U.S. ARMY Myles Fenton   Ask Myles Fenton of Sorrento about his experiences during World War II, and he cuts right to the chase.  “I’m no hero,” he says. “I never did anything important and I never fired on the enemy.” That being said, he nearly drowned during jungle warfare training while stationed in Hawaii with the U.S. Army’s first M.A.S.H. (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) unit. “See that fella there?” he asks, pointing to a faded face in a photograph. “He’s the one who saved my life during that training.” Now 87 and living with his aging dog, Sophie, Fenton was trained as a medic and field hospital surgical technician after initially being told by his draft board his vision was too iffy for military service. He was drafted in April of 1943 and discharged in February of 1946. Fenton chuckles when asked if his M.A.S.H. unit was anything like the madcap M*A*S*H 4077th unit portrayed on TV over 11 years, 251 episodes and countless reruns starring Alan Alda as a Korean War field surgeon from Crabapple Cove, Maine. “My wife and I used to watch that now and then,” he says with a smile. “In my unit, we certainly never had any officers like those officers.” Curiously, a period photo shows no small resemblance between a young Fenton and  M*A*S*H 4077’s company clerk, Walter “Radar” O’Reilly, portrayed on TV by actor Gary Burghoff. Although trained in a Denver hospital to assist with front-lines “meatball” surgery, Fenton never did. His only experience with surgery under canvas  involved an emergency appendectomy on a fellow soldier during training. He did work in the recovery room of a Fort Ord military hospital in California, treating training casualties and battlefield wounds of soldiers flown in from both theaters of the war to receive medical care closer to their homes. “I also treated a couple of Japanese POWs,” he said. “Because I couldn’t speak their language, I guess, they were scared to death of me.” Much of Fenton’s military career was the epitome of the adage: “They also serve who stand and wait.” Fenton spent months waiting in Hawaii to be shipped across the Pacific to provide surgical support for the 5th Marine Division’s involvement in an anticipated, full-blown U.S. invasion of Japan. “When we arrived in Hawaii, they took away our Red Cross armbands and helmets and issued us carbines, bayonets, seven clips of ammunition and a boot knife,” he said. “Medics weren’t supposed to be armed, but the Marines had a different idea over there, and you did what they asked of you. “They even issued me a mattress cover, but told me ‘Don’t use it,’ because it could be needed as my shroud.” An all-out assault on the Japanese mainland was expected to result in 80 percent casualties for U.S. forces, Fenton said. That potential nightmare was avoided by President Harry S Truman’s decision to target Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and, three days later, Nagasaki with atomic bombs. The bombs killed  250,000 people and induced Japan’s surrender. “When they dropped those bombs, that saved my neck,” Fenton said. “We were outside Honolulu in a staging area, our equipment on the docks, ready to go. They announced over the loud speaker that the first bomb had been dropped. Everybody just held their breath for a couple of days. When they dropped the second one, all hell broke loose in terms of celebrating.” Fenton was discharged within six months, returning to Sorrento. “There was a program called ‘52/20,’ where they would give you $20 a week for 52 weeks,” he recalls. “I was going to go home and take it easy, but within a few weeks, I was working as a carpenter again, helping my brother, father and another man build a house.” Fenton retired in 1992 after many years as a finish carpenter for Ellsworth-based contractor E.L. Shea Inc. “You can go into just about any Union Trust Bank building and see my work,” he says with pride. Fenton finds the ongoing war effort in Iraq perplexing. “It’s a hell of a mess, but we’ve got to support [U.S. troops] while they’re there,” he said. “They need it.”   — Tom Walsh