PO man travels 2,000 miles to meet fellow WWII vet

A Port Orchard man traveled to Texas earlier this year to see a man he served with in World War II, but had never met.

Harold Fitzwater, 89, was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1944, the same year Dillard Teal of Snyder, Texas was. While Teal headed to Fort Ord in California for basic training, Fitzwater went to Fort Hood in Texas.

In 1945, Teal was serving in Okinawa, Japan, when he was shot in the arm and hit by shrapnel in his leg.

Fitzwater replaced Teal on his squad, and a month later in May, he was shot as well.

“I was hit in the hip,” he said, explaining that the Army was reluctant to remove the bullet. “It was right near the main nerve, and my hip joint.”

But Fitzwater eventually got the bullet removed and today displays it with pride, having it framed alongside numerous medals he received for his service.

After being wounded, Fitzwater returned to the United States on a hospital ship, and was later discharged in 1946. Teal, who spent a year in and out of the hospital, was discharged the same year.

Once home, Fitzwater realized his pay was not reflecting his promotion to private first class, and he requested his records from the Army.

In the records he received were several “morning reports” prepared by the company clerk, and in them Fitzwater read about Teal being wounded a month before him.

He then decided to write to Teal, along with several other names he found in the reports. While other men wrote him back, Teal was the only man he stayed in consistent contact with.

For 50 years, the two men exchanged letters, cards and phone calls.

“We shared a lot of what was going on,” Fitzwater said.

They remained in contact sporadically for 50 years, but had not met until just before the Fourth of July this year.

Fitzwater said he decided to finally visit Teal after his wife died in January, just four months shy of their 68th wedding anniversary.

“I decided it was time to see this guy,” he said.

Fitzwater’s son Dick, also a Port Orchard resident, drove his father the approximately 2,000 miles to Snyder, where Teal lives with his wife.

“He was going to do it by himself, and I didn’t want him to do that,” said the younger Fitzwater, explaining that the pair also visited a relative in California and friend in Nevada. “He made up his mind he wanted to go. Maybe it was part of his ‘bucket list.’”

Fitzwater grew up on Erlands Point in Central Kitsap, graduating from Silverdale High School in 1938. When he returned from the war, Fitzwater and his wife lived all over Kitsap County, even renting a home behind South Kitsap High School at one point.

In 2004, he and his wife moved back to Port Orchard to be closer to their son when she became ill.

When asked how he would be celebrating Veterans Day, Fitzwater said he marks most special days the same way.

“I buy a bunch of chocolates, and I deliver them to the nurses (and other staff) at the nursing home where my wife was,” he said. “They took such good care of her.”