By Kristine Snodgrass, Staff Writer
MONTGOMERY — Harrowing personal experiences from both sides of America’s involvement in World War II were related to Montgomery High School students last week as part of a program honoring the country’s veterans.
Thomas Mahoney, 87, a survivor the attack on Pearl Harbor, and George Waple, 88, who fought in the Battle of the Bulge, were invited to the school Wednesday as part of a day-long Veterans Day program.
They spoke to a crowd of about 400 students, mostly juniors, who are studying U.S. History.
Monday will mark the 68th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. This month also marks the anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, which began in December 1944.
”This is an opportunity, I think, that you’re not going to get any more of, to hear really important stories about key moments in American history from people who were there themselves,” social studies teacher Matthew Mingle told the students before the speakers began.
To drive this point home, Mr. Mahoney opened his speech with the fact there were 86,000 sailors, Army, Marines and other military personnel at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the day of the attack. There are just over 3,000 still living today, he said.
”It’s an honor to be here to tell you my story,” he said.
But before he discussed his experiences that day, he described his childhood in Depression-era New Jersey. He described a life without running water, telephones, real medicine, electricity or indoor plumbing.
”There was never enough food during the Depression,” he said. “There were no jobs, and families had no money.”
These hardships led him to try to find a better life through the Navy, which offered three meals a day and the chance to see the world. It was this fateful decision that led to him to be on board the U.S.S. Curtiss, a seaplane tender ship that was tied up in the harbor the day of the attack.
Mr. Mahoney, who regularly makes public appearances about his experience at Pearl Harbor, matter-of-factly described the horrific events of that day. Despite the decades that have passed, he said he has no trouble conjuring memories of the “bombs falling, machine guns blasting us, the stench of burning flesh, the lifeless forms of friends that I’d just had breakfast with,” he said.
”Nothing can convey the anger, the emotions, the horror, the grief and consuming fury that each serviceman endured,” he said. “This is the price of war.”
He described the hours of horror that followed as the sailors went to their battle stations, he said, and did their best to defend against the surprise attack, enduring wave after wave of planes.
At the end of the day, the survivors were exhausted, their dress white uniforms torn and covered with blood, faces blackened from the fires. It was impossible to recognize someone until he talked.
He worried about his own brother, also stationed in Pearl Harbor.
”I turned to the fellow next to me and asked if he had heard anything about the Mahoney boys,” he said. “He replied, ‘Who the hell are you?’”
It was his own brother.
”We wept and cried like the kids we really were,” he said.
He made a personal vow that day, which left 2,403 Americans dead and 1,178 wounded, to seek revenge against their enemy.
”I joined some fellows watching the sunset,” he said. “Looking at the huge red ball on the horizon, just hanging there, I made a vow, you will pay for this day, over and over and over.”
His naval service after the attack continued through the end of the war on the U.S.S. O’Bannon, a destroyer.
After Mr. Mahoney described how the war began, the program’s second guest took the students to the end, on the other side of the war, the European front.
Born in Fairfax County, Va., Mr. Waple dropped out of high school and joined the Army in 1938. He became a private in the Third Cavalry Regiment, which was a horse-mounted unit. He served at Fort Myer, Va., which was for a period of his service commanded by Col. George Patton.
By 1944, he was serving as communications chief in the 331st Infantry Regiment’s headquarters company in Liverpool, England. His infantry division landed on Omaha Beach several days after D-Day.
His story then moved to fierce battles with the Germans, advancing through the hedgerows of Normandy all the way to the Battle of the Bulge. He gave the students a detailed account of his division’s movement as its way to the Elbe River in Germany where Americans met the Russian Army.
He gave the students a taste of the brutal reality of war he experienced, describing one of the times he watched a comrade die in his arms.
”That was my first casualty,” he said with emotion, describing one experience. “That’s one of the saddest moments of your life.”
After the war, Mr. Waple served as the first sergeant of the Ceremonial Detachment, which performs ceremonies and guard duty at Arlington National Ceremony. He also went on to serve in the Korean War where he was Marilyn Monroe’s escort during her famous visit.
He retired from the military as a captain in 1962. When asked by a student about why he joined the military, Mr. Waple didn’t offer a reason, simply gratitude.
”It’s the best thing I ever did,” he said. “I’ve had a great life.”
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