In the military
Before leaving the states, Kubik studied key punch at the Pentagon. She originally worked in a clerical role as a hospital technician in France, however, the private first class would eventually find herself in a far more exciting place and mission — in the South Pacific, decoding Japanese messages. “The day we left the West Coast of the U.S. was thrilling enough,” she told a reporter who filed a profile story on her by mail from the South Pacific. “But never have I been more excited than the day we entered port in Oro Bay, New Guinea. “It’s true that we weren’t allowed to land but it gave me a queer feeling to know that here ahead of us was what had only a short time ago been a battlefield.” She arrived in Brisbane, Australia Sept. 11, 1944, and the country would remain her base for the duration of the war. Three days after arriving, she was assigned to the Signal Intelligence Service at Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s headquarters. Working on a giant IBM, she and other women helped decode Japanese messages. “When the Japanese surrendered, they sent coded messages, and she helped decode them,” says Raymond Wolfe, her cousin. “She was proud of that.” Kubik worked hard at the machine every day, and because of her decoding, a Japanese ship carrying equipment was tricked into running aground and was then seized by the Americans, saving many lives, according to a veterans newsletter. She would not know of this, however, until many years later. Though she was in a noncombat role, Kubik and her fellow soldiers knew how to operate guns, and should the opportunity have arisen, they would have used them, and used them well, said Wolfe. She traveled often, seeing exotic islands she never dreamed she would see. When Gen. MacArthur went to the Philippines, her unit followed, skipping along countless islands, and they also traveled with him to New Zealand and Guam. Her only wish, she told the reporter, was to have seen Manila, the capital city of the Philippines. Her unit became known as “MacArthur’s Heroes.” Wolfe was 14 when his older cousin joined the military, and the Bowmansville resident says his family always kept a picture of her in uniform on their piano. | PVT Kubik
 Comrade Kubik
Returning home
After the war, Kubik returned home to Western New York with a memento — a stuffed koala bear that she would take with her whenever she traveled — and memories that shaped the rest of her life. She immediately joined the Twin Village Post 463 in Depew as part of its women’s auxiliary, but it would be more than 20 years later before she was allowed to join the actual post. Soon after returning, she married Henry Kubik, now deceased, also a World War II veteran. They had two sons, Paul and Tom, and moved into a little red brick house on Walden Avenue in Lancaster. As soon as the VFW opened its ranks to women, Dorothy Kubik joined, and in 1987, she stepped into an unprecedented role: the first female commander of a New York State veterans post. “That was pretty progressive for the time,” said Marlene Roll, Erie County director of veterans services and chief of staff for the New York State VFW. Kubik served two terms. “She lived and breathed the post,” said her daughter-in-law, Michele Kubik. “Her whole life was the VFW.” Dorothy Kubik and her cousin, Wolfe, volunteered at the post nearly every day. She also spoke at schools about the importance of the American flag and volunteered at the Veterans Medical Center in Buffalo. Every Veterans Day, she took her two grandsons to Mount Calvary Cemetery to place flags on veterans’ graves recalls grandson Michael Kubik, also mentioning that there wasn’t a Memorial Day post parade that the two of them did not walk in together. Christmas morning, Dorothy Kubik checked gift tags to make sure presents were made in America, and every holiday she dressed in a red velvet dress trimmed in white fur as the post’s own Mrs. Santa Claus. She kept in touch with the women she served with in the South Pacific, and every other year, she attended their reunion with her koala bear in tow. When the women’s memorial was dedicated at Arlington National Cemetery, she was there for the ceremony, and it was during that event that she saw her name etched on the memorial. Kubik was lucky, says her relative, Ruth Phillips, of Lancaster. She won two cars, a refrigerator and frequently, the lottery. And she collected a quirky item — chicken salt and pepper shakers. Courtesy of: Naomi Spencer- Lancaster/ Depew Bee |
Galloway
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