WWII vet grand marshal of inaugural Veterans Day Parade

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World War II veteran Jim Carpenter will be the grand marshal of Saturday's Veterans Day Parade in Maricopa. Photos by Raquel Hendrickson

As Maricopa’s first Veterans Day Parade was shaping up, the local Veterans of Foreign Wars had no debate over who should be the grand marshal.

“We said, ‘We should pay tribute to our World War II vet, the greatest generation,’ and everybody agreed,” said past Post Commander Mike Kemery.

That veteran is 91-year-old Jim Carpenter, who served in the U.S. Navy aboard an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. Independent and sharp-minded, Carpenter has been a snowbird visitor to Maricopa for 30 years, only recently settling permanently in Province.

In the 70-plus years between the end of WWII and his move to Maricopa, Carpenter was a professional Boy Scout leader for 19 years and then for 20 years worked in municipal government in zoning and building inspection in Illinois. He retired in 1992 and moved back to his home state of Minnesota. He was mayor of Osakis, Minnesota, where he was post commander at the VFW, president of the Lions Club and president of Kiwanis.

Carpenter graduated from high school in 1943 in the thick of the war. “It wasn’t a case of if you were going in but when,” he said.

Carpenter chose to sign up for the Navy. At the time, he was only 5 feet tall and 110 pounds, but, he said, regulations during wartime were not strictly adhered to. His size caused him physical struggles during training.

“So, it was pushing, with a lot of help from my buddies, pushing me through a lot of those more difficult things,” Carpenter said.

He was assigned to the original USS Bataan, a light aircraft carrier that was the first warship built during the war, used during the war and named after a World War II battle. Carpenter went aboard in Philadelphia in March 1944, and Bataan set off for the Pacific via the Panama Canal.

Carpenter was in the boiler room in the engineering department. He had been through a radio school, where he found out he had a damaged ear drum, which sank any hopes of radio duty, but he also learned to type. That fact came to the attention of officers on Bataan, and Carpenter was transferred to the log room to serve the rest of his time keeping records. By the time his service ended, he was 5-foot-8.

Bataan was in Task Force 58 supporting operations in New Guinea by launching Hellcat fighter planes and torpedo bombers. Because Carpenter was usually three decks down, any attack or other excitement was only relayed down over the phone.

One of the lieutenants, whom the crew nicknamed Kaltenborn after the radio commentator, announced one day the sighting of a Japanese plane: “OK, here we are, we see the plane now. It’s pulling into a dive. Here he comes.”

“About that time, you’d hear the guns opening fire, and this guy was diving right straight at you. We had a combat gear on for protection against fire and so on, and he announced, ‘Here he comes! Here he comes!’ and there was silence. And then he said, ‘He’s in the water. He missed.’”

In two years, Bataan lost about a dozen men on ship, most from dangerous landings and other accidents. The enemy always seemed to miss. That was not the case with their neighbors in the task group. Carpenter recalled U.S. ships cruising next to the Bataan firing at a Japanese plane as it dove at the carrier.

“Well, they didn’t stop firing quick enough, and we got hit broadside with four 5-inch American shells,” he said.

It hit the carrier’s anti-torpedo “blister,” which shattered and killed four servicemen on their gun mounts.

From July 1, 1945, to the end of the war in September, Bataan was daily in the high-alert Condition 1, launching aircraft at 1 a.m. and crew staying alert the rest of the day and only getting sleep sporadically.

“Kind of a hectic situation, but it’s certainly no worse than what so many men in the Marines and the Army and everybody else went through,” Carpenter said. “We’re talking about a bed maybe once in a while, and they’re saying a foxhole. We had the greatest respect for those guys.”

At war’s end, Carpenter went to college for a couple of years, but wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. After some odd jobs, he re-enlisted and taught naval regulations to reservists.

In 1954, he became a district executive with the Boy Scouts of America. He met a girl named Cleo in February 1955 and married her in June. In 1956, they had a son named Dana.

Jim and Cleo have been married 62 years. They also had two daughters and an adopted son. Dana died from an aneurism in 1973, a loss Carpenter called “pretty devastating.” About four months later, the adoption was finalized for their second son.

“So, the Lord closed one door and opened another,” he said.

Carpenter has been very active in the Methodist Church, serving as lay speaker and leader and even substitute pastor. He credits Cleo with holding the family together while he was frequently away and bringing home a humble salary.

“My wife has been the stalwart of the whole family,” he said. “She worked part time, she literally raised our family. She did just a fantastic job.”

Carpenter has always enjoyed good health. When his high school class held its 72nd reunion two years ago, he was one of only about six people remaining. He said he’s never “done drugs,” has smoked an occasional cigar and had a mixed drink once in a while. He mainly chalks up his longevity to having a positive attitude.

He was surprised to learn he had been named grand marshal of the Veterans Day Parade in Maricopa but accepted it with pleasure.

In the 30 years he and Cleo have been wintering in Maricopa, they have enjoyed watching the changing face of the city. “It used to be Headquarters, a grocery store, a barbershop and NAPA and some other places,” he said. “Every year, it makes a little bit more progress.”


This story appears in the November issue of InMaricopa.