The Right Place at the Right Time

A Memoir of Childhood, Family and War

They found some measure of that in the sleepy Cajun town of Houma. But Wells craved opportunity, travel and adventure. In September 1940, fresh out of high school, he joined the US Marine Corps and he found all three—and adventure beyond imagining. True, the Nazis were already marauding in Europe and Japan was at war with China. But America was in an isolationist mood and neutrality was the official US position. War seemed far away.

Though a scrawny six-footer, Wells aced boot camp and found himself in Sea School, the elite program for Marines wanting to serve as captains' aides aboard Naval ships. In February 1941, he landed a seemingly idyllic posting—with the US Navy fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The first ten months were just that. Assigned to the heavy cruiser, USS Chicago, Wells sailed across the equator on goodwill missions to exotic South Seas ports like Samoa and Fiji. In Sydney, Australia, the Chicago's crew marched in ticker-tape parades thronged by hundreds of thousands. Aussie women bought all the beer a Marine could drink. Back in Hawaii, Wells bought a motorcycle and, with liberal time ashore, cruised Oahu's beaches and byways. The boy from Arkansas was living the dream.

Then came Dec. 7, 1941, the “Day of Infamy” when Japan launched its sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Luckily, the Chicago was part of a convoy far out to sea when the bombers struck. But war was on and Wells—assigned to man a machine gun turret seventy-five feet above the Chicago's deck—soon found himself thrust into some of the most brutal battles of World War II. These included the Battle of the Coral Sea and the disastrous First Battle of Savo Island, where the Chicago narrowly escaped sinking. After an unorthodox exit from the Chicago—denied the transfer due to him, he jumped ship—Wells joined G Company of the 22nd Marine Regiment. He plunged back into the thick of Pacific combat, storming ashore on fiercely defended Japanese-held islands like Engebi, Parry and Guam.

The Right Place at the Right Time is a narrative of optimism and grit, told in a singular voice by an eyewitness to a war whose combatants Tom Brokaw described as the “Greatest Generation.” Wells relates his harrowing experiences with an everyman's modesty, flashes of humor and jolting detail. In describing his Arkansas boyhood, he writes of simpler times when American kinship soothed times of great American hardship. Fans of memoir, and World War II history buffs, have much to savor here.

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A very American story of a slightly rebellious Marine…

Growing up an only child in backwoods Arkansas, William Rexford “Rex” Wells lived a Huck Finn life, roaming the wild river bottoms around him, fishing, hunting, exploring. Then came the Great Depression and the hardest times his family had ever known. They packed up the tar-paper shack and headed for Louisiana, hoping for better economic fortune.