Love has found its way via the pages of many books, without words ever suspected of nourishing affection - - - Commercial Law Volumes.
On Armistice Day, Tuesday, this law book romance will culminate in the marriage of James L. Strain, local GI student and Miss Inez Louise Weber of 2617 Durant Avenue.
It wasn't love at first sight for Jim Strain, a veteran of the Bataan "Death March." He has never seen the charming young lady who is to be his bride. You see, Strain lost his sight from lack of proper nourishment and being exposed to the arc of a welding outfit in a Japanese prison camp. His captors refused to provide him with welding goggles.
Miss Weber was a student at Armstrong College when Strain enrolled there. The Government provides readers for blind students. She volunteered for the job. That was last March. In July they announced their engagement.
Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John T. Weber of Cutler, California, Miss Weber had planned to return south and take a position in Fresno. Instead she went to work for the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company in Berkeley. She is employed as a teletype operator. James Strain, with two more years to go before being graduated from college, has a new reader since Miss Weber left college. Of course, the new reader is a man.
Strain is majoring in business, makes A & B grades. He will take his textbooks with him on his honeymoon and will return to his classes a week from Monday.
James Strain's home originally was Hobbs, New Mexico. He joined the New Mexico National Guard December 27, 1940, serving with the 200th Coast Artillery Corps (A.A.). There was brief training at Fort Bliss and then his outfit shoved off, landing on Luzon September 27, 1941. It was the first National Guard regiment to land outside the continental United States and Hawaii in peace time.
The 200th C.A.C. Anti Aircraft Unit was stationed at Fort Stotsenberg on the island of Luzon. Shortly before May 6, 1942, when Lt. Gen. Johnathan M. Wainwright was forced to surrender, the 200th C.A.C. Units had retreated to Bataan.
Strain went through the heavy fighting, escaping with only minor injuries. He withstood remarkably well the rigors of that cruel Bataan "Death March," and even all but foodless days in prison camps. On that march he saw men in frenzy from thirst beaten to death.
Before being shipped to Japan, Jim Strain was imprisoned at Cabanataun. Conditions were bad enough but they became worse there later. One morning he was one of a large group of American soldiers kicked into line by Jap guards and marched to a ship's dock.
Then came the weird trip in the hold of a freighter with prisoners piled in and treated worse than cattle. On that seemingly never-to-end voyage was the danger that an American submarine might overtake the Japanese Crate and send her to the bottom without knowing her cargo was principally American prisoners of war.
Grinning guards with fixed bayonets delighted in squatting within sight of the hungry men and putting their buck teeth into pieces of meat taken from their own mess. The Americans subsisted upon stew made from partially decayed vegetables. They slept on damp flooring, were given no opportunity to read and there was hardly room for exercise.
Jim Strain became a shipyard worker in Yokohama. He was a welder's helper and got in a lot of overtime hours, but there were no bloated paychecks similar to those handed out in Richmond, not far from where he now lives, 847 - 32nd Street.
The pay was the same whether the working day was 10 hours or 16 hours, depending upon the welding to be done. It wasn't cash but meals of wormy rice rejected by the Japanese Army, dried fish, sometimes stew made from marrow and semi-decayed vegetables, mostly potatoes.
His shipyard number was 4375, and the last figure, five, meant that he had the 5th, 15th and 25th of the month off. His health failed and he collapsed on the job.
For seven months he was in a Japanese hospital for war prisoners. Occasionally a Jap doctor looked him over, sometimes prescribed medicines, but rarely was he able to get the prescriptions filled.
Forced to work without goggles at welding, Jim Strain's eyes started to go back on him in the spring of 1943. He was totally blind and nothing but skin and bones when American troops liberated him on September 5, 1945.
Months of treatment by outstanding eye specialists could do little to aid him when he was hospitalized in the "States". He can distinguish light from darkness. Now he can see images of people, but he has been told there is only one chance in a million of his sight being restored.
But Jim Strain is hopeful even against such odds. He is preparing himself for the business world. He has learned Braille and he can write well on a typewriter. In company of Miss Weber he left for her home in Cutler this afternoon. Wedding plans are somewhat of a military secret but the ceremony is scheduled for Armistice Day afternoon and it would be our guess the place would be Hollywood.
(Note: On November 11, 1947, James Louis Strain and Inez Louise Weber were married on the "Bride and Groom" radio show in Hollywood, California.)
We wish to thank Alice Nelson-Strain for sharing this article from her Strain Family file.
* * * A QMS Deezyne * * *