Photo By Staff Sgt. Angela Parady | Cpl. Maurice Storck looks at the pictures of himself from his early years in the Maine...... read more read more
AUGUSTA, Maine - Growing up, we read stories of how our predecessors shaped the world we live in today, through the events of their times. The Revolutionary War shaped our independence as a nation, and celebrates the foundations of the National Guard. The Civil War brought independence to the southern nations and made slavery illegal. World War II pushed the Axis against the Allies as Germany and Japan fought to dominate Europe, through force and destruction. Someday, children will read about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and study the actions of our heroes.
Often, we look through our textbooks and read the accounts of the men and women who lived these adventures. Sometimes, you want to ask them about their experience, or wonder how they felt in the middle of a battle. In late July, Maine soldiers were given the opportunity to meet one of the oldest survivors of the Pearl Harbor attacks, a Maine man, who survived more than just that fateful day in Hawaii.
Cpl. Maurice Storck was born in 1922. Following in the footsteps of his father and older brother, Maurice joined the Maine Army National Guard’s 103rd Infantry Division at the age of 14. Three years later, he volunteered for an active duty post that led him to the Hawaiian Division in Honolulu, which later became the 65th Infantry Division, 25th Infantry Regiment.
Storck, who moved to Arizona after retiring from his coin collecting business, returned to Maine with his son for the July visit, and stopped into the Augusta Armory to share some of his stories with today’s service members.
Dressed in summertime khakis and a blue shirt, Storck broke the ice by looking around the room full of clean-shaven men and started with his first story.
Towards the end of the campaign in the Philippines, Storck was in a hospital in Guadalcanal when the colonel came to visit him. He was recovering from a broken back, the result of an explosion while at sea. He had grown a beard, which wasn’t allowed, even back then.
“The Colonel says to me, ‘Soldier, I want you to shave off those whiskers,’” said Storck. “I said, ‘Sir, I am paralyzed. I am in the hospital, I’m an old timer. I have eight years in the service, what are you going to do to me if I don’t?’ I lost the battle with the colonel, but I wasn’t giving up on those whiskers. I said, ‘Sir, it took a long time to grow these whiskers and I am not shaving them off until I get a picture taken with them.’ So he went down and got his camera and took the picture. Then he told me, I had the picture, it was time to shave. I told him, ‘Sir, I know you have taken the picture of me, but I haven’t gotten it yet. When I get that picture I’ll shave them off.’ The next day I got the picture and I shaved the whiskers off.”
The room broke out in laughter, and Storck started in telling more stories of his crazy adventures. Some of the stories were amusing, and some made the soldiers respect the dangers of war.
“I had been there for over a year before Pearl Harbor. We were sleeping in the Schofield Barracks when it happened. We were often woken up in the middle of the night. We grabbed our gear and ran outside. We saw the planes come over. We could have waved to the Japanese pilots. We didn’t know they were Japanese - the Red Force is always fighting the Blue Force on maneuvers and these planes had the red disk on them, we saw these things come out - we thought they were flour sacks like they usually are, but this time, it was bombs. The next think you know the mess hall went straight up in the air. A couple hundred guys were killed in that I guess.
“They took out the airplanes, the fighter planes in the field. It all happened so fast. People ask me how I felt, but we didn’t have time to feel anything, it all happened so quick! By the time we got any ammunition, it was too late for anything. One of my men and I were digging a foxhole, to get out of the barracks. I asked him what the hell he was shooting at. He said, ‘I’m shooting at the plane.’ And I said, ‘Well you are a damn fool, that’s our plane!” and he said, ‘Well how the hell am I supposed to know?’ and that’s just the way it was.”
Storck made a name for himself during the campaign. He became known as a scavenger. He was able to get nearly anything the men needed, at any time. His captains knew of his connections and his ability to be resourceful, and gave him a lot of liberties not afforded to many other soldiers at the time. One time, in New Georgia, he was tasked to go get the soldiers cigarettes.
“So, I hitchhiked back to Guadalcanal, maybe 500 miles, and I got the cases of cigarettes - 50 cartons to a case - cases of Nestlé's chocolate bars, 1,044 to a case, and I got a brand new three-quarter ton weapon carrier to load them on. When I got ready to get back, well coming out was no problem, but trying to get back with those during the war, that was the problem. The loading officer didn’t want to make any room for the extra carriers when he got back to the landing ship tank that would carry the supplies back over to our boys. I offered them an extra case of cigarettes and chocolate bars to get back over, and they let us on.”
He quickly became famous for being able to get items that were considered impossible to obtain, including a rare type of ink and a new jeep after he crashed the general’s in a freak accident involving one of the natives, a wild pig, and a big patch of brush.
Between his scavenging ways, and an uncanny way of dodging death, Storck managed to do more in his 10 years of service than most do in a lifetime. After surviving Pearl Harbor he went on to see combat in Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, New Georgia and New Caledonia.
He is seasoned. Tough as nails. And ready to give back. After retiring in 1970 from the stamp and coin business, he and his wife traveled in a motor-home for 10 years. He had met Nancy June at a milk bar in New Zealand while on leave from New Caledonia. He guessed her middle name, and she agreed to go on a date.
The two were married in a whirlwind affair involving Storck bartering for a New Zealand soldier’s uniform, a ride back with the New Zealand troops, and a nine-day pass that turned into a three-month adventure, and caused him a little bit of a headache to get back. The back injury from the ship explosion led to his honorable discharge from service, and the two eventually made their way back to Maine.
After his wife’s death in 1990, he made his home in Arizona, and contacted the Veterans Administration. He says he volunteers more hours for the VA then some people actually work.
“In the last 27 years, I have put in more than 47,000 hours of volunteer work,” he said. “I work 40-60 hours a week volunteering there.”
The rest of his time, he spends traveling. His memories of combat remain sharp as a knife and he is able to easily recap the events and the names of the men he stood next to. When a reunion interests him, he attends, and catches up with the “boys.”
Although these days, he’s usually the only surviving member of his era.
Although time and technology may separate him from the soldiers Storck talked with in Maine, he isn’t much different from them. He survived every day by focusing on the facts, of what needed to be done. Every day was a lesson learned on what to do and what not to do on the battle field, which our men and women still do every day, in some of the same places that he himself fought in. As today’s soldiers continue to shape the events that the future generations will read and study, it is nice to be able to listen, and learn from a living legend such as Mr. Storck.
| Date Taken: | 07.30.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 08.06.2014 13:47 |
| Story ID: | 138468 |
| Location: | AUGUSTA, ME, US |
| Web Views: | 185 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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