If you are an avid visitor of the Portsmouth Library, the monument which stands by the main door may have become so familiar that it is perceived as just part of the building’s façade.
The granite monument commemorates the men from Portsmouth who lost their lives during World War II. Members of the Portsmouth High School class of 1940 donated the monument in memory of their classmates who perished during the war. Their names are: Alexander Drobiesewski, James Joyce Jr., Peter Phillipe, James Birt and Stephen Starkey.
No pic available of Sgt Stephen Starkey or Sgt. Birt
Cpl. Drobisewski USAAF (US Army Air Force) died when his transport aircraft was shot down over the Mediterranean. He was 21 years old.
Seaman 1st. Class James Joyce enlisted in the Navy after his first year at UNH. He was a radioman and gunner serving in the Pacific.
Sgt. Phillipe served in the Navy as a gunner specialist performing submarine patrol duties on the west coast. He died in action over the Pacific.
SSgt. James Birt, US Army was declared missing in action in Okinawa in 1945. Birt was employed at the Portsmouth Navy Yard before he enlisted. He was the son of City Councilman Samuel Birt.
Sgt. Starkey served in the US Army and was killed in action in France. He was a first-year student at UNH when he enlisted.
They and the other 106 names listed on the monument were part of a generation of young men and women who forfeited their youth and lives to fight against the evil that was spreading across Europe and the Pacific and threatening to take over the world.
They were not much older than the average High School graduate and had their entire lives ahead of them. To them, we owe a debt of gratitude for their willingness to answer the call to keep the world free.
Next time you visit the Portsmouth Library, take a few minutes, stop and read through the names inscribed thereon. And let’s hope that future generations never take their liberties for granted. It was purchased for them at a great cost.
“They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning”
We will remember them.
For the Fallen. by Laurence Binyon, 1914
