Letters and news articles

The following essay was written by Dylan Emley ( grand nephew of William ) while in the 4th grade.

It won the first place award for his class and was written with his great uncle as his motivation

The following pictures were taken at the dedication to William at the Carteret High School

I wish to express my thanks to your principle, Mr. Repellot and assistant principle Mr. Sisock, for giving me the opportunity to make a special presentation honoring one of Carteret High School’s former graduates.

This presentation has come about, because of a special project chosen by the Worthy Grand Matron, Sister Alice R. Peters, of the Grand Chapter of Florida Order of the Eastern Star. It is part of her Public Awareness Project, to place 1000 + books, purchased by star members in any library, in the vicinity of the donor’s choice. We are very close to 2000 books with three more months to go.

Mr. Sisock, thank you for the beautiful Power Point presentation using William’s web page giving us a look into William’s life. I understand some of the students were involved in putting the program together. If any of them are present, I would like then to stand. You did a great job, a heartfelt thank you for all your work.

I would like to add a few things about William that I think would help you understand just how special a person he was and a good roll model to follow. William wanted to enlist in the Navy right after Pearl Harbor. Dad said you only have six months to finish high school. Dad promised him he would sign the papers and mail them in, in May. For some reason unknown to us, his enlistment did not come through until November. He was getting very upset. One day he and dad had a heated argument. William thought dad had torn up his enlistment papers. Dad assured him he did not. Three days later his enlistment came through.

William was a hard working young boy. While very young, he started out shinning shoes, shoveling snow, mowing lawns and selling magazine subscriptions. When he was a few years older, he asked Mom and Dad if he could raise some chickens. They told him yes, as long as he bought the feed and wire for their pen and took care of them. A few months later, he added two ducks to the chickens. On his way home from school, William always whistled. Before he could even be seen, the chickens and ducks would hear his whistling. They would go wild scratching and clucking at the end of the pen in the direction William was coming from. They kept it up until he got into the pen petted and talked to them. Before he left for the Navy, mom told him he would have to get rid of the chickens. He did not have the heart to kill them, so he gave them all away. He also delivered two weekly newspapers, The Carteret Press and The Carteret News on his bicycle, in the rain, sleet or snow. When the snow was too deep, he walked the route.

Later when he was in high school he got the job at the local post office delivering special delivery mail three times a day, eight AM., twelve noon and four PM. He used the same bicycle to deliver the mail, until he was able to buy a car in his senior year. His brother Elwood took over his paper routes. He worked in his cousin’s pharmacy and on some evenings and most week-ends he ran the movie projector in the Perth Amboy Movie Theater. Upon graduation William worked for the Merck Pharmecutical Company in Rahway, in the mail department. His brother Walter took over the Special Delivery Route. From the very beginning, William always gave his parents part of his earnings to help with the household bills. He also started a savings account. Even while overseas, whenever he got a chance to write home, he would tell Mom and Dad, I’m buying the turkey for thanksgiving. Get a real big one. Another states, mom, you need a new dress and dad needs a new suit, take money out of my bank account and get them.

When William start receiving citations, articles appeared in the same newspapers he delivered as a young lad. People that he had worked for and who knew William, described him as a hard working unassuming young man. Another said, "Throughout his entire life he was known for his exceptional dependability and industry. William Colgan was one of the finest young men to have been raised in Carteret".

In the 1945, October issue of True, The Man’s Magazine, there is a story titled HELL in the Umurbrogol by T/Sgt. Jeremiah O’Leary, Marine Combat Correspondent, who was at Peleliu at the time. It is the story of 48 Marines sent out on a mopping up operation. They crawled to the top of knob three. The Japanese let the marines advance far in front of their lines. There was not a single shot fired or any sign of the enemy. Hiding in caves and behind coral crags, they opened up fire on the Marines. It came from all directions. The Marines were pinned down. Each corpsman dragged a wounded Marine to a narrow ledge halfway to the bottom of the ravine. Leaving Corpsman Still and another corpsman there to tend the wounded, Corpsman Colgan climbed back to the fire-swept peak and began to shout orders. "Take it easy you guys. Bandage each other while we get you out of here!" and to the unhurt he barked: "get out of here, a few at a time! Don’t all take off at once". Colgan organized the difficult evacuation of the wounded remaining on the crest, and then stood upright to see if he had missed anybody on Knob Three. He was killed outright by enemy bullets, because of this action William was awarded the Navy Cross and the Purple Heart posthumously. I wanted to tell you this story, because the family is in possession of a US Treasury Department Record, that my father got from the little WOR radio station that was in East Carteret, NJ. It was a reenactment by popular actors of the time, with Mark Warno as director of music and Mark Goodson program director. This story was being used to sell War Bonds. If you read the letter William wrote home before being sent overseas, you will see that he realized how important getting a good education was for your future. He said he wished mom and dad had made him study harder. I honestly don’t know where he would have found the time to do so, with all the jobs he held.

William loved his country, his family and his fellowman. He died as he lived, looking out for others. That was typical of William.

Before I make the presentation I would like to introduce the rest of William’s sisters and brother..

Mr. Repelott, in honor of William W. Colgan, graduate of Carteret High School, recipient of the Navy Cross and the Purple Heart, posthumously, and the Bronze Star, with V for Valor for bravery above and beyond the call of duty, and with sincere gratitude to the Worthy Grand Matron, Sister Alice R. Peters of Florida, I would like to present you with these two books, for the high school library, "The Greatest Generation Speaks", by Tom Brokaw, in which William’s last letter home appears. I would also like to present this shadow box. It was the idea of my very good friend Sister Carol P. Davis, who is a teacher at Lake Asbury Elementary School in Orange Park Florida. She is state chairman of the Worthy Grand Matron’s Public Awareness Project. She suggested we have something of a more permanent nature for the school to display. After reading about all William’s accomplishments, she said what a wonderful roll model he is for the students, especially because he is one of their own. She came up with the idea of the Shadow Box. A very big thanks to Carol. She did a beautiful job designing it and making it. My webmaster, Larry Cook also deserves a special thanks. Our family’s highest hope is that William’s heroism will inspire the future heroes that will come from Carteret High School. I would also like to thank everyone that came for this special presentation.