Sign of Honor

By Johnny Woodhouse

You may have noticed some royal blue street signs around the Beaches dedicated to the memory of local military personnel.

Known as the Fallen Wartime Veterans Street Sign Program, the project is a labor of love for Atlantic Beach resident Lenny Jevic, a historian with Beaches Veterans Memorial Park and a retired U.S. navy command master chief.

Jevic got the idea of honoring Beaches veterans who have died in war with a street sign listing their name, rank, branch of service, and highest military decorations after seeing the same program adopted in his hometown of Edison, N.J.

The street signs, created by Florida Transcor, a traffic safety supply company, are 30 inches in length and sit atop or below existing street signs. Many of the signs are sponsored by area businesses.  

Jevic, a former police sergeant in Atlantic Beach, first approached the City of Atlantic Beach with the proposal in 2019. After the City Commission approved the project in October 2020, street signs were installed to memorialize a quartet of World War II servicemen and one Vietnam veteran with ties to the city, including heroic Navy aviator Richard Bull, who died in the South Pacific in 1942.

In October 2020, Jevic brought the street sign program to the attention of the Jacksonville Beach City Council. It was unanimously approved in May 2021 and incorporated into the city’s Honoree Street Sign Ordinance.

The first round of memorial street signs went up in Jacksonville Beach soon afterwards, including two dedicated to the memory of brothers Stanley and Roger Harrell, a pair of U.S. Marines who died in Vietnam in 1968 and 1969, respectively.

But Jevic didn’t stop there. Within weeks of Jacksonville Beach approving the street sign program, he pitched it to the City of Neptune Beach. A resolution was quickly passed authorizing the placement of signs at four locations around the city, including on the corner of Hopkins Street, the last home of record for Army Staff Sgt. Jody Pierce, a decorated paratrooper who lost his life in Vietnam.

A second round of signs may be going up in Jacksonville Beach later this year, including one for Marine Cpl. Marcus Preudhomme, a 2004 Fletcher High School grad who died in Iraq in 2008. Each colorful street sign in Jacksonville Beach includes a scannable QR code that can be read by a Smartphone and links to bios of each recipient. Bios are also located at jacksonvillebeach.org, under Parks & Recreation.

Sisterhood of Service: Fletcher High Grad Followed Siblings into Women’s Army Corps.

By Johnny Woodhouse

In 1972, Private Judy Teate completed her basic training at the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) Center at Fort McClellan, Alabama, becoming the third of her four sisters to join the military during the Vietnam War era.

A 1970 graduate of Fletcher High School, where she participated in school plays and chorus, Teate enjoyed writing poetry and was affectionately regarded as the baby of the family, according to her big sister Billie Harbison.

“Everybody who knew her loved her and only had good things to say about her,” said Harbison, who served as an Army nurse from 1968-1973. “I would do anything for Judy.”

While at Fort McClellan, Teate received instruction in Army history and traditions, administrative proceedings, military justice, first-aid, and field training.

Created in 1942 to free up more men for combat roles, the women’s branch of the U.S. Army gained official military status in 1943.

More than 150,000 women served in the WAC during World War II, including Teate’s mother, Alice, a former WAC recruiter from 1943-1946.

“Growing up, we heard about her adventures as a WAC, so when the time came, we decided to do our part,” recalled Harbison, a former Army sergeant. “We were not particularly fond of the Vietnam War, but we wanted to be nurses and that’s what we did.”

WACs Capable Young Women

After her boyfriend was drafted, Marjorie Teate, a 1968 Flether High grad, was the first of her sisters to volunteer for the WAC. Harbison followed suit in July 1968, one of 29 recruits from Florida and South Georgia comprising the so-called Orange Blossum platoon.

WAC enlistees were required to serve a three-year enlistment and had a choice of several military occupational specialties, including communications, nursing and air traffic control. Upon completion of their military service, WACs were eligible for GI education benefits, just like their male counterparts.

“Back then, most parents who had four daughters could not afford to send all of them to college, so we knew we could take advantage of the G.I. Bill when we got out,” said Harbison, whose family moved to Jacksonville Beach in 1964.

During their eight weeks of basic training, WAC recruits assembled for daily inspections and marched everywhere on base, including to the chow hall. Members of the Orange Blossom platoon said the hardest part of their training was keeping their two-piece uniform clean and pressed.

“It could never be worn wrinkled and required ironing several times a day,” according to a 1968 feature story on the platoon in The Florida Times-Union.

“We want a highly disciplined, well-motivated capable young woman who will add to the achievements of the WACs,” a training officer said at the time. “By drilling and marching they learn to work together as a unit. Inspections teach them self-discipline and attention to details.”

Taught Combat Medics

Billie Harbison in uniform

After graduating as the top recruit in boot camp, Harbison attended clinical specialist school at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, the central hub for training Army enlisted medical personnel, including combat medics.

Following her nine months of specialist training, Harbison was assigned to William Beaumont General Hospital in El Paso, Texas, which served as a key treatment center for returning wounded soldiers.

According to the Texas State Historical Association, the hospital served as a major teaching and research center during the war, transitioning into a modern outpatient and acute care facility in the early 1970s.

“We saw some horrible injuries, but I joined the Army to become a nurse because I knew those young men needed us,” said Harbison, who taught basic nursing skills to Army medics heading overseas. “Judy trained as a clinical specialist just like me, only her school was in Colorado.”

From Denver to the Desert

Judy with her parents
Judy in uniform

Following boot camp, Judy Teate was assigned to Fitzsimmons General Hospital, which functioned as a major air evacuation hub for severely injured Army personnel needing specialized care.

During World War I, the historic Army hospital, named in honor of the first American medical officer killed in combat, provided care for causalities suffering from chemical weapons and tuberculosis.

By the time Teate arrived there in 1972, the Denver-based medical center was still functioning as an essential facility for both the treatment and the training of medical personnel deployed to combat support roles.

Teate studied alongside Army medics, graduating with a level of medical proficiency which parallelled that of a licensed practical nurse.

In 1973, she received her first duty assignment to 110-bed Raymond W. Bliss Army Hospital at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.

At the time, Harbison was winding up her five-year Army enlistment with her sights set on a civilian nursing career.

“When I got out of the Army, Judy was home on leave and we were able to spend some time together before my dad drove her out to Arizona,” Harbison recalled.

Angel on Earth

Located in Southeast Arizona, about 15 miles north of the Mexican border, Fort Huachuca is situated some 2,000 miles from the coastal confines of Jacksonville Beach.

Surrounded by arid landscapes and forested mountains, the historic Army base dates to 1877 and is known as the home of the “Buffalo Soldiers,” a famous Black calvary regiment in the West.

Soon after Judy Teate settled into her new Army post, tragedy struck.

While moving furniture and possessions into her upstairs living quarters, Teate apparently fell and fatally injured herself.

“When her roommate came home from the hospital, she found Judy unresponsive on her bunk,” Harbison said.

According to an autopsy, Teate’s cause of death was a ruptured pancreas, which can be caused by a traumatic injury. Harbison believes her little sister may have tripped and fallen on a flight of stairs and died suddenly from rapid internal bleeding.

“She was in perfect health when we last saw her,” said Harbison.

“Her death was such a shock. I told my mother we were lucky to have her for as long as we did because she was an angel. She was too good for this world.”

Pvt. Judy Teate, who was born at St. Vincent’s Hospital and grew up in a two-story house her grandfather built in the 2500 block of 1st Street South, was buried with full military honors at Warren Smith Cemetery in Jacksonville Beach.

“I know how much my service means to me and how much it meant to Judy,” said Harbison, a disabled veteran. “She knew how it felt to wear that uniform, and she wore it well.”

This Memorial Day, Judy Teate’s name will be added to the Veterans Memorial Wall in downtown Jacksonville.

Her military-style grave marker is in Section B1 of Warren Smith Cemetery. To locate it, visit the online burial search at jacksonvillebeach.org.

Mayport Native Served in Dangerous Waters During World War II

By Johnny Woodhouse

In late January 1942, Mayport native Charles Lewis Ruffin, 22, was employed as a pantry helper on the Seminole, a steam-powered passenger ship that provided luxury travel between New York City and the South.

A floating palace, the Seminole, along with its sister ships, the Algonquin, Cherokee and Mohawk, were billed as the most luxurious on the Atlantic Coast and the pride and joy of the Clyde-Mallory Line.

“They are, I believe, the finest coastwise service vessels in the world,” said Clyde Line president H.H. Raymond in February 1926.

By 1943, both the Seminole and Cherokee, two of the eight merchant ships Ruffin sailed on between 1941 and 1942, would be victims of a vicious German U-boat campaign that resulted in the sinking of more than 2,700 merchant ships during World War II.

During 1942 alone, deadly Nazi submarines sank 1,322 merchant vessels, including the SS Mariana, a merchant steamer Ruffin boarded on March 3, 1942.

Family ties to Mayport fish house

Born Oct. 24, 1919, in Mayport, Ruffin grew up on Henry Street. His maternal grandfather, Isaac “Ike” Lewis, owned and operated a waterfront business known as the Old Reliable Fish Market.

When he was not attending classes at the School for Blacks in East Mayport, Ruffin’s uncle, Antonio “Tony” Lewis, babysat young Charlie and his brother, Wilbur, while their mother, Edna Lewis Ruffin, washed and ironed clothes to make ends meet as a single mother.

When fish were scarce, Tony Lewis and his brother, “Sonny Boy,” worked in their father’s woodyard or delivered ice out of the back of an old Model T Ford.

“That’s when most people, especially blacks, didn’t have ice boxes, and put ice in the ground in sawdust,” Tony Lewis recalled in 1981.

Yearning to change his station in life, Lewis eventually took to the sea, working on dredge boats up and down the St. Johns River.

Lewis eventually left the riverboat life to become a restaurant chef in Jacksonville, the cafeteria manager at Prudential Insurance Co. and finally the proprietor of Tony’s Seafood Shack on Mayport Road for more than 25 years. He died in 2007 at the age of 96.

Following his uncle’s lead

After toiling in his grandfather’s fish house, Charlie Ruffin also longed for a new adventure far from the docks of Mayport.

On Jan. 23, 1941, he applied for a seaman’s certificate to work as either an ordinary seaman or a wiper on a merchant ship.

Six days later, he got his wish, earning a berth as a deckhand aboard the SS Shawnee, another passenger steamer for the Clyde-Mallory Line but bigger and more luxurious than the Seminole or Cherokee.

Ruffin spent more than a month on the four-deck luxury liner, which was powered by four steam turbines and carried more than 700 passengers and a crew of 175.

When he returned home to Mayport, Ruffin updated his Merchant Marine job ratings to include an endorsement for steward, which would allow him to work in a ship’s galley, where food is prepared and cooked for the passengers and crew.

The very next day, he was working as a second messman on the steamship York, followed by a 70-day assignment in the officer’s mess of the Shawnee, which offered roundtrip passenger service between Jacksonville and New York City.

In late June 1941, Ruffin served as a cook on the USAT John L. Clem, a former passenger liner converted into a troop carrier. At the time, Ruffin had no idea that his six-week service aboard the Army vessel would qualify him for veteran’s benefits decades later.

Switching his rate sealed his fate

For the remainder of 1941, Ruffin served exclusively on Clyde-Mallory passenger liners, including as a messman and dishwasher on the Cherokee, a utilityman on the Algonquin and the Seminole and a messman on the Gulfbreeze.

During his time ashore between the Shawnee and the John L. Clem, Ruffin traveled to Savannah, Georgia, to become endorsed for a third rating, this time as a coal passer in the engine room.

Maintaining steam was a constant chore at sea, according to steelnavy.org. The physically demanding job took place in the hottest parts of the ship, far below the waterline, where ventilation was at a minimum.

A coal passer manually moved coal, mostly by shovel, from the ship’s main storage bunkers to the stokehold or fire room where men known as stokers fed it into boilers.

“The man who worked down in that inferno of constant heat and danger was truly the super unsung hero of World War II,” wrote Walker D. Diamond, a retired U.S. Navy warrant officer, in his 1964 book “Memoirs of Ships and Men.”

Why Ruffin made the switch from food service worker to engine room attendant will never be known.

But by doing so, he may have unknowingly signed his death warrant.

Crossing paths with the enemy

With its multi-purpose foremast near the bow, the SS Mariana hardly resembled the sleek luxury liners Ruffin was used to working on for the better part of 1941. An American freighter built in 1915 at Newport News, Virginia, the Mariana was strictly a cargo vessel.

In 1918, the New York-based ship was requisitioned by the U.S. Navy for troop transport duty during World War I. The ship made two Atlantic crossings to France, carrying troops and supplies to the warfront before being returned to its owner, the New York & Puerto Rician Steamship Co., in April 1919.

Its sister ship, the SS Carolina, was not so lucky. It was sunk by a German U-boat on June 2, 1918, ending its 12-year lifespan.

In 1936, the SS Mariana changed owners but not her name.

On March 3, 1942, the freighter left Guánica, Puerto Rico, for Boston with 4,000 pounds of sugar, the island’s key export. Under the command of Capt. Ivan Elroy Hurlstone, a native of the Cayman Islands, the Mariana carried a crew of 34, including eight officers.

Ruffin was one of three coal passers in the ship’s engine room. Two days later, on March 5, 1942, the SS Marina was sailing north of the Turks and Caicos Islands when it unknowingly crossed paths with German U-boat 126, under the command of Capt. Ernst Bauer.

U-126 had already sunk or damaged 11 other ships, including the Norwegian merchant ship Gunny on March 2, 1942, when it fired on the unarmed SS Marina just after dusk on March 5, 1942.

According to Eric Wiberg, the author of over 40 books on maritime, aviation and World War II history, U-126 struck the SS Mariana with one torpedo, penetrating its hull. It only took five minutes for the merchant ship to sink, Wiberg said.

There were no survivors.

None of the freighter’s lifeboats or rafts were ever found.

When the ship was overdue in Boston, Wiberg said the Navy and commercial interests could only speculate as to its demise.

Merchant mariners get their due

Dorothy Ruffin Greene was only a year old when her older brother was killed. The 84-year-old Jacksonville resident said she grew up with little to no information about his fate.

“All we ever heard was that he was lost at sea,” said her son, Lucious Greene.

In late September 1942, seven months after the sinking of the SS Mariana, the first list of Merchant Marine casualties from the state of Florida was released by the Navy.

Charles Ruffin, coal passer, was listed as missing, a classification covering those who had not been accounted for at that time.

Pictured: Edna Ruffin, left, and Charles Ruffin, right

Between 1939 and 1945, 9,521 merchant mariners lost their lives — a higher proportion than those killed than in any military branch, according to the National World War II Museum.  

In 1988, merchant mariners became eligible for benefits through the Department of Veterans Affairs.  

In 2020, Congress passed the Merchant Mariners of World War II Congressional Gold Medal Act to recognize the merchant mariners for their courage and contributions during the war. 

Ruffin, whose name was recently added to a new war memorial in Atlantic Beach, may be eligible for both the Congressional Gold Medal and the Mariner’s Medal, an award established by Congress in 1943 to honor civilian sailors who were killed, wounded or suffered from dangerous exposure due to enemy action.

A total of 6,635 Mariner’s Medals were awarded during World War II.

In her 1992 book, “Mayport Remembered: Along the Waterfront,” Helen Cooper Floyd included a photo of Ruffin and her husband, Hilton Floyd, playfully boxing “in the wide space between the [Lewis] fish house and Ocean Street.”

Ruffin and Hilton are smiling in the blurry, black-and-white image, which was taken in 1940, the year the Selective Service Act was passed by Congress, establishing the first peacetime draft and requiring all able-bodied men between the ages of 21 and 35 to register for potential military service.

Pictured: Charles Ruffin, right boxing with Hilton Floyd, left

Ruffin registered for the draft days before his 21st birthday.

“Both men left the Mayport waterfront scene at the onset of World War II,” Helen Cooper Floyd recounted in her 1992 book.

“Hilton, like many of his boyhood friends, returned at war’s end with scars and medals. Charlie did not come home.”

For more information about the Lewis-Ruffin family, visit the Rhoda Martin Center in Jacksonville Beach. A copy of “Memoirs of Ships and Men” by former Neptune Beach resident Walker DeWitt Diamond can be found in the Reading Room of the Beaches Museum.

Beaches Museum •
381 Beach Boulevard
Jacksonville Beach, Florida 32250