by Don Keelan

When watching Vermont television news as well as reading print and digital news, it is common to see the arrests of young folks between the ages of 20 and 35. The reasons for the arrests are serious: assaults, illegal drugs and firearms possession, burglary, and robbery. 

I ask myself, where are today’s Jimmy Fishers?  My optimistic side concludes that Vermont continues to send out to the world its 21st-century version of Jimmy Fisher. 

Vermonters have a good understanding of its heroes from past generations. Still, few might know of the heroic accomplishments of the young man who spent his early years in Arlington, Vermont: Captain James Fisher, M.D, United States Army Medical Corps.

Jimmy Fisher, born in 1913, was the son of the renowned author Dorothy Canfield Fisher. He went to school in Arlington and the Quaker School in Poughkeepsie, NY. Following his family’s Quaker roots, Jimmy went to the well-known Quaker College, Swarthmore, just outside Philadelphia, PA.

Jimmy completed his studies at Swarthmore in 1936 and enrolled at Harvard Medical School. In 1939, he became a medical doctor and interned at a Boston suburb hospital. Soon thereafter, the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred. Later the following year, Dr. Fisher joined the U.S. Army at a swearing-in ceremony in Rutland, Vermont.

Stateside for a year or so, the now 30-year-old doctor was shipped out to the recently American-captured island nation of New Guinea. While awaiting further orders, he practiced his profession on the residents. He oversaw the delivery of so many babies that the name Jimmy became a common first name in the large seaport town of Port Moresby. 

In the fall of 1944, the invasion that was so long awaited finally came. General MacArthur was ready to fulfill his pledge to the Philippine people; “I shall return.” And so, he and tens of thousands of troops landed at Leyte, in the Philippines, the second largest amphibious event in U.S. history (the largest being the Normandy invasion four months earlier). Jimmy, now Capt. James Fisher, was part of that invasion as a member of an elite unit, the Sixth Ranger Infantry Battalion.

Not unlike what he had done in New Guinea, Fisher, when not attending to the medical needs of his battalion, made it his business to attend to the enormous medical needs of the recently liberated Filipino civilians. He also was one of the few American military doctors who made it his mission to attend to the wounds of the Filipino Scouts. 

Word came in January 1945 that the Japanese Imperial Army was executing American and British POWs rather than having them liberated as MacArthur’s forces continued to recapture more territory. 

On January 30, 1945, a rescue mission was put into action. 113 members of Fisher’s unit, along with several hundred Filipino scouts, were ordered to go 30 miles behind enemy lines and rescue the 515 POWs at Camp Cabanatuan. Many of the prisoners had been held in captivity since the fall of Bataan in early 1942. Dr. Jimmy insisted he go on the mission; the POWs would need medical help. He went off one month after his 32^nd birthday.

The mission was a huge success and constitutes the greatest rescue mission in U.S. military history. However, a life was lost. Dr. Jimmy, while attending to the wounded outside the main prison gate, was hit by a mortar and mortally wounded. Carried through the jungle on top of a door used as a stretcher for two days, the young doctor from Arlington died from his wounds. 

A state park in Arlington, Vermont, honors this Silver Star and Purple Heart recipient and the Fisher family. The people of the Philippines also have a park in Manila and Cabanatuan honoring Dr. Fisher.

It can be very discouraging to see young Vermonters who have allowed crime to take over their lives. But let us agree that they are just the few and that there are many other young men and women who, in every way, will emulate Jimmy Fisher’s kindness, dedication, and sacrifice that took place 80 years ago this month, 8,400 miles from his Arlington hometown.

The author is a U.S. Marine (retired), CPA, and columnist living in Arlington, VT.