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Veteran Spotlight

William C. “Bill” Hocker

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Sometimes a soldier finds a best friend in military service – Bill Hocker already had a best friend who went side by side with him into military service.

From first grade, into college and then into WWII Bill and Phil did things together. Bill says in those early days nobody around Ronan had been very many places. During a work break from the university in Bozeman they decided to go the longest distance possible and ended up topping beets in eastern Montana. After a couple of weeks, they decided that wasn’t their future. They went back to school but after a short time decided they’d had enough of that, too, and returned to Ronan. Bill’s mother wasn’t too much in favor of his quitting school, but his dad was glad for the help on the farm.

Although Bill had a deferment for farm work, it looked like he might be drafted someday anyway. In 1944, Bill and his friend decided they’d “volunteer,” which was pretty much like enlisting because they would be able to get what they wanted. They wanted to join the Navy. Off they went for physicals in Butte followed by a train ride from Missoula to Fort Douglas, Utah. Unfortunately, only the first guy in line got to join the Navy and the rest of the group was assigned to the Army infantry – something they were not really wanting. It was too late to “unvolunteer,” but Bill says you don’t always get what you want, and he was lucky because he returned home when a lot of guys didn’t.

Bill completed basic training at Camp Wolters near Fort Worth, Texas. After about eighteen weeks, Bill went home for a short time and then reported to Newport, Virginia for “a little boat ride… somewhere.” Most guys headed to the Pacific after Camp Wolters, but Bill and Phil had requested the 10th Mountain Division so their ship headed to Europe. They were on the USS Wakefield, a converted multi-deck passenger liner called the fastest cabin ship in the world, with about 9,000 other guys. After ten days they landed at Naples, Italy. Bill remembers having to cross over a sunken ship to get onto the dock.

Bill’s camp was moved from Naples to Florence in northern Italy for mountain training and he was there until spring, 1945, learning useful things, such as how to pack a mule. With the war in Europe coming to a close on May 8, 1945, he never did any actual mountaineering duty. At that point the Army’s thinking was to get the guys home for a week or ten days and then send them to the Pacific where the war was still going on. To get back home he flew on a C-47, sitting on either a side bench or the floor. The trip went first from Pisa, Italy; then to Dakar, West Africa; and then to Natal, Brazil at which point Bill wondered if the Army knew where they were going. Eventually he landed in Miami, Florida and after looking at a map realized the route really was the shortest one that provided needed fuel stops.

Bill’s next trip was a train ride to Camp Chaffee, Arkansas. After the bombing of Japan during this same period, the war in the Pacific ended on Sept. 2, 1945 and he was discharged soon after without going overseas again. 

Of course, when he left home, Bill was homesick at first but his mother always wrote to him. Did he think about staying in the service? “I sure didn’t!” Of his service time, Bill says, “It was alright, I guess.” He did something he thought he should - he wanted to serve the country. He met nice people and learned from them about life in other places. His travels took him through thirty states.

Does he think there should be a draft today? He doesn’t really know and hasn’t really thought about it. He supposes it would be “kind of all right” because some people need it and should be in the service to be helpful to others.

A recent highlight for Bill was participating in the Big Sky Honor Flight to Washington, D.C. He is happy to show the picture on his living room wall of the whole group, and the jacket and cap he received. He wears the cap proudly in his picture for the paper.

Thank you for your service, Bill.

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