Photograph Helps Tell a Story of World War II

Here’s a picture of Private First Class Charles Woodrow Dean, my great uncle who served in World War II.  

We don’t know much about Charlie’s military service. He died in 1989.

His obituary only mentions his service at the end of a paragraph about where he went to school before the war.  

Like many who served in World War II, Charlie rarely mentioned his military service. He was like so many of the so-called greatest generation of soldiers who returned from the war, went back to work, and helped build our country up in the fifties, sixties, and seventies.

There are many reasons why Charlie’s story is worth the time and space to mention here. One of those reasons is that he lost his younger brother to the war.  

Chester Dean was killed in a training accident the day after D-Day in Wales. The two brothers were just a year apart in age.  

They were close. They likely saw their military service as something expected from men of that age during our nation’s history.

Charlie would serve in the European theater in Italy. He’s believed to be among the troops who helped liberate the country.  

Chet was part of a special unit developing a high powered lighting technology. His work was a government secret and we only found out about it in the years following the war.

He was promoted to Corporal and stayed with his unit (748th Tank Battalion, Medium) as they moved from training at Camp Bouse in Arizona to South Wales. 

Charlie fought the good fight and was there to help the citizens displaced by war to return to their homes.

We don’t have much to go on about his service other than this picture a family member had among many photos from Charlie’s generation.

We see him holding a little girl in his arms. She’s holding onto his neck. An older boy, likely the little girl’s brother, is seen looking on. 

We know nothing more than what we guess is happening in the photo. Everyone is smiling, so we surmise Charlie was part of the unit that helped restore normalcy to what had to have been a trying situation.

Chet did not come home, but Charlie did and lived with his wife, Rose, and a daughter. Rose died in the 1970s, and Charlie never remarried. He had two grandsons.

He never talked about his time in the war, and I know I never asked him about it. Things like military service never surfaced in the years I knew Charlie.

He was well-liked by his family. My dad looked up to him.  

Charlie grew up in the Great Depression.

They were a family with a share of pain and misery, some of it caused by the Depression. Being poor helps speed up one’s ambition.  

We honor him and all the soldiers from all the wars.

We remember their sacrifice and their likely struggles to return to life in an era before anyone ever heard the term post-traumatic stress.

Work was to be done, families to bring up, and lives to live.

Some came back. Some did not. Some chose never to talk about it. Most of us never asked.

As we approach Veterans Day, we’ll remember them. When I think about my life growing up in a small town, I think about the smiles that Charlie could pull out of many of those around him. 

 I used to think his sisters took it easy on him because he was the only living brother after the oldest brother passed in the 1950s.

But now I’m coming around to see a man who did what was asked of his country and who was now going to make sure his family was in a good place.

We only have to return to that picture of Charlie holding that little girl in Italy. She looked up to him, and so should the rest of us.-

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

His new book Jack and Johnny- Benny, Carson and a friendship made for Television is now available at Jack & Johnny (lulu.com)

His California books are available at the Merced Courthouse Museum Gift Shop and Bookish Modesto in the Roseburg Square Shopping Center.