HARTFORD - Every day Russell Dale Johnson was serving with the Marines in the Pacific during World War II, Betty Messersmith wrote him a letter.
"She wrote every day, telling me the news of the whole township," Johnson said from the home he'd built on the 100-acre farm his parents bought in 1937. "She'd tell me about everything. Those letters were wonderful."
Having left school after the ninth grade to help his father on the family farm, Johnson said he wasn't a very good correspondent.
"I did write once in a while, but not near as often as she did," he said.
His family moved to the Hartford farm from Coalburg in 1937. He met Betty when he was attending the ninth grade in Hartford; she was two years his junior. They became friends, then started going steady.
In 1942, he decided to join the Marines. Patriotism was running high after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and everyone wanted to do their part, he said.
He sent some letters from training camp and a photo when he was stationed in North Carolina after joining the Marine Corps.
Johnson became an expert marksman and was sent to the Pacific, where he was a sniper and scout for his rifle company. He spent three years beating his way through jungle, trying to find the enemy before they found him.
"It was in those thickets where most people got killed," he said.
Johnson took part in four invasions: Eniwetock, Saipan, Tarawa and Iwo Jima. He was injured twice, and both times cited for bravery by the Marine Corps. Twice he, a corporal, had to assume command of the unit as an acting lieutenant because all of his superior officers had been shot.
"You do things in war you normally wouldn't," he said.
One of those things was not writing to his future wife when he was in the hospital at Guadalcanal, recovering from a shoulder wound received after being shot in the invasion of Saipan in 1944. To pass the time until he was sent back to the front, he made a leather wallet.
"I regret it, now," he said. "I don't know why I didn't write. They didn't know where I was."
The military sent a telegram informing his mother he'd been injured.
"She couldn't read so she had to have the man that brought it read it to her," Johnson said.
Betty wrote the military incessantly, wanting to know where Johnson was. Finally a response came. A yellowed, single-page typewritten letter stated he'd been injured but not where or how. The letter did give her a military address, and she continued her daily communications.
A healed Johnson then took part of the invasion of Iwo Jima on March 14, 1945. There, he "exposed himself to enemy small arms and mortar fire to direct the advance of his platoon," according to a military citation.
All of his superior officers had been killed or disabled within a 24-hour period. He suffered a disabling injury, the citation continues, and "refused to be evacuated and continued to direct the efforts of his platoon unit the objective was secured." His actions upheld the honor of the Marine Corps, the letter concludes.
A dum-dum bullet had exploded on his chest. The wallet he'd made in Guadalcanal was in his chest pocket. He has it still today, scarred from shrapnel and stained with his blood.
"I looked down and something was hanging out. Nerves, muscles, I thought, maybe my stomach. It knocked me for a loop, broke my ribs, deflated my lung."
He held himself together with his hands and led his platoon to safety. The injury still pains him, he said.
He came home for a while after the injury began to heal. On Nov. 9, 1945, he and Betty were married.
"She set the date, she arranged everything," he said.
With a grin, he implied that he'd never asked her to marry him, she just told him to show up at the Chapel of The Friendly Bells.
"Now Dad, she's not here to defend herself," said his daughter Bonnie Eucker.
"Well, maybe I asked her," he admitted.
In December 1945, Johnson was discharged as a sergeant. He worked two jobs so Betty could stay home with their growing family. During the war she worked at Westinghouse in Sharon, Pa. They had five children and celebrated 55 years of marriage before her death in 2001.
Like many men returning from war, Johnson said he had difficulty adjusting to home life.
"It was tough to come back," he said. "A lot of guys had it pretty bad. Me, I drank a lot."
His wife said nothing. His mother did.
"She saw alcoholism in her family. And all she said to me was you'd better slow down," Johnson said.
He did. He took advantage of the GI Bill and was trained as an auto mechanic. Eventually Packard Electric hired him; he retired from there in 1989. He got involved in stock car racing, joining NASCAR for a while in 1950.
"I really don't know if I'd do it again," he said of his time in the military. "I am glad there are still people who want to serve."
