By Mary O’KEEFE

In recognition of Veterans Day, CVW visited with WWII veteran Baker “Joe” Shelton. Full disclosure: Shelton is my father-in-law. He is 97-years-old and will turn 98 next month. He can trace his family history to the Revolutionary War as a descendent of Patrick Henry.

Shelton was born in Buffalo Lithia Springs, a resort in Virginia that was owned by his great-great-grandfather. The waters at Lithia were known for their healthful attributes and at one point prior to the Civil War the water had been shipped to Paris and London.

When he was young, Shelton’s family moved to North Carolina where his father was a grocer. He remembers happy times of singing hymns around the piano, as well as difficult times faced after the Depression. His father lost his business and at about 10 years old Shelton had a job selling magazines, which made enough money to help his family put food on the table.

A bit of an adventurer, Shelton decided to hitchhike to Florida when he was 14 years old. He said he left with a penny and the clothes on his back. Along the way he met a lot of nice people including “roadhouse” waitresses, farmers and others who, like him, rode the rails that eventually got him to Coral Gables, Florida. Once there, he turned around to come back home. He thought he would get in trouble when he arrived back home but his three sisters intervened and saved him from any harsh punishment.

Then came WWII. The draft was on and, like Don Norbut from last week’s article, he did not want to be taken and told what branch of the military he would be serving. His mother wanted him to join the Coast Guard because his chances of staying close to home would be better. He went to Raleigh, North Carolina to enlist in the Coast Guard, obeying his mother’s wishes, but he was told he had astigmatism and was told to go home, get glasses and come back, which he did.
“But when I returned to Raleigh, the line for enlisting was so long that I went over to the Navy recruiter and they took me without glasses, so I signed up,” Shelton said.

In 1942, Shelton was 20 years old and had joined the U.S. Navy. That was 11 months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and soon after the U.S. joined the war.

“This was a surprise to all; WWI was supposed to the ‘war to end all wars,’” he recalled.

In November 1942 he was assigned to the Hospital Corps as a Navy corpsman.
“I believe at my request I was shipped to Great Lakes, Illinois boot camp,” he said.
There he said he learned “how to march, how to salute and how to respect officers.” He moved on to the rank of seaman. After basic training, he went to basic hospital training and graduated with the rank of hospital corpsman 3rd class. His rank was soon raised to hospital corpsman 2nd class.

He spent time in military hospitals stateside serving in a variety of wards. He then began his training for a base hospital on Manus Island in the South Pacific. During this time he trained as a pharmacist mate 3rd class.

In 1944 he went overseas to Manus lsland where he served for 19 months.
“During this time I did everything,” he said.

At one point he was charged with the care of a Japanese prisoner of war who had survived a plane crash and had lived in the jungle on the island for several months. There were patients with tuberculosis and pneumonia in addition to those wounded in war. Shelton said a lot of his patients were U.S. Marines who had cuts from the sharp coral reefs.

Later he served as senior corpsman in the Officers Ward. There he saw a lot of tragedy and made friends with those military men for whom he cared. The island life suited him well and during R&R (rest and relaxation) he swam the warm waters and hunted for seashells. Many of these he brought back to the states and over the years used them to create jewelry for his family and friends.

He achieved the rank of pharmacist mate 2nd class before the war ended and he was discharged in Shelton, Virginia in 1945.

“After three years, one month and 12 days,” he said of when he was discharged and the amount of time he served.

He soon moved to California and attended San Mateo Junior College where he took pre-med before transferring to UC Berkeley. He worked part time at a local JC Penney and it was there he met the love of his life, Martha “Dollie” Davis. They were married in1947.

After getting married and preparing to start their family Shelton left college to get full time work. His first child was born in 1950, a son, followed by two more sons. The family moved from Northern California to Redondo Beach where both Shelton and his wife worked at JC Penney. They later moved to Tempe, Arizona where they both continued to work until retiring from JC Penney.

Shelton recently told his granddaughter Molly that he had lived through a lot, from a smallpox outbreak where families were forced into isolation to WWII, but nothing has been as bad as COVID-19. Shelton got sick in February with what doctors first said was pneumonia. They then changed the diagnosis; the family now thinks it was COVID-19. Shelton was on a ventilator and doctors said his time was up. The ventilator was removed but then doctors said they thought he was doing better. They then put him on oxygen but it wasn’t long before Shelton removed the mask and said he was doing better. He was transferred to a nursing home where he was in isolation, only seeing family members through a window due to COVID-19.

It has been a lonely few months but Shelton has found ways to cope. He has his iPad and video chats with his kids, grandkids and great-grandkids. He is writing his memoirs and continues to play his harmonica, which he started playing so long ago on Manus Island.