Marion-Pruitt

Fraternal twins Jerry and Billy Marion, shown here in work attire in Wagar, Alabama, circa 1935.

The job at hand? Plucking chickens (note feathers scattered about their feet).

In this companion shot to the one just above, Sam Marion (left) and his father, Mit, pluck chickens while brother Jerry, cracking a smile for the camera, dunks a defrocked bird in a wash bucket. What's good about this shot is that it's labeled on the back (by Elizabeth Marion). Still not sure whether this is Alabama or Mississippi, but we do know for certain that it is the deep South, the native soil of the Marion clan. (So basically, we're all a bunch of shanty Irish country hicks masquerading as semi-refined Northerners. Never forget that.)

Taken on the same day as the chicken-plucking shots posted above, this photo is rare insofar as it shows Dad with his own dad, Mitford Cole Marion (second from left), the only one I've ever seen. Also on the premises that day: WJM's twin, Jerry (far left, still with plenty of hair), and balding big brother Sam Marion, whose attire hardly seems appropriate for the rather grisley task at hand (he must have had a date that night). Two other observations: Even accounting for his position a step or two behind the others, Grandpa Mit appears to be very short of stature, standing small as he is between sons Jerry, who was about 5'10", and Sam, who looks like a 6-footer. And secondly, Dad's hands must have been either very cold or very dirty.

On the farm in Alabama, a 20-year-old WJM poses majestically on the proud family steed, Nightmare, which doubled as a draft horse. Actually, I made up most of the preceding. At this point, we know little about the farm, its inhabitants, its crops, etc. We DO know that Dad left here not too long after this photo was taken and would celebrate his 21st birthday, November 14, 1935, in Detroit.

Fishing attire? A youthful, overdressed WJM holds one helluva catch as an unknown photographer captures the moment for posterity's sake. Unfortunately, posterity (us) doesn't have the exact place or the date of this photo due to some indiscriminate trimming by someone (Mom?). Still, we can surmise that this was taken during their "courting" period of the late 30s, putting WJM at 25-26 here... In any case, Dad's days of wearing civilian clothes of any style were numbered: War, which would soon overtake the world, was inexorably brewing in the background.

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The U.S. hadn't yet been forced to participate in WWII when this photo was taken at Camp Livingston, Lousiana, in 1941, but that would soon change, as the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7th in the same year. This is just a small portion of a full group shot of Training Company #8, 127th Infantry (which, thanks to JP, we have hanging here on Warrington); however, it contains the segment most important to us: the one with WJM's photo. It's easy to find him, right behind the guy with the cool shades, but as kids, we were always a bit more challenged to pick him out of the complete portrait of some 200 men, many of whom, we can now see, were themselves just kids. I don't know the fate of the boys of Company 8, but with the U.S. horrifically engaged for three-and-a-half years in both the South Pacific and Europe, it's probable that some were destined to be among the 55 million people worldwide and 300,000 Americans who died in or as a result of the action -- staggering numbers that even now, some 60 years after the end of the conflict, are difficult to comprehend.

Day of Infamy

Today's generations have 9/11, the awful images and ramifications of which will always be with us. Our parents and grandparents, on the other hand, have their own such signal event: Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, which forced an isolationist U.S. into WWII. Before it was finally over in September, 1945, untold millions were dead in the most violent and horrific war in history. Let's never forget the people whose sacrifices carried us to victory over the Nazis and Japanese. Tom Brokaw calls them The Greatest Generation, and who can dispute that? WOM

Remember the Vets

Veterans' Day (formerly known as Armistice Day, celebrating the end of WWI, but changed to its present name in 1954 after WWII and the Korean conflict) is one of those half-assed holidays -- schools are open, but banks are closed; there's no mail delivery, but your trash will get picked up...Given the number of Americans lost in the name of liberty over the years, you'd think this would be a proper national holiday, on par with Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving, for instance, when everybody has the day off to cogitate and ruminate on the subject at hand....but strangely, it's not. In the above shot, Sam (l) and Jerry Marion flank their soldier-brother Billy in March, 1942, just three months after the U.S. declared war on both Germany and Japan. Not long after this, WJM was sent to the South Pacific jungles, and would be away for some three years fighting for American freedom...and for his life. Just below: Dad, home on furlough, enjoys the fruits of his military labor (sorry about that) with his young wife, Martha. Could it be that the bowl contained wax fruit, quite popular during the war years when rationing caused widespread deprivation, and that this photo is a total setup? Could it be that after so much time in the jungle eating canned army rations, the wax fruit was actually a gastronomic improvement? Hmmm.

-Christmas 1943-

WJM sent this thoughtful letter (via V-Mail) to sister-in-law Eleanor (misspelled above as "Elinor") O'Brien, wife of John O'Brien, Martha Marion's only brother. It was mailed to Detroit presumably from somewhere in the South Pacific, possibly New Guinea, on 13 DEC 1943. The U.S. had been engaged in WWII for two years, and Dad was spending his second Christmas "away from home and Martha." This communication served two purposes -- to convey Holiday greetings and to offer support to Eleanor, as husband John had left his staff reporting job with the Detroit Times and was himself serving overseas. As noted, it would be John's first Christmas away from his wife (and daughter Ellen, 2-and-a-half-years-old).

Incidentally, I received this document just yesterday from the aforementioned Ellen, who now lives in Olympia, WA. Amazing timing, I must say, as it's unlikely that she knew that 11/14 was Dad's birthday. Check out the V-Mail link above for more info about this mode of communication, and note the Censor's Stamp in the upper-left corner of the letter.

One of the frustrating things about geneological digging is that you usually can't simply speak to the principals and extract the facts directly from them anymore...they're all gone. We all have our opportunities in this realm, but, as is generally the case, we're too young, too self-involved, or not yet interested in our roots to pursue them. And so, sadly, those opportunities go aglimmering. As a result, we must look for clues...indirect references, unmarked photos, letters, and other tidbits of information that come our way in dribs and drabs. The above Detroit Times article, for instance, evidently ran in 1946 (according to Dad's age, 32, as he states it in the story). However, this seems wrong, as the War ended in May of 1945, and by late 1946, Dad -- and Uncles Harold and John who are both mentioned -- should have been out of uniform. In any case, we'll see if we can clarify that contradiction; in the meantime, Dad's reference to Buna, New Guinea, gives us a chance to educate ourselves a little about the area of the world he had been shipped off to and where, fighting the Japanese in the jungle for 26 months, he contracted malaria, which would affect him for years thereafter.

Buna, New Guinea, as you can see, is just north of the Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, Australia. Note the Great Barrier Reef, off Cape York's northeast shores.

I remember Dad reminiscing about the war and the Battle of the Coral Sea which turned the ship he was on around and he and his fellow soldiers ended up in Adelaide for a time where they set up camp and took over all the shops and businesses there in order to secure and amass provisions that were lost during the battle at sea.

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Kangaroo Tale

As they slept in their tents that first night, all was silent and peaceful until , seemingly out of nowhere, a thundering herd of kangaroos stampeded

right through camp, jumping on and over the tents (and the slumbering/puzzled soldiers within them), raising a storm of dust and dirt in the process, and scaring the living hell out of everyone. I can still picture Dad laughing as he shared this funny memory of the war with me. The war never left him, did it? So much of it was hard to speak of.

Thank goodness for the marauding kangaroos of Adelaide which provided a little comic relief....and a memory worth sharing. contributed by Julie Janusch

Memorial Day

photo, Life magazine

These crude crosses mark the burial sites of American soldiers who fought with WJM in the Battle for Buna, Papua. This jungle campaign cost the Allies

8,546 of its men, either killed or wounded.

This is "...some of the most forbidding terrain in the world. The Papuan peninsula of eastern New Guinea is dominated by the Owen Stanley Mountains, a saw-toothed jungle range reaching a height of 13,000 feet. High temperatures and humidity near the coasts contrast with biting cold above 5,000 feet. Rainfall is typically torrential and can amount to as much as 10 inches per day during the rainy season. Tangled growth requires a machete to cut through it. Knife-edged kunai grass up to 7 feet high, reeking swamps full of leeches and malarial mosquitoes, and a slippery ground surface under dripping vegetation add to the formidable obstacle course."

excerpted from a brochure prepared in the U.S. Army Center of Military History by Charles R. Anderson

Dad was in the 32nd (Red Arrow) Division.

Learn more about its history here.

Memorial WEEK, 2006

Photo by George Silk, LIFE magazine

Blinded at Buna by an exploding shell, an Aussie infantryman is led to safe ground by a Papuan aborigine. Earlier generations of this man's tribe were head-hunters, a practice that, fortunately, was not evident upon the arrival of allied troups, including Tech Sergeant William J. Marion.

Photo by George Strock, LIFE magazine

Three Americans, taken out during the counter-attack of Japanese-held Buna beach on the Papuan Peninsula of New Guinea. Here's how LIFE described the fighting: "It was often a nightmare of hand-to-hand combat in jungle so thick that 'in the dark, live Americans bumped into live Japs,' while daylight would reveal 'dead Americans... alongside dead Japs.'" It took two-and-half months and 787 U.S. lives, but Allied troups finally routed their desperate opponents. This photo, incidentally, was originally censored by the War Department, which preferred not to show Americans back home such brutally frank facts of life in the Far East. When LIFE finally was able to publish it, the image proved to be horribly shocking to readers of all ages.

WJM was a participant in the terrible fighting that took place in this battle.

WJM with some of the locals in the aftermath of the Battle of Buna. He must have appeared every bit as strange to these aborigines as they, no doubt, were to him, a Southern boy who migrated north to Detroit and just a few short years later, was fighting for his life and American democracy halfway around the world.

In an effort to obtain specifics about WJM's term of duty, I contacted the National Personnel Records Center and received the above response. It's likely that all of Dad's records were destroyed -- as were the war documents of some 18 million other ex-GI's -- in the 1973 fire as described in the letter from Marilyn Benjamin, an Archives Technician with the government. Still there is a slight chance that they can be located, so I am pursuing this further at this very moment. In fact, I'm on hold at the NPRC as I type this..."Thank you for your patience. Currently, our representatives are helping other callers. Your call is important to us. Please be advised that the average wait time is from 10-40 minutes. Expect the worst. If you're beginning to grow irritable at hearing me come back on every 30 seconds with this same message, and in between listening to strategically edited snippets of John Tesh-like musak, please take a deep breath now and think peaceful thoughts...Thank you for your patience. Currently, our representatives are helping other callers. Your call is important to us. Not."

More to come. Maybe.

A well-deserved refreshment. WJM, Australia, circa 1943

WJM, Australia, circa 1943-44

"Happy Memorial Day" is bandied about these days as if, like birthdays, anniversaries, and Halloween, it is a fun, joyous occasion. This is hardly the case. Memorial Day was established in 1868 to honor those Americans who have given their lives to protect our freedom. While it's easy to forget this fact in the haze of backyard barbecue smoke, one look at a U.S. military cemetery brings the sobering truth back to the surface.

WJM's 80th

Places! Places Everyone!

November, 1994, Fernandina Beach, FL - The majority of this motley group seems to be utterly unaware that a photograph was, at that moment, being taken.

Hello!!??!! The occasion was WJM's 80th birthday celebration weekend at Linda and Ron's, and it's one of the many

wonderful memories we have of the hostess, who was instrumental in helping us pull off what proved to be an absolute classic

of a surprise party.