This week is Celebrate Your Name Week, so that got me thinking about my name and who I was named after. Being a Junior, my immediate namesake is my dad, but both our first-names namesake is Victor Allen Bennett.
Uncle Victor, one of my Grandma Mabel’s brothers, was born on 7 Oct 1920 near Edward, Beaufort County, North Carolina, to Eugene Henry Bennett and his wife, Laura Lillie Miller Bennett. According to his birth certificate, Uncle Victor was delivered by Dr. Oswald Kafer at 12:59 that morning.
Just before Uncle Victor reached the age of 12, his dad died from injuries sustained during a robbery. According to Mama Lillie (i.e. Laura Lillie Miller Bennett), Granddaddy Eugene had been working in the fields and was on his way home when some men jumped out of the woods and beat him. This was during the Great Depression, and the would-be robbers thought he had money on him. She said he was never quite the same after the fight, and he died on 9 Sep 1932 from an “apparently old fracture of the skull due to injury in a fight” and “brain pressure due to old fracture.” When I interviewed Mama Lillie 60 plus years after the event, she was emotional talking about her husband’s death. Eugene was buried in the Bennett cemetery near today’s Bennett Vineyards in Edward.
Uncle Victor enlisted in the United States Marine Corps on 27 Jun 1940 at Parris Island, S.C., and was transferred to the USS Helena by October 1940. A news release from the Public Relations Section of the U.S. Marine Corps shortly after World War II sums up Uncle Victor’s military career:
A lifetime quota of battle action was crammed into the Marine career of Sergeant Victor A. Bennett, Aurora, N.C., between tour of duty here. [Honolulu] An instructor at the Pearl Harbor naval gunfire school when peace was declared, the 25-year-old sergeant was busy firing at Jap[anese] planes from his gun turret aboard the Helena on fateful December 7, 1941. He has since: Had an active role in thirteen major sea engagements and one land battle [Guam]. Survived the sinking of the Helena by swimming three days and nights to the island of Vella La Vella. Fought with guerrillas on Vella La Vella for 10 days before rescued by a destroyer. The island was then entirely in Jap[anese] hands. Served with the Third Marine Division during the invasion of Guam as a forward gunfire observer and scout. “The same sirens were blowing here December 7,” grinned the 205-pound veteran, “but tonight we know what they mean. We were pretty confused then. In fact, we didn’t know what was going on until the first wave of Zeroes started dropping bombs on us.” Bennett was a Helena gun captain, and his twin brother, Eugene, was his loader on December 7. [VTJJr Note–Uncle Victor didn’t have a twin brother Eugene.] Eugene also survived the sinking of the Helena, was later awarded a second lieutenant’s commission and discharged after being wounded at Iwo Jima. A third Bennett brother, Private Landford, was wounded on Okinawa. [VTJJr Note–He did have an older brother Landford.] “I prefer sea action to land duty,” concluded Bennett. “Three years on the Helena cinched that decision.” The son of Mrs. Lillie Bennett of Aurora, Bennett plans to work for the Standard Oil Company in California when his Marine duty is finished.
A copy of the original news release is in my personal files, obtained shortly before Mama Lillie’s death, from her personal papers. The release was also published in the Greensboro Daily News on 2 Sep 1945 (section 1, page 13).
While in Hawaii, Uncle Victor met and married Dorothy “Dottie” Weaver Medina, daughter of Clair Raymond Weaver and Mary Azevedo Weaver. Aunt Dottie had a son, Richard “Dick”, that Uncle Victor adopted. Uncle Victor worked for the Veterans Administration for some time, lived in California for many years before returning to Washington, North Carolina, where he died on 10 Aug 1971. He is buried in Pamlico Memorial Gardens in Washington, North Carolina.