In the Spring of 1945, Sam S. Watlington was at Camp Wheeler, Macon, Ga. while Elton was at Fort McClellan, Anniston, Alabama. On a weekend pass, Elton went by train to Atlanta, then to Macon and thence to Sam's barracks at Camp Wheeler for a visit. Sam S. Watlington's troop ship, returning from Korea, put in at Yokahoma, Japan, for a day. Since Sam could not go ashore, he requested the chaplain to communicate with Elton so that he might come to the ship. Said, and done; even though Elton was on study detachment at the G.I. Kollege of Knowledge at the time. Arriving at the port train station, the same chaplain stopped his Jeep to lend a ride to the troop ship. Coincidence? Providence? He asked him if he was Watlington, because recognized the Cavalry Insignia. Sam's troop ship docked at Okinawa on his way to Seoul, Korea. He had an address for U. Mack Watlington in Okinawa but little else. Nevertheless, he was able to find Mack for a short visit there. Mack had been to Europe (France and Germany) and had shipped from southern France through the Panama Canal to the Pacific and Okinawa, arriving Sept. 1, two weeks after the war ended. Elton had visited the Harton family in Los Angeles from his desert Port of Embarkation holding base in Sept. 1945. There he met Jiggs (Leland W.) Harton who was on leave from his ship which was in Port at nearby San Pedro. He accompanied Mercedes as she took Jiggs back to his ship which was heading to the Orient, destination unknown. Several months later, while on a rare business trip for the Port Exchange to Yokosuka Harbor in Japan, he recognized the name of Jigg's ship on a Jeep in the city and inquired about the ship. They were at anchor some miles out in the bay. After completing business for the day he requested permission for an overnight pass so he could visit Jiggs aboard ship. It was kindly granted by the P.X. officer, even though Elton was in fatigues (work clothes). On going to catch a launch ride to the ship, he encountered Jiggs coming ashore. They visited the local scene for a while and even had a photo taken nearby, before returned to his ship and spending the night. Some weeks later Jiggs was able to return the visit at the quarters of the Seventh Cavalry Regiment, on Tokyo Bay at the Sumida River.
Clarence Lloyd King and his brother, Paul King, were able to get together in Germany after the end of hostilities there. C. Lloyd King was with the 691st Field Artillery Battalion and Paul was with a Field Hospital unit at Bad Vildunken, Germany, only thirty miles away. Herman and Kenneth both were in Africa briefly during the War Years. Kenneth served six months in Tunisia. They were both with the Army Air Corps. Herman ferried a plane from the states to the Caribbean, South America, across to Africa and then north to North Africa theatre of operations. After southern Italy was secured Herman was based at Foggia Airport near the Adriatic Sea and Kenneth was at a service base at Bari where he and his outfit repaired and corrected bombsights and other equipment. They were able to get together at times and Kenneth was able to visit his brother-in-law Arthur Nanney who was with the infantry. However, to see Arthur he had to fly near the active fighting and so found it discouraging to make regular visits.
John William Watlington left home with the 117th Infantry Regt. of the 30th Inf. Division and continued with that Division into combat in France after D-Day. He and George Morris and several Bemis and Jackson friends were there close together during much of the War years. They often bivouacked together, shared the same pup tent or other provisional quarters on the training or battle field. In recent years George has shared a lot of experiences including the time some French peasant women working a field hid John while German soldiers passed nearby on a scouting mission.
Paul H. Watlington was in the Signal Corps assigned to the U.S. Army Air Corps as one of the early Radar operators. Radar was still secretive in those years and we remember that Paul had to have security clearance to stay in that school and work. Then he went quietly and quickly to the Pacific War, arriving in Guadacanal after the airfield had been secured but when there was still a lot of Japanese in the hills and threatening the security perimeter. He remembers well the massacre of hundreds of Japanese as they came against machine gun installations across a river bed and open land in a suicidal attack. One platoon of his unit had a radar detachment on New Georgia Island of the Solomon Island group. In 1988-93 the Mark Masters family of St. Luke's United Methodist Church in Memphis worked with the Solomon Island Methodist Church as rural missionaries on the point of New Georgia Island near a small airfield built by our American forces in 1942. Another member of St. Luke's church remembers helping to build that very same airfield! Paul and his group moved ever nearer the action in the Pacific to be the eyes and ears of the Army Air Corps and Navy in that struggle. Before the end of the War they were on the large Mindanao Island of the southern Philippines. They were always based in isolated rural settings strategically located away from centers of military activity in order to give a warning of attacks by air or sea. Because of this relative isolation, Paul never encountered friends from home in his two years overseas. William Eugene Watlington was in the U.S. Navy from April 1940 until April 1946. During the War years he served most of his time on a World War I vintage destroyer, U.S.S. Waters, in various parts of the Pacific. He was on leave in August 1945 when the War ended. Reporting back to duty he was assigned to a luxury liner converted to a troop carrier, sailing under the name of U.S.S. St. Mary's. He left California and went to Okinawa to return troops to the U.S.A. His cousin, Ulrich Mack Watlington, was one of the troops who loaded on at Okinawa to return to the U.S.A. after serving in both the European and Pacific theatres of war. He saw that Mack was well fed and cared for on this return journey. On September 15, 1944, Mack had sailed from Boston, Mass., harbor on the U.S.S. Wakefield, the former S.S. Manhattan, and landed in Liverpool, England, as he went on to battle in France. The same ship, called U.S.S. Wakefield at that time also was one that Joe Conrad boarded in December 1945 at Norfolk, Va., and went through the Panama Canal to the Pacific Theatre of operations, with a stop at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. From there they sailed for the China Coast and made port at Tsingtao, China, where they unloaded about two thousand marines of the 1st Marine Division. This ship was equipped to carry as many as fifteen thousand troops. There were only about five thousand on it when Joe Conrad made the journey. The U.S.S. Wakefield had served the Watlington family well in World War II.