So begins an e-mail from June Courain of Virginia Beach, one of dozens who responded to my recent plea to share memories about what Hampton Roads was like in bygone
years. For many in this area, their recollections are about the war years.“One gloomy, over-cast Sunday morning,” she continues, “we decided to hike on the beach at Virginia Beach. We soon noticed many, many ships of all sizes steaming out of the Chesapeake Bay into the Atlantic Ocean. My husband said to me, ‘I wonder why there's so much activity...’ We continued our hike before heading home.
When we arrived back at our apartment the telephone was ringing. It was my parents who lived in Norfolk. They said they had been calling continuously to tell us that the squadron C.O., not being able to reach us, had called them to have their new son-in-law call him immediately.
“That Sunday date was December 7th.”
There were many others whose memories include going to dances at Fort Story or Camp Pendleton and meeting a boyfriend just before he went overseas. Or buying everything from sugar to shoes with ration coupons. Observing blackouts. Renting rooms from women who had lost their husbands. Hoping and praying that they would not lose theirs.
“I …remember many young men, my husband at the time included, who lost their lives fighting for this country,” writes Mary Noel of Virginia Beach. “It was two and sometimes three years before their bodies were returned to the USA. In the meantime their bodies were buried in temporary graves all over the world and I would imagine that some of these men are still there.”
In some cases, it was the luck of the draw.
Robert Morton graduated from Woodrow Wilson High in Portsmouth in 1944 and enlisted in the Army. He was 17. “Once, after a brief leave, I was on the way to Fort Meade, MD for processing to be sent overseas,” he relates.
“I took the Baltimore steamer which had one-arm bandit slot machines available and I hit two jack-pots, one for dimes and one for nickels. I got off the train with my uniform pockets bulging with change. It came in handy when on the troop ship which sailed from Boston to France the major pastime was playing poker. When most of the GIs were playing for matches or pieces of paper, my little group had actual nickels and dimes for the game. Also my luck at the gambling machines held out during the war and I came back home no worse for the wear.”
June Courain, who graduated from Maury High and attended the College of William & Mary’s extension in Norfolk, married Lt. Cmdr. Donald White shortly before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
“All military had been ordered to duty so my husband hastily donned his uniform, told me he would call me the minute he could, kissed me goodbye and headed to war,” her message continues.
“About mid-night, my fly-boy came home wearing a frightening Navy-issue 45. He packed his sea-bag, said goodbye again and reported to the ship.”
White’s ship was on submarine patrol for several months. He spent much of the war as flight instructor in Jacksonville, FL, then served as squadron commander in the Pacific. During the first carrier-based air strikes against Japan on Feb. 17, 1945, his plane was shot down. He bailed out and landed on the parade ground of a Japanese training camp. Taken prisoner, he was sent to the notorious and secret POW camp known as Ofuna.
All his wife knew was that he was missing in action, but she never gave up hope. At war’s end, she received a telegram from the American Red Cross saying the camp had been found and that he was alive.
A newspaper account from Washington State, where he visited some of his family, quoted him as saying the prisoners were brutally treated and that he had lost 30 pounds. “It’s lucky that I like rice because that was the principal part of our diet.”
“Twelve years later (and four children) Don died at the too-early age of 41 from the result of his internment,” Courain writes.
Those who lived through the war years might agree with the last line of her note: “Revisiting our life together has been very nostalgic and bitter-sweet.”
Photo: June Courain, then June White, with her husband, Lt. Cmdr. Donald White, in Jacksonville, FL, during World War II. Courtesy of June Courain.
