Mr. and Mrs. Watts - A Love Story

When Sue and I were first married we lived in Baltimore, Maryland just across the street on Clifton Avenue, from an elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs. Watts. I don’t ever recall knowing their first names, as they each referred to one another as Mr. or Mrs. Watt in conversation. It was very quaint and unusual, just as they were.

This story concerns their courtship, and later on, marriage as it was relayed to me by them some 25 years ago. I believe I have the story remembered correctly.

The diminutive Mr. Watts, who was probably one of the shortest Marines ever admitted to the Corps, came home from the Second World War having survived the hand to hand combat that marked the Battle for Guadalcanal. He was a tough little guy, and still single at the age of 30. He took a job working for the railroad, first residing in Virginia, where his true love had originally been waiting out the war for him.

Mrs. Watts, I never did know her maiden name, was a nurse, and during the war had taken a job working up in Indianapolis. The photo above is of Union Station in Indianapolis, as it appeared in 1946. The two corresponded throughout the war and were anxious to see one another again. To that end, Mr. Watts secured a ticket for the trip to Union Station, where his love would be waiting. He had a mission on his mind, and love in his heart.

Mrs. Watts was busy on her end as well, making plans for the upcoming visit. She had been rooming at the YWCA, which of course did not permit men, so she sought out a hotel room. They had never “been together” before; those were her actual words to me; but somehow she felt that having a hotel room ready would not be a bad idea. To that end, she secured the Bridal Suite at the best hotel in town for the whopping price of $7 a night.

Mr. Watts arrived in Indianapolis by train, with the soon to be Mrs. Watts waiting for him at the station. They had dinner, a noontime meal, at the “best diner in town”, during which they began to discuss the events of the past few years and where they might be heading as a couple. That’s when he popped the question. I will let Mr. Watts take over from here and tell you about it. To do otherwise would only serve to diminish the story.

“I looked at Mrs. Watts and I said, ‘Look here Mrs. Watts’, only I didn’t call her Mrs. Watts yet, on account of we weren’t married. So I said, ‘Look here Mrs. Watts, you ain’t getting any younger and I ain’t getting any better lookin’, so what do you say we up and get hitched?’ Well sir, she about jumped right into my lap! And do you know she had a hotel room all set, kind of like she knew what I was going to ask before I even asked it.”

Well, Mr. and Mrs. Watts lived happily ever after, racking up at least 5 decades of marriage that I know of. I have always wondered if, when they said goodnight to one another, they called one other Mr. and Mrs. Watts. They moved away a few years after Sue and I married, and I am sure that they have both since passed on. No matter, wherever they are today, I know that they are still together. True love never dies.

"Hell In the Pacific" by Jim McEnery (2012)

I  used to live in Baltimore, across the street from an ex-Marine who had actually seen the hell that defined the Battle for Guadalcanal in World War Two. He was in his late 60’s at the time, and even visited my son’s 5^th grade class with some captured enemy souvenirs from the battle. His stories were almost unbelievable in their nature; but they were true. I wrote about him last December; it was a little piece about his courtship of his wife, and their eventual marriage after the war. I have never forgotten him; he was one of those guys you never do; being, as he was, a living link to one of the most unforgettable battles in our war against the Japanese, waged across the Pacific Ocean for over 3 and a half years, beginning with the attack by the Japanese on our naval Station at Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii.

So, when I saw this book by Jim McEnery, who is from Brooklyn, New York, at the library last week, I had to pick it up. Mr. McEnery is in his 90’s now, but his memories of what he went through on that island, so many years ago, are still sharp and vivid; as only the recollections of someone who has actually seen what he is writing about can be.

There aren’t too many World War Two Veterans left anymore to provide the firsthand accounts of that war. But, fortunately for us, Jim McEnery, a Marine who enlisted before Pearl Habor, is still alive and kicking, living in Ocala, Florida. Not bad for a guy with only an 8^th grade education. He is one of the last survivors of the Battle for Guadalcanal. And the story he tells of that battle are exactly the same as the ones I heard from Mr. Watts so many years ago.

As a member of Rifle Company K/3/5; or K Company of the 3^rd Battalion of the 5^th Marines; he landed on the island August 7, 1942, a little less than a year after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and only 4 months after our first victory in the pacific at Midway. That battle was a struggle between naval forces from both sides; the Battle for Guadalcanal would be the first real test of resolve on the part of the United States to repel the advancing forces of the Japanese Empire. This would be the first island invasion of the war in which the steel bayonets of our Marines clashed with those of the Japanese Imperial Army .

For the first month the Marines of K/3/5 would hack and hike their way across the island. They were tasked with holding the line at the canal, which was really just a tributary of the larger creek which ran through the island. It was, however, the line in the sand which protected the American Base at Henderson Field from being overrun by the Japanese. The Bottom of Iron Bottom Sound, in which our Navy suffered severe losses, would set the stage for the withdrawal of the Navy’s supply ships, leaving the Marines stranded with little or no supplies.

Mr. McEnery is unstinted in his praise for his fellow Marines, who came from all parts of the country, some the sons of immigrants. Cultural differences and customs were cast aside in the heat of battle. All Marines were Americans, fighting to stave off Japanese domination of the Pacific. He is also equally unstinted in his criticism of General “Dugout” MacArthur, who commanded his troops from a safe haven in Australia, emerging only a few times for photo ops in safe areas which had been won by the men who did the real fighting. MacArthur was not one of those. His opinion was that “the Marines got all the glory of the last war, and they’re not getting any from this one.” This attitude which was the main reason that the Marines are not listed on the Presidential Citation given to the Army and Navy for the battle fought mainly by the Marines, and that omission still stings the author today, a full seven decades later.

Mr. McEnery is also very critical of President Roosevelt’s policy of saving the European theater first, sending all the latest supplies and weapons to England, rather than the Pacific. In Roosevelt’s defense it must be realized that Germany was working, with Russia, to develop the world’s first rockets, the V-2, and also the atomic bomb. Had they been successful in those endeavors; and they were perilously close to those goals; both the war in the Pacific, as well as the war in Europe would have been lost.

Surprisingly, Mr. McEnery lets the Navy off rather lightly for their desertion, citing; correctly; that they had no air cover from the Army Air Corps. This lack of air cover left our own ships vulnerable to attack by air from the Japanese. When those ships were forced to leave the area, they left the Marines without the materials they needed to win the battle, and the war itself.

This is a wonderfully candid book by a kid from Brooklyn who was right on the scene of one of the worst island invasions of the war. The Battle for Guadalcanal set the tone for the island hopping which lay ahead as the marines made landing after landing on the route to Japan. And all along that route, it was guys like Mr. McEnery, and his comrades, that paved the way to victory in the Pacific.

"Code Talker" by Chester Nez with Judith Schiess Avila

In the 1920's and 1930's, as the country struggled through the Great Depression, the government waged an all out war to abolish Native American traditions, including their languaugue. This misguided effort would later prove to be a case of true irony as the government sought to find a code that would be unbreakable to the Japanese. Navajo, which had never been written down, became that code.

In this all encompassing memoir, Chester Nez, born "Betoli", which means "light complexion" in Navajo, takes the reader on his journey through both the pre-war years, first as a youngster in the government schools designed to erase his culture, and then through the war years, when that very culture, which the government worked so hard to destroy, was used to defeat the Japanese in the Pacific.

Mr. Nez begins his remarkeable journey on the reservation during the 1920's. He also includes a brief history of the Navajo tribe, and some of their belief systems and traditions in a very reader friendly manner, which serves to heighten the experiences the author would later endure while serving in the Pacific. Drawing on the folklore, and wisdom, of his own people, helped him to survive the war mentally, in much the same way that his military basic training enabled him to survive the war physically.

It is hard to believe, but this is the first, and only, book to have been written by one of the original "Codetalkers". As I said, theirs is an oral culture. Much has been written about them, and films have grossed tremendous amounts of money from their story, but this is the first, authentic account of how the code came to be, and how it was used, to defeat a common enemy.