Derry vets prepare for journey to Washington

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October 2, 2008

By Eric Parry

DERRY — Two days after Roland Routhier graduated from Pinkerton Academy in 1943, he was on a train to Newport, R.I. for basic training.

For the next four years, he would spend his days in the Pacific Islands with the Navy during World War II.

Now, more than 60 years after he left the Navy, Routhier will get his first chance to see the national monument erected to honor his service.

Routhier, 82, will join 19 other World War II veterans on a trip next week to see the monument on a trip sponsored by the Derry Rotary.

"When this opportunity came to take the trip, it was a good thing," Routhier said. "I'm pretty excited about it."

The 20 veterans and their guests will depart Derry and board a plane in Manchester on Oct. 8 and fly to Baltimore. From there, the veterans will take a bus ride to the National World War II Monument. The day will include a lunch and visits to the other war memorials if time allows.

Reflecting on his days in the Navy, Routhier said those four years were filled with excitement.

"It was exciting for a 17-year-old kid who had never been out of Derry," Routhier said from his Derry home yesterday.

During the war, Routhier worked as a medic, but once that was over, he went to China where he continued in the Navy, building air strips as part of a construction battalion.

J. Sydney Barlow, who operated a flower business in town for 52 years, is another World War II veteran who will be taking the trip on Oct. 8.

Barlow, who spent two years in the Naval Armed Guard as a gunner, said that when he looks back to his days in the service, he remembers being able to travel around the world as a young kid to places like Manila and Pearl Harbor.

Barlow volunteered for two years in the armed guard and spent his first duty on a convoy and then on a tanker, delivering oil from San Francisco to Pearl Harbor and building supplies to the Philippines.

But when he returned to the United States in 1946, Barlow traded guns for flowers and opened a shop in downtown Derry in 1953.

"I really enjoyed every minute of it," Barlow said.

The National World War II Memorial was opened in 2004 to honor the 16 million soldiers who served during the war, the 400,000 men and women who died and the millions of civilians who supported the war.

Edward Garone, Derry's police chief and a Rotary Club member, said there could be as many as 75 World War II veterans living in town.