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The following are the recollections of Ron Swanger, of Lewistown, about his uncle, John Kenneth “Ken” Swanger:
My uncle, Ken Swanger, was shot in the neck during World War II in Japan and survived.
Ken never talked about it, but suffered a gunshot to the neck during the war. The bullet passed his throat and out the other side of his face. He was in the hospital for a couple days, then left and recovered. Ken was an upholsterer in Lewistown.
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The following are Jeff Swanger’s recollections of his father, John Kenneth “Ken” Swanger. Jeff, formerly of McClure, is a retired minister and lives outside Mechanicsburg. He is married to Nancy Brown Swanger, formerly of Lewistown.
He did his basic training then went out to the West Coast and onto the USS Case.
My dad didn’t talk much about his time in the service. We sat on the back porch and talked. I remember him telling me that when he was on the USS Case he was deployed to a small island to check it out. There were Japanese there. The food was warm and they discovered caves. That’s where he stopped. He didn’t say any more.
It may have been there that he was shot.
He came home and we moved to Central Avenue in Lewistown.
He was pretty much a traditionalist, typical of that generation at the time. He didn’t accept change too quickly. What was, was.
He also worked at Standard Steel, and retired as a supervisor in the wheel section.
We had a traditional family.
He was a patriotic man. He believed in the country and doing what was right. He was a petty officer third class. He was a boiler man, he worked down below. When the alarm went off, you went to your station. He was trained on anti-aircraft guns.
I don’t know much. He told me about the island. He didn’t talk about it. I don’t know too many men who did talk about it.
He had a nervous breakdown and was in a state mental hospital, reliving his time on the Case. He was talking about it as though he was still there.
He worked hard. He wasn’t lazy. He was from that old school. Unless you understand intergenerational culture, you don’t know the whole story. He was a conformist, a traditionalist.