Dr. Joseph P. Hester

Many important members of the "Greatest Generation" did not engage in combat, in fact, some who played a strategic role during World War II were not even in the armed forces. A case in point is the following memoir from Dr. Joseph P. Hester '73 of Claremont, N.C.

"In December 1941, the Japaneese attacked Pearl Harbor and I turned two years old. My father, being a skilled electrician, moved us from Newton, NC to Wilmington, NC where we spent the next five years. My father worked in the shipyards constructing Liberty Ships. We first lived on Carolina Beach just up the road from Fort Fisher which had been converted into a Marine air base. I remember the 20 mm guns ringed with sand bags that were situated in dunes just off the beach. It seemed that every afternoon they had target practice.

"We later moved up to Shipyard Boulevard in the barracks that had been built for government workers. There were no inside walls in this type housing - just the outsife clapboard. We had rooms - my brother and sister and I shared a bedroom. We heated with coal. I remember the coal bin and the coal trucks as they made their way through the village.

"At Christmas, we made our own decorations. Dad built a huge three-dimensional star out of plywood and covered it with red cloth. He installed a light inside. We could not burn outside lights and had a blackout until late in the war. The last year we were there Dad put the star on our apartment for everyone to see. When I was four or five years old, the Navy brought a German U boat into the shipyard and my dad took me down to see it. I remember that we were allowed to walk around on its decks.

"To me these were exciting times, but as an adult I began to understand the sacrifices that were made. My mother had four brothers in the war and kept a map with pins in it wherever they were. When she died at the age of 92 in 2001, I found among her stuff newspapers from the forties and articles abou the war, especially whenever they mentioned a unit or division connected to her brothers.

"My father and two of my uncles and their families followed us to Wilmington. They, too, should be remembered as civilian workers who gave their best, no matter where it took them, to support the war effort."

"My wife says that the war had a big impact on me and my thinking. I still love the history channel and old WWII movies. Its influence will never be diminished in my life. What my fathers and uncles gave and how it affected them I witnessed until they all passed away. The sacrifice was great."