They are known as "The Greatest Generation"! "The Greatest Generation" is a term made popular by journalist Tom Brokaw to describe the generation who grew up in the United States during the deprivation of the Great Depression, and then went on to fight in World War II, as well as those whose productivity within the war's home front made a decisive material contribution to the war effort, for which the generation is also termed the G.I. Generation.

It should be no surprise to anyone that young men from small towns, like Fillmore, all across America entered into military service by the thousands after the Japanese pounded Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in an early morning attack that brought the United States into WWII. Since September 1, 1939, the official start of WWII, when Germany invaded Poland, Americans had been nervously watching the war from afar! WWII was the largest armed conflict in Human History! The War was fought over six continents and on every ocean. An estimated fifty million military and civilian deaths were suffered from 1939-1945!

It was my pleasure to sit down with one of those men, from The Greatest Generation, who quit Fillmore High School at the end of his Junior Year, and stepped up to serve his Country on May 27, 1944, his eighteenth birthday. William Thomas Walsh is more widely known as "Spud" Walsh will celebrate his 90th birthday on May 27, 2016. Spud is one of a recent 2016 estimated count of 697,806 WWII American Veterans still alive today. An astounding number when you know 850 WWII Veterans die every day.

Spud received his six week’s Navy Basic Training at the Naval Training Center in San Diego, California. After completion of his basic training in September 1944, Spud was assigned to the Amphibious Service across the San Diego Bay at Coronado Island. He was assigned to the Amphibious Cargo Assault Ship (AKA-91) USS Whitley which the Navy acquired just three months earlier after its commission on June 22, 1944. Spud and his 300 shipmates and 52 officers met the USS Whitley in Oakland, California and cruised the USS Whitley to its homeport in Sand Diego as part of its shakedown cruise before heading off to war. Half of the crew was responsible for the ship operations, and the other half were the boat crew for the 24 landing boats stored on the USS Whitley. Spud remained assigned to the USS Whitley the entire time he served with the Navy.

Soon after completing their shakedown cruise to San Diego, Spud and his shipmates aboard the USS Whitley were sailing towards the Hawaiian Islands. After some training at sea, the USS Whitley continued towards the Japanese Island of Iwo Jima. At dawn on February 19, 1945 the USS Whitley arrived offshore of Iwo Jima and was involved in the fourth assault wave upon Iwo Jima by offloading a squad of U.S. Marines from the Fifth Marine Division, ten service dogs and equipment onto the rocky island.

Little did the sailors aboard the USS Whitley know that the timing of their arrival at Iwo Jima would be five days before five United States Marines and one United States Navy Corpsman raised the American Flag victoriously on the top of Mount Suribachi on February 23, 1945. That moment would be forever recorded in military history by the iconic photograph taken by Associated Press Photographer Joe Rosenthal. Spud told me he, and his shipmates witnessed the raising of the American Flag from the deck of the USS Whitley.

As a cargo ship the USS Whitley had much needed supplies and equipment that it needed to offload on the heavily Japanese fortified island. The ship carried eight Landing Craft Mechanized (LCM) equipped with 50-caliber machine guns and 16 Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel (LCVP), equipped with 30-caliber machine guns. The LCM and LCVP boats were used to deliver cargo and personnel from ship to shore. The LCVP boats were made of wood and the LCM steel. The USS Whitley itself, an Andromeda-Class Attack Cargo ship had 1, 5”/38 ca. gun mount and 4, twin 40 mm anti-aircraft gun mounts and 14, 20 mm machine guns. Not a particularly large ship, the USS Whitley measured 459’2” from front to rear and had a 63’ beam.

Seaman First Class Walsh was assigned as a crewman to one of the LCM Boats and went ashore on Iwo Jima twice. Each time he went ashore it was to recruit Marines to help retrieve needed equipment stuck in the black volcanic sand beach. The USS Whitley remained offshore for eight days and her only brush with combat came on the night of February 23rd and 24th when her anti-aircraft battery briefly and inconclusively engaged two Japanese aircraft. After Iwo Jima Spud remained a crewman, but held other collateral jobs aboard the USS Whitley as the ships projectionist for the many movies shown in the mess hall aboard ship and used to entertain the sailors while at sea. Spud said he also was assigned as the ships Postmaster. It was the Postmaster job Spud said he enjoyed the most. Spud told me he did earn a Bronze Star while at Iwo Jima and the USS Whitley earned a Battle Star. Spud also mentioned that the 2006 Clint Eastwood movie "Letters Home from Iwo Jima" was the best representation of what it was like serving at Iwo Jima and he highly recommended me, and others seeing the movie.

After leaving Iwo Jima on February 27, 1945 the USS Whitley joined a convoy bound via the New Hebrides for Guadalcanal. The ship stopped at Espiritu Santo on March 15 and embarked members of the Royal New Zealand Air Force for transportation to Guadalcanal. At the latter island, she exchanged the New Zealanders for a complement of Hawaii-bound Marines.

The USS Whitley arrived back at Oahu on April 16, 1945. She conducted voyage repairs at Pearl Harbor and then underwent refresher training near Maui until May 11 when she left Hawaii with a convoy bound for San Francisco, where she arrived on May 18. Two days later, she sailed for Aberdeen, Washington, where she loaded cargo bound for Hawaii. The USS Whitley arrived at Oahu on June 12 and, after a 10-day stopover, got underway for the ammunition depot at Bangor, Washington. There, in mid-July, the attack cargo ship took on another cargo for Hawaii, returned to Pearl Harbor later in the month, and remained there through the end of hostilities on August 15, 1945. The USS Whitley was decommissioned in Charleston, SC on August 16, 1955 and was loaned to Italy in February of 1962 and renamed Mount Etna. The Mount Etna (USS Whitley) eventually was sold to Italy on May 1, 1973 for use in the Italian Navy. Unfortunately the Mount Etna (USS Whitley) was scraped in July 1979 after serving proudly both the United States Navy and Italian Navy for over thirty-five years. Over the recliner where Spud sits in his den is a black and white photograph of the USS Whitley.

Spud has an incredible memory and ability to remember dates of activities he was involved in while serving. Because I was writing so fast and furiously, and the fact that both Spud and I are hard of hearing I was fortunate enough to fact check most of what Spud had told me by referring to sources on the Internet.

[Part 2 continued in next week’s Fillmore Gazette.]

Photos and Video by Bob Crum