World War II veteran turns 100 years old on Thursday
GENOA TOWNSHIP - Woodland Village resident and World War II veteran Ray Bennett will turn 100 years old on Thursday.
"He's been cranking right along, so reaching 100 doesn't surprise me," son Randy Bennett said.
His father has always been active, many years ago as an avid gardener, and has always been in excellent health, although he has hearing difficulties. Ray had three sons - Bill, Randy and Larry Bennett. Larry passed away many years ago.
The 99-year-old veteran was born in Ellsinore, Missouri, and moved to Detroit when he was just 6 years old. The vet said his dad worked on a farm and wanted the opportunity to work in a factory, so they moved to Detroit.
Life in the Navy
After high school, Ray Bennett joined the U.S. Navy and traveled on a liberty ship, a class of cargo ship built during World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding Program. He served as a U.S. Navy Armed Guard on merchant marine ships for about three years.
"They had machine guns trying to defend the marine ships from attack," Randy said of his father's history. "Those were World War I design ships. Once they started they didn't have designs for cargo ships, they pulled out the archives from World War I and that's what they built, antiques before they even built them."
The Bennett brothers said about 20 years ago a ship such as the one that Ray traveled on navigated the Detroit River. Along with Bill's son, they boarded the ship and walked around.
"It was designed the same way the ship he was on. He could walk down a hallway and close his eyes and know that the stairway was right there. He remembered every step he took on that ship," Bill said.
Surviving so many other veterans, Bennett has a globe in his assisted living room at Woodland Village with red dots covering his port visits in World War II. With all the places Ray has traveled, he couldn't pick a favorite. But he made it clear he was happy to be home. He has lived there for several years to be closer to his sons.
One memory Bennett's sons were able to uncover symbolized World War II's devastation. Their father was in Algeria and one of of the U-boats, or naval submarines, got one of the ships in his convoy. Bill said Ray was communicating with the officer on that ship when it exploded.
Similarly, Ray said he remembers when we was communicating with a ship and it sank. He denotes those as some of the most memorable things he experienced in the Navy.
During one of his leaves, in 1945, he married his wife, Christine, from Flat Rock. The couple met at Grace Baptist Church in River Rouge, where they married. The couple lived in Detroit was married about six decades before Christine Bennett died in 2006.
Ray recalls writing Christine a letter a week while he was in the service and Christine writing back. Unfortunately, they both wouldn't receive the letters until almost a month later.
After the war, Ray worked as a tree trimmer for the City of Detroit. He has told his sons that he knew during the depression that the city wouldn't layoff its workers, so he decided to get a job there. He worked for the city over 40 years, holding a number of positions, including superintendent of public service for the recreation department.
Family life
Ray has eight grandchildren and 16 great grandchildren.
He said the most important events in his lifetime were joining the Navy and getting married.
Up until a few years ago, Ray was driving and getting his own groceries. Bill Bennett shared that he learned how to downhill snow ski for the first time, at Crystal Mountain, in his early 70s.
When asked how he made it to 100, he pointed to the ceiling and said God was responsible.
His sons are planning an intimate family celebration.
Contact Livingston Daily reporter Patricia Alvord at palvord@livingstondaily.com about news coverage.
This article originally appeared on Livingston Daily: World War II veteran Ray Bennett turns 100 years old on Thursday
