Inlow, Richard

Richard “Dick” Inlow was born November 21, 1924 in Detroit, Michigan. His father was a Great War veteran who came home looking to make his fortune, and that ambition took him to Detroit, where he was quite successful in the “Roaring 20s”.  The end of that decade brought the crash and the beginning of the Great Depression:  Dick’s father lost everything and the family was split up for a time while they struggled to get back on their feet. Dick was at first in Tennessee; they moved around a bit during those years, but Dick still recalls the positives of that decade where he grew up – the Tom Mix movies, the spinning tops, and the World Series victory of the Detroit Tigers. He did attend and graduate from high school in Louisville – where he heard the news of Pearl Harbor – and from there he went into the US Navy after his induction into the Selective Service – i.e he was drafted!  Dick was sent to Camp Peary in Virginia, where he learned he was to become part of a Construction Battalion (CB = Sea Bee). After a serious bout of meningitis and time recovering Dick completed his training and was shipped to the west coast, heading out into the Pacific in December 1943. They arrived in the Solomon Islands after a 3-week journey, and they were briefly at Banika and Pavuvu – where Dick caught a Bob Hope show – before the attack on Green Island. A much bigger assault was on the way for the Marines of the First Division – Pelelieu. Dick went in on the first wave with those men, as he and other Seabees had been tasked with carrying in critical supplies. The casualties in that first wave were appalling, and Dick recalls burying some of those Marines – an image forever seared in his mind.  The fight for that little island went on much longer than had been anticipated, but in the end the Marines took the island, and the Seabees got the airfield up and running.  Dick did not know it in September 1944, but Pelelieu would prove to be his home for the rest of the war. Dick would be there until the early months of 1946:  the Seabees spent their time working on the base, building Quonset Huts and doing whatever other work the chief deemed necessary.  The airbase was in operation during that time, so they would watch the Corsairs do short bombing runs on Bloody Nose Ridge as they attempted to displace the last of the Japanese. With the end of the war plus those extra few months, Dick and the other men were finally returned to the U.S., arriving in San Francisco in January – totally unprepared for the shock of winter temperatures! Dick took advantage of the GI Bill in short order, attending both Auburn and Vanderbilt universities.  While there he met Suzanne Bishop, whom he would eventually marry.  She became a dietitian and Dick went into teaching, and the two of them started their family, which would grow to three daughters. Dick and Suzanne found their way in postwar America, with Dick eventually finding his place as a member of the “Greatest Generation” and one of the World War Two veterans who accepts congratulations on behalf of all the men and women who served in that conflict.  Crestwood students were fortunate to zoom with Dick Inlow in April 2026, and Scott Masters paid him a follow up visit at his home in Virginia in July 2026.