A glimpse into 1944's South Pacific

Ray Turk, 76, uncovered a piece of the past when he came across his father’s World War II stories.

Typed on wax paper, folded and stuffed into an envelope, each story details the lives of soldiers on the front lines in 1944.

Upon his father’s death, Ray Turk found the manuscript-like package titled, “103 Stories from the South Pacific,” and at first glance, he assumed it was a book his father, Ray Turk Sr., wrote during his time overseas.

Further inspection of the stories revealed they were from his father’s time as a war correspondent for the Cleveland News, a now-defunct Ohio newspaper.

Holding onto the package for nearly 30 years, Turk wasn’t sure what to do with the pieces of his late father’s journalism career. Now he hopes to catch the eye of a publisher and repurpose the work into a book.

“With all of these World War II [documentaries] coming up on TV, I thought maybe now’s the time to bring it out,” Turk said. “If someone doesn’t want to jump on this story, then it will go back in the closet, which would be a shame.”

The stories detail the lives of soldiers from Ohio during their time in the South Pacific.

Turk Sr.’s first column, labeled “en route to the Southwest Pacific,” is from June 1944 and began, “I’m headed 10,000 miles from home to write about your boy, your boy friend, that kid next door who is fighting and enduring the jungle war of the Southwest Pacific.”

He moved around with the Army’s 37th Division as his datelines switched to “somewhere in Australia,” Bougainville and Waikiki before his return to the states six months later.

Turk Sr. tracked down soldiers from the Cleveland area as he tried to relay their stories to their family members at home.

Rather than focusing on the negative side of the war, many of his stories read more like first-person columns.

A letter sent from Turk Sr.’s editor said that due to his dedication to finding these men, his articles were beloved by readers: “Because of the local references, [the stories] are ringing the bell like nothing else in print in town.”

Passage after passage connected the men fighting overseas to the men reading back home by including street addresses and memories from their home lives. One passage detailed two men who met abroad only to find out they lived on the same street.

Another column explored what a lieutenant did during his first 15-day leave in seven months, which he said mainly consisted of “sleeping, eating a lot and enjoying the sights.”

His final story was sent from San Francisco as he reflected on exploring the jungle training center, which he called “a pretty-civilized jungle compared to the ones [he had] seen.”

When he returned home, Turk Sr. was given an award for his war correspondence from the Cleveland Newspaper Guild.

Among the large pile of news stories, Turk also found photographs of his father with Gen. Douglas MacArthur and entertainers Jackie Gleason, Dagmar, and Bob Hope. Many of the photos that Turk found he said had never seen before, which gave him a little more insight into his father’s past.