The Randle Brothers of Neosho, Missouri

My book Postcard Memories From World War II includes a chapter about the Hoffer family of Monroe, Michigan, who had four sons in the war. Two of them, Woodrow and Marion, were killed in action just seven weeks apart. I learned of the Hoffers through a postcard written by Woodrow.

Another postcard has led me to yet another set of four brothers who served in the war, but despite my best efforts over a two-year period I’ve been unable to find any surviving relatives. They are the Randle brothers of Neosho, Missouri – Bill, Robert, Durant, and Jack -- all of whom served in the Navy. The postcard was written by Bob to their parents in 1942. Bob Randle was a Navy pilot. In his postcard he said he was about to fly a new plane, and his message reflected a young man’s joy at being a pilot. He wrote, “These new ones are dandies.”

According to an article in the Joplin Globe on April 25, 1945, the Randle brothers were part of a large contingent of Navy men from Neosho. The article said:

Lieutenant Bill Randle, son of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Randle of Neosho, has been assigned to duties as combat pilot of a twin-tailed P-38 Lightning fighter plane in the Fifteenth Air Force. On his first mission recently, Lieutenant Randle participated in dive-bombing of a railroad bridge in Austria. He is one of three from Neosho High School football teammates flying in the same group. The others are Lieutenant Paul F. Forster and Lieutenant Boone A. Haddock. All are authorized to wear the Distinguished Unit Citation badge. He has three brothers in the service: Lieutenant Robert Randle, a Navy Hellcat pilot; Ensign Durant D. Randle, naval deck officer; and Lieutenant (j.g.) Jack Randle of the Navy Transport Command.

From what I’ve been able to piece together from newspaper articles and genealogical records, two of the brothers, Robert and Jack, made a career of the Navy. All of the brothers have passed away – Bill in 1990, Bob in 1994, Durant in 2009, and Jack in 2013.

All my efforts to find relatives have hit dead ends. Maybe someone who knows the Randles will somehow stumble across this blog and help me return the postcard to the family. In the meantime, I’ll keep on looking.

Dorothy Parsons and the Army Nurse Corps

When I can’t locate a family to return a postcard, I keep the card in a box in the hope that I’ll find the family someday. One card, however, found a different home.

The card, acquired from e-Bay, was written from North Africa in 1943 by an Army nurse, First Lieutenant Dorothy Parsons, and addressed to Miss Helda Brown in Wolfboro, New Jersey. The photo on the card was an artifact from a museum in Tunisia, and the message indicated that Lt. Parsons had visited the museum.

My research determined that Lt. Parsons was from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and graduated from nursing school at Portsmouth Hospital in 1929. During World War II she served in North Africa and Italy, and also served in Korea. She made a career of the Army Nurse Corp, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel. She died in 1998 at the age of 92 and is buried in the Sagamore Cemetery in Portsmouth.

It appears she never married. I found names of a few nieces and tried unsuccessfully to contact them. I also tried to find Helda Brown, the person to whom the card was addressed, but couldn't locate her, either. I suspect Ms. Brown kept the card and it got to e-Bay through an estate sale when she died.

In her postcard, Lt. Parsons wrote, "A friend sent me some N.H. Troubadours and I love the mountain scenes. I wish I got them all the time." The New Hampshire Troubadour was a magazine published from 1931 to 1951 by the New Hampshire State Development Commission.

In searching for Lt. Parsons I found a reference to her in a book titled Paradox of Professionalism: American Nurses in World War II, by Marsha Burris. I contacted Ms. Burris to see if she had a connection to Lt. Parsons and wanted the card. While she didn't want the card, she made the excellent suggestion that I consider donating the card to a place that would preserve it.

I searched around and found the Army Medical Department Medical Museum at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas. My email to them was quickly answered by Colonel Betsy Vane, Army Nurse Corps Historian. Col. Vane said they would be happy to have the postcard. She sent me the appropriate paperwork and I sent them the card.

 

Portsmouth (N.H.) Herald, Aug. 31, 1945

Joan Benson's Postcard From Daddy

Some of the WWII postcards I come across were written by soldiers to their children. One of them is among the most vexing in my “too tough” pile of mysteries I can’t solve.

 The card was written by a sailor, Harold J. Benson, to his daughter, Joan Benson, in New Hampton, New York. It was mailed from New Orleans in 1944. The return address is “LST 718,” and the “Muster Roll” for LST 718 does indeed include Harold J. Benson among the crew in 1944. (“Muster rolls” are lists of military personnel on a Navy ship, and thousands of them are available on Ancestry.com.)

From Find A Grave I learned that Harold died in 1958 and his wife, Marion Starr Benson, died in 1976. The listing included photos of their gravestones. Since they were born in 1906-7, Joan could have been born as early as the mid 1920s. At the time the postcard was written she could have been anywhere between a young child and a teenager .

 I found a news article, including photo, of a Joan Benson who graduated from the Middletown (NY) State Hospital School of Nursing in 1954. She’s about the right age, but there’s no way of knowing if she’s the right one. This particular Joan Benson is also listed in the 1954 and 1955 Middletown city directories as a nurse at the Middletown State Homeopathic Hospital. It appears she lived at the hospital in 1954 and a rooming house in 1955. An article in a state employee newsletter in 1955 said she had been appointed a charge nurse.

That 1955 article is the last thing I could find about Joan – no marriage record, no more city directory listings, no death record, nothing. If she’s still living she would be at least in her early 70s. Maybe she’s passed away and relatives put the card in an estate sale. Whatever the case, I’ll keep looking.

There's a Joan Benson in this nursing school graduation photo, but I don't know if she's the one from the postcard.

Will I Ever Find Lieutenant JGJ? Probably Not

I have some WWII postcards that I call the "too tough pile." Try as I might, I can't find the soldiers who wrote the cards or their families. But being persistent (a polite word for "stubborn") I pull them out now and then and give them another try in the hope that maybe some new information will have popped up on the Internet.

Perhaps the most frustrating postcard in the "too tough pile" is one that only has the sender's rank and initials, not his name. 

See the images of the card below. Not only is the message intriguing, so is the card itself. Take a look at how it describes "stewardesses" as "Jills-of-all-trades." 

From the message on the card I know the sender was a Lieutenant, and his initials were JGJ. He was in the Army, not in the Navy, so I've ruled out the possibility that he was a Navy Lieutenant Junior Grade, abbreviated Lt. j.g.

The card was postmarked Nov. 22, 1942. Lt. JGJ wrote the card while on a flight from Washington, DC to Nashville, where he mailed it. The card is addressed to a woman named Barbara in West Haven, Connecticut (I'm not using her full name). The salutation is "Dearest Barb" and the card is signed, "My Love, John," so I know his first name. One can surmise that he and Barbara were more than just friends.

I found Barbara in the 1940 census, living at the same address as on the postcard. The census information included her age and middle initial, which made it possible for me to determine that Barbara married a man named Charles in 1955. Barbara died in 2006 and Charles in 2011. They had one son, whom I tried unsuccessfully to contact to see if he knew the identity of the mysterious JGJ.

I also searched the National Archives database of World War II enlistments, looking for men named, John, middle initial G, last name starting with the letter J, who were from Connecticut. I found several possibilities, and eventually weeded out all but one. The one remaining looked promising -- he was of about the right age, came from a town near West Haven, and was an officer. However, he died in 1970 and all attempts to locate his children failed.

So, what was the relationship between Lt. JGJ and Barbara. Did their romance die out? Was he killled in the war? One intriguing fact is that Barbara's husband, Charles, was in the Air Corps during the war. Did Charles and Lt. JGJ know each other?  I suppose we'll never know.

One final note -- I'm writing this on the morning of Nov. 22, 2013, the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination. I was 13 at the time and remember it vividly. By coincidence, Lt. JGJ's postcard is postmarked Nov. 22, 1942.

Norbert Kuchman -- Combat Medic

Sometimes the journey of a postcard is almost as interesting as the journey of the soldier who wrote it. Such is the story of a postcard Norbert Kuchman wrote to his girlfriend, Fawn, back home in Rochester, New York during World War II.

Norbert entered service in 1943. He went on to be a combat medic in the European Theater of Operations and saw combat during the Battle of the Bulge. He apparently wrote quite a few postcards to Fawn, and I found one of them postmarked Nov. 6, 1943 for sale on eBay earlier this year.

The postcard had been through quite an odyssey. In the course of 70 years it appears to have gone from Norbert at Camp Upton in New York; to Fawn in Rochester; to an estate sale; to a flea market; to an eBay seller in Kentucky; and finally to Norbert’s son, Dave.

When I spotted the card on eBay it was easy to track down Norbert’s family because Dave had posted his dad’s obituary on the web site Find A Grave, along with photos. From the obituary it was clear that Norbert didn’t marry Fawn; he married a girl named Jane in 1950 and Fawn married someone else. Norbert passed away in 2006 and Fawn in 2011.

Knowing that Jane was still living, I was hesitant to contact the family concerning Norbert’s postcard to an old flame. I decided to take a chance and contacted Dave via email. I told him I was concerned about “opening a can of worms.” He replied, “No can of worms. This is great!!” Dave confirmed that the card was from his dad. He said his mother knew about Norbert’s earlier romance with Fawn and it was not a sore subject. As Dave explained, “My Dad met Fawn and my mother thru his sister Agnes. The girls went to school together and knew each other.”

This was one of the few cases where I returned a postcard to a family without first buying it myself. Instead, I told Dave where to find it on e-Bay and he bought it. The seller has several other cards written by Norbert, and Dave continues to buy them as they’re put up for auction. His most recent email to me said, “I was able to acquire thru eBay auctions on Friday four more of my Dad's postcards. Three more to go.”

Dave told me about other interesting pieces of his dad’s memorabilia: “I have his military scrapbooks and also his Army journal given to him by Fawn which follows the post dates on the postcards. Kind of neat to link the postcards to the journal.”

Like so many from the Greatest Generation, Norbert, who undoubtedly witnessed terrible things as a combat medic, returned home and led a long and productive life. He and Jane had five children. He retired in 1983 after 30 years with Eastman Kodak.

Dave preserves the memory of his dad and other relatives who served by posting their stories on web sites devoted to veterans, such as http://www.wwiimemorial.com. The listing for his dad is here:

http://www.wwiimemorial.com/registry/search/pframe.asp?HonoreeID=2388092&popcount=7&tcount=8.

Dave summarized Norbert’s military service:

“He served with the 385th Infantry Regiment of the 76th Infantry Division as a Combat Medic. He later joined the 308th Medical Battalion, Company D of the 83rd Infantry Division in the Battle of the Bulge.

“He was Honorably Discharged on January 27, 1946 as a First Sergeant and reenlisted on January 28, 1946 in the Regular Army. In 1947 he was with the 250th General Hospital in Germany where he purchased a new 1947 Volkswagen and toured Europe. He was Honorably Discharged as a Second Lieutenant on April 5, 1950.

“He was awarded Bronze Service Stars for Campaign Ardennes, Campaign Rhineland, and Campaign Central Europe. Also awarded was the Good Conduct Medal, European-African-Middle Eastern Medal, Combat Medical Badge, World War II Victory Medal, American Combat Medal, American Campaign Medal, World War II Occupation Medal, Marksman Shooting Badge (Carbine-Rifle), and the Bronze Star Medal.”

Many WWII postcards featured cartoons poking fun at Army life. The cartoon on Norbert’s postcard to Fawn showed soldiers being issued ill-fitting uniforms. In his message he added, “P.S. My uniform fits me well.”

Here are images of the postcard, a photo of Norbert in uniform, and a photo from the wedding of Norbert and Jane.

Jane Quigley: Army nurse, American hero

We lost another member of the Greatest Generation this month. Jane Quigley was an American hero, serving as an Army nurse in England during World War II. She passed away Nov. 13, 2013, just a few months after her 100^th birthday.

I learned of Jane through a postcard for sale on eBay by a seller in England. The history of the card remains a mystery. Lt. Jane Quigley sent the card from England to a minister friend in New Jersey in 1943. How it got back to England and showed up on eBay 70 years later will never be known.

Since the price for the card (about $25 with shipping) was higher than I usually pay, I tried to find Jane’s family to let them know about it in case they wanted the card. When I did a Google search I found a newspaper article from July 2013 about Jane’s 100^th birthday. I contacted the newspaper and they put me in touch with Jane’s niece, but Jane had passed away by the time I reached her.

The niece said she knew the person the card was addressed to but had no idea how it got back to England. I contacted the eBay seller, and they didn’t know either.

Following is an excerpt from Jane’s obituary:

“Jane volunteered to be in the Women’s Army Nurse Corps during World War II. She went to England on the Queen Mary and served two years of active duty in Braintree, England at the 121st Army Station Hospital. When she returned to America, she went home on the Queen Mary and served a third year in the Army. Jane was an RN Graduate of Newark City Hospital. She was a member of the Emmanuel Baptist Church in Manville and the George Taylor Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Easton, PA.”

The news article published on her 100^th birthday said Jane told her niece that she sat in the same seat on the ocean liner Queen Mary when going to England and when returning two years later.

Here are links to the news article and Jane’s obituary:

http://fucilloandwarrenfuneralhome.com/fh/obituaries/obituary.cfm?o_id=2323613&fh_id=13161

http://www.manvillenews.com/story.cgi?section=news&story=doc51f98fd007904632632853&s=1+page_0

Jane was one of about 59,000 nurses who served in the Army Nurse Corps during the war. If you’re interested in the Nurse Corp, here’s a good history.

http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/72-14/72-14.HTM

The listing of the card on eBay is here (the link may expire when the card is sold or removed):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/370615646383

More stories about World War II postcards can be found in my book, "Postcard Memories From World War II.:

http://www.amazon.com/Postcard-Memories-World-War-Keepsakes/dp/1479385980