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PEARL HARBOR VETERAN FROM NEW YORK GOT HIS WISH --
The guys at the Rockland VFW wanted to send Bill
Enders back
to Pearl Harbor for one last visit. They picked
the right time.
Bill Enders
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Story here...
http://www.patriotledger.com/news/x1279757379
Story below:
-------------------------
Pearl Harbor vet from Rockland got his wish
By Andrew Lightman
The Patriot Ledger
ROCKLAND — The guys at the Rockland VFW wanted to
send Bill Enders back to Pearl Harbor for one last visit.
They picked the right time.
Wilfred “Bill” Enders, a chief petty officer in the Navy who survived the
attack on Pearl Harbor, died Monday at home, less than three months after
his friends sent him on that trip.
Enders would have turned 87 this Saturday.
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His wife of 62 years, Rose Enders, said the
family will have a memorial service later in March.
Enders, who last visited Pearl Harbor on a 1967 business trip, returned
for Pearl Harbor Day in December. He was in a wheelchair and not yet aware
that he had cancer.
“I don’t think he was feeling that well, physically, but I think he was
strong enough, mentally, that it carried him through,” Rose Enders said.
“He came home and he told me he was feeling at peace,” Rose Enders said.
“It really gave him some closure.”
Enders was 20-year-old petty officer third class, who was making his way
home aboard the USS Neosho to visit his dying mother when the Japanese
attacked Pearl Harbor.
Later in the war, he spent 37 hours floating alongside the same ship after
it was torpedoed during the Battle of the Coral Sea. He earned a Bronze
Star for rescuing two men trapped in an engine room.
He met President Franklin D. Roosevelt aboard the battleship Iowa, and he
served aboard the USS Canberra, a Quincy-built heavy cruiser that was hit
by a torpedo off Okinawa.
Originally from Washington state, he came to Quincy with his wife in 1948.
Enders moved to Rockland seven years ago, and never missed a meeting at
the VFW, said Tom Morrison who organized the trip to Hawaii for him.
“We just had our meeting in early February and he said he had a wonderful
time,” Morrison said. “I don’t know if that helped him hang on as long as
he did but he got out there one last time.”
In addition to his wife, he is survived by his sons Wilfred Enders II of
Braintree and Glenn Enders of Ohio, and grandchildren Elissa, Alyson and
Tyler Enders.
Andrew Lightman may be reached at
alightman@ledger.com.
-------------------------
posted by Larry
Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org
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