Mr. Paul was a good man

He was a good man. You just don’t hear that being said much these days.

Paul Holland passed away several years ago at the age of 99. I had known Mr. Paul since I moved back to Sampson County in 1989. We went to the same church together. Mr. Paul loved to play golf, so you know we got along well. But it was more than that. He was just a pleasant person to be around. I would stop by his house often, just to visit with Mr. Paul and his wife, Mrs. Doris.

As the years went by, Mrs. Doris became feeble and unable to be cared for at home, and was placed in a nursing home. In his early 90s, Mr. Paul would drive to the nursing home twice a day to see her, to make sure she had her lunch and supper. After watching “Wheel of Fortune” with her, he would head back home for the night, and would be back the next day. He did that until he was unable to drive anymore, and he ended up in the same room as Mrs. Doris when he could no longer stay by himself.

Back in his early 90s, Mr. Paul had gotten to the point that he couldn’t play golf anymore. He gave me his putter he used playing. I still use it today, although I think it worked much better for him than it does for me. It was during those years, when Mrs. Doris was in the nursing home, that I made a point to try to visit Mr. Paul more often. I would get him to tell me stories about his life. He told me about floating down the river on logs that were going to be sold in Wilmington. He told me about selling produce in Wallace, and then getting into the car business. Of course, there were also golf stories. But his stories about being in World War II were the most interesting. Since hearing them, I have found out more of the details.

Paul Holland was drafted into the Navy toward the end of World War II. He was married to Mrs. Doris and they already had a baby girl. He was assigned as a radarman to the USS Borie, a naval destroyer, and was sent to the Pacific to fight against the Japanese. The USS Borie was part of the U.S. fleet that bombarded Iwo Jima and Okinawa during the U.S. taking of those islands. Mr. Paul told me of how the ship was refueling from the aircraft carrier, USS Essex, during the Battle of Okinawa during a typhoon. A big wave carried the Borie into the underside of the Essex and caused considerable damage. (This happened on April 2, 1945.)

Mr. Paul then told me how the USS Borie was about 35 miles off the coast of Japan in August 1945, as the Allies prepared for the invasion of the country. In their desperation, the Japanese had started crashing their planes onto U.S. ships. You’ve probably heard about the Japanese kamikaze pilots and the damage they did to U.S. ships near the end of World War II. On Aug. 9, 1945, Mr. Paul’s ship was crashed into by a Japanese kamikaze plane. The plane smashed into the mast of the Borie, just above the radar room, where Mr. Paul was stationed, killing 48 sailors and causing extensive damage. Mr. Paul said three other kamikaze pilots also attempted to crash into the Borie and finish the job, but they were shot down by gunners from a nearby U.S. destroyer.

What is unique is that this was the last kamikaze attack on a U.S. ship during the war. Three days earlier, the U.S. had dropped the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, and on August 9, the same day of the kamikaze attack on the USS Borie, another nuclear bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Mr. Paul said that it was only as their ship hobbled back to port the next week that they learned about the bombings and that Japan had surrendered.

But Mr. Paul was more than a World War II veteran and hero. In the Bible, Matthew 12:35 states, “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things.” Mr. Paul Holland was a good man. And isn’t it good to hear about one these days?