Estate sale yields trove of veteran's forgotten letters

Harold Washburn didn't leave behind an autobiography.

As is usually the case, the details of his life were written at the end of it. His 2003 obituary in the Daily Herald said the 77-year-old was a 44-year Arlington Heights resident who died Nov. 28, that he was born in Grayslake and was a World War II Navy veteran. He married Adele Roland in 1959. They had no children, but three close nieces.

And that might have been all there was to tell if Palatine resident Frank Bleers had not stumbled upon more than 30 letters at an estate sale shortly after Washburn's death.

The letters, addressed to Harold's father, Robert Washburn, were strewed about the garage where the sale was held.

When Bleers expressed interest, the sellers assumed it was the stamps he was after.

But Bleers had history in mind. The stationery was the lightweight, U.S. Navy type, and the letters were postmarked 1944-1946.

What Bleers found inside, he says, is a personal history of World War II worthy of a Ken Burns documentary.

"When you read them, this guy is just reporting. He's fixing an engine. He's doing this and that," Bleers said.

The contents are sometimes hard to decipher. Many of the letters, which begin, "Dear Mom and Dad," are in pencil. His spelling is often wrong - the word "stuff," for example, is spelled "stough." Like many of his generation, Washburn quit high school to join up.

Get beyond those obstacles, however, and the reward is a richly detailed chronicle of the life of an ordinary seaman in the middle of the great conflagration of the 20th century.

He writes about shipping out of Great Lakes Naval Station in North Chicago and riding to the West Coast in a troop train that runs through "28 or so tunnels in the Rockies, among them a six-mile tunnel."

When the train stopped in Reno, "the women from the Red Cross threw us cookies."

He provides vivid details of life aboard his ship. He was assigned to LCS (L)(3) 123 - the Landing Craft Support vessels were nicknamed the Mighty Midgets, amphibious assault ships the Navy used in the Pacific War.

The racket in the engine room was deafening as Washburn went about his job as a ship fitter's helper.

"We didn't have to do very much at that job except move a few pieces of pipe around and hold them while he cut them with a cutting torch," he writes.

"Every place you go you bump into someone cleaning a rifle or firing one."

He writes with pride about taking a turn at the helm in 1945 in Tokyo Bay.

"You said in one of your letters you bet I would like to get behind the wheel. Well, I'm behind the wheel. I was on the helm for at least 200 miles of the trip up here."

In another he explains what life aboard a Mighty Midget is like: "I never wrote you too much about the ship, because when I came on here it was still a secret weapon as they call it. You should see these things when it gets a little rough. Spray comes over the bough (sic) and she ... rolls around.

"You have heard about the landing craft going in and firing rockets at the beach. Well we have 10 rocket guns that fire about six rockets each in quick succession."

During lulls in the action Washburn listened to "Dagwood and Blondie" on the ship's radio, and helped with food.

"You have the wrong idea about what a mess cook does," he lectured his parents. "We don't cook at all. We just work sort of in the capacity of a steward or something like that. I just take care of the pots and pans, either silverware and such or, in other words, I run the scullery."

Of his shipmates: "There are about 65 men and one dog on our boat. He is a small cocker spaniel and we have a lot of fun with him."

Harold's niece, Christine Dutzi, said it was natural that her uncle joined the Navy.

"His biggest love was boats," she said, adding that after Harold and Adele were married, they amused themselves on speed boats in Wisconsin.

"He had tons of books on ships," added another niece, Patricia Frisch.

Washburn describes life on a Naval base. "There are darn more cats and dogs on this base than men," he reports. "There is a great big yellow one that always likes to hunt birds it seems, but never gets within 10 feet of them."

He was delighted when his commander gave the ship a 4.0 on inspection. But he worried the ship was being pushed into duty when the engines were overdue for maintenance: "They are crazy to have us try and make such a long trip in the shape we are in."

He alludes to travels across the Pacific. Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands is "a flat piece of coral with a few palm trees."

Washburn wasn't permitted to write his parents his exact location. But his ship saw a lot of action, including the three-month Battle of Okinawa in 1945.

His letters are often reflective and the horror of combat only occasionally leaks through. Some letters have neat holes where the censors clipped out passages that provided too many details.

But he is careful not to burden his parents with too many details.

He mentions one Sunday as "a day that the boys on this ship will never forget. I know I won't. I saw some things that day I wouldn't even care to write about."

During the 1945 battle for Okinawa, his ship was on radar picket duty.

"Most of the time we were out on the picket line which I suppose you have heard plenty about," he wrote. "We got three (Japanese) planes while out there in one night and another day nine planes were shot down around us ... I will never forget that day when we were up there and saw things that you would only see in newsreels.

"I am not going to tell you all what happened to us, but a good many times we escaped danger as if something had built a solid wall around us."

Later, he adds, "Before I forget I got the package with the candy in it. I'm still waiting for the other one."

The yearning to come home touches most every letter.

"All the boys have one aim in mind. Get it over and go home to stay."

Washburn came from illustrious stock. His grandfather, Charles Washburn, was in the Iowa Regiment in the Civil War. After his discharge, his married Susan, who came from tiny Hainesville in Lake County. Charles and Susan moved to Grayslake in 1902; one of their daughters later married Grayslake Fire Chief Allen McMillen, who was mayor of Grayslake from 1927 to 1941. A street is named after him.

His mother Alice Strang's family had connections to the Revolutionary War.

"It was a family thing," Dutzi said of her uncle's military service. And while Harold Washburn didn't talk much about the war with family, he stayed friendly with other veterans in the area.

In late 1945, he wonders what he will get his parents for Christmas. "I guess I will do my shopping in Tokyo," he concludes.

He continues, "I look outside and just can't believe where I am. All I have to do is see Europe, and I have been around the world."

What happened to Harold Washburn after the war?

His postwar employment included work as a mechanic in a gas station in the Grayslake area. He eventually settled into the printing field, working for Weber Marking Systems.

Harold and Adele were married in 1959 after a long courtship during which Harold lived in Grayslake and Adele lived in Chicago.

"He was pretty special. He was a very nice man," Adele said.

Much of his postwar life was spent battling polio. At one point he was in an iron lung and was paralyzed from the neck down, but managed to recover and was able to walk with only a slight limp and even dance.

Frisch said he suffered from post polio syndrome in later years.

Christine Dutzi said her Uncle Harold's wartime letters were never meant to be part of the estate sale, but no one knew they were there. She thinks they got caught up in the glut of stuff they meant to move.

"Of course, if they hadn't been sold, none of this would have ever come to light," she said.