The man who wore the long-lost WWII dog tag enlisted at age 15
Mervin White is at center in this photo taken around 1950.
Mervin White and his wife, Florene
The dog tag of Mervin White
Mervin White could have waited to be drafted when he turned 18, but he lied about his age and birthdate and signed up for service in World War II at a mere 15.
The former Washington resident’s dog tag turned up in a California desert training ground. A Colorado resident who formerly lived in South Park Township contacted Washington County officials last fall and said he’d like to reunite the metal ID with someone connected to the soldier.
An Observer-Reporter story at the time alerted White’s family to this piece of personal history.
“When it appeared on my computer screen, it took my breath away,” said his daughter, Karen Neal, who lives in the Washington, D.C., metro area.
Sadly, Mervin White did not live to personally retrieve his identification. Neal wrote in an email that “dementia overtook him in the early 1990s and he died one day before his 70th birthday.”
She has yet to get her dad’s dog tag, but she filled in the story of its owner.
Born in Hazard, Ky., White moved to Washington, Pa., as a child with his family.
“I know my father was young, elementary age, when his father died,” Neal said.
The name and address of his mother, Clara Howard of 151 N. Lincoln St., is imprinted on the dog tag, a practice that the War Department discontinued so as to not jeopardize the safety of civilians in case the information fell into enemy hands.
The address is now a grassy lot, but Wright Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, 150 N. Lincoln St., stands across the street. The church’s cornerstone is inscribed with the date 1848.
Young Mervin probably enlisted in 1942.
“I used to be a high school teacher,” Neal said. “Most of my students at 15 weren’t ready for an experience like that.”
Presumably, he was sent to the Desert Training Center, where his dog tag turned up some 70 years later.
The center is also known as California-Arizona Maneuver Area in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts, where Gen. George S. Patton was stationed for four months beginning in 1942. The website DesertUSA said the first troops who arrived there described it as “the place God forgot.” After Patton shipped out to North Africa, 20 divisions – more than a million men – trained there until 1944, when the camp closed.
“Like many veterans, he didn’t say much about his experiences in the military,” Neal wrote in an email. “I know he spent some time in the Philippines. He talked about some of his time there, but never about his experience anywhere else.”
All four of Mervin White’s brothers served in the military, Neal said. “He and his baby brother were stationed at the same location for a short time,” but Neal is not sure where.
In the Philippines, Mervin White found a dog that was dying. “All of the guys started feeding it, and it became the pet of the unit,” she remembers her father telling her, happy the dog’s health had been restored.
She’s not surprised her father was reticent about his military service.
“It was at a time when our country was not very flexible when it came to race relations,” she said. “There were definitely racial issues in the military. Daddy never talked about that, but I’ve heard about it from others.”
Susan Meighen, Washington County veterans services director, was able to determine White was discharged from the U.S. Army on Dec. 24, 1945.
He returned to Washington and married Florene Lee. A 1947 City Directory lists him as a steelworker still living at 151 N. Lincoln.
In 1952, the Whites moved to Indianapolis, where he worked at a Chrysler Corp. foundry before it moved to Kokomo, which, the Whites felt, did not offer much in the way of job opportunities for Florene. Instead, the family moved to Washington, D.C.
“My father was a blue-collar man,” Neal wrote. “As a rigger for the federal government and one with some clearance, he spent time in many of the buildings that were off-limits to others. He worked in the CIA, various Smithsonian museums, the Executive Office Building and the White House and had the pleasure of meeting several presidents. I still have an ink pen given to him by President Lyndon Baines Johnson.
“As much as he enjoyed D.C., his real love was visiting ‘Little’ Washington to spend time with friends and family there. He went as often as he could.”
He and his sister, Blanche, were born just 11 months apart, and many of his visits here were to celebrate their birthdays.
“Daddy was an average guy who wasn’t well-educated, but he was extremely well-read,” she said. “He would have been blown away by this recognition and attention. His brothers are very, very touched.”
She described former Washington County residents Floyd White, 94, as “very active and spry. He drives himself wherever he needs to go. His brother Robert, 89, coaches baseball and coached and played with the National Negro Baseball League. “I want to say he was with the Pittsburgh Crawfords,” Neal said.
“I consider myself very lucky,” she said. “We all go to the same church.”
Neal wrote she regrets the World War II Memorial in the nation’s capital was built too late for her father to see it.
“I told her that we would make some arrangements to get the dog tag back to her family,” said Scott Fergus, Washington County director of administration.
Neal said she wants the military ID for her son, who knew his grandfather, and for “the grandkids who are young. It’s a future connection that will go with the picture of the man.”