WWII vet looksback at war days

Clara City man, 101, served as a medic

By Patricia Buschette

Bob Brix, a 101-year-old resident of Clara City Senior Living, in Clara City, Minn., has a vivid memory of his experiences in WWII.

Bob was born in 1924 in North Minneapolis where he graduated from North High in January of 1942.

Bob Brix at the Iwo Jima memorial. Bob was given the opportunity to travel to Washington DC to see this memorial and others as part of the Honor Flight program.  Photo by John Donner

“My father had a grocery store and meat market, on Broadway,” said Bob, recounting his early years.

The world in which Bob and his classmates graduated promised a draft notice.

“The guys  all decided we may as well enlist in the Navy. I enlisted in December of 1942,” he said.

Bob went to the Naval Air Station at Whidbey Island, south of Seattle. He was transferred there so they could fill a quota in the Marines. Bob became a Marine!

“From there I went to Camp Elliot, then to Camp Pendleton where we had training on Higgins boats, a landing craft used in amphibious landings in World War II, then to Camp Farragut Naval Training Station, in Northern Idaho for basic medical training.”

“We traveled overseas on the USS Rochambeau, a French luxury liner that had been commandeered by the United States after the Germans took over the French Navy. It took 47 days to get to Guam on a very crowded ship that had been converted to carry troops,” he said.

Guam did not have a harbor.

“Do you know how we established a harbor in Guam?” Bob asked. “We hauled the naval ship USS Oregon across the ocean where it was sunk. We built roads on Guam and the extra fill was used on the sunken ship to gradually create a base for a harbor, so ships could  unload products.”

Guam was a U.S. possession after the Spanish American war, Bob explained.

“The Japanese had taken it over forcefully, and we came in and took it back. I was not in on the invasion, but a cleanup. There was no communication to make clear the war was over. Some Japanese soldiers were holdouts who did not know the war was over; they didn’t surrender. They were taught not to surrender – that only cowards surrendered,” he said.

Bob had his picture taken with the Honor Fight group including veterans from all over the country earlier this year. Photo by John Donner

“At Iwo Jima I was serving with the 3rd Marine division, 3rd Regiment, 3rd Company. I was not in the hard knock of the 3rd regiment. We were held in abeyance. I was part of the reserve unit, and was on the beach with the Higgins Boats, giving first aid to wounded as they were brought in and taken back to the mother ship,” Bob said as he told of his assignments.

“At the familiar flag raising on the Island of Iwo Jima on Mount Suribachi, two of the six raising the flag were medics,” he said.

Japanese jumped off 554 foot high Mount Suribachi on the southwest end of Iwo Jima in the northwest Pacific. 

“They jumped off cliffs, killing themselves, rather than surrender,” he said. “We remained there until the island was secured.”

“Airplanes were equipped in Guam to drop atomic bombs on Japan. After the second bombing, Emperor Hirohito called in generals and admirals who ran the show and surrendered. The emperor still  had power  as the Japanese people worshipped him,” he explained. “I was a part of the sweeping of the island of the Japanese. I have photos of the surrender of Japanese on the USS Missouri.” 

Bob was seen as a true celebrity during the Honor Flight, he said. Everyone wanted to shake his hand. Photo by John Donner

While on the island, he encountered poison plants. 

“I still take treatments today. My skin is itchy and blistery and I shower twice a week and apply medicine,” he said.

“We went to Kyushu, the southernmost island of Japan,” he said. “We were in training, hiking five miles a day. Maybe that made me fit for living for 101 years,” he said with some satisfaction. “We settled the war with those two atomic bombs, so the war was over except Japanese in the field did not know it,” he said. As an example, he related that one of the last ships in the Pacific was a heavy cruiser that went down a month after the war was over with all hands aboard. “They didn’t realize submarines of the Japanese were still out there.”

“The war was over, but my legs were swollen and I was put in a hospital. I was in the hospital for a month and a half; no television, no books, no cards, nothing to read, no friends. I got so bored!” he remembered. “I wondered how big the hospital was and started walking around.” 

At one ward Bob encountered, he was surprised to see that everyone was black. 

“They were the servants who cooked for the admirals and pressed uniforms. They were slaves! When I went into the ward they hushed up and wouldn’t talk to me. They had been subdued many times; they didn’t know my position, which certainly was friendly,” he added. “After a time the doctor said, ‘I think it is in your blood. Don’t ever give a blood transfusion.’  All these years they have been treating the symptoms, not what is causing  the problem. I have gone through all the medications you want to  name,” he said with chagrin. “The doctor discharged me, saying, ‘I have done all I can for you.’”

The medical unit Bob was attached to had left by ship for Tingsuing Port, Capitol of China, Canton, now Guangzhou. He was told he would have to find his own way.

“I am 19 years old, and at the time, I didn’t think much of it. I went to the airport and asked, ‘What do you have going to China?’”

“They had a plane going to Shanghai. I packed my sea bag, and boarded a plane going to Shanghai. I was quartered in a former British hotel in the British concession in Shanghai. There, I waited for a plane going to Tingsuing,” he said.

“The government of China was a very weak nation,” Bob said, explaining, “All of the ports seized were occupied by major powers of the world – Russia, England, Germany, Italy. They all had concessions in the ports of China, that’s why Hong Kong was connected to England.”

Bob’s military service offered an opportunity to see the country.

“There were no cars at all. There were rickshaws. A person was hitched in a horse harness. You were seated in the rickshaw and he would trot along. I experienced all that. I don’t think many Navy people thought of doing anything like that.”

He arrived in Tingsuing before his company. 

Bob Brix and John Donner at the WWII Memorial during the Honor Flight in October. Contributed photo

“Nobody was superior to me in the city. I felt like I could come and go as I pleased. I had to eat out. One night I would go to the German concession and have sauerkraut or whatever, and another night I would go to the French concession and have French food. I had a real good vacation.”

Bob described Tingsuing as destitute and that it was easy for communists to take over, which they did. Tanks from both sides were pulled up to a wall – a demarcation line, with communists on their side.

“The war was over but we almost had WWIII. That was the reason medics were sent there in case there were casualties.”

What happened?

“The tanks backed off from where they were,” Bob said. “Somewhere along the line Diplomats got together and said enough is enough. The confrontation is not reported in the history books, and I have asked some of the people I was associated with and they didn’t know anything about it.”

Bob’s unit was transferred to Japan.

“We went to Nagasaki by ship,” he said. “The Captain of the ship gave us liberty to go ashore. We should not have been there because of the radiation, but the Captain gave us permission. I walked through all of that. In Japan I was in charge of a whole ward. There was a Japanese lady who brought a bottle of Saki for me every morning when she came to work. So I was drinking on the job! She wanted to introduce me to her daughter and she brought photos of her – she was a geisha girl. I didn’t want to do that because that is their country. I did not want to be there. I wanted to go home.”

He had enough points to go home. Bob was discharged on April 5,1946 and returned to live with his parents.

“When I got out of the service I enrolled at the University of Minnesota in the Department of Pharmacy. That was tough,” he said, “because I was three years out of high school and competing with kids who were just out of high school. I had to work for my grades, but when I was interviewed for my license to practice pharmacy, I blew right through it.”

He first worked for Gray’s Pharmacy in Dinkytown. 

“That was a hard job,” Bob said. “The hours were terrible.” 

That led Bob to look for a store to buy. 

A representative of Honor Flights, dressed as a Town Crier, spoke to the veterans and learned more about them. When Bob exited the plane, the Town Crier went ahead from the gate area, announcing, “My Lords and my Ladies make way for the Lone Eagle Honor Flight Veteran, from WWII, 101 years old...” Photo by John Donner of Clara City

“I always saved money when I was overseas, so I had $10,000 in my account. I bought a drug store in Clara City.”

And then he found love.

“I was a member of a fraternity at the University when I went on a blind date at a spring dance with a sorority member, Carolyn Poss, from Franklin, Minn.” On Aug. 4, 1952, Bob and Carolyn were married.

“It was a struggle for 29 years,” Bob said telling of his experiences owning a pharmacy. “I never refused a telephone call. People might be having a party and needed flash bulbs for photographs and I helped them. When I started I was taking in $50 a day. That turned around. When I sold the store September 1, 1984, I took in $1,000 a week. I was noted for the store’s gift lines. How did I do that?  I took one of the staff that worked in the store with me. They knew what would sell,” he said.

Carolyn died July 24, 2017, but Bob enjoys his four children and life at his home in Clara City. He celebrated his 101st  birthday on May 10, 2025, and on the first days of October 2025 he participated in an Honor Flight experience, an experience for Veterans to fly to Washington DC to visit the memorials of the wars they fought in, at no cost to the veterans. Photos in this article are all from that trip. It was a great experience for a special veteran whose service saved lives and preserved freedom.