Page 34 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2018- Online Magazine

Charles J. Hoye Old Newsie:
harles J. Hoye can look
back on a long life, well-
Clived. Charlie was born
on June 14, 1923 in Taunton,
Massachusetts, 40 miles south
of Boston, to Joseph and Annie.
His father was a butcher, then a
WWI Army soldier and lastly a
U.S. Postal Service employee for
48 years, rising to the position of
Assistant Postmaster in Taunton.
Charlie had two siblings, Paul,
a sailor and 25-year editor of
Aramco World magazine, and
Margery, a radio singer and
registered nurse. He was a 1941
high school
graduate, a
correspondent for
the Taunton Daily
Gazette and a gas
station attendant
before WWII.
On Pearl Harbor
Day, and because
of his part-time
34 Lubbock Senior Link
Serving with a Pen
by Larry A. Williams
newspaper experience, he the harbor and sunk with other
was drafted that night to troops still aboard, destined
do phone interviews with for Africa. His unit was sent to
parents of men who were Thatcham, England, where the
serving at Pearl Harbor. unit lived in “The Hut Camp”,
which consisted of wooden
Inducted on March 13, barracks and metal Nissen Huts
1943, he failed the Army (like a U.S. Quonset hut). Hoye
eye test because of weak and his unit helped supply the
eyes. Wanting to help in massive war effort in Europe
the war effort, he ignored for three years, providing such
rejection and “enlisted on items as a “Bailey bridge built
the spot” for limited service right there in England” to help
because his high school the Allied troops cross the many
English and Bookkeeping rivers in Europe while fighting
studies could prove to be the Germans. He also wrote
valuable eventually. Soon occasionally for the Stars and
after, a train took him to Stripes, the Army’s newspaper.
Ft. Snelling, Minnesota. He remembered that “V-2 rockets
Upon arrival in a blizzard, and the occasional German plane
a burly sergeant shoved would fly over the camp, and one
him off into a snow bank, of the cooks actually shot down
breaking an ankle and one of their planes.”
curtailing much of his basic
training. Over 300,000 men While in England, Charlie went
and women passed through Ft. to some London dances and
Snelling after being inducted met Joyce, a “WREN in the
into the armed forces. As part of British Navy who was doing
the 444th Engineer Base Depot top secret work” and couldn’t
Company, he went to Ft. McCoy tell Charlie what she actually
in Wisconsin (“bitter cold it was”) did. She “became my three-
for rifle training. Next, it was on year dance partner.” Although
to Ogden, Utah, where he spent the 444th had a large number
eight weeks learning the “Army of war brides, and even though
way” of doing inventory, supply Joyce and Charlie became
and bookkeeping. close, he “was engaged to
future wife Loretta back home
The 444th shipped out of New in Taunton.” He said Loretta
York Harbor on a converted “didn’t like him in high school,
cruise ship and headed but he was persistent.” Joyce,
for England via Scotland. who no doubt secretly hoped
Charlie noted that “they she might be Charlie’s bride
had destroyer escorts, and and go to Taunton with him,
several German U-boats traveled to Southampton when
were spotted on the way he sailed home. Waving at him
over.” After landing in while crying dockside, she gave
Scotland, that cruise ship a wrapped package to a British
was torpedoed outside seaman and had him deliver it to