Nurse, soldier marry after World War II

Raymond Shirley brings out the uniform he wore during World War II. --Neoma Foreman/Special to the Daily Mail

Betty Roggensees and her family moved from McCloud, Neb., to a farm in the Marvin Chapel area in Vernon County in 1936.

After graduation from Walker High School in 1940, she and a friend, Wilma Crosswhite, went to work at the air base in Nebraska until the nursing school opportunity arose. She quit the government job and entered the Cadet Nurse Diploma Program in January of 1945. She was accepted and trained in General Hospital No. 1 in Kansas City, Mo. She got $15 a month. She continued in the program until she got her diploma in December of 1947. Since the war had ended, she was not required to further her time in the service.

Raymond Shirley was born south of Dederick and lived there until he was 16,when he and his family moved to a farm near Marvin Chapel near the Roggensees family. He and Betty became friends and graduated together in 1940 from Walker High School.

August 25, 1942, Raymond "joined the Marines because he didn't want to get drafted into the Army." He was sent to San Diego to the Marine Recruit Training camp for six weeks. The last two weeks were spent at Camp Matthews for rifle training. Raymond tied with another Missouri boy for first place as sharpshooter.

He was sent to North Island by ferry boat to take a test to go to Aviation Machinist School. It was a lot of math problems and that was his favorite subject. He made a 100 per cent on the test and was sent to Norman, Okla., in November to Naval Air Technical Training Center where he graduated May 1, 1943 from the Aviation Machinist's Mate School.

"I had hardly seen an airplane before and here I was working on them," Raymond said and laughed. "It was a big day on our Missouri farm if a plane went over--everything stopped and we watched it. However, I got the measles in the last part of my training, and I fell behind a bit, but I caught up."

After Oklahoma, he was sent to El Toro near where Disneyland is now. He worked on the S B D Dauntless airplane. "I didn't ride on all of the airplanes because the pilot wanted their own gunner who could bring the plane in if something happened to them, but after I had "tinkered" on them, they made us go up with them. That way they ensured that you did your best work."

He was sent to Hawaii on the USS Kitty Hawk, where he waited and worked for about three weeks. His squadron was split in half and he was sent to Johnston Island in the Pacific. It was about 5,000 feet long and a quarter of a mile wide with a coral reef around it. There were no people there. His duties included helping patrol around Johnston and work on the planes that landed on the coral airstrip. It never got muddy there, but nothing grew, either. "There wasn't a green grass anywhere." However, Betty's sister, Ruth, sent him some Hollyhock seeds and he planted them and they grew. He doesn't know what kind of birds were there, but they made sounds at night that sounded like a baby crying. He was there for six months.

One day while on Johnston, a firefighter pulled up to him. He said, "You don't know me, and I don't know you, but I think we know the same people." His name was H. Cavell Fattig and he was corresponding with Betty's sister. They got to be good friends and when he came home, he married Betty's sister, Ruth. So Raymond met his future brother-in-law halfway around the world.

He was the plane captain and stayed with the plane at all times. He did general upkeep on the planes. Others working with him got KP, but he didn't have to do that duty. Once he had to change a gas tank on a plane. He ordered the parts from Hawaii and changed the plane's gas tank. After he got it put back together, he saw gas leaking. It was a defective gas tank. He had to order another and put it in. After that was finished, they checked it and the head of the outfit decided it needed a new motor. When that was completed, his superior, Col. Brent, came to check the plane out.

He asked, "Do you reckon this will fly?"

Raymond answered, "Yes, Sir."

Col. Brent said, "It'd better because we're going up."

"He put that plane through everything-slow rolls, snap rolls. It worked. That's how they ensure you did your best work as lives will depend on it," Raymond explained.

Letters home were censored so he couldn't tell where he was stationed. However, he wrote his sister and asked the name of the man that had moved his parents in 1937. She knew it was a man by the name of Johnston and by checking the map, she figured out he was at Johnston Island. No one except their family would have understood.

His next stop was Hawaii for about three months. Raymond's eyes clouded as he remembered.

"We lost a F4U fighter plane there. It went down in a training maneuver. I buckled the gunman in when he left. He didn't get out, but the pilot did."

After Hawaii, he was zigzagged to New Hebrides, Guadalcanal, and on to Bougainville. "We were on just a little corner of Bougainville and there were Japs all around us, but they didn't bother us as they didn't have any supplies." He was there about six months.

December 15, 1945, he was headed for the Philippines. They had the boats and equipment all loaded. Plans were made for an all-out battle. He got up the final morning and the camp was buzzing with talk. One group was headed for the Philippines, but fifty of them were going home. His name was posted on the bulletin board.

He sailed for home. After a 15-day trip without any bad weather, he sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge on New Year's Eve.

"They took us to a building that had been part of the World's Fair. It was the biggest mess hall I'd ever seen. They had big trays of food with everything on them, but I couldn't eat. We had been on limited rations and they weren't very good so my stomach had shrunk."

They were put on a train for San Diego and taken back to El Toro in cattle trucks. His duty was to start a new outfit and they changed from working on dive bombers to torpedo boats.

By August, they were prepared to go and take over Japan proper.

But the atomic bomb was dropped.

Instead of heading back into a deadly battle, he was discharged in October 1945 with the rank of Technical Sergeant from the VMG133 Squadron.

He was awarded the Asiatic Pacific Ribbon with two battle stars, and the American Theater Ribbon and group citation. He never used his training after service--he was ready to "just stay home."

Raymond went back to work at the Hargrove Dairy across from Camp Clark for a year and a half. Later, he began working for Barney Kapple. In the meantime, he and Betty had been corresponding.

Betty applied for a job at the Nevada City Hospital and was accepted. Raymond went to Kansas City in a terrible ice storm to bring her to Nevada in January of 1948. Betty's starting salary as a registered nurse was $135 a month with every 8th day off.

Raymond and Betty were married March 26, 1949. They had three children. Kenneth is a fishery biologist at Mountain Home, Ark. Carol and Joyce are both medical technicians and work in labs. Carol lives in Kansas City and Joyce in Bryan, Texas. They have six grandsons and two step-grandchildren.

Raymond joined the U.S. Postal Service Aug. 1, 1953 and retired as a rural mail carrier. Betty worked her way up to be Director of Nursing at the Nevada City Hospital, but quit and started the Practical Nursing Program in November of 1963. She retired from this position in 1986. They have spent all their married life in Nevada.