WWII Veteran Jim Martin Celebrates Turning 100
by U.S. Air Force Wesley Farnsworth, 88th Air Base Wing PA May 5,
2021
What do the construction of the Empire State Building,
Prohibition, the Great Depression, Pearl Harbor, the Holocaust,
World War II, Vietnam, the first man in space and Sept. 11 attacks
all have in common?
All of these events and many more
happened in the last 100 years. They also took place during the life
of Pfc. Jim H. Martin, a WWII veteran who celebrated his 100th
birthday April 29, 2021.
Martin served as a paratrooper in G
Company, 506th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, out of
Fort Campbell, Kentucky, from June 1942 until September 1945, when
WWII ended.
World War II veteran Jim “Pee
Wee” Martin, in front of WWII related photos on a wall
inside his Xenia, Ohio home on April 15, 2021. Martin served
as a paratrooper (inset image) assigned to 101st Airborne
Division, 506th Infantry Regiment, G Company from 1942-1945.
(Image created by USA Patriotism! from U.S. Air Force photo
by Wesley Farnsworth and courtesy photo from Jim Martin.)
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Martin marked his 100th birthday with some fellow WWII vets and
local community members during a celebration April 23-24 near his
home in Xenia.
The Beginning
Originally from Indiana, Martin’s family moved to
Ohio in 1931 when an aircraft company his father worked for
relocated here.
“We
were the only family to move here with the company,” he recalled.
“But within a year of moving here, the company went bankrupt and
then the Great Depression was on.”
Martin says growing up
during that time wasn’t all bad.
“I did have one rule. I
could go all day and do whatever you wanted but you had to be home
in time for supper,” he said. “We would play ‘Cowboys and Indians,’
go fishing a lot, and spent a lot of time catching frogs, snakes,
possums, skunks and things like that.
“We would also go to
the fairgrounds and see what all the vendors had set up.
Occasionally, we would find a nickel or a dime and that was really
big. It was just a wonderful time to grow up.”
People often
thought it was odd for Martin to catch skunks, but to him, it was
normal. One time, he caught a skunk that wound up having five little
ones a week later.
“Someone told the game warden I had them.
He came out and said, ‘I understand you have skunks,’” Martin
remembers. “I said I did, and I let them run loose around the house
in the summer just like the dog and didn’t have one bit of a
problem. The skunks even came to bed with me at times, and I would
have them and the dog in bed with me.”
Besides unusual
hobbies, Martin was also a little different than some other kids in
his town because both his parents had college degrees.
“Like
everyone else, though, we didn’t have a car,” he said. “We walked a
mile to town each day. I didn’t feel any different than everyone
else.”
With much of the United States mired in grinding
poverty and unemployment, the leaders of his community stepped up.
“About four times a year, we would have a town meeting and
dinner at my house with all the people, like the business owners who
made the town run,” he said. “They would discuss what they could do
to make the town better, not with laws but with common-sense changes
to how things were done.”
As Martin got older, he began
working just like most American men and women did, including during
his time at Kiser High School in Dayton.
“I was working at
the tool and dye shop 10 hours a night and going to school,” Martin
said. “In my senior year, I worked six nights a week and 13 hours a
night, and I went to school all while carrying a grade-A average. I
wasn’t stupid; I knew what was going on in the world.” Military
service
Originally, Martin had decided he wasn’t going to
volunteer for military service because of stories he had heard from
World War I vets about their lives after the war. In fact, he had
the choice not to go due to a military deferment, but that all
changed.
“It was a Monday, and my boss said if I wanted to
defer that I could and I’d have the paperwork in hand on Thursday,”
Martin recalled. “I said, ‘You’ve been listening to the radio, and
you go to the movies on the weekends and see the films about what is
going on over there.’ I knew if France and Britain didn’t get some
help, they were going to go down, and then (Nazi Germany) would be
coming after us.
“We were the only country in the world that
could do anything about it.” With the decision now made, he
enlisted in the Army on June 25, 1942, and was selected to become a
new type of Soldier known as a paratrooper.
“When I started,
our unit was 6,500 people,” Martin said. “But Col. Sink developed
what he called ‘Airborne Basic’ during that time. We went from 6,500
people down to just 1,650 people. That’s how tough it was.”
The training for these new paratroopers took place at a remote
location about 100 miles northeast of Atlanta called Camp Toccoa.
“It was a pretty primitive base,” Martin said. “It wasn’t even
finished for us.”
Just shy of six month after enlisting, on
Jan. 3, 1943, Martin had completed all required parachute packing,
jumping from a plane in flight and other generalized training to
officially become a qualified parachutist.
It was also
during this time he earned his nickname, “Pee Wee.”
“I was
small in stature and only weighed 106 pounds when I went into the
service,” Martin said. “But I told everyone it doesn’t matter what
your size, because you’re carrying an M1 rifle just like the rest of
us. As long as you have that, it’s an equalizer, and you’re just as
good as the big guy.”
After training, Martin and his unit
departed U.S. soil from Camp Shanks in New York aboard the RMS.
Samaria for England.
“The ship was only supposed to carry
1,000 people, and we had 5,000 on board,” he said. “It took 10 days
to go across, and during the trip, we had the biggest storm seen in
50 years.
“We had an arrow on the wall with degrees marked.
It was going 45 degrees one way, then another 45 degrees in the
other direction.”
According to Martin, he and other men in
his unit were on the ship’s top deck during the storm, leaving a
50-foot drop to the water below. Everyone thought they were going to
go under.
By June 5, his unit had departed for battle and
parachuted down behind enemy lines in France.
“We jumped into
Normandy before all the beach forces came in,” Martin said. “Our
mission was to knock out all utilities and to kill any enemy we
found, which we did.”
Martin said there is something special
about paratroopers you won’t find with any other unit.
“There
was a lot of familiarity between an officer and his troops in the
paratrooper world that you didn’t see in the regular Army. Because
when the shelling is happening, you could look over, and 15 feet
from you was the colonel,” he added. “With the regular ground
troops, the colonel would be way back telling them to go out and do
it. But our officer would get up and say ‘follow me’ because rank
didn’t matter.
“Everyone knew where the line was and who the
boss was, but we all suffered the same fate.”
Life After The War
Life
for service members returning from WWII wasn’t all roses, according
to Martin and his late wife of 72 years.
Under the law, companies had to rehire troops who fought overseas.
But many defied that law and “wouldn’t take us back,” claiming
things had changed while they were gone, he said.
“For two
years, I didn’t have a job after I came back,” Martin said. “My wife
and I nearly starved to death, but then things straightened out.”
Martin’s wife, Donna, taught him over the years to be optimistic.
“If you look at everything pessimistically, your life is
going to be miserable,” he said. “Things are not always going to go
right. In fact, most things probably won’t, but still, it’s a good
life.”
Today, Martin spends time speaking to ROTC units,
visiting war sites overseas and engaging in other community service,
sharing his life experience to anyone who will listen. It’s during
these talks that he insists he is not a hero.
“You’re not a
hero when you volunteer for something, when you train for it and you
get paid for it, because you’re expected to do it,” Martin said. “A
hero is the guy I heard about that put himself at risk to help a car
that went into a pond to help the people out of their vehicle. He
had no training and wasn’t going to get anything out of it. That’s a
hero.” When speaking, Martin often gets asked if he hated the
German enemy troops.
““I didn’t hate them,” he said. “They
were fighting for their country just like we were fighting for ours.
If you go in hating, it ruins your judgment and you’re going to
lose.”
His 100th birthday celebration included a mass
parachute jump from three C-47 Dakota aircraft, featuring “That’s
All, Brother,” which led the main airborne invasion into Normandy.
“I’m happy here. I’ve got people coming from all over the
place, including overseas, to see me all the time,” he said. “The
fact I turned 100 doesn’t mean a thing because I don’t feel any
different than I did at 30. I just can’t do heavy construction.”
At a century old, Martin offered one piece of wisdom for today’s
generation...
Just enjoy what we have now!
“We can’t change
what is happening. The restrictions we have today are nothing,” he
said. “I’ve gone through nine pandemics in my lifetime. The medical
care we have in this area is the best in the world.
“I’ve
had a wonderful life.”
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