U.S. ARMY

Larry Poulin

Larry Poulin was a 16-year-old high school senior in Skowhegan when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

“The entire student body was gathered in the gym to hear President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s radio speech telling us that the Japanese Naval Air Force had made a surprise attack,” he recalled.

A teacher told the class that their first job was to finish school. So, he did. But right after graduation, Poulin took the train to Portland to see the Navy recruiter.

“I was a scrawny little thing. Five feet short and about 105 pounds. … I was too small and had a visual problem in my left eye, so I was not accepted,” he recalled.

The recruiter suggested he try again when he was 18 because “perhaps by then I’d be a little taller and heavier.”

He took a job in a shoe factory and joined the Maine State Guard in Skowhegan along with others his age who weren’t eligible for active duty. After a year, in June 1943, he received the notice to report for a physical.

“I was worried about my weight, so I ate 3 pounds of bananas on the bus ride to Brewer.”

To his great delight, he passed the physical and was assigned to the Army. Next stop: Fort Devens. Then, after a few days, a train ride to Camp Ellis in Illinois where he discovered, rather to his horror, that he had been assigned to the quartermaster laundry company.

“I was upset and embarrassed,” Poulin said. “I thought I’d be in an infantry unit.”

But he was determined to be a dutiful soldier, glory or no. He marched, drilled, peeled potatoes and helped the cooks. Later, with 5,000 other men, he embarked aboard a troop ship for Pearl Harbor where he continued in the inglorious work of the quartermaster corps.

This time out, he became an officer’s orderly and runner.

“The orderly job turned out to be more of a valet job,” he recalled. But it was not without perks. It was a short workday and he rarely had weekend duty. And he had access to the PX, where he could buy beer by the case.

Poulin and other members of his unit shipped out for Guam where he continued his laundry tasks, but also patrolled and stood guard. The Pacific island became a major base for the attack on Japan proper. The workload increased and so did the hours.

Poulin and his comrades in arms were “elated” when they received news of the bomb being dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945. The war was over and they’d be going home … eventually.

He remained on Guam until December — four months after war’s end. But was it really over?

“A Marine patrol was out with loudspeakers calling out that the war was over and that the emperor was asking all his forces to lay down their weapons and come home. Japanese snipers killed four Marines from that patrol.”

The next day, Marines went into that area and killed six Japanese and talked 30 into surrendering.

Poulin served 30 months and 27 days. He was overseas more than two years. He spent the Christmas of 1943 on Oahu, ’44 on Guam and ’45 on Saipan.

Once home, he utilized the GI Bill to earn a bachelor’s and then a master’s degree from the University of Maine at Farmington and Orono. He worked as a teacher, principal and coach and was a probation-parole officer for Hancock and Washington counties.

He and his bride of 56 years, the former Grace Downey, now live in Ellsworth. They raised nine children and have 23 grandchildren.

“I am proud that I had the opportunity to serve our country,” Poulin said. “I don’t feel that I did much in the war, but I did all that was asked of me as I pledged I would. I was a good soldier.”

— Stephen Fay