The Williamson Brothers of Hobucken - N.C. Family Band of Brothers

 This story is reprinted from the News & Observer by Martha Quillan. November 11, 2011

N.C. Family's Band of Brothers

by Martha Quillen

      Lt. Harry "Red" Williamson spent three years as a U.S. Navy pilot during World War II, much of it swooping in on a seaplane to rescue American troops whose ships had been torpedoed or bombed and sent them splashing in the Pacific.
     Williamson was a member of a patrol bombing squadron called VPB-26 whose pilots were as widely known for their search-and-rescue abilities as for their skill at bombing enemy ships and submarines. Emerging from the clouds to pull survivors from the burning wreckage, they became known as the Flying Angels.
     Williamson had stories to tell.
     It was just that no one wanted to listen.
     "Everybody had stories," Williamson told his daughter, Robin McBrearty, when she asked her 88-year-old father why he had never talked about the war.
     "You could walk down the street and every single person on that street would have a story" about the war, he told her. "But nobody wanted to hear the stories. They had seen enough of war. They didn't want to talk about that anymore."
     Even in his own family, there were too many stories.
     Harry was one of 13 children born to Henry and Emma Williamson of Hobucken, a tiny waterfront community in Pamlico County, and four of them had gone off to fight between February 1942 and September 1943.
      Delbert Williamson was drafted by the Army; he went first. Then Rex joined the Navy, followed by Harry, who was too young to join on his own and had to hitchhike home from Washington to get his father to sign for him. A few months after Grady Williamson signed up, The News & Observer noted the service of the four young men and ran photographs of them in their uniforms.
      The clipping, which floated around the family for nearly seven decades, has inspired a much more permanent tribute to the siblings by their surviving children, who only recently realized how much their fathers did for their country, and how little they had required in return.
      The brothers are gone now - Harry, the last of his generation of Williamsons, died in September - but their story will live.
      On Monday, the U.S. Navy Memorial in Washington will hold a ceremony for the Williamson family, dedicating a plaque to honor the four brothers' service. The plaque features the military portraits and calls the Williamson boys "A Band of Brothers - Heroes from Hobucken, N.C."
      The Williamsons were among 361,000 North Carolinians who served in the armed forces during World War II, more than 7,000 of whom were lost in action, according to the N.C. Museum of History. In September 2010, the Veterans Administration estimated there were about 53,900 World War II veterans still living in the state.
     The Williamsons' plaque will be added to a commemorative plaque wall inside the memorial's Naval Heritage Center. The Williamsons' may be the first of the hundreds of plaques dedicated to a familial quartet.
     War not discussed
     Ken Williamson, whose father, Rex, served in the amphibious forces in the Pacific fleet, started the project.
     Growing up in the Washington area, Ken Williamson was aware his father had served in the war.
"He had medals, he had papers and ribbons and stuff like that," Ken recalls. "But as I got into the later teen years and on into adulthood, we never really talked about it. He never brought it up, either. There were things that happened that they just didn't want to talk about. Ever."
     Rex Williamson died in 1998 at age 76.
     Harry Williamson might never have talked about it, either, except for a random conversation to help a grieving spouse pass the time.
     Harry's wife, Jill, fell ill earlier this year, and once she came home from the hospital to spend her last days at home, Robin McBrearty said, Harry almost never left her side. One day, McBrearty said, the couple's minister came by to visit. Jill Williamson was too weak to talk, so the pastor chatted with Harry.
     "So Harry," he asked, "Where were you stationed in the war?"
     "In the south Pacific," Williamson answered.
     "So did you see the atom bomb go off?"
     "Yeah," he said. "You couldn't miss it. It was huge."
     McBrearty had no idea. She began asking him questions, too, and recording his answers, about seeing the explosion of the second atom bomb, and about being in Tokyo Bay the day Emperor Hirohito walked onto the USS Missouri to sign the Japanese surrender. He talked about the sounds of the ships sirens rising in the bay to celebrate the end of the war.
     Ken Williamson was fascinated to hear his uncle's stories. He and other family members met Harry when he went to Washington earlier this year to see the National WWII Memorial through the Flight of Honor program. Harry went, he told his family, to honor his three brothers who didn't live to see it.
      Ken Williamson and his wife later made a stop by the U.S. Navy Memorial, and Ken started reading all those plaques. The Williamson men ought to have a plaque, he said.
     Harry Williamson learned he had cancer while the plaque was in the works. His family knew he wouldn't live long enough to make it to a November dedication.
     So the last weekend in August, when Hurricane Irene was pounding the East Coast, Ken drove from his home in Centreville, Va., to see Harry in New Jersey with a video showing the Navy Memorial, the wall of plaques and the spot the Williamsons' would occupy. He brought Harry a duplicate of the plaque he could hold in his hands.
     "That just broke him completely up," Ken Williamson said.
      Harry died two weeks later.
     "It's remarkable that the four of them went in and they all came back without a scratch," Ken Williamson said. "We're thankful to them for going to protect us. They gave everything they had, not knowing whether they would even be coming home.
     "They are heroes."

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