He was the Uncle who had died in The War.
The plainness of the sentence is as clear as was my earliest understanding of a young man who had died some twenty years before my birth. There isn’t a particular time where I could point to first knowing about Tom Kelly. I’d simply come to accept who he was: that he was my Grandmother’s brother, the son of my old Great-grandfather; and that he had died, only months before my mother had been born. Tom Kelly was the Uncle who had died in The War.
“The War”, at that time, was generally understood to mean the Second World War. It was the early Seventies, and while I may have been too young to understand the more current events in the world outside my own, “WWII” was another matter. As kids, we’d heard talk of it within our own families; and we’d learned about it in our classrooms. And from the TV sets in our living rooms. It was the stuff of primetime, movies and miniseries; and even sitcoms.
I remember being around the age of ten, and knowing that ‘my room’ when visiting Gram and Ge-Ge’s house on South Street, and the room in which my own two uncles had grown up, had once been his, as well. And I knew that the little closet in the corner of the room still contained some of his possessions. I must have peeked inside at least one time, because I have a picture in my mind of its small, dark interior: a couple of stacked boxes, the top one open, items wrapped in old newspapers. Leaning against the boxes, an American flag, rolled up on its short pole. I had a reasonable amount of freedom to explore within that house; however, I remember knowing that the little closet was off-limits to me.
I also recall finding the framed picture of him, in his naval uniform; it was tucked within a box of other family pictures, discovered while exploring one of the other upstairs closets. For many years, it sat on the fireplace mantle; but had, at some point, been put away. And there were still more artifacts in the basement, as well: Tom’s tennis racquet; some golf clubs; his skis, tucked up into the joists.
That was my childhood awareness; and, like my understanding of The War itself, I wouldn’t come to fully know the story of the life and service of Tom Kelly until I’d grown much older. It’s come to me over the years; the occasional mention of his name, a small detail passed within the crosstalk of family conversations. A great deal of it has come from my Mother and from her own childhood memories. Along with this, I’d also come to realize that her Uncle Tom ~ his service ~ held special meaning for her. Her thoughts on the subject are her own; but I’ll share that it had surely given her an early appreciation of those noble notions of service to country, and of sacrifice. That her Uncle’s Purple Heart had seemingly been…well, “lost track of”…within our family within recent years was something which had troubled her. It underscored a feeling of which I’d already been aware: a resignation that, one day, the memory of his brief life and service ~ Tom Kelly’s loss ~ would likely be forgotten.
Before he was the first occupant of one of the two upstairs bedrooms in the little house on South Street, Tom Kelly had been born and grown up in the heart of Bristol, Connecticut. He’d lived as a kid on Federal Hill, just behind St. Joseph’s Church and the old Town Green; and for a time, up in the then-wooded roads on South Mountain. Born in 1920, Thomas John Kelly was the third child of Thomas F. Kelly, an Inspector with the Bristol Fire Department, and his wife, Margaret.
The Kellys were an unassuming and reserved family, and led quiet lives; not at all the ‘wild Irish’ sort that Tom’s father would have shooed away from the front step, had any come calling on his two older sisters. Devout in their faith, they were members of the parish of Saint Joseph’s Church; it was the church in which Tom’s mother had been raised, and in which his parents had been married. For young Tom and his sisters, Fran and Lee, the Church was as vital as any other component of family life. Growing up, his mother would often play the organ at church services; the parish priests and nuns had long been family friends.
In 1939, during his last year of high school, the family moved into their new home. Tom had helped in its construction, working along side his father, his uncle, and a few of his cousins. The house sat just across from the the Memorial Boulevard park. Created to honor those citizens of Bristol who had served in the Nation’s military, Veteran’s Memorial Park runs the length of the boulevard leading into the center of Bristol. It was flanked on one end by the High School, and on the other by an old mill pond fed by the Pequabuck River. Behind their home was South Mountain, then, still mostly farmland and fields; the hillside wooded with old oak and chestnut trees. It was an ideal place for a young man; nature was in his backyard, and the city just outside his front door.
Fit, lean, and short of stature, Tom had the striking blue eyes and dark hair of the Kellys’ Gaelic roots. He was an athletic, energetic and good-natured young man. He’d been on the cross country and swim teams for all of his high school years; and he had a host of other hobbies and interests, as well. Quiet and unassuming amid a crowd, light and amiable amongst his own; a young man full of optimism and promise.
In describing his life, it’s nearly impossible to avoid conjuring up imagery of the old movies of that era: The all-American young man, a son goes off to war, the sweetheart on the Homefront.
And Tom Kelly did have a sweetheart. And almost unbelievably, she was the girl next door. She was a young lady was named Dottie, and she lived just down the street from the Kelly house. Dottie would hear him happily whistling a tune, or even singing, as he’d make his way across the few meadowy lots between their family homes ~ to “call on her”. It was then only a brief stroll to the other end of the Park, and the high school, with its athletic fields and tennis courts. Just a block beyond, and Tom and Dottie would have found themselves on Main Street, in the bustling downtown of a bygone era. The days of sweet shoppes and matinee movies.
After the United States was attacked on December 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor ~ much like the response in our own era, after the attacks on 9/11 ~ great numbers of patriotic young Americans felt compelled to serve their country. At the time, Tom had been working for the Colt Firearms Company, in Hartford. He’d enlisted in the US Navy Reserve, and was called-up in late 1942. By the early summer of 1943, he would find himself serving in the Pacific Theatre, many thousands of miles from home, as a Machinists Mate 3rd Class aboard the naval destroyer, U.S.S. Selfridge.
On October 6, 1943, the Selfridge had been leading two other destroyers ~ the Chevalier and O’Bannon ~ in maneuvers near the Solomon Islands, meant to disrupt the enemy’s attempts to evacuate land forces from the nearby island of Vella Lavella. Having detected two groups of Japanese warships, the three destroyers moved to intercept and engage them.
While the three US ships had successfully damaged or destroyed the first enemy group, both the Chevalier and O’Bannon has sustained heavy damage. The Selfridge steamed ahead to engage the second set of targets. Tom was in the forward section, where he and his mates loaded and re-loaded the batteries, as the Selfridge continued to fire at the targets. Initially avoiding torpedo strikes, and after having successfully fired upon and damaged two of the ships, the Selfridge was targeted.
Two torpedoes hit the Selfridge. The explosions struck nearly simultaneously, tearing into her bow from both sides. Below the waves, large segments of the ship were blasted away into the sea. One of the pieces had come up and struck the propellors, before falling away, into the depths. Only a single, closed bulkhead had saved the ship from sinking. The front of the Selfridge had been torn away; and with it, the forward batteries and thirty-six young sailors.
The crippled vessel would make her way, under cover of darkness, to Port Purvis in the Solomon Islands, for temporary repairs. The number of casualties during The Battle of Vella Lavella amounted to sixty-seven killed and forty-seven wounded among the three US vessels, and the thirty-six missing sailors from the Selfridge. Among the missing was Tom Kelly.
The news would have first come to them that their son was “missing in action”. And during the holidays of that year ~ through Thanksgiving and Christmas, and the birth of a grandchild between them ~ the Kelly family would have held to any shred of hope. Tom’s father would reach out for answers, looking for any news on the fate of his son. But the letter Thomas Kelly received in January of 1944, from his son’s commanding officer, would make true his worst fear.
Since first having been given a copy of the letter, I’ve read it many times over. I’ve thought of my Great-grandfather and his receiving it; and of him having been a few years younger than my own age, today. I’ve thought about him reading the grim and terrible confirmation contained within it. And I’ve thought about the young Naval Commander, who had been compelled to write them.
Fifteen years after his death, a teen-aged girl attended a school ceremony, in which they’d read aloud the names of the Bristol High students who had died in The War. Later in the day, her algebra teacher had tearfully shared with her that she had known the girl’s Uncle, and that they’d attended school together. The former classmate and friend still knew the loss of Tom Kelly.
Fifty years after that school remembrance ~ sixty-five years from his death ~ while at the funeral of a family member, she would introduce her adult son to an old friend of the family. Dot was in her late eighties, then; still spry and very sweet. She told me that she thought I looked like my Uncle Tom. I’d politely thanked her, and chatted for a bit; I wouldn’t know of their connection until Mom told me, later. She told me, too, that for a moment, Dot had truly been startled at the resemblance, as I’d first approached them. The young sweetheart, who’d never married, still knew the loss of Tom Kelly.
On a visit just a Christmas ago, my own Uncle was smiling as he handed me a gift, in an unassuming shoebox. I recognized the purple presentation box inside, right away. It was Tom’s Purple Heart, along with his service medals. He’d told me, earlier that summer, that he had found them amid his own collection of family treasures; now, he was giving them to me to add to my own. An unexpected gift, given at a time when I’d been quietly considering what to do with all that I had come to know about his and Mom’s Uncle Tom.
This past year marked the eightieth anniversary of the death of Tom Kelly. Those who knew him in their lives ~ who had loved and grieved for him ~ are gone. In their memory, and in honor of the young lives cut short in brave service to country, I share the story of the loss of Tom Kelly.
The Uncle who died in The War.
