On May 6, 1942, defenders of Corregidor surrendered to Japanese forces determined to neutralize the last American defensive position protecting Manila Bay in the Philippines.
Among the 11,000 U.S. and Filipino defenders captured was Wesley Nevans, a Marine.
“My dad is 90 percent of the reason I am so involved in the Veterans Day Committee,” as well as the Nov. 11 event in downtown Iola where veterans and active service personnel will be recognized, averred Tom Nevans.
After his capture, Wesley Nevans spent better than three years in Japanese prison camps. Malnutrition, a fact of life in those hellholes, affected his vision “but he didn’t let it bother him,” said son Tom. “He came home (to Kansas City) and spent the rest of his working life as a pipefitter.”
Iolan Nevans, 74, also had an uncle who was a Marine during World War I, including at Belleau Wood, prominent in USMC lore.
A couple of months after being graduated from high school in 1961, Nevans was en route to Marine boot camp. “I never considered anything else,” he said.
After a three-year obligation, Nevans found his way to a banking position in Iola, and later opened, with wife Wanda, the Country Seat restaurant in downtown Iola. He also worked 11 years at Russell Stover Candies and then a few years, part and full time, in stress-free mowing and similar tasks for Iola’s parks department. Retired? “Not altogether. I still get called back to help out.”
The past few months Nevans has been occupied, along with other committee members, putting together this year’s Veterans Day event.
WHEN WWI ended on Nov. 11, 1918, Iolans of every stripe surged downtown to celebrate what was declared “the war to end all wars.” Factory whistles sounded long and loud at the news. Celebrations went on well into the night.
War was fresh in the minds of many — the Spanish-American adventure and incursions into Mexico having occurred recently — but WWI was much more compelling, involving Old World nations.
Armistice Day, to celebrate the end of WWI, was established and became Veterans Day in 1954, at the behest of President Dwight Eisenhower, to include the veterans of all U.S. wars.
For several years parades and other events occurred in Iola to mark the occasion, but in the late 1950s, what for years had been a huge event, waned. Soon it was history.
In the early 1980s, a few years after the unpopular experience in Vietnam began to drift to recess, several local groups urged revival of a parade and other activities to recognize veterans.
Since then it has been an annual affair.
