Tom Irving named parade marshal

Local resident Tom Irving will be the Military Grand Marshal for the longest running Loyalty Parade in the United States this weekend in Long Beach, which begins on Sunday at 1:00 p.m. according to the website.

The event which celebrates patriotism was originally organized by three regional VFWs, including the Cathlamet chapter, and is in its 65th year.

According to VFW member Bob Roche, Irving is the last living original Charter Member of the Cathlamet VFW.

Irving served in the Army's Sixth Infantry Division during World War II. They moved through the South Pacific from New Guinea to the Philippines, doing mechanized reconnaissance.

He was inducted into the Army in 1943 at the age of 18. He went to Kansas for basic training at Fort Riley.

"It was a horse cavalry," Irving laughed. "I figured they needed country farm boys for stable masters. Then I got transferred to radio school. I could hear the dots and dashes but I couldn't hear the high notes and had a hard time deciphering, so they put me in the mechanized cavalry."

After a furlough, he was sent to Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay. He spent two weeks there and got a lot of shots. When that was over, they put the boys back on a ferry boat to San Francisco where they found a band playing and the USO handing out coffee.

"I've got it made," Irving thought, believing he might be stationed stateside, but the next thing he knew he was on an army transport and headed overseas to New Guinea.

"There had to be 4-5,000 troops on this old

passenger liner that had been converted to a troop ship," Irving said. "We slept five high in bunk beds down in the hull. It took us 31 days to go from San Francisco to Milne Bay. We just zig-zagged until we got down off the tip of Milne Bay, where we finally got an escort from the Aussies, who had a boat that was similar to the patrol boats that change the buoys in the Columbia."

Irving laughed at the memory.

The Sixth Infantry landed first at Maffin Bay and then in Sansapor on New Guinea.

"There were no roads," Irving said. "They took us and our amphibious tanks on LSTs (Landing Ship-Tank) and put us on the shoreline with the jungle behind us and we would patrol in the amphibious tanks which could be maneuvered on land or water. We would set up a camp inside the jungle in what they used to call a tent city."

His mother worked in the post office in Cathlamet and the family owned a dairy farm in the Elochoman Valley. Like many other service men, Irving wanted his family to know where he was. Unfortunately for them, everything was censored, and letters would come home in pieces, the offending parts cut out.

Stationed in Sansapor, New Guinea, Irving had it all figured out. With the boardwalk from his parents' porch to their garage in mind he wrote, "I'm sure sorry that the new walk never turned out good. It was probably because the sand was so poor."

Sansapoor. "Sand was so poor."

"You know they never figured it out till I got home and was discharged out of the service. I figure I had it made when I sent that letter home!"

Irving had just turned 19 when his convoy rendezvoused just off the coast of the Philippines in the Lindgayen Gulf with plans to land on shore and then head south to Manila.

"We were a small group and we never marched," Irving said. "We ended up with an armored car in the Philippines. Two gunners on the back, open. Two operators, a driver and a radio man. The lieutenant and the gunner packed a 37mm gun. Our mission was to go and scout, but not to engage the enemy."

When they weren't working, they played volleyball.

"Feature that," Irving said. "We played volleyball."

After the Philippines were secured, the troops began to train for an invasion of Japan, which became unnecessary after the atomic bomb was dropped. Irving was sent to Korea to set up reconnaissance there.

Tom and his wife, Cora have been married for 69 years. They went to high school together but didn't begin to date until he had three days left of his furlough before Angel Island and being shipped overseas.

Modest about his appointment to Military Grand Marshal of the Loyalty Parade, Irving said only, "It is an honor. I'm doing this to recognize the Sixth Infantry Division and to help out the Cathlamet post.

"We must thank those people that served. That's why I feel it would be an honor to serve as the Military Grand Marshal. It was the individual efforts together not only on the warfront, but the home front."

For more information about Loyalty Days and the parade, visit http://www.loyaltydayslongbeach.com.