The Wellesley Celebrations Committee, a standing committee of the Select Board, Town of Wellesley honors a true war hero Joe Nickerson who during the 57th Wellesley Veterans Parade is representing our Wellesley Veterans.
Here’s his dramatic story:
Joe Nickerson is a World War Two US Navy veteran and a retired Wellesley Firefighter. Born in Framingham, Joe and his wife Celesta lived most of their lives in Wellesley.
During World War 2, Joe joined the Civil Air Patrol while still in high school. In a small Piper Cub airplane, he and a pilot would fly from Framingham Airport out over Boston Harbor searching for German U-Boats.
Joe enlisted in the US Navy after his graduation in June 1944. After basic training in the Finger Lakes region of New York, he joined his ship the USS Pitt, an assault transport over 500 feet long, capable of carrying several hundred soldiers or Marines and all their gear and heavy equipment. During the shakedown cruise outside San Francisco Bay, he experienced his one and only bout of seasickness, including later that year when sailing through a typhoon. Setting out across the Pacific, his job was to steer the ship while they stopped at various islands to deliver cargo. In the Philippines, they picked up soldiers from that campaign. Eighty years ago, in April 1945, the crew of the Pitt set them on the beaches to invade the island of Okinawa, about 350 miles from Japan. Because the ship had a doctor aboard, they remained in the anchorage near the beach as a hospital ship, receiving the wounded.
While the land battle raged across the island, a series of air and naval battles occurred offshore. Kamikaze aircraft battered the naval force, striking over 150 ships. During one assault on the transport fleet, Joe was at his battle station located just above the rudder at the emergency steering station. The single-engine planes that Japan was throwing at the fleet were too small to sink a large cargo vessel, but there were two places that a hit might disable a ship: the bridge and the rudder. Completely enclosed in the steel hull, he listened on his headset to running commentary as lookouts sighted an enemy pilot closing in on the stern of the ship. The climax came when the lookouts told him that the enemy plane had been shot down, crashing into the water behind the ship. He said that his ship was one of only two that were not damaged.
At the end of World War 2, he steered his ship through a minefield to deliver occupation troops to Japan, as well as to South Pacific islands to return American servicemen home. Joe was present in Tokyo Harbor for the signing of the Japanese surrender.
After his discharge from the Navy, he worked at the Dennison Manufacturing Co in Framingham, where he met his beloved wife, Celesta. Marrying in 1950, they moved to her father’s home in Wellesley in 1953. They were married for 71 years until her death at age 94. Joe served as a Wellesley firefighter for 30 years, rising to the rank of Captain and town Fire Inspector. On his 95th birthday, he was made an honorary Deputy Chief. Joe continues to live in Wellesley and is the proud father of three children and enjoys his six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.