Settling into a chair at the front living room of the newly settled home of his daughter and son-in-law Tuesday evening, the 91-year-old snapped open a black photo album filled with scanned black-and-white pictures of him and his friends in the Marine Corps.
Lillywhite said he enlisted at 17 with the Marines. As a kid, he always liked the uniform. Serving as a crewman who drove the amphibious tractors that hauled cargo and people from the ship to the shore, he saw more than his share of warfare in the Pacific. Lillywhite has been in battles on tiny islands in the middle of the ocean, including key ones in Saipan and Iwo Jima.
Looking up from his album during his interview with the Signal Tribune and, in an animated tone, he recalled asking his friends where Saipan was before they were deployed there. He was quick to open a book that contains a map of the area in and around Japan and the nearby Marshall Islands. He peered with his black-framed glasses through a volume until he found a map and expertly pointed out where he’s been.
His daughter, Elaine Basler, with dark, brown hair and wearing a red sweater, sat nearby, as their two dogs— Cavapoo breeds— twirled and raced through the living room. The soft-spoken 62-year-old was ready to fill in the blanks of her father’s stories.
Lillywhite remembered much from his days in service. Ready with a quick wit that sometimes pivoted to a friendly, self-deprecating humor, Lillywhite was shy about being photographed. That day, he joked that he would break the camera.
He described his time with the Marines as a job. Basler acknowledged he hasn’t been comfortable with being labeled as a hero of any kind. The Signal Tribune asked Lillywhite— the father of three children, grandfather of four kids, and great-grandfather to one child— what he hoped his kids would remember from his time in the service.
“It wouldn’t bother me if they forgot it all,” he replied.
“Really?” his daughter interjected.
“The stories don’t mean that much to them,” he said.
“Yeah, they do,” his daughter insisted.
“I guess they do. I don’t know!It’s history. It’s over,” Lillywhite said.
Basler said that it wasn’t until a few years ago when her father was invited to an event that commemorated Iwo Jima that Lillywhite actually opened up more about his time in the Marines. Basler described how he eventually shared stories with his family and found more friends who were connected to the Corps.
Up until that time, Basler said she only knew one story that her father repeated to her as a child. Private Lillywhite and fellow corpsmen in Saipan were told to transport a captain who had been seriously wounded in the head. Lillywhite had stationed himself besides the captain to comfort him in the back of the tractor as the driver of the vehicle navigated through the beach and then into the boat channel, where incoming waves were six- and seven-feet high.
The vehicle and its occupants were soaked. The tractor had to turn back. Lillywhite wrapped the captain’s head in his own jacket. One more big wave crashed upon them. The captain raised his head and tried to speak, but Lillywhite couldn’t understand what he said. Then the captain dropped his head. The private saw half of the captain’s brain spill out onto the fabric of his jacket.
Lillywhite warned that no one will like that story. He said he threw that jacket away. He couldn’t look at it anymore.
“That still sticks with me,” Lillywhite said. “We tried to save the guy and couldn’t. He died that night.”
Lillywhite has had health issues with his heart and lungs, and yet he was in good spirits during his interview this week. The veteran said that his close friends from the Marines have passed away.
Between stories, Basler darted into another room to emerge with more black-and-white photographs. She insisted that her father was changed by his time in the service— for the better.
“I know it’s not just these stories,” she said, “but it’s the sense of duty and honor and loyalty, the commitment to everybody else and to a cause bigger than you are.”
Ramer Spurr, who owns the property-management company for the rented home where Lillywhite once lived, is an Army veteran. He is not surprised that Lillywhite at first shied away from embracing his military past.
[aesop_image img=”https://signal-tribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Veteran1.jpg” credit=”Courtesy Elaine Basler” align=”right” lightbox=”on” caption=”Robert Lillywhite, a veteran who served in World War II, spent a little time on roaming patrol for the Marines while camped in Maui sometime between late 1944 and early 1945.” captionposition=”left” revealfx=”off”] “I think he’s typical of the!reactions of the veterans who have been through that kind of hell,” Spurr said in a phone interview. He emphasized that it was important to show him that they loved him for his work and appreciated all that he had done.
“And maybe there’s more to him than he thinks for himself,” he said.
At one point earlier this year when Lillywhite had taken ill and was recovering in a nursing facility, Spurr organized an informal gathering of vets from other branches of service. They swapped stories and listened to Lillywhite tell his own. Spurr explained how much Lillywhite had meant to him personally.
“I just had great respect for anybody who had gone through […] those horrific experiences that he went through […] and some of the dirtiest and worst campaigns of World War II,” Spurr said.
Back at their home, as the sun began to set and dinner was ready to be served, Lillywhite and his daughter reflected on life after his time in the service— how he met and married Mary Elizabeth, Maribeth to those close to her. He will joke how he wooed her with bags of potato chips that were ready for her when she came home in the evening after a day full of college classes. His wife died nearly five years ago.
Lillywhite had surgery on his lungs earlier this year. Basler said she was glad that— to everyone’s surprise— he pulled through. Lillywhite said it didn’t surprise him.
“You keep telling me, ‘I’ve still got a few good licks left,'” Basler told him.
“I was lucky,” he said.
[aesop_image img=”https://signal-tribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Veteran4.jpg” credit=”CJ Dablo | Signal Tribune” align=”center” lightbox=”on” caption=”World War II veteran Robert Lillywhite flips through an album full of photos from his time in service as a Marine.” captionposition=”left” revealfx=”off”]
