NZ couple returns WWII diary to U.S. sailor's widow

From 9News.com Colorado: NZ couple returns WWII diary to U.S. sailor's widow

TWIN FALLS, Idaho - A woman is on cloud nine now that she's been reunited with her husband's war diary that she never knew existed. It's providing her and her family a glimpse of a time that her late husband rarely talked about.

The diary depicts the now famous World War II battle at Guadalcanal from the eyes of a 17-year-old. Now that the diary has been delivered, it's providing insight to the Grenz family who knew very little about that time of their husband and father's life.

The story about an unknown story culminated on Sunday when a New Zealand couple met a Twin Falls woman and a few of her children in home outside of San Francisco.

"I felt like I knew them a long time," said Kathy Grenz.

What they had in common was a diary from 1942.

"I think I'm going to cry," said Kathy Grenz as she held the diary of her husband for the first time.

The writer, Delmar Grenz, was a Navy ship man and Twin Falls native who died in 1993.

"This book is started the day I left San Diego, California, aboard the United States ship, Crescent City, July 1, 1942," said Delmar's eldest son David as he read the first entry.

For Kathy, this story started on Memorial Day when she got a late night phone call from a New Zealand newspaper reporter named Jared Smith. Smith told her about Dougal Kerrisk and his brother Gordon who found the diary on a wharf in Guadalcanal, an island north of New Zealand. It's been in their family ever since.

"I read it first when I was about 15 or 16 I suppose," said Kerrisk.

Kerrisk says his family has kept the diary - that looks like an old Bible - in bookcases and kitchen drawers. A few months ago he pulled it out again.

"I looked at it and thought, well, I'm going to try and do something about this finally," said Kerrisk.

He contacted Jared Smith in New Zealand. That story made the front page of their paper. And while that story is a good one, it's the story within the story that's been untold for nearly 70 years, the story of a 17-year-old Navy corpsman and his time on the front lines.

His youngest daughter Debbie Spurlock describes what it was like for her when she read it out loud.

"All of a sudden I heard it in my father's voice, and that was pretty emotional, him reading it to me. This is his voice talking, he's talking," said Spurlock.

He dated every page and entry, writing in both pen and pencil.

"He confided in that diary," said Spurlock. "It was a release."

Each entry was a stroke that helped paint a picture of what has been mostly an empty canvas for the last 70 years.

"7/6/1942 headed toward the equator," said David Grenz as he read another entry. "Every gun manned and ready, maybe this will be a short victory. Now we will see some real action."

Even though the handwritten story didn't use every page in the old diary, it was enough to tell Delmar's story.

"I feel like I have a part of him again," said Kathy Grenz.

The diary is still in California while David Grenz, copies it and finds a way to preserve what's turning out to be a living piece of their father and husband. The New Zealand family says they've wanted to return it for years, but didn't have any idea how to do it, that's why they contacted the reporter.