Uncle Harry

 Veteran's Day, excuse me, Armistice Day is this week. You know, the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month the fighting ceased finally in the most destructive war in human history in 1918, the War To End All Wars. It was mostly a European affair, truly the twilight of the European hegemony, and its insidious, destructive peace, the Treaty of Versailles with its impossible reparations for Germany and its War Guilt Clause (again for Germany--after all, they lost) spawned the thrice destructive World War II a mere generation later, which truly was mostly a global affair except for, perhaps, South America.

My immediate forebears were all swept up in it, even as they had barely passed through the terrible times of the Great Depression as children and barely reached adulthood, to be thrown immediately into the crucible of combat in the worldwide conflagration.  My Uncle Harry was there and the following is a moment of time in his service:

My Uncle Harry Lamberton saw the elephant in several Pacific War naval battles as fire control officer of the antiaircraft detachment of the light cruiser USS Vincennes, manned by Marines. A few years back, I read his private notes he compiled as officer of the day in 1944, written in pencil, when his ship was providing fire support off of Peleliu, the southern most island of the Palau Island chain, where a horrific island battle was raging which would decimate the 1st Marine Division (35% casualties) while protecting Army General Douglas A. MacArthur's eastern flank during his egomaniacal drive to recapture the Philippines, which he had fled from (under orders from the president) in a PT boat in 1942 when the Japanese were closing in on his command center at Corregidor. Paraphrasing from memory my uncle's scribblings, the notes read:  

Off-shore from Peleliu to assist in fire support, we off-loaded several marine gunners from our complement as infantry replacements ashore and took on board several wounded marines from the battle in return. Am terribly worried about Jim as he is in the battle and haven't heard from him in weeks. I saw some marines coming on-board who knew Jim and they said he is alive!

This was the note of a twenty-one year old expressing concern for his nineteen-year old brother Jim, both in harm's way protecting our last-century way of life. Uncle Harry earned the bronze star during his WW2 heroics. His brother, who survived two horrendous island battles (Peleliu and Okinawa), was my father.