Panama anyone?

dadsgirl

dadsgirl

Active member
Anyone want to message me about said title? Or post about it? Between 1945-47... Learned a little about it myself, from my dying Dad. His oldest friend is/was Army, does not know about it. Only my boyfriend and myself. He trusted us...implicitly.
 
In hospice Dad wasn't hallucinating..

He was reaching waaay back into his memory banks...his friend of 75+ years grew silent when I said just one thing to him. Talkin' softly to my Pop about our German Shepherd Dog, about how I wished we could've brought him in there for a visit. Dad looked directly at me and said, "yeah, and the metal 'bracelets' they wear". He smiled, I did too and agreed with him.And gave a great big smile right back.
" I was with the Marines down in Panama. The bombs were going off all around us..thank God we didn't get hurt. We weren't supposed to be there. I had to make up a cover story."
I posted two photos of him. Circa that time period. I am strongly assuming the sideways palm tree one is Panama. I could always be wrong.
He did study Malaria in San Diego and DC I think, so it would have came in handy. How did a mild mannered Phm3c get to Cpl? Knew German really well too. Very smart, very.
Went through his papers. All the way to the last page which said MI.
 
Um, what are we supposed to get out of this story?..That your dad was some super special ops Marine in Panama?

I don't understand what's so important about this...If you've got questions then ask them. If you want to talk about your dads service, then talk. If you want to have us play 20 questions "bingo" then perhaps you should look elsewhere...
 
Not Really

I'm not playing anything. Just telling you like it is. You don't have to be that gritty. BTW my father was in the Navy. Everyone has their own journey bro, ya don't have to to put anyone down on the way.
 
So what fighting was going on in Panama at the time then? What specifically was he doing in Panama? Perhaps he was a corpsman assigned to a Marine embassy unit or a unit guarding the canal. I'm not aware of any major fighting occurring in that area during the time you say your dad was there.

Also, I'm not putting anyone down and I was just curious as to what the point of all this was? Also times two... I'm not your bro.
 
The point is that there is no point. I was sharing,hoping someone would know anything about it. That's all, Brinktk.
dadsgirl
 
brinktk said:
So what fighting was going on in Panama at the time then? What specifically was he doing in Panama? Perhaps he was a corpsman assigned to a Marine embassy unit or a unit guarding the canal. I'm not aware of any major fighting occurring in that area during the time you say your dad was there.

Also, I'm not putting anyone down and I was just curious as to what the point of all this was? Also times two... I'm not your bro.
Click to expand...

I don't think there was any fighting going on, my suspicion would be that she is describing the San Jose Project which began in early 1944 and involved the testing of chemical munitions on San Jose Island off Panama by the looks of it about 600ish military personnel were involved and based on the island along with a sizable medical contingent for analysing the effects of the munitions.

I do not think it is unreasonable to suggest he may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time and needed to make up a cover story.

B. The San Jose Project
Brigadier General Egbert F. Bullene, who had been tapped to run the San Jose Project, paid a personal visit to the island in November 1943, and reaffirmed it as a site. But in a twist on environmental values, the Army’s General Staff delayed approval of San Jose Island as a site for chemical experiments until they were assured that they would not harm rare flora or fauna. The National Museum testified that no rare wildlife existed on San Jose, after which the General Staff gave its go-ahead.8
The military acted quickly. On December 20, 1943, the U.S. Consul proposed to conduct “certain chemical warfare tests under existing jungle conditions” for 60-day renewable periods on San Jose Island. The agreement had to be made with both the government of Panama and the island’s private owners, a Panama City firm called Huertematte & Co. A rental fee of $15,000 a year was agreed. The United States also sought Panama’s consent to build trails and wharves, and to incorporate the agreement into the 1942 base agreement signed the year before.
The project formally began on January 6, 1944, two days after Panama gave permission to the United States to conduct “chemical warfare tests” on the island.9 Within days hundreds of Army engineers arrived on the island to clear roads and an airstrip and build the many buildings for operations and housing the project would use. More than 400 enlisted men were stationed on the island by mid-1945, as well as nearly 200 officers and civilians (from the United States, Panama and other countries).
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[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEZDZl57N-8"]WW2: The San Jose Project (1945) - YouTube[/ame]
 
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Thanks MontyB! Never thought of looking on YouTube..makes sense. I'm looking at time frames and age. He was born in 1927. First paper said 1945, last said 1953.
Last Memorial Day, I said thank you for serving. He had once told me ( when I was a small child) that he he was a medic in Korea. You read correctly. He said said no dear, I served in World War ll. Made sense, I knew it anyway, he sang songs in my childhood from that era., as I've said before spoke German. Besides, he was 86 then. When he came back from wherever he was he poured himself into his career & family. More questions please ask. I will try answer them to best of my abilities.
Thank again,
Dadsgirl
 
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dadsgirl said:
Thanks MontyB! Never thought of looking on YouTube..makes sense. I'm looking at time frames and age. He was born in 1927. First paper said 1945, last said 1953.
Last Memorial Day, I said thank you for serving. He had once told me ( when I was a small child) that he he was a medic in Korea. You read correctly. He said said no dear, I served in World War ll. Made sense, I knew it anyway, he sang songs in my childhood from that era., as I've said before spoke German. Besides, he was 86 then. When he came back from wherever he was he poured himself into his career & family. More questions please ask. I will try answer them to best of my abilities.
Thank again,
Dadsgirl
Click to expand...

A lot of declassified material is turning up on Youtube these days, another place to look is scribd for declassified documents.

Oddly enough my father served in both WW2 and Korea as he enlisted under age and only reached the Front line in mid-1943 as such he was sent to Japan at the end of the war as part of J-Force and then went to Korea.

The odd thing is that it wasn't until late in his life that he started to talk about his experiences during WW2 but he never spoke about Korea.

He look a lot of photos during his service but of the hundreds he took in Italy and Japan he only had about 3 from Korea as such I am not sure what to make of that part of his life so I understand how hard it is to make sense of these things.
 
Morning! I used to wear my Dad's p.j.s, therefore looking through his chest of drawers was a given. So naturally I saw the small book of photographs. THE photos. The two that I posted are the only ones I have. I'm assuming my brother has the rest. I do not know if I will see the rest. But, I do have his Navy wallet.
Have about a dozen or so original service papers. Not all are there. Even have the original envelope. Started out as USNR ...active- to the Navy... active-...to the USAR MI, active....early 50's. Of course questions abound for me. The only service years I have for him are 1945-47, then nothing until the early 50's.????
p.s. still like wearing dad's old clothes
 
My only thought about Panama was we should have kept the canal even if it was obsolete , after all we created Panama out of a piece of Colombia and we built the Canal at tremendous expense .
 
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