D. Clarke Evans Photographer

Shirley Geissler

Gunnery Sergeant, USMC
1944–1951

Cpl. Shirley Geissler
Chery Point, NC, 1945

From Pearl Harbor until the 50’s it was ‘Do something for your country’; that was very strong. Even little children wanted to grow up and fight for their country. It’s not like that now.”

I was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, the heart of the Commonwealth, in 1921. I went to Commercial High School. On December 7, 1941 I was in the YWCA. The family of one of the girls had a boathouse on Lake Quinsigamond. Six of us girls went down there and Walter Winchell came on the radio; he said our nation will be at war tomorrow. We were paralyzed. We never expected it. We walked around looking up at the sky, wondering if the Japanese planes were coming.

A lot of men were leaving. I found a part-time job in the inspection department of a place that made bicycle tires. I inspected small sprockets to open the bomb bay doors of airplanes. They had to be perfect or the pilot couldn’t get the doors open to bomb Japan. My family had been in the Revolutionary War and were Mayflower descendants. From Pearl Harbor until the 50’s it was ‘Do something for your country’; that was very strong. Even little children wanted to grow up and fight for their country. It’s not like that now.

We were at the Y one day and one of the girls says, “Why don’t we go down to Boston and join the Marines?” This was 1944. We took the bus to the recruiting station. I was sure they wouldn’t take me because I had very bad teeth and was thin from taking care of my mother who was legally blind. In all the ads, they had beautiful teeth. I filled out all the papers and he said, “You don’t call us, we’ll call you.” I didn’t hear back for four months.

I went to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina for boot camp in April of 1944. Boot camp was six weeks. My whole platoon was from New England—that made it nice. After graduation, they listed all the names of those going to special schools. I wanted parachute rigger or something like that. They called my name and I went to aviation machinist school in Norman, Oklahoma. I found out you didn’t work on the planes. We studied them for five months so we could work on them if we had to.

Then I was assigned to general duty at the aviation base in Cherry Point, North Carolina. There was this big Billy Mitchell 4-engine bomber in the hangar. We had Corsairs and Navy Bobcats. The sergeant told me to climb a ladder up on the wing and take all the screws out and put in new ones. It looked like new ones were in there already. I thought, ‘What a waste of training.’ I went to the lieutenant and told him I spent five months at an aviation machinist school and felt I should be doing something more appropriate. He put me in the lab. They taught me how to use a micrometer and we inspected sprockets. That was wonderful. They liked me and they liked my work. I did this about a year—1945-46. Then I was honorably discharged at the government’s convenience because I got married and they didn’t want to support the children.

The Korean War came and I was working for the State Department then. I was answering letters from Americans regarding their relatives in Europe. I got my notice: Report to the Marine Corps for one year. I worked a switchboard and oh, was it busy! I got out in 1951 as a gunnery sergeant.

My husband was a lieutenant commander in the Coast Guard—a 20-year career. He inspected the sea-worthiness of ships in Hawaii, New York, and on Lake Erie. That’s when he saw the ad that Maine Maritime Academy wanted a professor for nautical science, which was his field. He spent 20 years there and he loved it. He was such a good teacher.

We had five kids—four boys and one girl; 12 grandchildren. We lived primarily in Maine and had three boys that graduated from the Academy. I stayed home and raised the kids. I did my part; I went in when they asked me. Do something for your country. {07-17-2017 • San Antonio, TX}