Arts & Leisure
Kittery author shares WWII stories with York Rotary
By Virginia L. Woodwell
YORK HARBOR - When Juliana Fern Patten, now of Kittery, was growing up in the Cincinnati area, a fixture in the family home was a World War II brass shell casing big enough and heavy enough to serve as a doorstop.On it were engraved the words, "From the battleship Iowa, Saipan, June, 1944. Returned by Jules Fern, LST 169."
Jules Fern was Juliana Fern Patten's father; "LST 169" was one of three ships he served on in the South Pacific in the last years of that war, and the shell casing was his way of keeping alive memories of that time.
Now Julie Patten has far outstripped her father in that goal: she's published a book of letters - richly detailed, engaging, clear, polished, genial, allusive - that Fern wrote to his mother from the Pacific between May 13, 1944, and June 11, 1946, when he was a U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant on active duty, at first in the thick of war, then immediately following the peace.
Last Friday, March 2, Patten brought the book to a 7:30 a.m. breakfast meeting of the York Rotary Club, where some 35 members braved a blizzard to learn the story of the book's origin, hear passages read and see photographs and artifacts connected with it - including that shell casing.
Titled "Another Side of World War II," and subtitled "A Coast Guard Lieutenant in the South Pacific," the book had its beginnings, Patten explained, when, she came upon a file-sized box in his attic following her father's death in 1991. A note taped to the top of it read, in capital letters in his writing, "J J FERN WW II LETTERS ETC. AT FERN'S DEATH: PITCH."
Patten hadn't seen the letters before, and there were over 100 of them, all in their original envelopes, marked by her mother with the date of receipt and including photographs, press releases, and other related material - but it soon became clear, as she began reading, that, far from being "pitched," the letters should be given the widest possible dissemination.
Not only did they present the war from the point of view of one experiencing it as it happened, firsthand, but that point of view was an unusual one: Lt. Fern's position as a Coast Guard officer on ocean-going vessels brought him very close to the action, and even, on occasion, put him in grave danger, but it also moved him about a lot (delivering, sometimes, some enviable party-time), and providing, always, secure lodging from which he could write regularly and reflectively.
Much more significantly, the letters reveal Fern as an exceptional personage whose character rose skillfully to the occasion before him: alive to the fact that he was having an exceptional experience, he not only recorded the ordinary but sought out situations that would enrich that experience - going to the front lines, for example; mature - he was 31 in 1944 - and of a slightly philosophical bent, he studied his own reactions under such situations, and often made wise observations about what eases relations among men; observant and inquiring generally, he let his eyes range over a wide range of topics, from the plants and animals and atmosphere of a jungle to the gaiety of officers' parties he attended; of a sanguine, accepting, and unpretentious nature, and with a sense of humor, he appeared almost never negative or judgmental; equipped with bachelor's and master's degrees before his wartime service, and with experience as an instructor in English at the University of Cincinnati, he wore his learning lightly - while revealing all this in fluid prose.
Here, for example, is just one sample, illustrating his style, sensitivity and eye for the power of detail:
"I had the dawn watch when we steamed into San Pedro Bay. Shortly after four o'clock the big guns of battleships and cruisers began sending their red tracers onto a beach we could not see yet. The water was mill-pond quiet, and in the warm dawn there was a feeling that we were being watched and that our movements were being relayed by a net of radio operators, runners, messengers. Then came that sweetish odor of death, which I came to know so well as Saipan. The bombers that had hit the island during previous days had taken a toll, and the soft Philippine breeze carried that information to us. A morning star hung down, a streak of pale light showed in the East, and for the life of me all I could think of, with that odor, was Bach's "Come Sweet Death." The shores and mountains of Leyte soon became visible. We could see Dinagat Island on our left, Homonhon dead ahead, and Leyte just off the port bow. Even with the shelling, which was spasmodic, a clammy quiet prevailed, Daybreak revealed hundreds of ships - battleships, cruisers, destroyers, LSTs, LSDs, LCMs, LCVPs, LSRs, LCIs, LCTs, transports, cargo ships, oilers, tugs, freighters, aircraft carriers, tenders, lighters - everything the navy has. By nine o'clock we had taken our beaching formation, and the line ships were plastering the beach with terrific roars. All the soldiers aboard were dressed and garbed with their fifty pounds of rifles, carbines, pistols, blankets, shelter-halves, mess-kits, K rations, ammunition, knives, hatchets, shovels. They had steak and eggs for breakfast to last them for a long day, and when they climbed into the amphibious tanks, each one was given a sandwich and two apples."
Following his service years, Jules Fern returned to teaching at the University of Cincinnati, though he also remained in the Coast Guard Reserve. He also married and had five children, of whom Julie Patten is the youngest.
"We were very close," she said in a telephone interview after her talk.
She also reported that she'd approached 30 publishers before finding three interested in accepting her father's book. The taker: Burd Street Press, a division of White Mane Publishing Company, Inc., in Shippensburg, Pa.
Burd Street Press included in the finished product - a paperback, 158 pages long - photos and other memorabilia that Fern sent to his mother along with the letters, imaginative menus he drew up, for example, in his job as head of the ship's commissary. The book's initial run was 2,000 copies, Patten said, of which approximately 600 have now been sold.
"Now," said Patten, "everybody who's read the book loves it."
At the York Rotary Club on Friday, she reported, she sold 25 copies, and donated one-third of the proceeds to the club.
Patten, who lives in Kittery with her husband and son, has an undergraduate degree from the University of Denver and a master's degree in English from the University of New Hampshire; she teaches English part-time at York County Community College.
Another Side of World War II is available for $14.95 at River Run Bookstore in Portsmouth, N.H.; on the internet through Amazon Books, or at Barnes and Noble in Newington, N.H.
Patten is available to speak about the book to groups of 40 or more, and will share a percentage of the proceeds from copies she sells to sponsoring organizations that are nonprofit.
For more information, contact Patten's publicist, Allison McKay, of Bisson Barcelona, LLC, at (603) 664-5776.
