Thank You, Uncle Happy

At dawn on December 7, 1941, naval aviation forces of the Empire of Japan launched a military strike on the United States Pacific Fleet center at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, drawing the U.S. full-force into World War II.

Pearl Harbor Day always makes me think of my grandfather, even though he wasn’t there.

********
Seventeen years earlier, two young boys were playing in a small yard behind a small house in a small town in the suburbs of New York City. Anthony, who everyone called Happy, was 9 years old at the time, and he was keeping an eye on his three-year-old brother Joe (my grandfather).

As many 9 year olds do, Happy fancied himself a very grown-up boy. A responsible boy - almost a man. And as such, he decided to demonstrate his manly prowess by chopping some wood like his father or his big brother Tom would do.

There was an ax in the cellar.

Joe looked up to his big brother and followed him closely, tethered with the invisible twine of wonderous admiration. He followed him to the cellar, where the ax leaned against the cool damp stones of the basement wall. With the mighty instrument in hand, Happy headed out to the wood pile with little Joe in tow.

“Here Joe, hold this wood up for me.”

Happy lifted the ax up above his head and quickly realized that it was much too heavy for him to handle. But as he was already committed to the swing, he brought the menacing blade down and landed it on the wood with a deep thud. Almost right where he wanted it.

Almost.

He had chopped off half of little Joe’s small, dirty, three-year old ring finger on his right hand. Blood was spurting in every direction.

Joe ran into the house crying and shaking the source of his pain. The blood splattered this way and that as the little hand shook and little Joe cried.

Their mother was screaming as she tried to figure out where on his blood-covered body Joe was hurt. When she finally found the wound, she quickly wrapped his hand in rags and took him on the Charlie cars to Dr. Brooks in town. The doctor sewed up what was left of the finger, just below where there should have been a knuckle, and it healed just fine.

********

But it was still a bit sensitive as Joe sat in the back of a Chevrolet Coupe, heading to New York City with a group of buddies to sign up for the Navy. He was 19 years old.

They found the enlistment office easily enough, and they got their physicals and completed their written tests.

But just as Joe took the pen in his right hand to sign his name on the dotted line, officially enlisting in the United States Navy, the registrar said, “Whoa! Wait a minute – don’t sign. You’d better go back home and get your other half a finger first.”

Joe and his buddies had planned to sign up together and stick together. But since the Navy turned Joe down, none of the other guys joined either. They all piled back into the Coupe and drove home.

Looking back, my grandfather thought maybe that man had saved his life. It was 1939, and he probably would have been sent to Pearl Harbor for four years of training.

********

Joe lived with a friend in Connecticut for the next two years. He worked at a foundry with steam presses and molds, making rubber gears for airplanes.

In 1941 he had his appendix taken out. He was on sick leave from work for 6 months after his operation, so he came back to New York during that time. And that’s when he met my grandmother.

But the news of Pearl Harbor inspired the nation to action. “No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory” President Roosevelt told the citizens of the United States. So early in 1942, Joe was on his way to military training in Camp Wheeler, Georgia. I guess the Army wasn’t as concerned about that stubby ring finger, especially now that the country was at war.

After training he got his shots, he got his teeth and eyes checked, and was sent up to New York Harbor. On February 8, 1943, my grandfather boarded a ship to go to war. He served in the Signal Corps in North Africa and Italy until the war finally ended in 1945.

********

President Roosevelt called December 7, 1941 "… a date which will live in infamy." 2,333 lost their lives, another 1,139 were wounded, and Americans’ commitment to isolationism was cast aside as they entered the war with fierce determination.

I have nothing but gratitude and respect for all of those who have served our country, and for those who continue to serve today.

But on the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, I always end up thinking about my grandfather, and the stories he told me of his service in the European Theater Operation.

I also think about chance and fate.

Our paths through life are directed and redirected by both decisions and accidents, and maybe even forces unseen. So many maybes, so many “what ifs”…

What if my grandfather had enlisted in the Navy and gone off to Hawaii for training? Maybe he would have been one of the casualties of that fateful day. Or maybe he wouldn’t have.

But maybe if he’d join the Navy in 1939 he wouldn’t have met my grandmother and started the chain reaction that resulted in me.

Or maybe if he didn’t get appendicitis he wouldn’t have come back to New York and met my grandmother and started the chain reaction that resulted in me.

Maybe I’m here today because 83 years ago my great-uncle Happy chopped off my grandfather’s finger with an ax.

Or maybe I would have happened anyway....


“There is no such thing as chance; and what seems to us merest accident springs from the deepest source of destiny.” Friedrich von Schiller