Serving in a MASH unit long before it was popularized by a television show, World War II veteran William Harvey Dunn served his country as a Private First Class in the Pacific Theatre.

 “I left here on a bus in March 1943 and served until 1946,” Harvey recalled of his years in the service after being drafted.

Dunn was assigned to the Philippines and both British and Dutch New Guinea. He won the WWII Victory Ribbon, Good Conduct Medal, AP Theater Ribbon, two Bronze Service Stars, the Philippine Liberation Ribbon and one Bronze Star. However, missing from his list of awards is a Purple Heart, something he didn’t get despite giving it a try.

“I broke my big toe and walked into the commander’s office and put it for a Purple Heart,” Harvey laughed. “They run my out of the office, told me to get out of there.”

Harvey started out as a litter bearer in the medical corps. “I was one of the guys who carried the wounded,” Harvey said. “It took four people to carry the litter because some of them are heavy.”

Harvey transitioned to being an ambulance driver, serving in the 408th Medical Collection Corps. Most of his early days were in New Guinea. “The jungles were extremely hot,” he recalled, noting that he preferred heat to cold as some of his friends had been station in the European Theatre where it was often frigid. “I can’t take the cold so I guess I was sent to the right place.”

After serving in New Guinea, Dunn was sent to the Philippines during its liberation from Japanese occupation. “We had torn Manilla to pieces,” he recalled of the destruction caused by the liberation, noting the Japanese last bastion of control was inside a place called “Wall City” which had to be taken during a massive battle.

“It took two days and nights just to break a hole in the wall that was built during the time the Spanish controlled it,” Harvey said. “That’s where the Japanese were hold up.”

Harvey said he was first just armed with a stick since he served in the medical corps. However, he was given a gun at some point because the Japanese were attacking medical corps in violation of the Geneva Convention.

“We had to black out our red crosses. They made a good target for them,” he said. “The Japanese soldiers didn’t let you get your wounded in. They’d shoot you.”

Harvey knows he was being watched over from above to come home uninjured. “I had some close calls,” he recalled. “I had shrapnel in my medical bags. We would jump in our foxholes when the Japanese were shelling us. We could see the light from where they were firing before we could hear it, so we’d run to our foxholes before the shells hit.”

After getting out of the service, Harvey bounced back and forth from Smithville to Detroit, working for a long stint at Chrysler. He would come back to DeKalb County to visit family.

Harvey, who is 94, believes he was one of the oldest veterans in DeKalb County. His birthday is Aug. 6, the same day the Americans dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945.

“If you watch the show “MASH” you can get an idea of what I did over there,” Harvey said of the popular television show that was set during the Korean War. “They were the 4077th and I was in the 408th. We would go up to the front lines and get the wounded.”

Harvey admits he was scared even before going to war. “There was word that the Japanese might bomb us here in America,” he said. “I was scared before I went over and when I got there.”