RSSReunion and remembrance
60 years later, Marine veteran recalls how Chicago welcomed themYakima Herald-Republic
Beth Carvo in 1945
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It took Kenneth Carvo nearly 60 years to return to Navy Pier in Chicago, where he learned to repair planes before serving overseas in World War II.
Carvo was just one of eight cousins from the Yakima Valley -- all with the same surname -- who volunteered to serve in the war. He left school at age 17 to join the Marines, after coaxing his parents into giving him permission.
"Well, the war broke out and I got kind of gung-ho," he recalled. "Everybody wanted to join. They didn't stop to think -- they just wanted to join."
But when a military reunion lured the 83-year-old combat veteran to the pier two years ago, he found a much different place. The gunnery and mechanic school was gone, as was the large dorm where servicemen slept in rows of bunks stacked three high.
In their place now is a shopping mall.
Despite the changes, Carvo said he'll never forget the months he spent there before being deployed to the Philippines, where as part of Marine Scout Bombing Squad 142 he repaired fighter planes used for pinpoint bombings against the Japanese military.
He said Chicago embraced the presence of military men, and residents would often pick up the bill for servicemen at restaurants.
"You go up to pay for (the meal) and it was already paid for," he recalled. "Someone would pay for it and you wouldn't know who it was. That's how nice everyone was."
He said the military school was full of servicemen mostly from Texas and New York, which provided an interesting mix.
"Every day they were just fighting that Civil War," he recalled. "Yankees did this. Southerners did that. Then they became the best of friends there ever was."
Carvo spent nearly all of his overseas time in the Philippines, where he worked repairing war-torn fighter planes and bombers, and away from his cousins.
His job was to maintain planes used to dive from about 10,000 feet to drop a bomb before pulling out, he said.
"Just about any maintenance on a plane," he recalled. "Some of them would come in pretty bad shape."
Carvo recalled one incident in which a Japanese fighter plane followed U.S. planes onto an airstrip he was working at and began shooting before taking off again. Only one landed plane was struck, and no one was killed, he said.
Carvo said that by the time he made it overseas, most of the heavy fighting was done.
He said the most action he'd seen came when his unit was sent to deliver hot food to soldiers in the field on the island of Mindanao. Although U.S. soldiers had taken the island's airstrip, there were plenty of Japanese soldiers to contend with, he said.
"That was the worst thing I went into," he recalled without elaborating.
It wasn't until nearly 50 years after the war that his unit began holding reunions. Of the 300 or so in his unit, only 38 showed.
"A lot of them died, or it was hard to find them," he said. "Of course, there's always some who wouldn't come."
Either way, the reunions provided him a place to reconnect with his fellow servicemen.
"So many things you get out of your mind automatically, you know," he said. "It kind of brought it back. A lot of things you wanted to remember and lot of things you didn't want to remember."
Carvo's wife of 62 years, Beth, said it was interesting watching her husband connect with his old war buddies at the first reunion nearly a decade ago.
"Repressed memories were brought forward," she said.
With only a handful of servicemen left from his unit, Carvo said last year was their final reunion.
"We're just losing them too fast," he said. "We're losing two, three a year, it seems like."
All eight of the Carvo cousins who served made it home from the war safely. In addition to Kenneth, there were two sets of brothers -- George and Lloyd, Emery and Gerald -- plus three other cousins, Roy, Woody and Vern.
Vern lives in Seattle; Kenneth lives in Yakima. The other six Carvo cousins have died.
* Phil Ferolito can be reached at 577-7749 or pferolito@yakimaherald.com.
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