Ray Jongeward’s recent obituary noted his long career as a educator. But before he ever started his distinguished teaching career, Jongeward learned that the lesson needs to match the test.
During World War II, the U.S. Army intelligence branch sent Jongeward to school to learn Japanese.
And then came one of those moves that lead many people to conclude that military intelligence is a contradiction in terms: The Army shipped Jongeward to Germany.
Jongeward shared that story a few years ago after he was honored as a distinguished graduate by Central Washington University.
Jongeward told The Columbian that he went into the Army in 1943, bouncing from tank destroyer training to a military intelligence training course where he could learn to speak Japanese.
After D-Day, the Army apparently decided it needed infantrymen in Europe a lot more than it needed intelligence officers in the Pacific.
Jongeward was part of Gen. George Patton’s sweep through Europe, where he found himself working as an Army interpreter after all.
Jongeward (pronounced “young-ward”) had grown up in a Dutch-speaking home in the farming town of Moxee in Yakima County.
That came in handy when his unit would liberate a village, said Jongeward, who died Oct. 12 at age 91.
“I picked up enough German because of my Dutch background,” he said.
“I talked to the bürgermeister, explained the curfew, told them where to put their weapons and cameras.
“But I had been in Japanese training so recently that sometimes that’s what would come out,” Jongeward said.
“Those people had to be wondering what on earth I was talking about.”
— Tom Vogt
Off Beat lets members of The Columbian news team step back from our newspaper beats to write the story behind the story, fill in the story or just tell a story.
