War bride found GH easy to love

Sat, May 10, 2008

For Joan Watson Karell, a World War II war bride, the charm of birthplace London with its 7.5 million residents is gone. She made four or five trips back to visit family, but loves Grand Haven.

Memories of five years of destruction by Nazi Germany's airplane bombs and buzz-bomb missiles have left their toll on her energetic life. She was 23 when the bombing started, and in the 1940s was conscripted (drafted) for office work in the Ministry of Supply.

One of the V-2 bombs hit a senior citizen house across the street from her two-story apartment. It went off as she was part-way down the stairs to be safer and was picked up lying in the street with severe head injuries.

"Everything in my apartment was sucked out of the building and never found," Joan said.

Her face and head were cut from flying glass. Doctors told her she must have closed her eyes, which saved her vision. She has no recollections of the explosion. She later learned how she was moved to a hospital and placed on the emergency room floor, and moved again with a large head bandage and arm fracture cared for at another hospital.

"Thousands of people were killed or wounded in the years of bombing," Joan said. "We lost touch with friends who moved after bombing raids and were wounded or killed, including families. Except for me, my parents and seven brothers and sisters were unharmed.

"In those days, London was foggy and black coal smoke from stoves poured out of every chimney, making it worse to see clearly outside," she said. "I lived about five miles from Big Ben clock in the west end of London.

"I became an American citizen Dec. 16, 1947," she continued. "The Ministry of Supply was in a large London government office building. There were six in the office where I had worked. My father owned a theater (cinema), and my mother had a beautiful voice and sang with the Carl Rosy Opera Company. We attended a very small Baptist church.

"Early in the war, the German planes would drop flares to light night-time paths for their bombing runs and often they would also start bad fires. I saw the horrible destruction of a double-decker bus that was loaded with passengers who were killed or badly wounded," said Joan, who was 92 on April 26 and still drives her car.

Joan met Joe Karell at a weekend dance in 1943 at the Covent Opera House, which was converted to dancing to give GIs on weekend pass a place to meet friends. He was with Battery 5, 400th Anti-Aircraft Automatic Weapons Battalion.

"We were married in 1944 when he had a weekend pass before being sent to a Normandy landing after the invasion, and stationed in Antwerp, Belgium, before returning to the USA for discharge from the Army in 1945," Joan said. "Joe died Dec. 4, 2006. He was an amazing man, built our house on a lot we purchased for just $375 and made some fine furniture — including a grandfather's clock I prize. When a supervisor at Story & Clark Piano Co., he took home fine scrap lumber as many other employees there were allowed to do and made beautiful furniture pieces.

"I have two sons — Robert, who has a downtown jewelry store; and Roger, who lives in Conklin and works for Keebler bakery in Grand Rapids," Joan said. My sister Molly married a GI friend of Joe and lives in Auburn, Ind.

"When I left England, I sailed on a hospital ship loaded with wounded soldiers. I was able to do this because of my wartime injuries," she said. "After coming to Grand Haven, I worked at the Register of Deeds office, Jonker Hardware, and at the NOCH Gift Shop."