• :IT r - November 7, 2012 Page 9
Photo brings back, Car memories Sl00t man
By Scott Swanson
Of The New Era
Darrell Goddard was looking at
a Time-Life book on World War lI
some years ago when he saw a scene
that looked very familiar.
In a U.S. Army photo from a
battle on Bougainville Island, near
New Guinea, was a tank with the
name "Lucky Legs II" emblazoned
on it. A tall, athletically built soldier
stood upright, firing a rifle at the
right of the tank, while other Ameri-
can GIs crouched or crawled on the
ground as they fought a battle.
The reason the photo was famil-
iar was because Goddard realized he
was the soldier firing the gun.
"He recognized the situation,"
Goddard's wife Bobble said. "He
knew it was him, but the tank con-
firmed it."
"There was one tank on the is-
land and we used it," said Darrell
Goddard, now 89, who's lived in
Sweet Home since 2006.
Growing up in an impover-
ished, single-parent family, God-
dard said times were tough before
he was drafted into the Army four
World War II.
He was born June 13, 1923 in
Bellingham, Wash., where his father
owned two grocery stores - and was
"so successful that he ran Safeway
out of business there," he said. His
father had fought in World War I and
the family had a photo of him dur-
ing a celebration in downtown New
York City at the end of that war.
His parents divorced and God,-
dard's mother moved with her three
children - two boys and a girl - to
Pasadena, Calif., where Goddard
grew up.
"We lived very frugally," he
said. "We lived on $135 a month for
four people for many years."
While in high-school at what is
now Pasadena City College, God-
dard started working at a coffee bar,
and was earning money, he said.
World War II had broken out in Eu-
rope and Asia, but it seemed some-
what distant.
"I was just a wild kid; we didn't
have much money and we had a bro-
ken family.
"I bought a car from the son of
the owner of the Studebaker compa-
ny, who lived in the Arroyo Seco in
Pasadena. I put $1,000 in the bank.
I was beginning to have some ideas.
We didn't really know what the war
was about."
But then he was drafted after
the U.S. entered the war in 1941.
His brother Richard, two years
his senior, who had been working in
a bank, also was drafted - into the
Navy.
"He was a genius," Goddard
said. "He could sit there and listen
to people rattle off numbers and then
tally them up in his head. The Navy
found out he could do that and they
nabbed him and made a navigator
out of him because he could always
get them there at the right time. I ran
into him a couple of times during
the war."
After basic training at Camp
Roberts, north of San Luis Obispo,
Calif., he was sent to infantry school,
also at Camp Roberts.
"We would take 26-mile Walks
Carrying all this stuff," he recalled.
"I got caught once because I took a
stovepipe and wrapped it in a helmet
liner or something of that nature and
carried it like a knapsack because it
was lighter."
The "fun" ended soon, he said.
He found himself on a fast ship
heading for the South Pacific.
After some months in French
Polynesia, Goddard was assigned
to the 37th Infantry, which had for-
merly been an Ohio National Guard
unit, and sent to New Guinea, where
he spent a year and a half.
"Bougainville is a big island,
and if you like coconut they had a
huge plantation there," Goddard
said.
New Zealand and Australia had
provided "a lot of coast watchers"
who helped prevent a Japanese at-
tack on those countries.
But it took the Allies a year and
half to drive the Japanese to sur-
render on Bougainville, which hap-
pened a few weeks before the final
surrender in Tokyo. The photo that
has appeared in at least two Life
publications that the Goddards have.
found, and a portion of which is also
on Wickipedia under "Bougain-
ville," though Goddard is cropped
out of that one, was taken during
those months of combat.
"I did not see the photographer,"
he said. "He was dressed like every-
one else so you couldn't tell. But I
• See Photo, page 12
Photo by Scott Swanson
Darrell Goddard holds a copy of a Life book about Worm War H that fea-
tures a cover photograph that he believes pictures himself and his fellow
soldiers during a battle in Bougainville.
A soldier that Darrell Goddard sacs is him, right, takes aim as a "Lucky Legs II," a tank that Goddard remembers from his service in Bougainville,
rolls through the jungle.
PROUD TO HONOR
OUR COUNFRYS VETERANS
We salute our Veterans.
We remember those who served with honor and
......... ' courage, and remember lhose who gave their
....... ..:'
.... lives to defend freedom. May we never lake for
granted the important contribution these brave
; 1214 tong St I 541.367.3131
They are our family, friends and neighbors; everyday citizens, yet so
much more. They are the brave men and women who have put their
lives at risk to protect and serve our country in war. On Veteran's Day,
we take this opportunity to say Thank You to the brave souls who
have served in battle with our Armed Forces.
SWEET HOME SANITATION
1001 LONG STREET, SWEET HOME I 541.367.2535
l Oth
