JIMMY DORRIS "JIM" GOODWIN
Birth: 31 Jul 1931
Death: 12 Feb 2019
(age 87 years, 6 months, 11 days)
Birth: 31 Jul 1931
Death: 12 Feb 2019
(age 87 years, 6 months, 11 days)
Jimmy Dorris “Jim” Goodwin, born July 31, 1931, was the eldest of 2 children born to William Alvin Goodwin and Irena Goff. Jim and his younger sister, Norene, were both born and raised in Hillsboro, Texas. His parents would eventually divorce and just as Jim was reaching his teen years; his mother remarried Joseph Mossy Thompson. Joe and Irena had 5 children together, thus giving Jim 5 more siblings: Joanne, Lana, Jody, Sammy and Bodie
Irena was a loving mother and housewife. It was stated when she died that she “cherished her family beyond measure”. This feeling was mutual as Jim adored his mother and would speak of her often.
Jim loved to talk. In fact, if there was any one thing that Jim did best it was to talk to whoever would listen (and sometimes to those that wouldn’t). If you happened to pass by Jim on the road it wasn’t uncommon for him to stop you and talk for an hour or two. His niece, Missy, said she once ran into him at the grocery store a couple of years ago and saw him talking to an elderly woman in the middle of the grocery aisle. As his niece approached, Jim noticed the familiar face and said his goodbyes to the woman. As the woman left she shot a thankful grin at her rescuer. When Missy asked Jim who the woman was, then of course, with a big smile and a giggle, he said he had no idea. He definitely had a fun mischievous side.
Jim’s favorite subject to talk about was his experiences in the Korean War. Anyone that knew Jim knew his war anecdotes well enough to retell them themselves. And even with the number of stories he has shared, his wife Judy said that he had once told her that there are some stories so bad that he would never tell. Judy said he had told her some pretty horrible and gruesome things about the war so she couldn’t imagine what stories he was keeping to himself.
Judy was Jim’s 3rd wife and she understood the importance of history and family stories, especially Jim’s war stories. On Thanksgiving Day in 2011, among the chaos and noise of family playing board games in the next room, Jim sat In front of the TV watching the Dallas Cowboys play as he again told his war stories to his nephew, Paul. And with Judy’s assistance, this time they were recorded.
Jim joined the United States Army in 1949, when he was just 18 years old. “I’ve come close to getting killed so many times it’s kind of scary”, Jim said. After boot camp he was stationed in Okinawa, Japan. It was here that he had his first close call with death.
Jim’s job was to sit in a 4ft wide guard shack several miles up the mountain from camp. Nearby a Quonset hut was filled with 75,000 lbs. of TNT. He had gone on duty one night about 10 o’clock. After his 4 hour shift he went back down to camp and the guy that Jim slept next to was sent up to relieve him. Back at camp, as Jim was relaxing, drinking a coke and watching some of the other guys play pool-- “All of a sudden, BOOM!” he recalled , ”That roof felt like it had went up 2 foot high…it shook your teeth boy”. He said they all ran outside and looked up the mountain --“It looked like an atomic bomb had gone off!”-- According to Jim, they never knew what caused the TNT to go off. But he had a couple of ideas. It was supposed to be turned every 6 months because of the heat and humidity in Japan so that may have played a role. Or a Catalina hog may have run into the Quonset hut and his relief fired at the hog. But whatever the reason, the only thing they ever found of Jim’s buddy was a helmet and part of his foot. With some good timing and a lot of luck, Jim had narrowly escaped death and the Korean War hadn’t even started yet.
June 25, 1950 – the Korean War begins
Jim was sharp as a tack and had an excellent memory for details. When he 1st left Okinawa Island he went to Yokohama harbor near Tokyo and spent a month at an old Japanese military air base, Atsugi. From there they took a troop train to Sasebo, a southern city on the tip of Japan. It was here that Jim and his buddies “got in a big ole ship.” Their next stop would be Wonsan Harbor in North Korea.
Jim first stepped foot in Korea on October 1, 1950.
The troops climbed down rope nets and into LSTs. An LST is a Landing Ship Tank used to support amphibious operations. It could carry tanks, vehicles, cargo or hold more than 200 landing troops. The bow of an LST has a large door that opens with a ramp. Jim remembered climbing down the net rope to the LST. And he said “when that big door fell open and we had to run out…that’s scary”. Jim hit the beach in Wonsan harbor at 10 o’clock that night. “Bullets was whizzing everywhere. I was scared to death” stated Jim. “19 years old and people trying to kill me and didn’t even know me.” Jim was part of a bomb disposal division attached to the 1st marine division already on the beach and engaged in fighting.
Jim suffered through extremely harsh conditions and subzero temperatures while in Korea. He also sustained numerous injuries. He said the ground was so hard frozen in the -30 degree weather that the army issue shovels were useless at digging fox holes. They had to use what they could for cover, including dead bodies. He had to heat water in his helmet for a bath and that was only done every 2 to 3 weeks. In order to fight the cold and avoid frostbite, Jim and one of his army buddies would unbutton their shirts and put their bare feet against each other’s chest.
Jim’s 1st injury was his arm. It was badly swollen. He was sent to Tokyo where he spent a month in the hospital. However, the doctors decided against surgery and sent him back to Korea. He had a bone chip in his arm that would trouble him the rest of his life. He said that sometimes it still “hurts so bad that I want to cry”.
Another close call Jim spoke of happened near a small North Korean village of about 3000 people. He said they stumbled upon a pear orchard behind the village that contained 127 water mines. He described them as “those big ones with spikes sticking out of them…put a cable on it and it stays under water deep enough for a ship to hit it and blow up a ship.” They had cleared the village and were destroying the stock pile of mines that likely “would have been used to blow up our ships and harbors”.
They were taking the mines out 10 at a time behind a weapons carrier and attaching a detonator and destroying them. When they got to where they had about 80 left, Jim said his captain instructed him to “go down the road there and don’t let nobody come up that road or valley”. Jim said he went and lay down on the other side of a terrace with his helmet on and his weapon across his arms. He was laying there with his “eye on the field” when all of a sudden “BOOM!” Over 40,000 lbs. of TNT in the remaining water mines had exploded all at once. He said the land, the dirt… everything seemed to be sucked in and out. “Pieces of jagged, hot smoking metal went right over my head. It was a hell of a blast there boy I tell you it shook the ground.”
From the moment he landed in Korea, Jim said the shooting never stopped. He felt like someone always wanted to kill him. He said things were so bad that he once saw an 18 year old shoot himself in the hand just to get out of combat. It was something he would not imagine doing himself. It was clear that Jim had no respect for the man that did this. “I’m not real brave, but I’m no coward”.
“The last time I got hurt pretty good” said Jim. A mortar hit beside the truck he was riding in, causing it to go off the side of a mountain. “I jumped out of the back of the truck and the damn truck rolled right over top of me”. If not for the soft muddy conditions then Jim likely would have been killed. He had injuries which included a broken leg and a broken arm.
In late summer of 1951 Jim came down with hepatitis and yellow jaundice. He spent 3 months in a hospital in Kyoto, Japan. It was here that he learned he would be sent back home. He landed back on US soil on New Year’s Day 1952 in Seattle, Washington. Having served his country honorable, Jim was declared 60% disabled by the Army and discharged.
When he returned home Jim settled in Fort Worth, Texas. He attended TCU and became a bookkeeper/ accountant. He was really smart and good with numbers. Jim worked for several companies in Fort Worth such as Skidmore & Crook, where he was an assistant office manager. And he was a bookkeeper for J & L Tank Inc. But he finally found his home at Williamson-Dickie where he worked for a number of years as an accountant until his retirement.
Jim met his 1st wife, Sue Keith and they married on February 26, 1954. And a short time later their daughter Kaye was born. However, Jim and Sue divorced in 1972. In 1977, he married for the 2nd time to Glenda Ayers. But in 1984 this marriage also ended in divorce.
Jim’s brother Jody was married to Judy’s best friend Debbie. Thus, Jim and Judy knew each other for many years before they even thought of dating. Then one day out of the blue Jim asked Judy out. However, she did not want to go because of the age difference. Jim was 20 years her senior. But then Judy visited Johnny Bell, an infamous fortune teller in Fort Worth. She told Judy “always remember it’s better to be an old man’s darling than a young man’s slave”. After that Judy started dating Jim.
Irena was a loving mother and housewife. It was stated when she died that she “cherished her family beyond measure”. This feeling was mutual as Jim adored his mother and would speak of her often.
Jim loved to talk. In fact, if there was any one thing that Jim did best it was to talk to whoever would listen (and sometimes to those that wouldn’t). If you happened to pass by Jim on the road it wasn’t uncommon for him to stop you and talk for an hour or two. His niece, Missy, said she once ran into him at the grocery store a couple of years ago and saw him talking to an elderly woman in the middle of the grocery aisle. As his niece approached, Jim noticed the familiar face and said his goodbyes to the woman. As the woman left she shot a thankful grin at her rescuer. When Missy asked Jim who the woman was, then of course, with a big smile and a giggle, he said he had no idea. He definitely had a fun mischievous side.
Jim’s favorite subject to talk about was his experiences in the Korean War. Anyone that knew Jim knew his war anecdotes well enough to retell them themselves. And even with the number of stories he has shared, his wife Judy said that he had once told her that there are some stories so bad that he would never tell. Judy said he had told her some pretty horrible and gruesome things about the war so she couldn’t imagine what stories he was keeping to himself.
Judy was Jim’s 3rd wife and she understood the importance of history and family stories, especially Jim’s war stories. On Thanksgiving Day in 2011, among the chaos and noise of family playing board games in the next room, Jim sat In front of the TV watching the Dallas Cowboys play as he again told his war stories to his nephew, Paul. And with Judy’s assistance, this time they were recorded.
Jim joined the United States Army in 1949, when he was just 18 years old. “I’ve come close to getting killed so many times it’s kind of scary”, Jim said. After boot camp he was stationed in Okinawa, Japan. It was here that he had his first close call with death.
Jim’s job was to sit in a 4ft wide guard shack several miles up the mountain from camp. Nearby a Quonset hut was filled with 75,000 lbs. of TNT. He had gone on duty one night about 10 o’clock. After his 4 hour shift he went back down to camp and the guy that Jim slept next to was sent up to relieve him. Back at camp, as Jim was relaxing, drinking a coke and watching some of the other guys play pool-- “All of a sudden, BOOM!” he recalled , ”That roof felt like it had went up 2 foot high…it shook your teeth boy”. He said they all ran outside and looked up the mountain --“It looked like an atomic bomb had gone off!”-- According to Jim, they never knew what caused the TNT to go off. But he had a couple of ideas. It was supposed to be turned every 6 months because of the heat and humidity in Japan so that may have played a role. Or a Catalina hog may have run into the Quonset hut and his relief fired at the hog. But whatever the reason, the only thing they ever found of Jim’s buddy was a helmet and part of his foot. With some good timing and a lot of luck, Jim had narrowly escaped death and the Korean War hadn’t even started yet.
June 25, 1950 – the Korean War begins
Jim was sharp as a tack and had an excellent memory for details. When he 1st left Okinawa Island he went to Yokohama harbor near Tokyo and spent a month at an old Japanese military air base, Atsugi. From there they took a troop train to Sasebo, a southern city on the tip of Japan. It was here that Jim and his buddies “got in a big ole ship.” Their next stop would be Wonsan Harbor in North Korea.
Jim first stepped foot in Korea on October 1, 1950.
The troops climbed down rope nets and into LSTs. An LST is a Landing Ship Tank used to support amphibious operations. It could carry tanks, vehicles, cargo or hold more than 200 landing troops. The bow of an LST has a large door that opens with a ramp. Jim remembered climbing down the net rope to the LST. And he said “when that big door fell open and we had to run out…that’s scary”. Jim hit the beach in Wonsan harbor at 10 o’clock that night. “Bullets was whizzing everywhere. I was scared to death” stated Jim. “19 years old and people trying to kill me and didn’t even know me.” Jim was part of a bomb disposal division attached to the 1st marine division already on the beach and engaged in fighting.
Jim suffered through extremely harsh conditions and subzero temperatures while in Korea. He also sustained numerous injuries. He said the ground was so hard frozen in the -30 degree weather that the army issue shovels were useless at digging fox holes. They had to use what they could for cover, including dead bodies. He had to heat water in his helmet for a bath and that was only done every 2 to 3 weeks. In order to fight the cold and avoid frostbite, Jim and one of his army buddies would unbutton their shirts and put their bare feet against each other’s chest.
Jim’s 1st injury was his arm. It was badly swollen. He was sent to Tokyo where he spent a month in the hospital. However, the doctors decided against surgery and sent him back to Korea. He had a bone chip in his arm that would trouble him the rest of his life. He said that sometimes it still “hurts so bad that I want to cry”.
Another close call Jim spoke of happened near a small North Korean village of about 3000 people. He said they stumbled upon a pear orchard behind the village that contained 127 water mines. He described them as “those big ones with spikes sticking out of them…put a cable on it and it stays under water deep enough for a ship to hit it and blow up a ship.” They had cleared the village and were destroying the stock pile of mines that likely “would have been used to blow up our ships and harbors”.
They were taking the mines out 10 at a time behind a weapons carrier and attaching a detonator and destroying them. When they got to where they had about 80 left, Jim said his captain instructed him to “go down the road there and don’t let nobody come up that road or valley”. Jim said he went and lay down on the other side of a terrace with his helmet on and his weapon across his arms. He was laying there with his “eye on the field” when all of a sudden “BOOM!” Over 40,000 lbs. of TNT in the remaining water mines had exploded all at once. He said the land, the dirt… everything seemed to be sucked in and out. “Pieces of jagged, hot smoking metal went right over my head. It was a hell of a blast there boy I tell you it shook the ground.”
From the moment he landed in Korea, Jim said the shooting never stopped. He felt like someone always wanted to kill him. He said things were so bad that he once saw an 18 year old shoot himself in the hand just to get out of combat. It was something he would not imagine doing himself. It was clear that Jim had no respect for the man that did this. “I’m not real brave, but I’m no coward”.
“The last time I got hurt pretty good” said Jim. A mortar hit beside the truck he was riding in, causing it to go off the side of a mountain. “I jumped out of the back of the truck and the damn truck rolled right over top of me”. If not for the soft muddy conditions then Jim likely would have been killed. He had injuries which included a broken leg and a broken arm.
In late summer of 1951 Jim came down with hepatitis and yellow jaundice. He spent 3 months in a hospital in Kyoto, Japan. It was here that he learned he would be sent back home. He landed back on US soil on New Year’s Day 1952 in Seattle, Washington. Having served his country honorable, Jim was declared 60% disabled by the Army and discharged.
When he returned home Jim settled in Fort Worth, Texas. He attended TCU and became a bookkeeper/ accountant. He was really smart and good with numbers. Jim worked for several companies in Fort Worth such as Skidmore & Crook, where he was an assistant office manager. And he was a bookkeeper for J & L Tank Inc. But he finally found his home at Williamson-Dickie where he worked for a number of years as an accountant until his retirement.
Jim met his 1st wife, Sue Keith and they married on February 26, 1954. And a short time later their daughter Kaye was born. However, Jim and Sue divorced in 1972. In 1977, he married for the 2nd time to Glenda Ayers. But in 1984 this marriage also ended in divorce.
Jim’s brother Jody was married to Judy’s best friend Debbie. Thus, Jim and Judy knew each other for many years before they even thought of dating. Then one day out of the blue Jim asked Judy out. However, she did not want to go because of the age difference. Jim was 20 years her senior. But then Judy visited Johnny Bell, an infamous fortune teller in Fort Worth. She told Judy “always remember it’s better to be an old man’s darling than a young man’s slave”. After that Judy started dating Jim.
Jim and Judy married on August 17, 1985. They spent the next couple of years building their house in north Parker County. Jim did a lot of the work himself. He was a hands-on kind of guy who rarely hired someone to do something that he could do himself. Jim was very independent. He was even still mowing his own yard into his 80’s.
If Jim was anything, he was a hard worker. But when he wasn’t working then he was playing golf. He loved golf but unfortunately had to give it up when the pain from his war injuries became too much to bear.
Jim and Judy were members of Friendship Baptist Church. Judy attended regularly. And although you would be more likely to see Jim sitting on the sofa watching a Cowboy’s game than sitting in a church pew, he led a good strong Christian life.
After 27 years of marriage, Judy passed away on September 3, 2012 with Jim by her bedside. For nearly 6 ½ years after Judy’s death, their church family stepped in and cared for Jim. They visited him every week, made sure he had enough food, and even took him to his doctor’s appointments. They were his angels.
Jim passed away on February 12, 2019. He is survived by his sister Norene Burgess of Austin, Arkansas; his 2 brothers Jody Thompson and Bodie Thompson both of Fort Worth; daughter Kaye Hague of Granbury and numerous nieces and nephews.
(Written by Jim's niece, Tammy Brown)
If Jim was anything, he was a hard worker. But when he wasn’t working then he was playing golf. He loved golf but unfortunately had to give it up when the pain from his war injuries became too much to bear.
Jim and Judy were members of Friendship Baptist Church. Judy attended regularly. And although you would be more likely to see Jim sitting on the sofa watching a Cowboy’s game than sitting in a church pew, he led a good strong Christian life.
After 27 years of marriage, Judy passed away on September 3, 2012 with Jim by her bedside. For nearly 6 ½ years after Judy’s death, their church family stepped in and cared for Jim. They visited him every week, made sure he had enough food, and even took him to his doctor’s appointments. They were his angels.
Jim passed away on February 12, 2019. He is survived by his sister Norene Burgess of Austin, Arkansas; his 2 brothers Jody Thompson and Bodie Thompson both of Fort Worth; daughter Kaye Hague of Granbury and numerous nieces and nephews.
(Written by Jim's niece, Tammy Brown)
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