Veteran celebrates World War II monument
Veteran celebrates World War II monument
Written by Karen R. Thompson Sunday, 07 October 2007
On Aug.15, 2007, a long overdue, 17-foot granite monument to honor Texas’ World War II service was dedicated at the Capital in Austin. Lawrence “Peanut” Warren is among the 180,000 living Texas veterans and was proud to attend the ceremony.
He also enjoys attending reunions of the USS Enterprise, the aircraft carrier he served on as a battery officer of a 40 mm gun during the war. The Enterprise was the most decorated ship of WWII, and the only non-British ship to receive the Royal British Admiralty Pennant.
Lawrence, now 85 and living in Georgetown, is a grandson of James Riley and Mary Martha Warren, who traveled from Kentucky in 1886 to settle in Texas. James first ran a gin in Leander, but later opened a store at the Rutledge railroad stop near Pond Springs. It was a true country store. That also helped to feed the Warren’s 15 children. Two of their daughters, Martha (McNeese) and Kate (Dearing) became school teachers, teaching at Pond Springs and Merrelltown Schools.
Lawrence’s parents were William Colin “Doc” and Cora Agnes Warren. They had three daughters and six sons, three of whom fought in WWII.
The oldest of the three, William Horace, served in Gen. George Patton’s third army. He served for four years and received the European-African Middle Easter Campaign Medal with three bronze stars. He survived the war only to be killed in 1946 in an automobile accident in Round Rock.
Glenn, who is now 82 and lives in Round Rock, was an Army Air Force aviation engineer and served in New Zealand, Australia, India, Egypt and Libya.
Lawrence was in a movie theatre in Big Spring, Texas, working for the Civilian Conservation Corps, the organization established by President Franklin Roosevelt during the Depression to give work to unemployed men, when he heard the news that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.
He says that he joined the Navy and told his boss that he would need two weeks off because he thought that it would take that long to “whip ‘em.”
Bud Wilkinson, the successful Oklahoma University football coach of the ‘50s and ‘60s, was Lawrence’s hangar deck officer. George Sauer, Baylor University football coach from 1950-1955, was his flight deck officer.
Lawrence survived 18 major battles aboard the Enterprise, including the battles of Midway, Guadacanal, Santa Cruz and Iwo Jima. The ship took five direct bombing hits at Guadacanal, where he says he felt extremely lucky to have been spared injury or death during the battle.
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