The Wolf Cubs pack in Port Angeles, Washington, may have inspired the formation of Cub Scouts in America — during an effort to prevent war. Sadly, five of them later themselves died in combat.
This article continues the story of what was called America’s first Cub Scout pack, and the summer camp they had for many years on native peoples’ land.
We must try peace
After his three enlistments and drafts during World War One, it’s easy to imagine why Cubmaster W. W. Parkes was drawn to preparing youth for the challenges that may face them.
But like the Scouting movement, the Port Angeles pack was actually against war, not a military prep group. Given the opportunity in 1928 to speak to 2,000 business leaders at a Rotary convention in Seattle, the pack put on a play arguing for the need for peace. The morning of April 23, 1928, pack founder Sol Levy’s son Leon was the keynote speaker. The next day he was quoted in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
“We Wolf Cubs can be made a great force in sidetracking the warrior of the future, to whom glory means more than constructive human ideals. Don’t you think it would be a great thing if you, the men of today in Rotary, would instill in the boys of tomorrow that commandment, ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’?
“You want the bloodshed to be at an end. We all want bloodshed to be at an end. But don’t forget that in order to enforce these commandments, Moses said, ‘Thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children!’ And are you doing this?”
Leon Levy in April 24, 1928 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The paper went on to say, “He concluded with an appeal for help in organizing boydom on a world-wide basis and teaching the horror, destruction, and misery war causes”.
The appeal was heard by Boy Scouts of America Chief Scout Executive Dr. James West. Local papers and Sol Levy himself considered it no coincidence that West formalized Cub Scouts as part of BSA just a few months later. But the boys’ appeal wasn’t heard wide enough or loud enough to avoid another world war.
Cubs grown up
When the United States entered World War Two, the former Port Angeles Wolf Cubs were ages 18 to 28, prime age for volunteering and the draft.
Sol’s son Leon Levy later lamented, “World War Two scattered us to all parts of the globe, and some of us didn’t come back.”
Several times over the decades, the Seattle Times or Seattle Post-Intelligencer looked back on the Port Angeles Wolf Cubs and what became of them. Each time, they were careful to mention the five Cubs who served in World War Two that didn’t return.
Presumably they all were there marching, and later they were joking and singing on KOMO radio in Seattle on April 22, 1928. And of course they were there on April 23rd, arguing for world peace.
Those five that didn’t return, they died in combat. Here’s what happened to them, assembled from news reports and unit histories.
Marshal Leonard Dompier
Marshal Dompier was in Wolf Cubs from about 1926 to 1929. He volunteered for military service in 1940. He was a storekeeper second class in the Navy. Logs show that he travelled between Hawaii and California several times in 1941 on the transports Wharton and Pyro. He returned in September on the battleship USS California, part of escalating tensions between the United States and Japan.
He went missing in action during Japan’s air raid on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the event that brought the United States into World War Two. The USS California was hit by two torpedoes and a bomb and it sunk, killing 105 men. It could have been worse. Dompier was seen saving five men, and he died trying to save a sixth.
Marshal Dompier married Lucile Cayanus in July 1940 just before entering the service. Somehow he was able to make a phonograph recording telling how much he loved her. She played it for a reporter in 1942 when they visited to talk about his confirmed death.
Dompier’s grave is in Ohau, Hawaii. He is not included in a current list of MIA, so presumably he was identified after the USS California was floated for repairs.
David Barber Ritchie
David B. Ritchie was in Wolf Cubs from about 1927 to 1929. He volunteered before America entered World War Two, and served in the 161st Infantry, a regiment of soldiers from Washington State. The regiment was on a train to San Francisco when they learned of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It’s unclear if Ritchie ever knew that Dompier was killed there. The 161st deployed to protect Hawaii and then to battles farther across the Pacific.
Ritchie died in the Battle of Munda Point on July 23, 1943, in the Solomon Islands.
To properly tell the story of his death, a bit more of his biography is needed. Ritchie was the grandson of one of the founders of Port Angeles. But he became an orphan in 1933 when his mother died. He was taken in by his aunt and uncle, Angeline and Elmer Startup, in Everett. They also took in Ritchie’s friend Robert M. O’Brien, a football teammate, when he needed a home. O’Brien volunteered after Ritchie, in 1942. The two friends were able to serve in the same regiment.
Ritchie died first at Munda, in an ambush. Their story was told by war correspondent Art Burgess and in the regiment’s official war history, Golden Gate in ’48. The 161st arrived on the island of New Georgia by transports on the morning of July 23rd, 1943 to support troops already there. Captain Ritchie was in a recon group with two members of each company to find staging areas for the regiment. They found suitable locations, and Ritchie was walking with Regimental Intelligence Officer Captain Jack Cormack on a trail through the jungle behind a bulldozer driven by engineers. Suddenly they were ambushed by a Japanese machine gunner who raked them with fire while another lobbed grenades. Cormack, the engineering crew, and many others were killed instantly. Ritchie survived long enough to tell the story to Lieutenant O’Brien and to get transport to a field hospital, where he died.
O’Brien became grimly determined to win the war himself. Several days later (Golden Gate in 48 implies it was the 26th; O’Brien’s death record and Burgess’ reporting say it was the 30th), he charged Japanese fortifications on top of a knoll. He dodged sprays of gunfire and ran close enough to lob grenades inside. He was found dead at the top of the hill, no longer troubled by his friend Dave’s death. With the fortifications empty after the Japanese soldiers fled, his company took control of the hill. Burgess said O’Brien would always be remembered with the name of that hill, and indeed contemporary papers and the regimental history called it O’Brien Hill.
Ritchie is buried in Manila, The Phillipines.
John Ralph Uphouse
Jack Uphouse was in Wolf Cubs from about 1927 to 1930. He volunteered in December 1941, several days after listening to the news of Pearl Harbor. He entered the Army Air Corps and made the local news when he qualified for flight in June 1942 as a staff sergeant.
Uphouse died in the Strait of Sicily during Operation Husky on July 11, 1943. A flight officer, he flew a fighter from an aircraft carrier, one of the 4,000 aircraft supporting 150,000 troops landing on Sicily. He parachuted out of his plane, presumably after being shot down, and went missing in action in the water.
He is still listed as MIA.
Eugene Boyd Fleming
Eugene Fleming was in Wolf Cubs from about 1929 to 1933. He died July 27, 1943, two weeks after Uphouse and during the same battle, Operation Husky.
Fleming was profiled in the February 1943 Seattle P-I: “Fleming is viewing the sights from the radio room of an army bomber. He has had several delightful jaunts over colorful France and picturesque Germany… but many aspects of the countryside failed to charm them, so they made a few alterations by dropping bombs here and there.” The lighthearted view of war may have made a good distraction at the time, but it seems crass now.
Fleming was a staff sergeant in the radio room of a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber. It was shot down and crashed into the Tyrrhenian Sea. Like Uphouse, he is missing in action, among the 1,334 Washington men and women that are still missing from World War Two.
Fleming died a few days after Mussolini was deposed and Italian troops withdrew, but while the Nazi army continued to fight to try to hold Sicily.
His younger brother Robert’s first born was almost a “Junior”, but received Eugene as a middle name.
Eugene Fleming is still MIA.
Joseph Morrison Harley (Jr.)
Joe Harley was in Wolf Cubs from about 1929 to 1932. Joe volunteered for the National Guard in 1940, and following the start of the war he was transferred to Wisconsin to train volunteers. He went through Officer Candidate School in Minnesota, reaching the rank of infantry staff sergeant. His regiment was deployed to Europe in late 1944.
Harley was in the 415th regiment 76th division, which together with the 6th armored division pushed straight into central Germany in early 1945. He died in April during days of quick advance, between heavy air strikes in Langensalza and a brutal battle in Zeitz. He was one of 100 men in the 76th that died in the final three months of the war.
While his company was traveling along a trail, a gun was found on the path. Harley picked it up and handed it to another man in his unit. But it was boobytrapped. As he handed it over, it discharged and shot Harley in the abdomen. It killed him instantly.
Harley died in Thamesbruk, Germany on April 10, 1945, less than a month before the Nazi army surrendered. He almost made it through the entire war.
Harley was initially buried in Germany, but his grave is at the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, Netherlands.
Further reading
- Cub Scouts started in Port Angeles (part 1 in this series)
- Camp DYB (part 2)
- Blue Ox Camp (part 4)
- What did they sing at Blue Ox Camp? (part 5)
- Cub Scout Alphabet
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