Honor Flight sends veterans to Washington, D.C.

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He compiled much of his war and life experiences into an autobiography titled, I look around for my life, published in 2008. Knoepfle, whose knee and leg were severely injured by shrapnel from “friendly fire” at Iwo Jima, almost didn’t make it though the war, something he never used to talk about, Peggy Knoepfle says.

He was a lieutenant junior grade in the U.S. Navy and led a small boat transport of troops and wounded men to and from Okinawa. The 88-year-old recalls sailing over the straits of the Solomon Islands, a watery grave for servicemen who had died in the defense of Guadalcanal.

“When we were going through the straits, you could have heard a pin drop on the ship,” says John Knoepfle. “The poor guys, they were stuck down there,” he says. “It was very solemn.”

“I have war stories to tell, and I do have shrapnel in both legs, but my war was nothing like somebody coming out of North Africa and up through the boot of Italy,” he said.

Even so, he looked forward to swapping stories with veterans on the honor flight to see the memorial and the connections he would make there.

For Bob Murphy, memories of the war mainly involve a ball and glove. The resident of Divernon smiles and laughs heartily as he sits next to his son, Mike Murphy, owner of Charlie Parker’s Diner in Springfield. The father and son both made their way to the memorial for the first time together, with his son as guardian.

Before the trip, memories were shared about hurling a softball from a dirt pitcher’s mound for the “Seabees,” named for the construction-savvy sailors on its roster. It was on the softball diamond in Pearl City, in Oahu, Hawaii, where he was stationed for three years before he met his wife, Betsy Jane Murphy. She was three years his senior, and played for a women’s softball team. When they married she was a petty officer first class, a higher rank than he, and served as a store clerk with the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Services).

Fresh off of their honeymoon, Bob Murphy remembers his commanding officer telling him, “You better get ready, you’re shipping out tomorrow morning.”

The newlyweds were parted when Murphy was shipped off to Wake Island aboard the USS Hale. The island is a coral island overtaken by the United States after it was occupied by the Japanese. He was stationed on Wake Island for six months.

As a Seabee, Bob Murphy helped repair landing strips, build barracks and transport building supplies on the island. The men slept in tents on Wake Island, and Murphy remembers a downpour that caused his tent to leak. The tents were manufactured by Armbruster Tents in Springfield, Ill., at the time, and Murphy had worked as a rope foreman for the owner, Dick Armbruster, when he went to Springfield High School before enlisting in the Navy at 17. Armbruster Manufacturing Co. is still in business in Springfield.

“That tent I was in, I looked up and it said R.H. Armbruster on the door up above.”

After sending a letter to Armbruster, say ing that the tents were “leaking like hell,” his old boss sent him a kit with patches to seal it.

Throughout his tour of duty, he made friends that lasted a lifetime. The Seabees held reunions, where Mike Murphy says he learned about most of his dad’s Navy experiences. But with many World War II veterans now reaching 90 and older, many of his friends from the war have died. Which is why before the flight, he said that he looked forward to meeting guys like himself who were in the Navy during the war.

“They’ll all have different stories. And I’m going to show Mike where his mother buried a turtle,” he said.

Father, son and daughter-in-law, Cindy Murphy, ate together with veterans and their families at the VFW banquet the night before the trip, a tradition before every Land of Lincoln honor flight to the nation’s capital.

Bob Murphy was so excited to go on the flight, he had arranged for one of his daughters to call him at 2 a.m. the morning of the flight, so he wouldn’t be late. But what he looked forward to most was a reunion between four generations at the memorial with son, Mike Murphy, grandson Bobby Murphy, and great-grandson Ethan Murphy, outfitted in a Seabee T-shirt.

Mike Murphy said even though his mother, Betsy Jane Murphy, passed away in 2006, she would be joining the family at the memorial in her own way. The father and son brought the United States flag given them at her memorial in 2006.

“My dad will actually hold her flag and I’ll take a picture of it for everybody in front of the Michigan pillar, because that’s where my mother was from when she enlisted. We will honor her in that way,” Mike Murphy says. “And so she’s actually going with us.”

Contact Holly Dillemuth at hdillemuth@illinoistimes.com.