Johnny Joe the Great

As Memorial Day approaches, I have been thinking of the two uncles whose names I carry. My dad's brother, John J. Gaydos, died while serving our country in World War II. The St. Anthony Messenger published an article about him in 1944 that had been written by another brother of my Dad, Redemptorist Father Raymond Gaydos, and I am still moved to tears when I read it. Here is an abbreviated version of this article. I share it in the hope that this one example can help us focus on the untold thousands of people who made the supreme sacrifice and whom we remember on this national holiday.

Here is a slightly modified version of Fr. Gaydos’ article as it was reprinted in the Fredericktown Democrat-News.

*****

When Johnny Joe laughed, you laughed. He was always laughing and he was always smiling because somewhere inside him he hid the secret of happiness. People never really took him seriously. They thought he was a dreamer. Well, maybe he was.

Johnny Joe was the kind of a guy who could not get through freshman high school. History appealed to him as much as fried leather on toast. Spanish classes turned into comedy and burlesque when he was called on for reading; the only Spanish word he knew was one he himself made up to describe the whole situation. It was “bunco” and meant the same as Americanese “baloney.”

Math was simply impossible. Theorems and axioms of geometry meant absolutely nothing to him. He could not see how it mattered that “the square of the hypotenuse of a right-angle triangle equaled the sum of the square of the other two sides.” With pleasure he flunked out of the first semester exams and began working in his dad’s small town electrical appliance shop.

A nun who tried teaching him in grade school had him figured out perfectly when she called him a fidgeting piece of uncontrolled volatility. He has always been an unsolved problem child for his teachers. He baffled them in many ways, but mostly in mathematics. He hated the stuff. They understood that well enough. What they could not comprehend was his proficiency in the use of arithmetic.

Well, with him, you see, school was only an evil that resulted directly from the Fall of Adam. Baseball was another question entirely. When he first became interested in professional baseball (about 1933), he set his mind to a task that astounded the good nuns. He studied records of teams and players, made a good guess on the winners of the American League Pennant, fell in love with Joe Cronin and his Washington Senators -- and directed the team to cop the flag, though he himself had never seen any Major League ball game, much less the Senators. It was the way he talked about the team and its manager that made you almost believe he actually did run the show. He could quote player averages, team percentages, league standings, past records and future prospects like an expert; but he never could work a sixth-grade problem in compound interest or tell you how many rolls of wallpaper you needed for your dining room.

It wasn’t that Johnny Joe was irresponsible or shiftless; no, he just had no use for book knowledge. His was a restless soul that thrilled with the enjoyment of life, ever seeking to cut a new path not marked in books or paved with the plain concrete of conventionality. Rather, his mind was set on doing something great; and greatness, according to his mind, was not to be found in books but in the hard reality of life.

Once in a while he gave the impression of carelessness in his work. “Johnny,” his mother would say, “do try to put your mind on your work and be serious. I hope you’ve not forgotten to take care of that new radio display at the store.”

“What new display?” he would pique her.

“Oh, Johnny!” she would exclaim, a thousandth time victim of his flippancy. “When dad returns from St. Louis, he’ll expect to see all those new RCAs in the window!”

Then he would be heartless. He would actually laugh. “Oh sure,” he would chuckle and try to choke down a sandwich at the same time. “Those RCA jobs have been dazzling window shoppers for the past two days.”

The whole town knew it and was sad when Johnny Joe joined the Marines early in 1942. Strange. He had not done anything to get his name in the papers, he had saved nobody’s life, never did anything extraordinary. He only worked in his dad’s appliance shop; yet he was the most popular kid in town.

Maybe it was his perpetual smile or his ringing, light-hearted laughter that made people turn, smile and feel better at having seen him come walking down the street. Maybe it was his daily trips around different parts of the courthouse square during the dozing, small-town, Missouri lunch period. Or maybe it was his attitude on life, his practical philosophy of laughter and song that could never let him cast his cares on others or ever let him hold a grudge. You cannot analyze guys like him. They are pure sunshine to warm the heart and to love, never to grasp in one’s hands for scrutiny or examination. However, there was a war to be won and Townville’s loss was the Marine Corps’ gain.

People who knew Johnny Joe best said he had to become a Marine. That was the only branch of service that would appeal to his spirit and his love for action. It promised romance, thrilling excitement, glory -- and life!

It demanded perfect bodies and its training program was famous for its grueling ruggedness. That’s another reason why Johnny Joe liked it. It was a man’s work, with a man’s training and a man’s glory.

Johnny Joe was always proud of his perfect body and kept it in good physical condition. He was of average height and had about him that certain robustness of health usually found only in a country lad. He carried himself proudly erect and somehow managed to convey the idea that under his clothing were hidden hard, flexible, rounded and well-formed muscles. When he boxed in the amateur prize ring -- as often as they allowed him in the local theater -- he made a good showing though he never had a formal boxing lesson in his life. He did not smoke, he did not drink, because in his scheme such things were too small a substitute for greatness.

The story of Wake early in the Japanese offensive decided him on the Marines. The first time he read it, little sparks shot into his heart and set him on fire. There is where he would want to be in war. A barren outpost of unprotective coral, a handful of airplanes, a few small guns and 400 fighting-mad Marines! The story made his blood tingle with the thought of great accomplishment. That was the life!

That very evening Johnny Joe had begun talking about enlisting with the leathernecks. It was to prepare his family for the day when he would actually leave. That was his way: talk big and loud about his aspirations to soften up any possible opposition, and then act. His oldest brother had already been in the Army some months; Ed, next in line for military service, put another hole in the family by joining the Navy. Love of his parents made Johnny Joe be patient awhile before making the leap, but it could not change his determination. Stories kept coming back about the heroic Marines, stories of great lives and wonderful deeds, of courage, of bravery. Stories that made men live and yet made them famous in the bargain. He simply had to join up!

When Johnny Joe heard the whirring of the draft machinery in his ears, he hesitated no longer. It was now either the Army or his love. He joined his love, the Marines.

That was the last Townville heard of Johnny Joe for a long time.

Letters came most rarely. One had been quite telegraphic as he described a day in camp: “Early rising. March. Breakfast. March. Rest. March. Dinner. March. Rest. March. Supper. March. Drag yourself to your cot. Fall into it. Sleep.”

Here was the high-spirited Johnny Joe following the regimental pattern of strictest military discipline. The people of Townville smiled at the situation. They remembered how at one time -- entirely oblivious of the political ideology involved -- he called himself “Il Duce.” They remembered how he used to strut with chest heaved high, speak about having his orders obeyed, then break down laughing at the shy, half-hidden idea concerning his future greatness. His friends remembered, too, how he used to talk politics with any interested person who passed by the electrical appliance shop.

His striking sincerity made his audience sometimes believe that he actually conferred each week with the highest governmental officials -- beginning with the President and going on down to the county clerk across the street in the courthouse where he used to take time-payment papers to have them notarized. He had a firm grasp of local politics and cast his first ballot just three months before joining the Marines to fight for his right to vote. That was all. He was no big shot now, not even in his own estimation. He took orders, never gave them. No matter how you looked at it, he was pretty small potatoes in the process of being mashed by tough Marine drill sergeants.

Before many months, all Johnny Joe’s mail had to be sent in care of that busy Postmaster in San Francisco. There was no doubt about it, the kid had made the grade and was considered good material; he was really off to the wars, off to fight the heathens somewhere in the Pacific. That was in the middle of the summer, a few weeks before the Marines landed and took Tulagi and Guadalcanal beginning on Aug. 7.

He might have jumped off the end of the world for all the people of Townville knew -- or the Japanese fighter pilots for that matter. Not a word leaked out about him or his unit. His parents and friends watched the papers closely. They read every account of Marine action and always felt bursts of pride or aches of sorrow for him. Invariably, as they finished a newspaper account, they would say, “Maybe Johnny Joe is there. Maybe that was his unit.” Every new story raised a fresh hope of learning about the glorious deed of this Marine.

Mindful of his strength, the people of Townville wondered if he could have been with the heavy machine gun company that saw such bloody action on the Matanikau River on Guadalcanal. One day this company was slowly advancing in single file through the dampness of a humid tropical morning. The going would not be too sticky if their companion unit could manage to reach the river ahead of them and cut over to give support, as planned. There was only silence as the men struggled through the swamp and underbrush carrying the dismantled parts of their heavy machine guns. Then before they reached the objective, a revolver shot rang as a signal and the surrounding foliage became alive with the spitting guns of Japanese snipers. Devastating mortar fire and machine guns followed. Evidently, the companion unit had not broken through according to schedule.

Our Marines dived for cover, managed to get two of their guns into action. That was a morning of hell where dismantled machine guns were worse than useless. Infantry with rifles and grenades would have had some kind of chance, not these lads.

Japanese jungle fighting was superb that morning. The snipers wore green uniforms that blended with the green paint on their hands and faces. With smokeless ammunition they raked out death from behind bits of armor in the trees.

Marines soon heard the whispered word to withdraw. Some of them turned quickly, floundered in their haste, began running. Their Captain jumped to is feet. In the midst of the sniper fire, machine guns and mortar fire he called out, “Who in God’s name gave that order?” That checked costly flight as nothing else could. Under an orderly retreat they managed to escape from the jaws of the horrible dragon.

Johnny Joe’s parents and the people of Townville would catch their breath at such a story and make the inevitable remark, “Think of it. Maybe Johnny Joe was there.”

No, no story came back from the southern Pacific about Johnny Joe shouting above the noise of hammering machine guns and shrieking shells. It could have, because he had a voice you could not forget. Wrapped up inside that walking advertisement of fresh air and sunshine -- his body -- Johnny Joe had joyfully treasured a rich baritone sound box and he used it. It was pleasantly strong and clear, though not too deep. He took his lessons directly from Nelson Eddy and Giovanni Martinelli. He had bought their records and played them on the brand new phonographs in the store, and had sung along with his idols. Sunday afternoons he used to listen to the Metropolitan Auditions Program on the radio, dreaming, perhaps, of some day making his bid at the classics in earnest. An interesting phenomenon, this, a boy who could not read a note but who could shiver your spine with them as he sang bits of opera and the classics. Ballads and songs of home took on new meanings as this young Marine sung for his battle-scarred comrades.

For the people of Townville his music was a thing of the past. His voice did not come back from the fighting zone in the Pacific.

And so it went. The year began to wane, losing its strength in the drabness of late Fall and early Winter. Townville had all but forgotten Johnny Joe. To most people, he was just “somewhere in the Pacific.” And his loved ones still read every Marine story. He had to be in some of them!

In mid-November occurred our startling naval victory over the Japanese, one of this war’s epic battles.

At 1:40 on the morning of Friday, Nov. 13, our forces at Guadalcanal began fighting for their lives. The result of this desperate fight (which was to continue until Sunday morning) was 28 Japanese ships sunk, including one battleship and possibly two, plus 10 ships damaged. It was the fifth battle of the Solomons when the major part of the Japanese navy concentrated on the destruction of our Guadalcanal salient. At first it seemed as if the Japanese had pulled a fast one and caught our forces without naval protection.

Johnny Joe was there and had a grandstand view of the beginning of the fight.

It was bitter fighting for our boys that November morning. There between Tulagi and Henderson Field on Guadalcanal was the Japanese navy with no sight nor sign of our fleet. The Japanese attacked with all they had both on the water and in the air. Surface craft lined up in formation and bombarded almost at will. Japanese carriers shot every kind of plane off their decks -- dive-bombers, torpedo bombers, and streaking, strafing fighters.

Our planes went up from Henderson and did their best, but it was not enough to save our ground batteries and anti-aircraft crews. The boys on the ground at the beginning of that day fought like tormented demons. They were bombed time and again by the Japanese planes that filled the sky with their roars and erratic dives and looked and sounded for all the world like a swarm of angry wasps on the rampage. Japanese fighters freely indulged in what seemed to be an irresistible passion with non-stop strafing. Using every American gun, the Marines and soldiers fought doggedly. But one question in their minds was, “Where in all the hot Pacific Ocean is our Navy?”

At the precise melodramatic moment a small U.S. naval force came running into the battle from the northwest near Savo Island. Men of Johnny Joe’s unit on Tulagi went wild with glee when they saw it rushing against the greatly superior Japanese force. From their heights they watched David skillfully maneuver Goliath into the most disgraceful naval defeat of the war for the Japanese.

During the morning hours of the 13th before the arrival of our naval force, many a khaki-clad Marine was strafed by hedgehopping Japanese planes. One of these was a redheaded lad of 22 who fell as the whistling lead scratched a jagged line in the coral around his position and marked him as it passed. As he lay there listening to the roar of the plane rushing forward, intent on its business of death, he had time to think.

Perhaps he considered himself a failure -- a man who had lost on the draw, who could no longer fight, who had but to die. There he lay, helpless and useless, just at the time when brave and fearless men were needed so badly. It was hard to die with so much still to be done. Very quietly now with a prayer to his God, he left this world, alone, unattended.

He died like many such men who have died many such deaths. Unknown and unsung, their identities swallowed up in the cold, heartless numbers of the casualty list. Failures?

Men like Johnny Joe were victims long before they fired a gun or fought in battle. They sacrifice their homes, relatives and friends, their jobs, their sports, their songs, their freedom long before glimpsing an enemy through the sights of their guns. They sacrifice themselves in their own blood, wishing they could actually do more for their loved ones and their country, regretting (like Nathan Hale) that they have but one life to give for their country . . . regretting that they have accomplished no dream of this life, that they have given nothing to the world.

Failures? Rather, heroes who fulfill the saying that the God-Man Himself proved: “Greater love than this no one has, than one lay down his life for his friends.” They are gloriously great, those lads! Heroically great by reason of their obscurity.

After a while, Townville finally heard of Johnny Joe and ran his picture in the weekly paper. “Killed in action in the performance of his duty and in the service of his country,” read the telegram from the Lieutenant General of the Marine Corps.

In the beautiful setting of the tropical cemetery, shaded by the lush foliage of softly whispering cocoanut trees, the Marines and their Padre laid their comrades to rest. When Fr. Fitzgerald said the prayers and blessed the grave of a redheaded lad who had fallen on Tulagi, he prayed for the soul of my brother, Johnny Joe -- the Great!

*****

My Uncle John died a few months before I was born. One of my earliest memories as a young boy is his Funeral Mass in St. Michael Church when his earthly remains arrived back in Missouri from the South Pacific for burial at the parish cemetery in Fredericktown.

After he died, my uncle Ray received a letter from Johnny Joe that he had written 18 days before he died. In less than a year he would be "Father" Ray and his brother wrote him, "May your anxious months ahead of ordination be spent to labor and not to ask for any reward, save that of knowing that we do God's will."

May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God rest in peace.