Remembering His War

By Colin Ryan

It was early 1943, just one month after his fateful 18th birthday, just one month
after registering at the Draft Board in Hyde Park, Johnson High School student Stanley
Henry received his notice to report for induction in the Draft. For Henry, as well as his
friends Merle Lanpher and “Bud” Duba, the chance to enter the fray of World War II
couldn’t have come soon enough.
“All we had to do was ask for a deferment until we graduated, and we’d get it,”
Stanley explains. “But we knew darn well we didn’t want to do that. We were young
guys, and we were anxious to get mixed up in it, anxious to get a piece of the action.”
Henry shipped off to Texas, to Fort Devens, and then Camp Bowie, where he
trained with the 647th Tank Destroyer Battalion. He was promised 13 weeks of training,
but received just six. He soon found himself a driver of a newly-created floating tank
designed to ferry platoons of infantry ashore in island invasions, as part of the 726th
Amphibious Tractor Battalion.
“We called them Amtracs,” Henry recalls with a laugh.
In September of 1944, Henry’s unit was part of the first invasion of Angaur, one
of the Palau Islands in the South Pacific. It would prove to be one of the most difficult
island takeovers of the war, though it never received the press of Iwo Jima. Stanley still
recalls that day, the day he shuttled wave after wave of infantry as part of a full-scale
attack.
“As the driver, I was wedged up in the nose of the LST (Landing Ship Tank),
close to the wheel track. It was noisy up there, and my god it was hot. I thought my left
foot was going to burn up. The thing was tough to steer, and I could see only through a
periscope, which was foggy most of the time. Even when it was clear, you still couldn’t
see much. All I can say is, if you weren’t scared, it was because you didn’t fully
understand the situation. And let me tell you… I was scared as hell.”
Now 82 years old, and a retired post office rural mail carrier, Stanley still recalls
the war he experienced as little more than a boy. From his home in Colchester, Stanley
surveys the landscape of a country troubled differently by its current war then it was by
his.
“At this point in time, it’s kind of hard to believe how everybody pulled together.
At that time, patriotism was at its absolute zenith. If you study your history, we have
never had a popular war, with the possible exception of World War II.”
Even now, Stanley remembers well the difficult necessity of war, and the pain it
can cause.
“I don’t like war. It does terrible things to people. When every decision is a split
second one, it’s hard to make the right one all of the time. When you’re on the front lines
getting shot at, where it’s your life or his, you simply have to respond.”
Jeanne, Stanley’s wife of 51 years, passed away ten years ago. He has a daughter,
Lorinda, and two sons, Leslie and Michael. Leslie served in Vietnam, and Michael, a
chief master sergeant in the Vermont Air Guard, served once in Qatar and once in Iraq.
His sons’ experiences, as well as his own, have shown him how the reception of soldiers
has changed since he was one.
 “Those soldiers fighting for us… they’re really heroes. They’re in a terrible
situation, because no one knows what’s going to happen over there in the long haul. As
far as I’m concerned, anybody who puts their life on the line for their country deserves all
of our respect.”