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PltSgt. Tony Lopez

Warren “Tony” Lopez was born of Cuban immigrants who had first immigrated through New York, then made their way down to the southernmost point in the continental United States: Key West Florida. There they settled in amongst the heavily Cuban population there, only a few miles from the island they had recently just left.

Born in 1917, Tony was a little older than most that were to eventually find themselves in uniform, meaning he grew up right in the heart of the Depression. Times were tough, his younger sister remembered, there “wasn’t much food around.” But the family made do, his mother mixing together whatever she could scrounge for meals and his aunt making their clothes, so they managed to never go without.

Growing up there, naturally Tony loved to swim. A favorite of his was to jump off the Boca Chica Bridge, the sole connection to the key from the rest of Florida, then swim in the water below. At one point his parents purchased an old Model T Ford, and one of their favorite activities soon became to drive out to some of the other islands nearby and have a picnic, the majority of the drive travelling over long wooden bridges spanning out over the ocean. As Tony and his siblings grew older, girlfriends were allowed to accompany the family on such trips, so even in the teenage years, the time spent with family was still enjoyed by all.

Tony was also an exceptional dancer, and he loved dancing at the Cuban club nearby that featured both swing and other contemporary styles, along with that with more of a locally cultured flare. Handsome and always well-dressed, with the dancing skills to match, he never had a shortage of girlfriends going at any given moment. “He was really good looking,” his sister Lenora remembered, “he could have had any girl he wanted in Key West. There were always girls around here [our house].”

Still, the times were tough enough that he had to drop out of high school in the tenth grade to help the family keep food on the table, something Tony forever regretted. He took up a job at the naval air station there for a few years, then joined the Marines for a stint that lasted from 1938 until 1941.

Stationed in the Portsmouth Navy Yard in Norfolk Virginia, he did roughly a year at sea with the ship detachments on the patrol gunboats USS Erie (PG-50) and USS Charleston (PG-51) respectively, patrolling the waters off the southern side of the Panama Canal Zone and Vera Cruz Mexico. His enlistment complete in mid-1941, Pfc. Lopez left the service the age of twenty-seven with hopes of returning home, settling down and getting his life started. Across a different ocean at nearly the same time, plans were being made that would soon dictate otherwise.