John B. Robinson

What a life! On his 102nd birthday, John Brewster Robinson (he never liked his middle name) gave a speech. In a clear, confident voice, he told a hundred people, mostly veterans, about his experience at the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945, the deadliest conflict in U.S Marine Corps history. His tiny team of highly trained “sound rangers” successfully silenced the enemy artillery using microphones, wires, and electronic instruments. Returning home later that year, John hung up his military uniform and avoided talking about World War II for the next 80 years.

John was born in Milford, Massachusetts, in 1923. His health was so poor that, at age four, his parents sent him to live with his grandparents in the town of Upton. They never asked him back. A bit of a loner, he delighted in building models and mechanical gadgets. To help support his elderly grandparents, John worked at the Knowlton Hat Factory after high school. He was a churchgoer and a whiz at math.

The day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, John Robinson joined three fellow teens on a road trip to Boston, where he enlisted in the Marine Corps. He trained as a field telephone expert. After bulking up at basic training, John was assigned to a secret mission known as the “Beach Jumpers.” From there, he joined the Marine 5th Division sound ranger group known as DODAR (for Detection of Distance and Range). After a year perfecting the experimental system on the lava flows of the Big Island, Hawaii, his division joined the critical battle on Iwo Jima.

John spent his entire $300 military bonus on classical 78rpm records. Back in Upton, he courted and married Phyllis Elizabeth Scott. His technical training made him an ideal candidate for the New England Telephone Company, where he spent his entire career. He began, he liked to say, on a ladder, repainting the rubber coating on wires that had been chipped off by birds during the war years. The Robinsons moved their expanding family from Southbridge to Grafton, MA. There, John built, wired, plumbed, and outfitted a new house, even assembling the elaborate stone entrance. In 1960, the family moved to a modest ranch house on Ministerial Branch in Bedford, NH, where Phylis and John lived just shy of six decades.

Over the years, despite lacking a college degree, he advanced from a telephone installer to manager, trainer, and computer expert. By his third decade, John was driving around New England solo in a truck with half a million dollars' worth of high-tech test equipment headed from one key trouble spot to the next. If he couldn’t fix the problem on the ground, he donned a jumpsuit and climbed a pole.

Weary of the corporate system, John retired early. He devoted himself to building as many model airplanes and fixing as many television sets (for free) as he could manage. He was an avid member of the Bedford Boomers model train club, a DIY ninja, a deacon and Sunday School teacher at the Bedford Presbyterian Church, and a tech volunteer at the Bedford Public Library.

A devoted husband for 71 years and a full-time father to three boys, he was also a pretty cool uncle to a host of nieces and nephews. After Phyllis passed in 2018, John spent three years at a Durham, NH, assisted living facility before finding the ideal small family of residents at the Edgewood Inn in Portsmouth. At 100, he became the oldest cancer patient at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital. The medical staff presented him with a birthday cake, not knowing he was keeping to a strict keto diet. At 101, he received a proclamation from the mayor of Portsmouth and a keto-friendly cake. He devoured books on quantum physics and science fiction. Despite an essential tremor, John continued to build wooden and paper models at a small table in the living room of the Edgewood Inn. And at 102, he gave his now historic speech about Iwo Jima.

John B. Robinson is survived by sons J. Dennis Robinson, a writer from Portsmouth, and Jeffrey Alan Robinson, a carpenter living in South Carolina. Son Brian S. Robinson, an archaeology professor, died in 2016. Family members include daughter-in-law Ann Surprernant, and grandsons John Scott Robinson, Paul Kirk Robinson, and Ryan Robinson and his family. John is buried in the Bedford Center Cemetery. A celebration of life is planned for next year. Contributions in his memory to the Bedford Library or the Presbyterian Church are greatly appreciated. Lambert Funeral Home & Crematory assisted the family with arrangements.