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We salute our veterans

USS Wisconsin was powered by those McDowell Boys

by Britt Combs

Myron Nelson, last of the USS Wisconsin's McDowell Boys

By Britt Combs | The McDowell News

Published: November 10, 2009

Myron Nelson was 18 when he entered the U.S. Navy in 1942. His service took him around the world, and he saw action in the Atlantic and Pacific theaters on the U.S.S. Iowa and U.S.S. Wisconsin.

Those far-flung places and the dangerous action as the world's most powerful navies fought to control the seas were made a little more comfortable for Nelson thanks to the presence of six friends aboard the Wisconsin who also were McDowell County boys.

Sadly, Nelson said, he is the last survivor of that group -- George Grindstaff died in October at the age of 84. Nelson said he missed his departed comrades, each of whom was dear to him.

The others were Arnola Reel, Bud Roland, Robert Henline, Harry Ollis and Calvin Bradshaw, Nelson said.

"They used to joke that just us McDowell boys could run the ship," he stated.

Aboard the Iowa, Nelson took part in patrolling the North Atlantic to counter the German battleship Tirpitz, then shuttling President Roosevelt to and from top secret Allied conferences at Casablanca and Teheran.

"We were supposed to cover the Normandy Invasion with our 16-inch guns, but were ordered to the Pacific," said Nelson. "I've often wondered how it would have gone that day if the Wisconsin had been a part of that."

Trained as a radio operator, Nelson got an opportunity to study high-tech equipment.

"An officer said he was looking for volunteers to go to radar school. I said, 'What is radar?' and the officer said, 'Damn if I know,'" he remembered with a laugh.

In the Pacific aboard the Wisconsin, the crew supported amphibious landings on Iwo Jima. She bombarded the industrial district of Okinawa, covering the landing forces there with the ship's devastating firepower.

Nelson said the return to San Francisco at the war's end was an unforgettable experience.

"After they (the Japanese) signed the treaty we turned tail right away and sailed for San Francisco," he said. "When we came under the Golden gate Bridge, there were about a million people gathered watching and cheering us." Quite a contrast, he said, to the reception some veterans of Korea and Vietnam received on their return.

Nelson had more reason to be happy on that particular day than many other sailors.

"I was the youngest sailor to come off the ship that day," he said. "I had 44 points and got to discharge right away."

Predictably, the civilian world had very few job prospects for a radar operator, third class. Work was hauling sand and gravel, then a career in soft drink bottling plants, first for Royal Crown (RC) and later for Pepsi. He worked for several years for the city of Marion as a water treatment plant operator before retiring in 1988.

But all that was just a means to an end; his main occupation was at home, with his wife Marie Elliott Nelson and their three kids: Ed, John and Elizabeth. Many lives, many children, many jobs well done and many happy memories grew out of the simple fact that Nelson, unlike so many thousands of men, "saw the elephant" and lived to tell the tale; he came home from war alive.

In 2000, all seven of the Wisconsin's McDowell County men attended the reunion for the ship's crew, at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Norfolk, Virginia, on the 57th anniversary of the battleship's launching.

Navy veterans often speak of the close, familial world their branch of service creates. Nelson commented on the significance of the fact that he sailed on the Iowa's maiden voyage and decades later his son sailed on her last voyage.

He said he wanted to tell his story because of the special meaning such remembrances have to other veterans. "Just to let them all know that others are thinking of them," he said.

He participated in a recent Honor Air pilgrimage to the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. He said the visit to the long-overdue monument to his generation's struggle and sacrifice was deeply moving.

"There were thousands of people there, congratulating us and thanking us and shaking our hands," he said. "I never saw the beat of it."