Gerald W. Near (May 27, 1922–November 17, 1995)

By Kenneth Holliday and Nashali Nunez

Early Life

1930 US Census, Gerald Near, line 42

Gerald W. Near was born on May 27, 1922, in Detroit, Michigan. The 1930 Census, seen here, indicates that he was the son of Gerard “Jerry” Near and Bertha Frances Moran, and the second oldest among his four siblings: Margaret, James Jay, Florence, and Beverly Ann.1

Near grew up in Michigan, a state that was greatly affected by the Great Depression in the 1930s.2 From 1930 to 1933, Michigan’s unemployment rate was thirty-four percent compared to the twenty-six percent national rate.3 The Near family may have felt the effects of the high unemployment rates during this time. In 1939, the oldest child, Marguerite, married George Neubert in Lincoln Park, MI.4 The young, newly married couple moved to Los Angeles, California within the same year.5 After Marguerite’s departure, Gerald became the oldest child in the Near household.

1940 US Census, Gerald Near, line 24

In 1940 at age seventeen, Gerald Near was no longer enrolled in high school.6 Instead, as the 1940 Census shows, he worked as a gas station attendant.7 Despite being employed, Gerald was listed as having no income.8 His father, however, was recorded as having additional income besides that from his factory job.9 It is very likely that Gerald’s income as a gas station attendant was being paid directly to his father. In this case, Gerald may have dropped out of school to help provide income to the family household.

By 1941, Gerald decided to start a family of his own. He and Ruth Marie Harris left Michigan and married in Fulton County, Ohio, on August 17, 1941.10 Four months after their marriage, the US entered World War II after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The effects of the entrance to the war were felt all across the United States. Millions of men and women began to enlist voluntarily in the various branches of the US military while millions more were drafted into service.11 In 1942, nearly four million men and women served in the US military, which doubled the amount from the previous year.12 The following year, in 1943, the number doubled again to over nine million serving in the U.S. military.13 The United States was rapidly increasing the size of its armed forces, and many families had loved ones leave home to serve in the military. Gerald and Ruth Near, too, were affected by the war shortly after celebrating one year of marriage. On October 15, 1942, Gerald Near enlisted in the US Marine Corps.14

Military Service

Gerald Near began training at the Ninth Recruit Battalion in San Diego, CA, that month.15 Following completion of his training, Near was assigned to the 12th Defense Battalion in January 1943, and would remain with this unit for the majority of his military career.16 The 12th Defense Battalion was primarily used as an anti-aircraft force.17 Near was reported to be part of the Special Weapons Group for the duration of his service in the unit.18 The Special Weapons Groups were trained on the use of .30-caliber and .50-caliber machine guns, not the heavy artillery pieces used to attack aircraft.19 Therefore, it is probable that Gerald Near and the Special Weapons Group defended the ground positions of the heavier artillery pieces within the 12th.

Gerald Near’s unit deployed to Hawaii the same month that he joined the unit. Following a “brief stay in Australia,” the unit arrived on Woodlark Island in New Guinea in June 1943.20 There, the unit protected a US airfield that screened the landings in the Solomon Islands.21 In December 1943, the 12th Defense Battalion participated in the assault and supported the landings on Cape Gloucester, New Britain.22 Here the 12th defended against multiple Japanese attack aircraft and bombing raids.23 Despite the hostile engagements, the unit suffered most of its casualties due to the miserable conditions of the island.24 Diseases, such as typhus and malaria, afflicted the wellbeing of the unit en masse, despite the medical personnel’s attempt to provide remedies and preventive medicine.25

Gerald Near left the 12th Defense Battalion around June 1944 when the unit became redesignated as the 12th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion.26 He returned to the US and reported to the Marine Barracks at the Navy Yard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in July 1944.27 Finally, on February 14, 1946, Gerald Near finished his enlistment and was discharged from the Marine Corps as a Corporal.28

Post Service

After Near’s military service, he and his spouse, Ruth, gave birth to a son named Gerald Jr. Gerald and Ruth Near remained married for fifty-six years before Gerald died on November 17, 1995, in Venice, Florida. Ruth died at age eighty-seven in Venice, Florida, on April 24, 2012.29 Gerald Wilford Near’s surviving family memorialized him in Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell, FL, on January 9, 1996.

Endnotes

1 “1930 United States Federal Census,” database, Ancestry.com, http://ancestry.com (accessed June 12, 2017), entry for Gerald W Near.

2 Arthur Dunham. “Public Welfare and the Referendum in Michigan.” Social Service Review Vol. 12, No. 3 (September 1938): 417-39, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30011096.

3 Ibid.

4 “Michigan, Marriage Records, 1867-1952,” database, Ancestry.com, http://ancestry.com (accessed June 12, 2017), entry for Marguerite Neubert.

5 “1940 United States Federal Census,” database, Ancestry.com, http://ancestry.com (accessed June 12, 2017), entry for Marguerite Neubert.

6 “1940 United States Federal Census,” database, Ancestry.com, (http://ancestry.com (accessed June 12, 2017), entry for Gerald W Near.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid.

10 “Ohio, County Marriages, 1774-1993,” database, Ancestry.com, http://ancestry.com (accessed June 12, 2017), entry for Gerald Near.

11 The National WWII Museum. “By the Numbers: The US Military,” The National WWII Museum, n.d.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid.

14 “U.S., Department of Veterans Affairds BIRLS Death File, 1850, 2010,” database, Ancestry.com, http://ancestry.com (accessed June 12, 2017), entry for Gerald Near.

15 “U.S. Marine Corps Muster Rolls, 1798-1958,” database, Ancestry.com, http://ancestry.com (accessed June 12, 2017), entry for Gerald Near.

16 Ibid.

17 Charles D. Melson. Condition Red: Marine Defense Battalions in World War II. (Washington: Marine Corps Historical Center, 1996), 15.

18 “U.S. Marine Corps Muster Rolls, 1798-1958,” database, Ancestry.com, http://ancestry.com (accessed June 12, 2017), entry for Gerald Near.

19 Charles D. Melson. Condition Red: Marine Defense Battalions in World War II. (Washington: Marine Corps Historical Center, 1996), 18.

20 Ibid., 15.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid., 17.

23 Ibid., 24.

24 Ibid., 17-8.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid., 25.

27 “U.S. Marine Corps Muster Rolls, 1798-1958,” database, Ancestry.com, http://ancestry.com (accessed June 12, 2017), entry for Gerald Near.

28 “U.S., Department of Veterans Affairds BIRLS Death File, 1850, 2010,” database, Ancestry.com, http://ancestry.com (accessed June 12, 2017), entry for Gerald Near;
National Cemetery Administration, "Gerald W. Near, Sr.," US Department of Veterans Affairs, accessed June 19, 2017, https://gravelocator.cem.va.gov/NGLMap?ID=5783510

29 “Ruth Marie Near,” database, Legacy.com, http://legacy.com (accessed June 19, 2017), entry for Ruth Marie Near. Originally published in Herald Tribune, April 28, 2012.

© 2017, University of Central Florida

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