Five Brothers Went Off to Fight World War II

On this episode of Our American Stories, when World War II called, the Wilson family of Iowa answered. One by one, five brothers left home to serve their country, while their parents and siblings waited anxiously for news from across the globe.

Our regular contributor Joy Neal Kidney shares the story of her uncles, the five Wilson brothers, and the sacrifices their family made during the war years. It is a deeply personal story of duty, separation, and the quiet courage required not only of those who fought, but also of the loved ones who waited for them to come home.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:13):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show, sports, history, arts,
the culture. And by the way, some of these stories
are beautiful. Some of these stories are hard, some are both.
And I think this one is. And this one comes
to us from one of our listeners in Des Moines, Iowa.

(00:33):
The home of the Mighty Who, one of the great
heritage signals in this country. And it comes from Joy
Neil Kidney. In World War Two, her grandmother sent five
sons to war, only two came home. Here Joy shares
how her family has honored these men.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Neglected gravestones over Memorial Day, no flowers, no one to remember.
This would never happen in our family, so I thought.
Growing up, I knew that my mother's five brothers had
served in World War Two, and that the three youngest
had lost their lives. Their sepia toned photographs, all in uniform,

(01:13):
were a familiar part of our home. Those same pictures
posed for decades on the chest to drawers in Grandma's house.
I grew up with women who observed every Decoration Day
as it was called. Then I could have asked for
details about those young brothers but knew the answers would
bring tears, so I didn't. In fact, Memorial Day was

(01:37):
a wonderful time for me as a child, as it
meant an outing to the big town of Perry for
lunch and shopping with Grandma, Mom, Cis Gloria, and Aunt Darlene.
Either Mom or Darlene would pick up the other, both
toading pails of pink paeonies, coral bells, and blue iris
from their own gardens, carried in the trunk of the car.

(02:01):
These spring blossoms were for the cemeteries. We'd drive the
dusty gravel roads of Madison County, then the hills of
Highway twenty five to Grandma's house in Guthrie Center, where
she would be waiting with her best flowers, including what
she called little yellow buttons. Grandma's parents and some of

(02:22):
her siblings are buried there at the Guthrie Cemetery, so
we'd leave flowers there first to remember them, before heading
east to Panther Corner. Perry is a few miles north
of where the old Panther store used to stand. We'd
skirt Perry's downtown toward our main mission, Violet Hills Cemetery,

(02:42):
in the northeast corner of town. Grandma's husband is buried
there and their three sons who were lost in the war,
Or so I thought. The Wilson Stones are in the
east section with stately evergreens. We three generations would solemnly
deliver the flowers from the car to the Wilson Stones.

(03:04):
Everything seemed hushed before the four names Dale, Daniel, Clayburne, Jay,
and Clay Wilson. We'd secure metal vases with wires Mom
had cut from coat hangers. Then we'd fill them with
our pastel bouquets. How nice they look, Grandma would mention.

(03:27):
I remember her shedding tears there only once the mood
lightened on the drive toward downtown. I don't remember what
the grown ups ate, but we young sisters were treated
to Hamburger's and cokes in a real cafe east of
the library, then shopping and visiting for young girls from

(03:49):
an Iowa farm near the small town of Dexter. This
day was a yearly treat. When it was time to
start back home, we'd always drive by the old Wilson
acreage a mile south on sixteenth Street. Grandma and her
daughters always wondered to see how it looked after so
many years and how much the trees had grown that

(04:10):
they had platted in the nineteen forties. Through the decades,
different family members would make that annual Memorial Day trip
to Perry with Grandma. One or two of Aunt Darlene's
sons went along, and later on even my own young son.
Grandma died in nineteen eighty seven, leaving a cedar chest

(04:31):
full of old post cards, letters, pictures, and the terrible telegrams.
After Mam and Aunt Darlene relived the war by reading
through them, they shared them with me. I realized for
the very first time that only their youngest brother, Junior,
is buried in the Parry Cemetery. Danny Wilson, a P

(04:55):
thirty eight pilot who was killed in action in Austria,
is buried in France. Dale Wilson, the coal pilot on
a B twenty five, was lost off the coast of
New Guinea with his crew. Only God knows where their
remains lie. I was determined that when Mom and Aunt Darlene,
who is Dale's twin, got to the place that they

(05:17):
could no longer make the trip to Perry to remember
their brothers and parents. For Memorial Day. I'd always get
it done, so I thought. My health got to the
place where I could no longer make the trip. One day,
my husband and I stopped by just to see the
stones once more. I realized that because Dale's official date

(05:38):
of death is listed as nineteen forty, six months after
the war ended, no one would understand that he'd been
a war casualty. A few additions to all three stones
would tell more of the story of what this one
family had endured. Mam and Darlene agreed, and the information
was added. One commemorates Dale and Danny, making clear that

(06:03):
they were both killed in action. The center stone marks
the grave of Junior, whose P forty exploded information training
in Texas in August nineteen forty five, at the very
end of the war. The brothers were aged twenty two,
twenty one, and twenty. Their father, Clay, died next year

(06:24):
of a stroke and a broken heart, surely another casualty
of the war. Even though no family members have recently
remembered the Wilsons for Memorial Day, the prize that our
freedoms cost this one Dallas County family must never be forgotten, and.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
It's not forgotten here Joy and thanks for that piece,
and Danny Dale and Junior. The sacrifices won't be forgotten.
And here in our American stories, we don't forget. That's
what we do here as often as we can bring
back history to life, because it's still a lie, folks,

(07:06):
and it matters. These stories matter, you know. It brings
to mind the Sullivan brothers. I've been reading about them recently.
All five boys in that family died in World War Two.
They were all in the same ship, the USS Juno,
and on November thirteenth, nineteen forty two, it was torpedo
down off the coast of the Solomon Islands by a

(07:26):
Japanese destroyer. Six hundred and eighty seven sailors on board.
One hundred went into the water. Only ten survived the
elements and shark attacks. And it also brings to mind
a personal story, my own family story, a story my
mom told me and I have her brother's purple heart
and boy, the way they printed out purple hearts in

(07:48):
World War two. It was the summer of forty four,
and my mom remembered a black government car pulling up
to her apartment building in West New York, New Jersey.
The men stepped out of the car and walked up
the stairs. A dozen or so families lived in that building,
and several had loved ones who'd volunteered to fight. Her
brother John was one of them. He signed up when

(08:10):
he was eighteen, and he paratrooped behind enemy lines right
around the time of D Day. She told me she
felt terrible, praying that it would be someone else's door
those men knocked on, and then she heard the footsteps
stop in front of her door. She was thirteen. She
told me she never heard her mom cry so hard

(08:32):
when those men knocked on that door. Her mom didn't
need to open it to comprehend the news. Her dad
barely cried, but she never again saw him enjoy his life.
He'd lost not just his son, but his only son.
My mom told me he'd lost his bloodline. And so

(08:52):
here in our American stories, we celebrate the fallen soldiers,
and we honor their sacrifices and all of the men
and women serving our country in uniform here and abroad.
This is our American stories. Joy Neil Kidney's family story,
so many other family stories, families whose sons, daughters, loved ones, fathers,

(09:18):
husbands paid the ultimate price