Yesterday was December 7 — a date, President Franklin Roosevelt promised, that will “live in infamy.”
Joey Karmanosky had graduated 6 months earlier from Staples High School, where he was sports editor of the Inklings newspaper.
In his diary, he wrote: “We got home late from Church today. Mom had to stop for some errands and the car wouldn’t start. It is old and I know Pops will not get another one.
“We walked home in the cold. We got home about 2:00 or so and the house was cold too. A few neighbors were there and the radio was on full blast. I think it was a CBS channel from the city because it was all crackling and I could barely hear anything. Two neighbors were over too. Listening.
“‘The Japs bombed us,'” one neighbor said to my mother. She went straight to the bedroom.
“I sat on the floor next to Pops. His hand was twitching. ‘What does this mean, Pops?’ I asked.
“‘We are at war,’ he said with no emotion. I got up after awhile and walked out on our street down toward the beach (Burying Hill) and figured I would have to join up to fight. What else could I do?”
According to Carl Addison Swanson, who sent along the chilling diary excerpt, Joey enlisted in the Army right after new year’s, in 1942. He served in the Pacific theater (New Guinea).
He returned to Westport in April 1944, “thin as a rail.” He discontinued his diary shortly after enlisting.
Carl says that Joey served as a Westport mail carrier for decades. He died in 2006.
Joey Karmanosky
Deeply moving — though unsettling — post, Dan.
Thank you for sharing what should be shared more. Perspective.
When I returned to Westport in 2005, after growing up here, Joey was my next door neighbor. He never married and lived with his sister. He would never speak of his experiences in the War. I found his diary amidst his belongings after he died, Oddly enough, in 1968, Joey would deliver my draft notice to Vietnam on his mail route.
Fascinating, thanks. Perhaps there is enough material to provide a foundation for your next book (with the permission naturally of any of his surviving relatives).
I must add that Carl walked away from a book deal and a NYC literary agent to take care of Joey after he had two strokes in the fall of 2005 and was unable to eat. Carl’s only comment was “we VETS take care of each other.” Also a coincidence, Joey died at 2:00 a.m. on February 5th, 2006, almost to the minute of when Carl was born on February 5th, 1948.
Is it just me or does Joey look like LBJ in that picture? Great story. Thanks for sharing.
My father in law was there on a destroyer out searching for Jap submarines and left port Dec. 6th they got a chain fouled in their prop and were held up until the morning of the 7th. They sailed in to Pearl Harbor the 8th early in the morning and he said it was a hellish sight. He was in the class of 1940 USNaval Acdy. They all went straight into WWII. He went on to be CO of the USS Forrestal CV59 as well as Adm. McCain’s assistant in The Naval arm of NATO before retiring in 1970.
The son of my 3rd grade teacher at teens Farms, Annette Handley, served on the Forrestal. Mrs. Gandley was born in Ireland.
I believe my cousin George Mozier was on the Forrestal too.
Wow, thank you Dan. What a reminder of how precious life is and how bad war is…
I live in a constant state of prayer that someday we will have world peace
incredible story, such a pride in this great country. What an amazing patriot.