gunnyg
10-27-02, 11:04 AM
http://hometown.aol.com/faasili/post.htm
The Marine Who Went Back
By Harold H. Martin
Photography By Gus Pasquarella
There were 14,000 marines and sailors on American Samoa in the early days of the war. When they sailed out of Pago Pago Bay to Guadalcanal and Tarawa, they left behind them, what Navy Civil Government now estimates at 700 to 1000 little amber-eyed, haft-white youngsters. They left behind also,Presumably, an equal number of promises to return. This is the story of one who kept his promise.)
ALL his life Karl Paul Lippe had been a lonely man. When he was a little fellow on a farm near Leipzig in Germany, his father and mother had separated and he had been sent to stay with his Uncle Otto who lived in Berlin. That was in the years just after he first World War, when all Germany was hungry and there was no happiness anywhere. When he eleven years old, Karl's father came for him. He had a new wife and a big dream of great wealth . He was going to Brazil. In Brazil there was plenty of land for German -colonists-rich land, where a man might, by hard work, become a great planter and a wealthy man.
Is was not so for Karl Lippe's father. The land to which they finally laid claim lay five day's journey into the jungle. It took, Karl remembers, two teams to pull the trunks which they carried with them, so thick and tangled was the trail, They lived for a year on beans and corn meal and wild game. Karl's new mother did not like Brazil, or the lean fare, or the hard labor, which never seemed to be enough to keep the jungle back from the land they had cleared..
So Karl's father moved again. They went down to Rio ,where they earned a little money growing flowers and working at a hotel. They left that soon, and went to Sao Paulo, to work on the coffee plantations, where Karl, thin and wiry, but strong, worked beside his father.. In a year and a half they had enough money saved for their ship passage. They moved again this time to another land of promise - the United States.
They settled on a farm near the town of Lehigh. Iowa, in a Community where many other German people lived. They worked in the fields and they raised good corn. But Karl was growing into manhood now, and there was a restlessness in him, a hunger and discontent. The year he was twenty-one he went to his father and told him he wanted to break away from the family and go it on his own. So he rented thirty-five acres of land and he set up for him self. He didn't bother about girls then, for he was working to hard. He lived alone and cooked his own meals , and all day he worked in the fields. He worked this way for five years, through good crop years and bad. Then , in 1938 , when he had his finest corn crop ready to harvest , the river rose , and in the space of a night all his years labor was gone.
In Des Moines , on his rare visits there he had seen the marine recruiting posters , with their bright promises of travel . On some of them were pictures of palm tree's , and the surf curling on white beaches. He gave up his farm and joined the marines.
He didn't prove to be much of a drill-field marine. He had lived so long among German people, speaking the German Tongue, that the voice of the drill instructor fell incomprehensibly on his ear.
The 'Hup, Toop, threep,fahr of the chanted cadence didn't change his plow boy stride to a marching tempo, and the bawled commands, "By yall ri' flang, haw! By yah lef' flang, haw! T"rip, haw! T'rip, haw!" might have meant to others of keener ear that they should march by the right flank, by the left flank and to the rear, but not to him.
So he suffered hugely as a boot marine, and the overseas duty didn't turn out so well either. For two years there was none of it at all. He saw, ins
http://hometown.aol.com/faasili/post.htm
The Marine Who Went Back
By Harold H. Martin
Photography By Gus Pasquarella
There were 14,000 marines and sailors on American Samoa in the early days of the war. When they sailed out of Pago Pago Bay to Guadalcanal and Tarawa, they left behind them, what Navy Civil Government now estimates at 700 to 1000 little amber-eyed, haft-white youngsters. They left behind also,Presumably, an equal number of promises to return. This is the story of one who kept his promise.)
ALL his life Karl Paul Lippe had been a lonely man. When he was a little fellow on a farm near Leipzig in Germany, his father and mother had separated and he had been sent to stay with his Uncle Otto who lived in Berlin. That was in the years just after he first World War, when all Germany was hungry and there was no happiness anywhere. When he eleven years old, Karl's father came for him. He had a new wife and a big dream of great wealth . He was going to Brazil. In Brazil there was plenty of land for German -colonists-rich land, where a man might, by hard work, become a great planter and a wealthy man.
Is was not so for Karl Lippe's father. The land to which they finally laid claim lay five day's journey into the jungle. It took, Karl remembers, two teams to pull the trunks which they carried with them, so thick and tangled was the trail, They lived for a year on beans and corn meal and wild game. Karl's new mother did not like Brazil, or the lean fare, or the hard labor, which never seemed to be enough to keep the jungle back from the land they had cleared..
So Karl's father moved again. They went down to Rio ,where they earned a little money growing flowers and working at a hotel. They left that soon, and went to Sao Paulo, to work on the coffee plantations, where Karl, thin and wiry, but strong, worked beside his father.. In a year and a half they had enough money saved for their ship passage. They moved again this time to another land of promise - the United States.
They settled on a farm near the town of Lehigh. Iowa, in a Community where many other German people lived. They worked in the fields and they raised good corn. But Karl was growing into manhood now, and there was a restlessness in him, a hunger and discontent. The year he was twenty-one he went to his father and told him he wanted to break away from the family and go it on his own. So he rented thirty-five acres of land and he set up for him self. He didn't bother about girls then, for he was working to hard. He lived alone and cooked his own meals , and all day he worked in the fields. He worked this way for five years, through good crop years and bad. Then , in 1938 , when he had his finest corn crop ready to harvest , the river rose , and in the space of a night all his years labor was gone.
In Des Moines , on his rare visits there he had seen the marine recruiting posters , with their bright promises of travel . On some of them were pictures of palm tree's , and the surf curling on white beaches. He gave up his farm and joined the marines.
He didn't prove to be much of a drill-field marine. He had lived so long among German people, speaking the German Tongue, that the voice of the drill instructor fell incomprehensibly on his ear.
The 'Hup, Toop, threep,fahr of the chanted cadence didn't change his plow boy stride to a marching tempo, and the bawled commands, "By yall ri' flang, haw! By yah lef' flang, haw! T"rip, haw! T'rip, haw!" might have meant to others of keener ear that they should march by the right flank, by the left flank and to the rear, but not to him.
So he suffered hugely as a boot marine, and the overseas duty didn't turn out so well either. For two years there was none of it at all. He saw, ins
http://hometown.aol.com/faasili/post.htm