Sun City vet wants to send WWII memento home to Japan

By DAVID LAUDERDALE

Richie Powers of Sun City Hilton Head was a World War II Marine who came home with a metallic hand-warmer found somewhere on Okinawa. Japanese writing etched on its side raised a newfound hope in Richie and his wife, Marge. They hoped it was a person's name, and called me thinking newspapers here and abroad could help find kin of the fallen soldier who owned it.

But a Hilton Head Islander fluent in Japanese said the writing is not a soldier's name. It's a brand name. Richie doesn't like to talk about the war. But life has taught him why a piece of metal might be meaningful to the soldier's family today.

He witnessed countless casualties from both sides as he and his Marine comrades cleared the rugged island. The 82-day battle resulted in extraordinary horror: 12,000 Allies killed, 50,000 Allied casualties and more than 100,000 Japanese troops lost. Richie's mother -- who was widowed when he was only 8 -- had four stars in her window in the Hell's Kitchen area of New York City. All of her boys made it home.

Richie spent 27 years in the New York Police Department in the dangerous Emergency Services Division. He and his partner, Patrick J. O'Connor, climbed the Brooklyn Bridge to talk down jumpers. They were in gunfights. They broke up armed standoffs. They retrieved two teenage girls from a hotel ledge who were going to jump because they couldn't meet the Beatles.

O'Connor was killed in the line of duty, and Richie was devastated. With Marge's blessings, he became the surrogate father of his partner's four young children. The two boys became NYPD officers. On Thursday, the younger one, Jimmy, will receive a medal of valor from the U.S. Justice Department for his actions during a New York City standoff in which a terrorist was killed.

In a Newsday story five years ago about Richie and the O'Connors, Jimmy recalls the only time he saw Richie cry. It was on the day Jimmy lost his close friend and former police partner. It was Sept. 11, 2001.

Richie can flip through scrapbooks in his home with its American flag fluttering by the door. And he can look at a hand-warmer.

"I didn't think anything of it at the time," he says. "But now I'm 83. Maybe I have more sympathy, or more compassion. It belonged to a soldier who was loved and cared for." Richie and Marge hoped it could warm the hands of the soldier's grandson. Now they will pray for the family, whoever they are.