by Scott Wheeler

Newport Post 798 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars is named after Alfred Pepin, a Newport man who lost his life on the jungle covered island of Munda in the Pacific during World War II.

                In recent years I interviewed Alfred’s boyhood friend, a man who was with him the day he died, Roland Willey of Derby Line (Mr. Willey has since passed away).  Both soldiers were with the Company L of the 43^rd Division. Not only were the two men boyhood friends, but Sergeant Pepin was Willey’s platoon leader as they fought their way through the jungle-covered islands of the Pacific,  far away from the Green Mountains of Vermont.

“We had a lot of hard fighting on Munda,” Willey said, remembering back to the horrific firefights on an island about the size of Vermont, battles which involved a whole arsenal including small arms, machine guns, mortars, and flame throwers.

Willey recalled receiving word of his friend’s death. The date was July 24, 1943.

Scouring the jungle on the right flank of Pepin, the platoon came under intense fire. A short time later Willey said he was ordered to report to company field headquarters. Dodging machine gun fire, the Derby Line man arrived at headquarters. One of his commanders told him - “take over the platoon, Alfred’s been killed”.  He watched as the lifeless body of his boyhood friend was carried down a path. Pepin had been hit in a hail of enemy machine gun fire. Suddenly, Willey found himself the platoon sergeant leading the platoon that his friend had led. Many battles later Willey, too, would be put out of the war by the enemy, but, unlike Pepin, he lived to tell about it.