Veterans Day - Honoring Dad

Harry O. Dudley, Jr., 1943

Harry Dudley was an ordinary enlisted Army private in World War II. Along with most of his college classmates, his patriotism led him to service immediately after graduation in 1943.  Dad didn’t make the cut to be a Naval officer, so he enlisted in the Army. He was always my hero. I believe that his military service enhanced his many skills including written communication and his sense of adventure for travel.   

After a sheltered youth and college career, he landed, in August 1943, on a sweltering train to Camp Barkeley, Texas, for basic training. His letters to family in Flemingsburg, Kentucky, spoke of writing letters home for the “boys who were illiterate,” and reading favorite books aloud to them. He saw the best in people and made many lasting friendships.

From Camp Barkeley, he wrote of training in the gas chamber and how, even with the mask, his eyes and skin burned. He carried a heavy field pack on lengthy hikes before pitching his tent and delving into his K-ration. Dad described its meticulous packaging and called some of the contents “delicious when you are famished.” 

Dad wrote more than 700 letters home during his two- and one-half years of service. With the written word the sole way to communicate, letters kept families and friends back home connected and encouraged. Letters in Dad’s small town were passed from family to family, each eager to hear news and be comforted that loved ones were safe. For Dad, who had a small but closeknit family, letters kept them nearer to his heart and helped soothe the homesickness. He rarely wrote about the atrocities or the wounded and kept his letters positive.

After basic training, he joined the 303^rd Station Hospital at Lilford Hall, an estate in Northamptonshire, England in January 1944 where he served until mid-1945. In France and Germany, he worked with medical records and statistics.

He made lifelong friends in England by simply being a friendly American. Two elderly widows took him under their wings and invited him to their homes for the holidays and even wrote letters to his family in Kentucky to reassure them he was safe.

A portion of one of Dad's long, newsy letters to his family.

Dad said mail call was the best time of day. Letters and packages from home boosted spirits and encouraged him to write more. In Army clerk school he became a proficient typist and found he could write a longer, newsier letter by typing.

Mourning the President Roosevelt in 1945, he wrote, “It’s a shame that President Roosevelt couldn’t have sat at the peace table and seen some of his hopes and ambitions realized for the future of the world.”

On May 10, 1945, from London, Dad wrote an elaborate account of the celebration and being outside Buckingham Palace. “Hearing God Save the King, the crowd became unbelievably quiet and stood rigidly at attention. You felt at that moment each person among the thousands all over London were uttering their prayers of thanksgiving.”

In September 1945, Dad wrote from Germany, about seeing General Eisenhower, “We were turning around in the middle of the street in our jeep, blocking most of the road, when sirens began blaring and just behind us was a long, sleek green car with the five-star plate. I stared sheepishly into Ike’s face before realizing who it was. You can imagine how quickly we got off the road!”

On March 13, 1946, Dad began his journey home, on the Sea Sturgeon, with more than 1,000 Army and Navy personnel and a few war brides, bound for a March 21 arrival in New York Harbor.

Plans for the family reunion at New York Harbor were canceled when his father, Harry O. Dudley, Sr., died March 17 of a heart attack. A cousin was sent to give Dad the sad news. He caught the next train out of New York, finally arriving home to a less than joyous reunion.

Dad joined the Army because he had a sense of duty and was willing to give his life for his country. I doubt he ever used a gun except in training. Instead, he was a sort of ambassador, befriending men and women from all over the world. He protected and enhanced the image of Americans and shared a more positive side of war with the folks back home. He’s my hero.

Thank you to all our Veterans. We honor and appreciate you on November 11 and every day.

This blog was first printed in the Veterans Day pages of my local newspaper, The Fernandina Beach News--Leader, on November 7.

Written only a few weeks before Dad passed, this snippet of his letter to me exemplifies not only his great penmanship but his ability to write exactly what the recipient needed to hear.