News About the Boys in the U.S. Army and Navy
Nisqually Valley News August 31, 1944
M. M. Lester Isom, of the U.S. Naval Ship Repair, is home for a few days leave before reporting to his new station.
Hal Wolf, son of Mr. and Mr. H. E. Wolf, who recently completed his boot camp training at Farragut, Idaho, has been transferred to a new station in Florida where he will attend gun pointers school.
Capt. Jack Gruber, son of Mr. and Mr. Martin Gruber, who has been piloting one of those big Flying Forts over Germany for the past six months and who recently arrived home after completing 30 missions over Germany, was visiting friends in Yelm Thursday of this week. Capt. Gruber is now ferrying planes while he rests up after his strenuous battles over the continent.
Private Laura Hahn, formerly a teacher in the Yelm grade schools, is a member of the Women’s Army Corps unit which recently left the first WAC training Center, at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, for duty with the Army t the Army Air Base Tactical Center, Orlando, Florida. WAC units now are at work with the Army on more than 268 posts in all 48 states, the District of Columbia, and in Africa, England, Italy, India, New Caledonia and Hawaii. The expanded WAC training program is resulting in a rapid increase of supplemental troops. The WAC members are taking over more and more Army jobs. Hundreds of trained WACs go out each week from WAC training centers and specialist schools to take their places with the Army. WAC companies on duty with the Army are self-sufficient. In addition to women trained in Army jobs, WA companies also include mess and company personnel. Jobs with the Army in which the WACs now supplement soldiers, number in the hundreds, ranging alphabetically from accounting to weather observing.
Cpl. Bill Weisdepp, who has been stationed in Texas, is expected home on furlough the first part of next week. Bill is the son of Mr. and Mrs. W. L. Weisdepp, now of Olympia but formerly of Yelm. He is a graduate of the Yelm High School with the class of 1941.
Bernard Bearss, 17, son of Mr. and Mrs. Maynard Bearss, left on Tuesday for Florida, where he will start training in the Naval Air Corps.
Mr. and Mrs. Edw. J. Brown have received word that their son S2c Jim Brown was shipped overseas last Thursday, from Shoemaker, Cal.
Lt. Bill Trotter, son of Mrs. Emile Trotter, of the Army Air Corps, made a pleasant surprise visit home on Wednesday evening. This visit was totally unexpected. Bill recently returned from a trip to the South Pacific. He is now stationed t Gore Field, Great Falls, Montana.
Quartermaster 2c Ernest Johnston who has been on a transport in the South Pacific for the past nine months is spending leave at the home of his parent, Mr. and Mr. Paul Johnston.
Capt. and Mrs. John Hayes arrived in Yelm on Thursday to spend a furlough at the home of her parent, Mr. and Mrs. John Grinde. Mrs. Hayes is the former Mrs. Phyllis Grinde.
Houston McGlothlen, of the Merchant Marine, spent one night this week at the home of his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Oscar McGlothlen.
Aviation Ordinance Man 3c Wesley Stancil, and a friend, from the Naval Air Station at Whidby Island, spent last week end at the home of his parents, Mr. and Mrs. A. A. Stancil.