Richard Clayton "Dick" Randolph (born 1924)

1939 LHS football squad	1940 LHS football squad	1941 LHS football squad
1942 LHS Glee Club

This March 4, 1943, Lowell Tribune article was found on page 2, column 2:

Taking Six Weeks Training

During the time he is receiving this training, he will learn a great deal about the care of the injured and ill from the U.S. navy forces. On graduation he will go into service at a navy hospital for a short probationary period, then transfer to a permanent assignment.

This March 25, 1943, Lowell Tribune article was found on page 4, column 1:

Telephones Parents

This January 13, 1944, Lowell Tribune article was found on page 2, column 1:

Clayton Randolph

"Last Sunday the chaplains and "brass hats" made a dedication to our island cemetery (on Vella La Vella). A few days before the occasion they chose members of this outfit to make up an honor guard for the ceremony and I was included. We borrowed and exchanged from different guys and finally dressed in "whites" to add color to it. I'm telling you, it was hard to listen to that dedication without a big lump swelling in your throat. Some of our honorable patriots at home should see that little grave yard (it's not so little at that) and perhaps they [would] sacrifice a little bit more cheerfully."

Vella La Vella island, where Dick is now stationed with the hospital attendants corps, is the same one where Dorsey Ruley and several other sailors were rescued after their ship was sunk in battle last summer.

The following March 23, 1944, Lowell Tribune article was found on page 2, column 2:

Hugh Rieke

The following article was found in the May 18, 1944, Lowell Tribune on page 3, columns 2-6:

Dick Randolph Writes

"Jungle Hospital"
by Wm. Murray (MWR)

It was an episode among episodes of war. It was death where death is the common denominator and only fate knows how to solve the problem.

We had been set up for only a short time, for the island was newly won. First the jungle had to be pushed back by the hand labor of hospital corpsmen and then our small "cat" would pull out the fallen trees and brush. The essential but now glorious "head" had to be dug through solid coral, while our single ward was a long tent with the ground as a deck. Surgery was a small tent, thin-meshed mosquito netting enclosing it.

Slowly, day by day, things began to take shape. A ward was erected upon short cocoanut logs. It wasn't much, just a long tent with closely woven wire strips that ran along the sides and bottom to enable the air to circulate. The deck was made of plywood boards and the surgical beds were nothing more than canvass cots. Surgery, amid the ringing sounds of hammering on tin, finally stared imposingly at us in the form of a Quonset hut. Inside on the plain wooden racks could be seen the sterile trays of surgical equipment, I.V. (inter-venous) and plasma sets, swather in their brown wrapping.

The diet kitchen celebrated a few days later by unveiling to the world an enormous white, four-compartment frigidaire which looked a little out of place in its somewhat shabby environment. E.E.N.T. (eye, ear, nose, and throat), together with the lab, and pharmacy, were confined in one of the buildings and the morgue was a lonely, forlorn, sagging tent set off by itself on the edge of our grounds.

Water was one of the main problems, for there just wasn't any. We had to depend primarily on our various rain barrels when and if it rained -- and then one day there came lumbering into the compound a "Rube Goldberg" looking affair, bumping along on large iron wheels with a span of steel network that spiraled into the sky like a long-necked giraffe, eying comtemptuously the prosaic world below. It was a "well digger", and before long, it began to "whee" in its steady, perpendicular, thumping drive like a forceful speaker standing on a rostrum smashing his fist up and down as he emphatically illustrates a point.

So there you see us -- nothing elaborate, nothing shining, just a small cluster of green peeping indistinguishably out of a vast background of the same color waiting to help, with the aid of God, save a life or ease some pain.

The huge, bearded, mailed God of Mars didn't keep us waiting long, for out of the tropical dusk came the roar of planes returning from a mission. I can't say where, I can't say when, I can't chant numbers, I can't whisper names, but I can say -- "trouble." It came to us in carefully driven ambulances, for the packages that had been marked "fragile," were damaged.

No use going into gory details, there's been too much already written about mangled bodies, gaping holes, running blood -- it was all there. The doctors and the corpsmen fought back at the shadow whose blackness was darker than the night without. They slugged back with all their professional skill and meager equipment. Their bodies glistened under the glare of lights and those who wore their shirts had dark, spreading, irregular stains where sweat met fabric. Needles punctured rubber, sterile water ran slowly into a yellow powder and when the bottle was full of the yellow liquid, the plasma of a Michigan farmer or an Alabama high school student poured into the vein of a dying warrior who had to lie on the floor because there was only one operating table. Another ambulance came out of the jungle night with its fearful load. The metal door swung open and gently, oh how gently, they pulled him out, but the hulk they carried could not appreciate his careful handling, for he was unconscious. Where to put him? They finally had to carry him in the back of surgery and place him on the floor beside a dentist's chair. A doctor leaped to his side and started to work feverishly.

Everywhere they were shaving hair away from injured tissue so that they see the exact extent of the various wounds. Plasma ran in a welling surge of life, splints were applied to broken legs -- and through it all, the jungle sat unperturbed, now and then nodding its head as the caressing breeze ran its fingers through its hair.

There were five, who, upon arrival, had already been placed under the care of the greatest of healers. They rested silently under the covering of dark brown blankets. Back under the lights a doctor looked up from bended knees, and said quietly to a corpsman who was preparing another plasma bottle, "Never mind." That's all he said and with his words the scoreboard went up to six. "I can't say where, I can't say when, but with the coming of dawn there were ten. One by one, with the trailing hand of the clock there began a future message by the war department to someone, somewhere in America. But there is more than that in that tent beside the jungle. There's more than ten dark shrouds out there. In that half-light of early morning are ten denunciations against every American who by his petty and selfish deeds fails to fulfill his role before those unseeing eyes. You can't be born a true American. One has to live and absorb his country until he can fully realize what it has to offer and what it expects in return. These boys have made their payment in full. Why should you draw money out of the bank and look for the balance to remain the same? You professional politicians with your facades of righteousness and grasping hands, you who stack the cards in secret caucus and breach the wall of unity with your lobbies and parties, look ye to that tent. Look and count them -- there is one for every finger. Look long and note each fold and crease: the sole of that foot protruding out from under its covering. Look all you Americans, look and give me your answer.

The following June 8, 1944, Lowell Tribune article was found on page 1, column 5:

TWO LOCAL SERVICE BOYS TALK AT LEGION MEETING

James Chism

Clayton Randolph

Both these boys have just returned to this country after several months service in the southwest Pacific and told the assembled Legion members many of their experiences. Dick, a member of the hospital corps, told an interesting story of this branch of service, while Lt. Chism, a bombardier on a Liberator, described incidents which happened on some of the 55 missions he completed over Jap territory in the Pacific. One interesting bit of information revealed by Chism was that on several of these missions, his pilot was Lt. Harold Cowan, also of Lowell, who made headlines a few months ago for the part he played in wiping out a Jap convoy. Cowan's name was also mentioned in Monday's Chicago Tribune, as one of the pilots of Liberators which sunk a Jap destroyer and damaged several other vessels.

Neither of the boys gave out any forbidden information, but what they did reveal of the Pacific war was enough to hold the attention of those in attendance, not many of whom ever had the chance to be in or near fighting in the first world conflict.

Another article from the same paper was found on page 2, columns 1-2:

Dick Randolph Home

Dick saw no actual hand-to-hand combat but was near enough to the fighting to undergo bombing and strafing on a few occasions.

"We treated Japs practically the same as our own men," said Dick, "provided they were lucky enough to remain alive until they were brought to our hospital. When we did have to work on one, though, we held our breath for fear of being contaminated. The Marines saw to it that we weren't bothered too much with them."

After a 30-day leave, Dick will report for officer's training, probably at a Chicago or South Bend university.

The following June 29, 1944, Lowell Tribune article was found on page 2, column 1:

Spent Week-end With Parents, Attending School at DePauw

The following July 20, 1944, Lowell Tribune article was found on page 4, column 2:

Dick Randolph at DePauw

Classes in DePauw University's summer session got under way on July 6. An increase in the Navy V-12 quota to the university has increased the number of apprentice seamen on the campus to more than 600, in addition to the present contingent of Navy V-5 aviation students, who are not included in the total enrollment figure. The present summer session runs to October 21, and the regular winter semester begins November 2.

This Lowell Tribune article was found in the March 8, 1945, issue (page 2, column 1):

Dick Randolph, S 1/c, V-12 student at DePauw university, was here with his parents, the Clayton Randolphs and sister, Jannie, several days last week.

This July 5, 1945, Lowell Tribune article was found on page 2, column 1:

Seaman Dick Randolph, who has been here the past ten days with his parents, the Clayton Randolphs, and sister, Janet, left Tuesday for DePauw university, Greencastle, where he has been attending school. Dick has completed his school work, and will soon report for duty elsewhere.

This September 27, 1945, Lowell Tribune article was found on page 2, columns 1-2:

Dick Randolph, son of the Clayton Randolphs, who served with the hospital corps in the southwest Pacific for many months before returning to the States last year, has been honorably discharged from the navy. Since his return to this country, Dick has been attending naval pre-flight schools, first at Muncie and until recently at Iowa City, Iowa.

Last updated on January 18, 2012.

Go to Richard Randolph, "Pioneer History Index," for further information.

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Richard Clayton “Dick” Randolph (born 1924)