THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 16, 1995 TAG: 9508150104
SECTION: ISLE OF WIGHT CITIZEN PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JODY R. SNIDER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CARROLLTON LENGTH: Long : 106 lines
ESTHER BULL WAS ONLY 3 years old when World War II started. Just old enough, she says, to remember her father cry when President Roosevelt announced Pearl Harbor had been bombed.
Just old enough over the next few years to remember the single-star flags that hung in local windows, signifying a war death.
Just old enough to remember freedom's high price.
Five men in Bull's family paid the price of war. They fought it, and they returned home only to be shackled by painful memories of those who died fighting next to them.
``Freedom isn't free,'' Bull said recently from her Carrollton home. ``But if you don't fight for it, you're not going to have it.
``The men in my family, they gave their souls for it. When they got back to the States, they were up in the night fighting it all over again.''
A before-the-war photograph of Orville Manley, a second cousin to Bull, shows a 240-pound young man sitting on the foundation of a house in Carrollton. After the war, Manley weighed 90 pounds after serving nine months in a Nazi concentration camp.
``He was wounded and captured trying to save some soldiers in the invasion of Normandy,'' Bull said. ``The Nazis pulled his jaw teeth for the gold with no anesthetic.''
Manley was awarded the Purple Heart, but the medal was destroyed in a house fire.
William Bull, a brother-in-law to Esther Bull, was an infantryman in the Army. He was wounded and captured in Sicily. He, too, spent nine months in a Nazi concentration camp.
``He couldn't even eat half a sandwich when he came home from the war,'' Bull said. ``They said his stomach was the size of a golf ball.''
Harwin Worls, an uncle to Esther, served in the Pacific. When he left home at 35, Worls had jet-black hair. When he returned two years later, it was snow white.
``It was a nightmare for those boys,'' she said. ``People blown to pieces. You can't imagine it. Not in your wildest dreams. Heads blown off, legs gone.''
Harold ``Bus'' Manley, a second cousin, served in the Navy. He was stationed on a ship out of Norfolk.
William Joseph, a first cousin, saw Pacific islands action with the Seabees, the Navy's construction battalions.
``He'd say, `I'll tell you one thing, you better have a gun in your hand when you hit those islands because those little twerps in the trees would cut you down.'
``It was either kill or be killed,'' she said.
Although all these men survived the war, they were never the same again. Esther Bull says they all suffered flashbacks and that all became heavy drinkers.
``We were never the same,'' she said. ``It was hard times for everybody. It was hard to survive. Food was rationed, meat in particular. If you loved meat, it was hard.''
Bull's father, Ralph Worls, worked at the naval shipyard in Portsmouth during the war, checking the big guns on the battleships. He tried to enlist three times but was rejected, she said.
``He was the guy behind the guy, behind the gun. He served from home.''
And when Worls wasn't working his typical 16-hour day in the shipyard, he was bartering for food for his family.
``My father traded his alcohol stamps for food stamps. . . . If you had a fella in the neighborhood who liked to drink, you could cut a pretty good deal trading alcohol stamps for food.'' MEMO: [For related stories see page 9 of THE ISLE OF WIGHT CITIZEN for this
date.]
ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
Ester Bull looks over family pictures from World War II. Five men in
her family returned home only to be shackled by painful memories of
the war.
Surrounded by pictures of Ester Bull's family is her son, Jesse
Bull, who is a Marine.
by CNB