Posted on 06/17/2023 6:52:51 PM PDT by Rummyfan
Father’s Day is this weekend, and I’ll honor my father, First Lieutenant Harold Graboyes, by recalling a few of his World War II-era Army stories. Among other things, he heard about Pearl Harbor two days before the attack, was ordered to report to Germany as an interpreter despite knowing no foreign languages, was disciplined for criticizing Japanese American internment camps, established strong camaraderie with African American soldiers in a segregated town and Army, and turned down a promotion to captain because it entailed filling out too many forms. I’ll tell his stories, because Dad has been gone for 25 years and can no longer share them himself.
In the peacetime draft preceding World War II, the recruiter asked him which service he would prefer. The Navy, he had heard, had better food, so he requested the Navy. Naturally, then, they put him in the Army and sent him from Philadelphia to Camp Lee, Virginia (later Fort Lee, and now Fort Gregg-Adams), 23 miles south of Richmond.
In early December 1941, Dad had a weekend pass to visit my mother, Lois, in nearby Petersburg. (They married in 1944.) Before he could leave, he was told that all weekend passes were canceled. “Why?” he asked some superior of his. “Because we’re expecting an attack from Japan at any moment” came the answer. The newspapers were filled with ongoing U.S.-Japan peace talks, and Dad was always highly aware of the news. So he asked why the camp’s brass believed war was imminent. One of the camp’s senior officers, it seemed, had a sister who was romantically involved with a Congressman who sat on the Committee on Military Affairs (today’s Armed Services Committee). Hence, the grapevine. As Pearl Harbor was under attack on Sunday morning, Dad said, “I was marching with a rifle....
(Excerpt) Read more at graboyes.substack.com ...
To any and every father out there, I say this: God bless you and keep you.
My father was a Marine in the Pacific during WWII.
I salute him.
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