Tom Brokaw recounts in his superb book, The Greatest Generation, a story his mother told him of the day Gordon Larsen came into the post office where she worked. Larsen was usually a genial and popular member of their community, but that day he had stopped in to complain about the rowdiness of the teenagers on Halloween the night before.
Brokaw’s mother was surprised at his tone and asked him in good humor, “Oh Gordon, what were you doing when you were 17?”
Gordon had looked at her squarely in the eye and replied, “I was landing at Guadalcanal.” He then turned and left the post office.
How many men and women, who walk among us, now in their eighties and nineties, can say “I was at Normandy” or “I was in the first wave at Iwo Jima”? Brokaw’s book has helped us to recognize the valor and sacrifice of these veterans of a war unlike any previous war or any since.
It was a generation united by a common purpose and also by common values – duty, honor, economy, courage, service, love of family and country, and, above all, responsibility for oneself.
In this issue we salute all of these valiant warriors with the abbreviated recollection of a few.
Bob Paterson, 84th Infantry (Cannon Company)
Bob Paterson, now a resident of The Cedars in Chapel Hill, was called to active duty in 1943. He trained with a cannon company to use the M3 howitzer which fired 105mm projectiles at up to ten rounds a minute.
“Seven people were needed to support and operate each cannon, grouped into pairings of six canons,” he says. “A spotter in the field would radio in a target; one canon would fire, adjust and re-fire with help from the field spotter.” When sufficiently close to the target, the additional five cannons would join the first in firing until the target was eliminated.
Bob reports that the assignment was fairly safe compared to other infantry positions but admits he had a hard time getting to Europe. After assignment to a British merchant ship in New York City for transport across the Atlantic, “The harbor was contained by anti-submarine nets, and our ship was ordered to leave when the nets were dropped. The harbor was so congest
When they were released from ship while repairs were being made, they received strict orders not to tell anyone about the collision because it would adversely affect the war effort! Returning to ship and sailing to the mouth of the harbor, their lips were sealed until they arrived at the departing slot.
Bob smiles today as he reports, “The harbor master, who controlled the nets, hailed our captain on his megaphone. ‘What happened the other day?’ Our captain answered back with his megaphone in his thick British accent, ‘Bloody bad luck! We collided with one of our own.’ Our men were aghast. Our secret had been broadcast throughout the eastern tip of Manhattan!”