Moses Lake vet remembered

Mervin Curtis served during World War II

MOSES LAKE - The late Mervin Curtis of Moses Lake will be remembered in an upcoming veterans' newsletter for his service as a radio operator in Burma during World War II.

Curtis was part of a group of 3,000 soldiers under Major General Frank Merrill in Burma dubbed Merrill's Marauders.

Curtis' name will be listed among the dead in the Merrill's Marauders' newsletter, which goes out to the veterans and their decedents, wrote Robert E. Passanisi, chairman and historian of the Merrill's Marauders Association, in a letter to Curtis' widow Georgia Curtis.

Passanisi was also one of Merrill's Marauders, which are known as the forerunners of the U.S. Army Rangers.

Mervin Curtis, 91, died on Aug. 7 after he was interviewed in July by the Columbia Basin Herald for the paper's Strength edition. He is survived by his wife Georgia, their children and grandchildren.

"He didn't really talk about his experiences," said Joyce Mulliken of Moses Lake, one of Curtis' daughters. "The Strength article was the most I ever heard him talk about it."

Mulliken said her father and mother attended military reunions faithfully.

"I know it was an important part of their lives," she said. "The more toward the end of his life, he did want people to know what was going on historically, not what he did. It's a piece of history. My dad never mentioned the stuff that was in that letter."

Excerpts of Passanisi's letter to Georgia Curtis reads as follows:

"He was one of a brave group of men who answered the president's call and volunteered for a dangerous and hazardous secret jungle warfare mission that expected more than 90 percent casualties. He was a special kind of volunteer, for he didn't know what or where he was volunteering for, only that his country needed him," Passanisi wrote.

"Having served in the state of Maine National Guard and being already 27 years of age; he was a role model, for many of the younger men."

"He started out with the Marauders from the beginning and went through all the suffering that comes with being deep behind enemy lines and consistently in active jungle combat for more than 110 continuous days."

"During this operation, he fought recurrent malaria, deadly mite typhus, amoebae dysentery, constant diarrhea, malnutrition, and complete exhaustion, all in addition to the Japanese. He went through all of the hell that a soldier can possibly experience. No other unit, before or since, every consistently fought a battle behind enemy lines under such difficult conditions or for so long and fought so hard. He endured what was believed to be humanly unendurable and yet he still performed beyond expectation."