密歇根新闻广播 密歇根二战老兵回忆战乱中的爱情

 

World War II ended 70 years ago in September. Here are three stories from veterans who live in Michigan.

We'll start with a love story.

Bill Berkley, U.S. Navy, Pacific

Bill Berkley was just a kid without a care in Paducah, Kentucky until December 7, 1941.

"I was 14 years old, but I can remember that day just like it was yesterday. We had been playing football and I got home and mom was crying," Berkley says, recalling when he first learned of the attack and the death of so many sailors.

All his life, Bill Berkley wanted to join the Navy. It was a family tradition.

At the beginning of the war, he wasn't old enough. He had to be 17. Even then he would need his parents' permission. Berkley would have to wait.

He eventually went to work as a railroad brakeman on a steam locomotive. In peace time, there's no way a 16-year-old would get that kind of job, but there was a shortage of workers because of the war.

Every day Berkley would take the bus to and from the rail yards. Coming home, he'd be covered in grime, wearing a sweaty red bandana around his neck, and his face would be covered in coal soot¹. There was a pretty girl on the bus and every once in a while they'd exchange glances. One day he decided² he needed to make a better impression. He dressed up and walked to the bus stop.

"And there I was, looking like a Philadelphia lawyer in my Sunday best. She had never seen me cleaned up. And I said, 'Hi, there.' I said, 'Are you wondering if I'm the railroad guy?' She said, 'Yeah. I never saw you looking like this.'"

Bill Berkley and Clara Odelle Gilbert started dating. He always just called her Odie.

Berkley kept working with the railroad, even after being scalded badly during an accident in the locomotive. But, he knew he would not be on the rails too much longer.

"I joined the Navy on my 17th birthday, still with bandages on my leg from being scalded," Berkley says.

By that time in the war, the military was taking just about anyone, injured or not.

After brief training in Williamsburg, Virginia, he got a short leave before shipping³ out for the war.

"I went home for seven days. That's when I proposed ... to my Odie," Berkley recalls, his voice cracking. "And, she promised to wait for me. And looking back, that was a terrible thing to do to a young woman, leaving her. But, she was true," he added.

Leave was quickly over and Berkley had to catch a troop transport headed for Hawaii. Just two and a half years after hearing about the terrible attack on Pearl Harbor as a kid, Berkley was actually there.

"And I saw firsthand. We went right down Battleship Row. I remember these big battleships laying over on their sides. I remember very distinctly the Arizona sitting down in that water, twisted guns and metal. That was a terrible sight to a 17-year-old."

2,400 people were killed in that attack. Half of them were on the U.S.S. Arizona.

The young Navy man was assigned to the U.S.S. Zeus, a battle damage repair ship. It anchored at a small atoll named Enewetak (spelled "Eniwetok" at the time) in the Marshall Islands that the U.S. had invaded a short time before.

Berkley says the crew spent the days repairing ships, and nights trying to shoot down Japanese bombers⁴ who flew just above the reach of the anti-aircraft guns. Suddenly, the battle ships and carriers started coming in with damage from a new Japanese tactic⁵.

"The Kamikaze planes," Berkley explains. "You take a perfectly⁶ good-looking Japanese young man, they had brain-washed him into killing⁷ himself in a plane full of dynamite⁸."

He lost a boot camp buddy⁹ named Jim Gorman to a Kamikaze attack.

But throughout his time overseas, Berkley says he had an advantage over his shipmates. He had Odie.

"She wrote me every other day. We'd have the mail call and that mail clerk said, 'Damn, Berkley,'" he recalls. "'That woman really loves you, don't she?' I said, 'Yes, she does.' Every other day I'd get a letter."

After the war in Europe ended in May, some resources were shifted to the Pacific. No one was sure how much longer the war would continue, how many more soldiers, sailors, and marines would be killed.

Then everything changed when the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

That was in August. The Japanese formally surrendered in September. Berkley's ship didn't leave the Marshall Islands until December. He called Odie as soon as he reached the west coast.

Keep in mind, Bill and Odie dated for less than a year before he left for the war. Her father barely knew Bill. So, Odie, who was 18, concocted¹⁰ a little story about a trip she planned.

"She told him she was going down to Arkansas to see his brother. She had no such intention. That train didn't even slow down in Arkansas. Headed for San Diego," Berkley chuckled¹¹.

Her mom knew what was going on. She even signed permission for the 18-year-old to get married. But first Odie would have to find Bill in the overcrowded train station.

"I saw her before she saw me. It had been over two years since she saw me. And, she walked down the steps of the train, looking around. Nothing but soldiers and sailors and Marines. And when she turned around right in front of me, I put my arms around her. She turned around and I said, 'Lady, are you looking for me?' And she just jumped up and down, yelling. I'll never forget it. Prettiest sight you ever saw. My darling. Sixty-nine years. Sixty-nine years," Berkley says.

"She's in the nursing home now. She's doing pretty good. We got married in San Diego April the ninth, 1946," he added.

He says when he visits his Odie in the nursing home, she does remember him, despite the struggle with dementia.

As for Bill, these days he gets around in a motorized chair. He gardens a little.

He doesn't spend a lot of time talking about the war. He talks about his kids, his grandkids, his great-grandkids, and about a lifetime with the teenage girl he met, who waited for him, and who married him. He talks about the things that matter in life for those who survived WWII.

Arno Whitbread, U.S. Army, Europe

Drafted in 1942, Arno Whitbread ended up as part of the D-Day invasion. Instead of storming a beach, Whitbread was put in a glider¹² with other infantrymen and a jeep, landing behind enemy lines. They worked to find paratroopers who were also dropped behind lines to put together a fighting force. Their job was to protect bridges that the Allies would need to push the invasion into Germany.

Whitbread's experience closely follows the path of another company in the 101st Airborne Division, which was featured in the celebrated¹⁴ TV series Band of Brothers.

Whitbread says the most vivid memory he has about fighting in WWII was near the Belgian town of Bastogne during a famous offense¹⁵ by the German forces in the winter of 1944.

Mabarak signed up for the Army Air Corps¹⁶, but the Army needed infantrymen. He was trained in amphibious assaults in the Pacific. But troops were needed in Europe. The 97th Infantry¹³ Division became part of General Patton's 3rd Army. Mabarak was among the very few soldiers who served in Europe and then Japan. Toward the end of the war in Europe, Mabarak said a German soldier on a motorcycle arrived, carrying a white surrender flag. The U.S. forces were not sure whether they were walking into a trap.

1 soot   

n.煤烟，烟尘；vt.熏以煤烟

参考例句：

• Soot is the product of the imperfect combustion of fuel.煤烟是燃料不完全燃烧的产物。
• The chimney was choked with soot.烟囱被煤灰堵塞了。

2 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

3 shipping   

n.船运（发货，运输，乘船）

参考例句：

• We struck a bargain with an American shipping firm.我们和一家美国船运公司谈成了一笔生意。
• There's a shipping charge of ￡5 added to the price.价格之外另加五英镑运输费。

4 bombers   

n.轰炸机( bomber的名词复数 )；投弹手；安非他明胶囊；大麻叶香烟

参考例句：

• Enemy bombers carried out a blitz on the city. 敌军轰炸机对这座城市进行了突袭。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The Royal Airforce sill remained dangerously short of bombers. 英国皇家空军仍未脱离极为缺乏轰炸机的危境。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 tactic   

n.战略，策略；adj.战术的，有策略的

参考例句：

• Reducing prices is a common sales tactic.降价是常用的销售策略。
• She had often used the tactic of threatening to resign.她惯用以辞职相威胁的手法。

6 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

7 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

8 dynamite   

n./vt.(用)炸药(爆破)

参考例句：

• The workmen detonated the dynamite.工人们把炸药引爆了。
• The philosopher was still political dynamite.那位哲学家仍旧是政治上的爆炸性人物。

9 buddy   

n.（美口）密友，伙伴

参考例句：

• Calm down,buddy.What's the trouble?压压气，老兄。有什么麻烦吗？
• Get out of my way,buddy!别挡道了，你这家伙！

10 concocted   

v.将（尤指通常不相配合的）成分混合成某物( concoct的过去式和过去分词 )；调制；编造；捏造

参考例句：

• The soup was concocted from up to a dozen different kinds of fish. 这种汤是用多达十几种不同的鱼熬制而成的。
• Between them they concocted a letter. 他们共同策划写了一封信。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 chuckled   

轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She chuckled at the memory. 想起这件事她就暗自发笑。
• She chuckled softly to herself as she remembered his astonished look. 想起他那惊讶的表情，她就轻轻地暗自发笑。

12 glider   

n.滑翔机；滑翔导弹

参考例句：

• The glider was soaring above the valley.那架滑翔机在山谷上空滑翔。
• The pilot managed to land the glider on a safe place.那个驾驶员设法让滑翔机着陆到一个安全的地方。

13 infantry   

n.[总称]步兵(部队)

参考例句：

• The infantry were equipped with flame throwers.步兵都装备有喷火器。
• We have less infantry than the enemy.我们的步兵比敌人少。

14 celebrated   

adj.有名的，声誉卓著的

参考例句：

• He was soon one of the most celebrated young painters in England.不久他就成了英格兰最负盛名的年轻画家之一。
• The celebrated violinist was mobbed by the audience.观众团团围住了这位著名的小提琴演奏家。

15 offense   

n.犯规，违法行为；冒犯，得罪

参考例句：

• I hope you will not take any offense at my words. 对我讲的话请别见怪。
• His words gave great offense to everybody present.他的发言冲犯了在场的所有人。

16 corps   

n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组

参考例句：

• The medical corps were cited for bravery in combat.医疗队由于在战场上的英勇表现而受嘉奖。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。