George Frazier, Part 2

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, he served with the SeeBees.

By Jeff Werner, Bucks Local News

Due to injuries he sustained in the attack on Pearl Harbor, George Frazier of Warminster was discharged from the U.S. Army in Dec. 1941.

Back at home in Massachusettes, he took a job at the Boston Navy Yard. While working there he saw signs advertising for help in Hawaii. Longing to get back into the service and figuring he might have a chance if he returned to Hawaii, he put his name in and was sent back to Pearl Harbor as a civilian worker.

It was not until he returned to Pearl that he realized just how devastating the attack had been.
“When everything happened in December it was all confused,” he said. “Getting hit, going in and out of the hospital, trying to stay there. It was mixed up,” he said.

“When I got back to the yard, it was devastation. You had no idea until you really saw it,” he said. “They were still raising ships and we were working on them to get them back on duty,” said Frazier. “The Arizona was still down there. The stack was still up before they cut that all down,” he said.

“We could never figure out why they never hit the oil tanks – there were big tanks all over the place — or the ammunition places,” he said. “The first thing they did was knock out all the fighters, like Wheeler Field. That’s where we heard all the bombing and everything.

“It was just devastation,” he said. “The P-40s that had been lined up in a row at Wheeler were just knocked out completely. They had lined up the airplanes to make them easier to guard, never figuring the Japanese would plow through them right down the line – bang, bang, bang.
“They hit all the fields so no one could get up and shoot them. From then on it gave them leeway to come in. The torpedo bombs were the second wave and they hit everything then,” he said.
Frazier said everyone took the attack personally.

“It was like someone slapping your face. And not just us,” he said. “Back at home, everyone man, woman and child got involved in the war effort. It was the only time in the history of this country that happened.”

Not long after returning to Pearl, he ran into some of his old Army buddies in Honolulu and again longed to be back in the service. He rode with them up into the mountains, where he slept overnight in the dugouts. “I spoke with the captain and he said he’d love to have me back, but I couldn’t get out of the Navy Yard.”

After some persistence, the powers that be finally allowed him to enlist with the U.S. Navy SeeBees, a militarized Naval Construction Force which built advance bases in the war zone.
As a SeeBee, he was shipped to Midway Island, then to Saipan and Iwo Jima where he saw significant action. He received a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts for his service both at Pearl and at Saipan.

After more than a year of service with the SeeBees, he returned to Hawaii where he re-enlisted in the Army. He ended up with his old outfit in Japan.

“In a roundabout way, a lot of things in between, I ended up with them,” he said.

While in Japan, he witnessed the devastating aftermath of the atomic blast at Nagasaki.

“Everyone had tears. We had just came from jungle fighting and here we are crying,” he said.

“The whole town, 100,000 men, women and babies, all gone. A couple big buildings standing there. The rest was flat. Whoever come up with a device like that, people should shoot them. People have no concept. Oh, God.”

Unlike many, who argue dropping the bomb prevented countless American deaths and brought an early end to the war, he sees it differently.

“When you pick on babies, that’s going too far. To me, that’s a no-no,” he said.

Following the war Frazier lived briefly in Boston and Norfolk, Va., before settling in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. In the 1960s, he moved to Hatboro. He worked for a moving company for about 50 years until his retirement.

For years after the war, he never talked about his time at Pearl or in the service
“Nobody had any idea,” he said. That changed one day when his granddaughter ran into a group of Pearl Harbor survivors at an event in Philadelphia. Soon after, he joined the Pearl Harbor Survivors.

He is often invited to speak to school groups about his experiences and was recently among 20 veterans to participate in a program at Council Rock High School South.

*This is the second article in a two-part series. For part one, CLICK HERE.

George Frazier, Part 1

World War II veteran survived the attack on Pearl Harbor.

By Jeff Werner, Bucks Local News

“Yesterday, Dec. 7th, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”

When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt uttered those now immortal words, Warminster resident George Frazier was recooperating in Hawaii after being shot by the Japanese in the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Frazier, who was stationed in Hawaii with the United States Army, was scheduled to leave the island on Dec. 13.

Frazier grew up in Cambridge, Mass., during the Great Depression. He left school after the eighth grade to join Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps, a public work relief program for the unemployed, to earn money for his family.

Just before turning 18 in 1941, he left the CCC and joined the United States Army. “I just wanted to go into the service. I had it in my head for a long time, ever since I was 14 or 15,” he said.

He requested duty in the Philippines and Panama, but was told in both cases the quotas were filled. Then Frazier asked, “‘What about Hawaii?’ They told me, ‘You’ll get it.’”

He arrived in Hawaii in March 1941 and was assigned to Schofield Barracks, which is located near Wheeler Field and about 15 miles from Pearl Harbor.

Days before the attack, Frazier was notified that he was to be shipped back to New Jersey on Dec. 13 to attend communications school. “So on Dec. 6, my friends took me downtown and gave me an aloha party,” he said.

Sunday morning, Dec. 7 dawned like any other on the island. The men got up and went to breakfast. On their way back, as they crossed the quadrangle, they heard a lot of racket.
“All this noise was going on and we couldn’t figure out what it was. The Navy was back in from maneuvers. We were off of maneuvers,” he said.

“We’re standing there out on the quadrangle and we see this plane circling and coming lower and lower. You could see the red spots. Someone said, ‘They’re Japanese.’ Somebody else said, ‘What are they doing over here? They’re supposed to be in China.’

“By that time they started strafing and we scattered,” he said. “It went on for about a minute or two. We went into the supply room to get rifles and anything we could to fight back. We were fighting them with everything we had – we had automatics, .45s and a couple of .22s. If I had a slingshot I would have fired it,” he said.

Frazier was directed by his captain to secure a weapons carrier from the motor pool and to load it up with ammunition.

He ran upstairs, put on his field uniform and headed to the motor pool with a .45 in his hand. “I get to the motor pool and they’re looking for a trip ticket. I told them I don’t need a trip ticket. I just grabbed the weapons carrier and came back.”

Back at the barracks, he joined a column of vehicles bound for pre-assigned field positions. A medic joined him in the front seat of the weapons carrier.

“Off we went,” he said. As the column crossed a bridge, he saw Japanese planes crisscross in front of him and knew he was in trouble.

“The next thing I knew the medic, he went forward, blood spurting out of his neck. He was killed,” said Frazier. “I hit the dash board and split my leg open. I don’t remember anything until I woke up in the hospital.”

He was told later that he had been wounded by gun fire and that the vehicle had struck the rail of the bridge, jamming the steering wheel into his stomach.

“We had no idea it was going to happen there,” said Frazier. “We knew we would be going off to war somewhere, but we never figured the war would come there. You just shook your head and said, how can a fleet just disappear?”

After a four to five-day hospital stay, he returned to the Schofield Barracks. He spoke to the chaplain and his captain, pleading with them to intervene and keep him on the island. “No one could help,” he said.

On Dec. 29, he was shipped back to California and was discharged out of the army due to his wounds. He hitchhiked back to Boston. But he was eager to get back to the war.

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*This is the first half of a two-part series on George Frazier. It continues next week.

Joyce Sherman

Served in North Africa during WWII as an Army Nurse.

By John Williams, BucksLocalNews.com


Joyce Abramson was headed home after serving two and a half years in the United States Army Nurse Corps in North Africa. She was about to receive her honorable discharge at Fort Dix, N.J.
Meanwhile, her pen pal during the war, Herbert Sherman, was a young Army Pfc. serving in the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. He had just gotten into a cab with his cousin and was wondering if she had safely returned to the States. It just so happened that a fellow cab rider knew Joyce, and soon the two would meet face-to-face.

Not too long after in September of 1946, Joyce and Herbert married.


“I told him that he had to take orders from me because I ranked higher than him,” Sherman, 89, laughed. She was a Lieutenant and Herbert was a private first class.


Born and raised in Philadelphia and Bryn Mawr, Sherman eventually attended nursing school at the former Jewish Hospital on Old York Road in Philadelphia (the hospital is now Albert Einstein Medical Center).


She attended the educational hospital for three years and graduated in 1942. She was one of 25 girls in her class. Twenty went on to serve in the Army and one in the Navy.


In June of 1943, she was sworn into the Army Nurse Corps at the age of 21. She subsequently reported to Aberdeen Proving Ground in Harford County, Maryland.


Then in September, she was ordered to report to Port of Charleston in South Carolina for embarkation. She boarded and sailed on the S.S. Delaires and arrived at the 67th Station Hospital on October 27, 1943 in Accra, Africa, which is now modern day Ghana.


Sherman reported to a former Pan American Airlines base taken over as part of the ATC (Air Transport Command).


“It was a very modern hospital, equipped with air conditioned rooms and good living quarters,” Sherman said. “We received many flights from the China-Burma theatre of operation.”


“I remember the first Christmas or New Years that I was in Accra we had a young private with meningitis,” said Sherman. “I was assigned to treat him. This is during a time when penicillin was very new, its full potential wasn’t realized fully and not everyone had it.” She said penicillin was brought from Cairo and stored in refrigerators in the pharmacy, which wasn’t located at the same site as the hospital.


“An orderly would go to the pharmacy and bring back one dose and I would have to inject it. This young man had almost passed away before I could give him the injection,” she said. “But he survived.” Not too long after, the Philadelphia Inquirer published a story on her heroic actions.


Malaria was a big problem at the time and one of the illnesses medical workers treated. It was required that everyone receive Malaria injections.


“Because of the mosquitoes, boots and long sleeves were a necessity and if we went to the movies every 15 to 20 minutes they would go up and down the aisles spraying mosquito repellent.”


“Any place that I was we couldn’t eat fresh fruit because of the dysentery,” she said. “When there would be a sandstorm we would have to take sheets, wet them and put them over the windows so sand wouldn’t get in.” She got dysentery once because she ate tainted strawberries.
Sherman also has a collection of occupation issues from Italy, Cairo and a handful of other Western European and African countries. Occupation issues are a type of currency, which are printed in time of war in order to sustain the national and local economy of a nation.


“During World War II, soldiers heading off to war would bring bank notes inscribed with their friends’ signatures on it,” said Sherman. “This was called short snorting.” It’s almost like a “keep sake” for the soldier.


She said Accra was a nice place to serve because it was close to the beach.


In September of 1944, Sherman transferred again. This time she advanced to the 93rd Station Hospital in French West Africa. While in Dakar, she went on leave to Casablanca to celebrate Hanukkah.


“The hospital was right in the medina quarters, a walled in area of the town,” she said. “We couldn’t go outside of the grounds walls because of the plague.” She was vaccinated while in Casablanca.


Sherman transferred to the 38th General Hospital in Cairo, Egypt in March of 1945. The Jefferson Hospital unit from Philadelphia provided treatment at the base.


“When I got to Cairo, the combat was already in Europe,” said Sherman.


“Cairo was very interesting,” she said. “I got to see the sphinx statues and the pyramids. I saw a lot of camels, but never got the chance to ride one. Every place I traveled to was nice in its own way because it was all new experiences.”


Sherman also visited Cyprus while on leave as well as Israel, twice.


She is a member of Jewish War Veterans Post 697 in Levittown. Her JWV group named her “Woman of the Year” in 2008. She was also awarded a World War II veteran medal, American Campaign medal and European-African-Middle East Campaign medal from the United States Army.


Sherman lives in Bensalem, where she has lived for the past 36 years.

Richard J. Beresford

Remembering schoolmates who perished in Vietnam.

By Petra Chesner Schlatter, BucksLocalNews.com

U.S. Navy PC2 Richard J. Beresford, 62, was a mailman during most of the 20 years he served in the military. When he came home to Newtown, he became a rural postal carrier for the U.S. Post Office.

But in between those times, his military career would take him to Illinois for basic training and to Vietnam.

Beresford prides himself on being involved in the community. He served as post commander for the Morrell Smith Post 440 of the American Legion in Newtown.

Today, he serves on the board of the Guardians of the National Cemetery. He is currently the service officer with Post 79 of the American Legion in New Hope.

For 22 years, Beresford led the Veterans Day Service at Council Rock High School North because he knew the young men from Council Rock who died in Vietnam. One is missing in action (MIA). He believes strongly in honoring them.

Their pictures are proudly displayed on Memorial Wall in the high school.

From the U. S. Army were Capt. William D. Booth, Lt. Daniel A. Hennessy, Sgt. Nelson C. Luther, C.W.O. Robert O. Hill Jr., W/O Robert L. Scott Jr., Spec.4 Harry C. Wilson, FCC David Lownes, Spec.3 Frank M. Mebs and W/O William H. McDonnell.

Two served in the U.S. Marines: Lt. William S. Geary and Lance Cpl. Marvin O. Wittman. One was with the U.S. Navy: Airman Douglas A. Post. Missing in Action is Capt. Walter H. Sigafoos of the U.S. Air Force.

Beresford graduated from Council Rock in 1966. He graduated from boot camp in Great Lakes, Ill. in June of 1967. Beresford would eventually be honorably discharged in 1985 as a 2nd class petty officer (PC2.)

His first assignment lasted for four years on the USS Sacramento. The type of ship was a fast combat support. Nicknamed “a one-stop shopping center,” it was three ships in one — ammunition, oiler and supply ship.

In 1971, he transferred to Yokohama, Japan outside of Tokyo Bay where the fleet mail center was based. The center provided all the mail on the ships in the western Pacific.

In 1974, he was transferred to the sister ship, the USS Camden (AOE2). He was transferred to the naval weapons station in Coltsneck, N.J. where he ran the post office.

From there, Beresford was transferred to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The island was owned by the British.

“It was called isolated duty, which is a special assignment,” he said.

While in Diego Garcia, he worked in the post office. The island was used as a staging area for what was to come in the Iraqi War.

Beresford was then transferred to the naval station at San Diego to the USS Jouett (CG29), which was a guided missile cruiser.

He was discharged honorably in 1985 at age 38.

Beresford talked about the Vietnam War. He was involved in shore support for the battle groups. “We provided all the bombs that were needed to go into Vietnam,” he said. “The main objective of the USS Sacramento and the USS Camden was to supply the aircraft battle groups that were off of Vietnam.

“We provided everything from a paper clip to a 5,000-pound bomb,” Beresford said. “We were a floating time bomb. If anyone was to come after us, we knew there was someone nearby to protect us.”

He was on the Sacramento from 1967 to 1971.

“The Tet Offensive in 1968 was the major attack that went on in Vietnam,” he said. “We were one of the support ships for that. We would also patrol the demilitarized zone [DMZ] and would provide the ammo for the ships that where in the area.

“They would come by us, rearm and re-fire on a specific location,” he said. “We would be out there cruising the area.”

Beresford said the rapid gunfire was so bad that it burnt the paint right off of the gun barrel. Then, they would get the empty brass from the shell that the powder was in and bring it back to the Philippines. “As much brass as possible was sent back to the U.S. to be redone and to be reused again,” he said.

In 1968, there was another big operation. The Sacramento had just come out of the Philippines for a port visit. They rearmed themselves.

“We were fully loaded,” Beresford said. “The USS Pueblo was being captured by North Korea. We were sent to head to North Korea as fast as possible in the middle of the night to be prepared to rescue the Pueblo from the North Koreans.

“We had four aircraft carrier battle groups consisting of four carriers, 22 destroyers and three guided missile cruisers around us,” he noted.

The Pueblo was captured by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Jan. 23, 1968, and is still in the hands of the DPRK. The capture occurred less than a week after President Lyndon B. Johnson’s State of the Union Address and only weeks before the Tet Offensive, it was a major incident in the Cold War.