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November 10, 2006

Lost and found

More than 60 years after George Hampton lost a dog tag while saving a fellow soldier from drowning an Australian vacationer found it.





BY MARYALICE MELI MAMELI@NCNEWSONLINE.COM





Whether the exhausted man pulled at the dog tags of the Ellport man saving him from drowning is not known. Somehow, during that rescue on Sept. 13, 1943, George Hampton lost his dog tags. Hampton, who died three years ago, never mentioned them to his family and they, just glad to have him home after the war, never asked where they were. Hampton's daughter, Barbara Yerace, said he was a quiet man who never liked any fuss to be made over him, and was embarrassed when he received the Soldier's Medal for heroism. He wrote to his mother after the ceremony. "I was taken completely by surprise. I never expected a medal for just doing what any other fellow would have in my place. They called it heroism but I call it just doing your duty." What Hampton called just doing your duty began about 3 a.m. that September morning midway through World War II. A private first class in the Army, Hampton and another crewman had been participating in training exercises in the Pacific Ocean off the northeastern coast of Australia near Cairns. The coxswain, the officer operating the boat, returned Hampton and the other crewman to the beach. He headed back offshore about 150 yards and anchored the boat. That area is at the north end of the Great Barrier Reef. He decided to swim to shore, but became exhausted and cried out for help. Hampton was the only one still at the scene; he called for help, then dived into the surf and swam out to where the man was floundering. He assisted the man until the others arrived by boat and brought them all safely to shore. In the letter to his mother, Hampton said, "There are fellows here that wipe out Japanese machine guns and all they get is a thank you. Those boys are the heroes. All I did was save a guy from drowning and I get a medal. "I felt very embarrassed when the general said, 'You certainly deserve this medal for your act of heroism.' I wanted to tell him it was not heroism but you don't talk back to a general so I had to stand there and take it." When Hampton's commanding officer, Col. William N. Leaf, wrote to Hampton's parents to inform them of the medal their son had received, he added a personal note. Leaf said he felt a more personal connection to Hampton than to most other soldiers under his command. He said he had attended Rochester High School 25 years earlier and remembered playing football against the Ellwood City team in Ellwood City. All these events happened long before Dean Johns or his wife, Gabriella, were born. The couple and their two children live in Horsham, Victoria, about 200 miles north of Melbourne near the southeastern tip of Australia. Over the summer, the family traveled up the eastern coast of Australia for a vacation on Great Keppal Island, about 200 to 250 miles south of Cairns. While walking along the beach one day looking for shells, Johns found a single rectangular metal dog tag, tarnished green from more than 60 years in salt water. Still legible were Hampton's name and address of 515 Glen Ave., Ellwood City. Johns e-mailed the Ellwood City Area Chamber of Commerce. Former director Bobbi Womack contacted the current resident, Rita Hampton, George's sister-in-law, who validated the information and the dog tag was returned to Hampton's widow, Aurora, who lives in Ellport. Hampton may never have talked much about the war, but his daughter treasurers the scrapbook he made with photos, Japanese money and other mementos from that time. "He was very, very sentimental," she said.



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