Joseph
Pennock Woods was born in 1921 to Enoch S. and Alice P. Woods who
lived in
Uniontown,
Pennsylvania. Joseph was third born of 6
children, including brothers Frank E., and Carrol E. and sisters Mary R.,
Jane A. and Doris.
His father was a farmer on a Truck Farm. Truck farms grew vegetables for
shipment for long distant markets as opposed to market gardening which was
for local markets.
Joseph attended the Unionville
High School (in 2010 the Unionville
Elementary School, just east of the town). He was a member of the Unionville
Presbyterian Church[1] on
Wollaston Rd near Route 82.
Joseph left school to help support his family, and obtained employment at
the Phoenolite Company in Kennett Square,
then a division of National Vulcanized Fibre Corporation. He later worked
at the Sun Shipbuilding Company in
Chester.
Joseph married Jacqueline Jean Burkett of Wilmington
Delaware on November 1, 1941 at the
Kingswood
Methodist Church
in Newark,
Delaware. They began their family in
Unionville.
Joseph and his brother Carrol enlisted in the Marine Corps on June 9, 1944 and received training at
Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and then
Camp Pendleton,
California. He served in the First Marine
Division and was sent overseas to the
Pacific Theater of Operations
(PTO) in November 1944.
Joseph went ashore in the invasion of Okinawa on
D-Day Easter Sunday April 1st. Operation Iceberg as it was
codenamed was the largest amphibious invasion of the Pacific theater. The
operation involved 5 Army Divisions and two Marine Divisions.
The 82 day battle resulted in as many as a quarter million casualties -
more than the casualties inflicted by the atomic bombs dropped on
Hiroshima
and Nagasaki combined.
Private Joseph Pennock Woods was Killed In Action on May 7, 1945.
His wife, Jacqueline, received the fateful telegram on June 8th.
Joseph was buried at a local cemetery on Okinawa,
and at the request of the family returned for reburial in his home country
in 1949.
A service was held at the Unionville Presbyterian Church on Sunday
afternoon on February 6, 1949.
Dr. Harold Faust of Philadelphia
officiated the service with the Reverend Peterson, Pastor of the church.
Mrs. Paul Ford, the church organist, played Joseph’s favorite hymns. Three
veteran’s organizations joined in honoring Joseph: the Swayne-Campbell-Testa
Post of the VFW, William W. Fahey Post American Legion and the Chester
County Detachment of the Marine Corps League. Interment followed in the
Church’s cemetery.
Joseph was survived by his wife, Jacqueline, and his three year old
daughter, Gale.
