, watching the ambulance speed away with the injured couple. Adding to his problems was the fact that he was driving with no insurance. This was not the homecoming he’d dreamed about.
44
Chuck Vervalin
Sodus, New York
Before Chuck left prison camp, he wrote Gwen a letter using a pencil and lined paper he found in the abandoned Japanese officers’ quarters. In the nearly two and a half years he’d been held captive, he’d written her several times, but she had not received any of the letters. Gwen had read a story in the Perth newspaper about the Grenadier being missing in action, and although she tried to be optimistic, she assumed the worst. She began dating again, eventually getting engaged to another American sailor, Adolph Cornberg from Chicago.
Chuck gave the letter to Arthur King, an Aussie POW from Perth whom he’d met in camp. King promised to deliver it to Gwen in person.
Darling Gwen,
As I sit here outside my so-called home, or what has been my home for twenty eight months, which also seemed to me a lifetime, I am taking my first opportunity to write to you and try to tell you just why we have been away from each other so long. After we parted that night of March 19, 1943, which has been a long time but never did I once quit thinking of you because I knew that some day the war would end and I only prayed I would make it.
On the morning of the twentieth–43 March we did not leave Fremantle Harbor until 11:30 a.m. and as we went out of the channel I got one of the fellows to stay in the engine room so I could take my last good look at the barracks where you were. I never thought it would be such a long time before I could see you again. Also I got a good look at the Ocean Beach Hotel and Leighton Beach, where we had gone several times. My buddy said take your last good look so I then went below saying to myself I sure will be glad to get back.
After many days of patrol on the morning of April 21 we were bombed by a Jap divebomber and sunk off Pilgrim Island. We were captured on the 22nd and taken to Penang. We arrived in Japan on the 9th of October. I have worked in a factory here at the town called Yawata on the island of Kyushu. We worked hard and worked right up until the 16th of August when we heard that the war was over. It came as a very sudden surprise and as yet it is quite hard to believe.
I will not tell you my hardships during this time but you can imagine they were not easy. It sure seemed good to watch the B-29s come over and give these people hell because that was the only way we knew it was getting close to an end.
I understand that there is a battleship and transports just outside the channel awaiting the word to come in. It cannot be too soon for me. I am writing this letter now to give to Arthur King to bring to you. He is one of only three Aussies in camp. I was sure glad to see them when I first came to this camp as they are all swell fellows.
The only thing I had when I was captured was a pair of pants, a shirt and that Catholic medal. I still have the medal and as I told you I would keep it always. Do you remember me saying on that last night that I had a feeling that something was going to happen? I believed it because once I had found the one I loved I knew something would happen. But all that time I have not changed my mind and I want you to write and tell me just how you feel and what you did while I was away. How did those pictu
res you had taken turn out? Please send me one as soon as possible because I am very anxious to get it. I will also do the same as soon as my hair grows out. Right now I have none. I now weigh about 150 but at one time I only weighed 105 and when I left Australia I reached 160. All I need to get my strength and weight back is some good steak and eggs and Aussie bread. I sure hope some how to get home by September 25th.
Well, Gwen, I will have to say goodbye, but not for such a long time as before. So many thanks to Arthur King to take this letter to you, but he is like all Aussies willing to do a good turn for a Yank. Please send photos and write as soon as possible.
Love, Charlie
Returning POWs from the war in the Pacific were required to spend two weeks at the Navy’s Oak Knoll Hospital in Oakland, California. Chuck sat in a doctor’s office at Oak Knoll; he’d been back in America two weeks, and this was supposed to be the last exam before getting discharged and heading home to see his parents in New York. It had been over a month since he and Tim McCoy had walked out of Fukuoka #3, and he was anxious to get home.
He and Tim had been the only Navy men on an Army transport ship carrying 900 soldiers on the long ride across the Pacific. Chuck spent a lot of the trip drinking beer and playing poker; he won over $1,200, money he planned to use to bring Gwen to America, if she’d come. He hadn’t received a reply to his letter yet.
Aside from not hearing from Gwen, his first two weeks in America had gone well. He and Tim had been topside when the ship sailed under the Golden Gate, their arrival greeted by huge white letters on the Marin side of the bay that spelled out WELCOME HOME. He got goose bumps. At the pier at Hunter’s Point in San Francisco, the men were welcomed by a large contingent of Wacs, Waves, and a handful of female Marines. After a few dockside speeches, they were taken to Oak Knoll to begin their two weeks of debriefing, which to Chuck just seemed like more of the same that he’d been through in Guam. For the first time he was allowed to call home. He talked to his sister Yvonne and his mom, who both cried at the sound of his voice. They told him about the article that appeared in the local paper headlined DUNDEE BOY LOST IN ACTION, about the memorial service that had been held in his honor, and how happy and hopeful they were when his name later showed up on a POW list.
Chuck had no complaints about Oak Knoll Hospital, commissioned by the Navy in 1942. It consisted of twenty-five wooden barracks built on the site of the Oak Knoll Golf and Country Club in the Oakland Hills, and was the primary regional hospital for handling battle casualties returning from the Pacific war and naval personnel requiring specialized care. The best part of Oak Knoll was that he received a pass almost daily. He and Tim had found plenty of opportunities to chase fun in San Francisco and Oakland, doing their best to make up for lost time.
The debriefing and examinations had been mostly physical in nature, poking and probing, lots of blood tests, urine samples, blood pressure monitoring, and making sure that the beriberi was under control. Chuck met with a psychologist, briefly, who asked if he was having any nightmares or negative effects from his twenty-eight-month imprisonment. Chuck reported that other than some pain in his back he was doing fine. He did mention that he was pissed off that the Navy charged him $5 for the phone call he’d made home.
Chuck was ready to get on with his life. On the fourteen-day voyage home, he’d been asked about his imprisonment by the soldiers on board. “The Japs treated us like shit every day,” he replied. Beyond that, he didn’t go into many details. He preferred talking about the upcoming 1945 World Series between the Detroit Tigers and Chicago Cubs, and whether the Tigers’ Hank Greenberg would be rusty coming back from serving in the Army.
The doctor had summoned Chuck to his office for this last exam primarily to make sure his leg was healing properly. On the voyage home, he had slipped off a steel ladder and injured his leg, the one that had bothered him since getting pounded with the stairway railing on the Asamu Maru. The doctor had diagnosed a hairline fracture and put Chuck’s leg in a wraparound cast, but that had done little to slow him down.
The doctor reexamined him and authorized his release. Back in his barracks, Chuck found Tim sitting on the edge of his bunk, head in his hands. He’d seen Tim the previous night at Sweets Ballroom in Oakland, a popular spot for dancing, music, and drinking with returning servicemen and local young women. When it had come time to leave, Chuck, with an attractive nurse from Oak Knoll on his arm, went looking for Tim and finally found him passed out on a bench in the upstairs VIP mezzanine. Chuck tried to rouse him, but when Tim didn’t stir, Chuck took off with his new friend.
“I’ve got a huge favor to ask,” said Tim, glancing up through bloodshot eyes. “I need to borrow three hundred dollars.”
“What happened to all your back pay?” asked Chuck.
“I wired a lot of it home, and you’re not going to believe what happened to the rest,” replied Tim. He then explained that while he was passed out at Sweets, somebody had taken a knife and cut open the pocket of his pants and stolen his wallet.
“I’ll pay you back,” promised Tim.
Chuck counted out $300. “I know you’re good for it,” he said.
Chuck and his friend Buck Dekum sat in Buck’s car in front of Irene Damien’s apartment building. Buck was Irene’s cousin, and he’d been the one to encourage Chuck to pay her a visit—against the advice of Chuck’s mom.
“I’ll knock on her door,” said Buck. “If she’s there, I’ll signal you to come up.”
“Okay,” Chuck replied, nervously.
He’d finally made it back home, hitchhiking the last leg of his long journey to Sodus, New York, where his parents had moved after he’d joined the Navy. Sodus, a small town on the shore of Lake Ontario between Rochester and Syracuse, prided itself in being the birthplace of Arbor Day. For the Vervalins, Chuck’s homecoming was a joyous reunion. His mom and sisters all cried; his dad wanted to know what his plans were for the future. Chuck wasn’t sure yet; right now all he wanted to do was just relax and hang out. When pressed, he talked about making a career in the Navy and becoming an officer. His dad thought that was a good idea. Chuck still had dreams of being involved in harness racing, but that just didn’t seem practical. He was going to need steady employment, especially if he was, as he was hinting, going to bring Gwen over from Australia and get married.
A letter from Gwen had been waiting when he got home, and it gave him hope. Arthur King had delivered Chuck’s letter to her just as he’d promised, and it had turned Gwen’s world upside down. Until she received it, she’d assumed Chuck was dead, although she admitted to him that she had never given up hope or stopped thinking about him. Her fiancé, Adolph Cornberg, had returned to America after the war, and hoped to bring her over and get married under the War Brides Act, but when she received Chuck’s letter she started to have second thoughts. In the three weeks Chuck had been home, he’d received three more letters from her. He’d also received a letter from King, telling him how lucky he was to have found someone so pretty as Gwen. “You Yanks have all the luck,” he said. To his mom, Chuck extolled Gwen’s Aussie charm, and he told her that he was thinking about proposing. “Then why do you want to go see Irene?” she countered.
Good question. Irene was his high-school sweetheart, the girl he’d sent his buddy to pick up on dates, and in the first few months after he’d joined the Navy, she had written regularly, sometimes three or four times a week, signing every letter with “All my love forever.” But the letters started coming further and further apart until they eventually stopped altogether. At first it had been hard to deal with, but at least it was better than getting the Dear John letter like so many of his friends.
Of all the Dear John stories he’d heard, the worst involved his crewmate George Stauber, the guy who’d been on watch the morning they went down. Stauber thought about his fiancée constantly when they were in the camp. When Stauber got back stateside, she came to visit him in the hospital—with her new husband. Stauber ended up having to be res
trained in a straitjacket—at least that’s the way Chuck heard it.
Chuck watched Buck climb the stairs to Irene’s apartment. He knew that Irene had married and had a child while he was gone, but still, he wanted to see her. She was his first brush with love. He remembered how pretty she was. Did she know he’d been a POW?
Heart pounding, Chuck peered around a corner of the building and watched Buck knock on her door. What if her husband answered? The door opened. “I have somebody I want you to meet,” he heard Buck say.
Irene stepped outside and Chuck moved to the bottom of the stairs in full view. Irene stared in disbelief, her hand covering her mouth. “Chuck! Chuck!” she exclaimed, running down the stairs. “I thought you were dead. You’re alive … you’re alive!”
She threw her arms around him, tears streaming down her face. Chuck hugged her, and they embraced for what seemed like forever to Chuck, as her tears turned to joyful sobs.
Finally, Irene took him by the hand and led him back up the stairs and into the apartment. Toys covered the living room floor. She quickly explained that her two-year-old son was asleep in a back room, and that her husband was at work. As Chuck sat down on the couch, he let his eyes wash over her. She was just as pretty as he remembered—and she was pregnant.
Buck excused himself, saying he’d be back in a couple of hours to pick up Chuck.
The two hours sped by. Irene told him that she’d stopped writing because she’d met her husband and just couldn’t make herself write a Dear John letter, figuring that Chuck would eventually figure it out. Her husband had been in the Army Reserve but didn’t see combat and was now selling insurance. She talked about what a nice, considerate man he was, and how hard he worked to support her and their son. When the boy woke up from his nap, Chuck held him on his knee while Irene fixed lunch.
