By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer

HARRISON — Jean Robbins Peacock has been planning this family outing for about a year.

Along the way — in the many months before coming to Harrison for Veterans Day — Jeanne and her brother Charlie Robbins learned about the journey their Uncle Joseph Pitts Robbins took during his service as a Marine aboard the U.S.S. Wichita. His travels went from Portland to Scotland, from New York to North Africa, from the Panama Canal to Alaska.

Jeanne was among the almost 50 people who went to a Veterans Day event held at the Harrison Historical Society Museum on the afternoon of Nov. 10. Historical Society President Gerry Smith hosted the gathering that was both intimate and well-attended. Many of the people hailed from Harrison or nearby communities. Jeanne and her husband traveled from Eastport to keep alive the war stories of her family members who served in the military. 

“I read in your newsletter last year that you were going to do this. And it mentioned all the people who were going to be honored who died [and were from] here in Harrison. In the list of names of those to be honored, I saw my uncle and my cousin. And, I said, ‘We gotta go to that.’ So, I called my family and we all planned to come together,” Jeanne said.

“I’ve got to applaud you for doing this because these memories need to be told so other people can tell them in future years,” Jeanne said to Smith.

“So glad my brother sent for my uncle’s records in Marine Corps from the National Archives,” she said, adding “the Marine Corps kept meticulous records.”

“Uncle Joe joined the Marine Corps when he was young, right out of high school…so, he was 19” years old, she said.

Pitts joined the military in early 1941.

America officially entered into WWII after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

“From these records, he was on U.S.S. Wichita. There were 967 people were on it.

Uncle Joe was on a big gun—that was what they called them,” Jeanne said.

The U.S.S. Wichita is classified as a heavy cruiser. 

Charlie Robbins described where his uncle traveled as part of his wartime service.

“He set off in Casco Bay in Portland. The first service they had was off of Scotland, escorting the fleet transporting raw materials for the war. They did escorts,” Charlie said.

“They had trouble with the ship and went back to New York for repairs,” he said. 

“He was shipped to North Africa where they fought the Germans in Morocco, Casablanca. That was in ’42,” Charlie said.

The U.S.S. Wichita was then sent to the South Pacific campaign. It was near Rennell Island that the young marine was wounded. It was from that experience that Pitts was awarded the Purple Heart.

During World War II, he shipped to Aleutian Islands in Alaska, where there were concerns about Russian activity.

“The radar on his ship picked up a blurb. They let off 1,000 rounds, thought it was a Russian submarine. But it was seagulls or a whale,” Charlie said. “That very next day he asked for a transfer to California.”

Joseph Pitts got his paratrooper wings.

“He had same training as the SEALS,” Charlie said.

“During leave, he went to San Francisco, had a meal, got sick on the train, went out on the steps of the train, and he fell. That was how he died,” Charlie said.

The family had created a poster that they donated to the museum.

“This is a picture in the Bridgton newspaper. Joe enlisted with Joe Irish,” Jeanne said.

Also among the memorabilia was a copy of The Leatherneck, a Marine Corps magazine, in which Joe was on the cover.  

“We don’t know that Uncle Joe played the bagpipes. But he was handsome and he was the poster boy for that day,” Jeanne said.

Also, there is photo of him as a young boy at the family cabin on Crystal Lake.

There were marksmanship medals, too.

“He had excellent marksmanship. The Pitts family were big hunters so they had good marksmanship,” she said.

“The Pitts family was quite prominent around here.” Jeanne said.

“My great grandfather, Joseph Pitts. He had Dorothy and Samuel and Effie. My Uncle ‘Nucker’ was a Joseph Pitts. My aunt Elaine who was Junior’s sister had a son she named Joseph Pitts Walker. My brother is Joseph Pitts Robbins. Are there any other Joseph Pitts in the family? It’s gone on and on,” she said.

Stemming from these Harrison residents, there is a tradition of service in the military by so many of their family members, both men and women.

“We are very proud of our service,” Jeanne said.