When Joseph Henry Brien wanted to enlist in the Navy in World War II, he knew that the fact that he was only 16 years old wasn’t a significant deterrent.

Everyone in Portland’s Libbytown knew a neighbor who worked at Portland City Hall, said Ernest Brien, the brother of Joseph Brien, who died in Paragould, Ark., on Oct. 4. If anyone needed a birth certificate — most often it was used to gain work at the Navy shipyard in South Portland — the woman would bring home a copy, with the space for recording the birth date conveniently left blank, Ernest Brien said.

So, Mr. Brien got one of those Libbytown specials and used his to enlist.

“My father had a fit,” said Bertha Montgomery, Mr. Brien’s sister, “but my father thought, with that little baby face, they wouldn’t keep him in.”

It turned out that Mr. Brien’s baby face didn’t give him away and he stayed in the Navy, posted as an armed guard on Liberty ships sailing around the world to supply Allied troops. Mr. Brien’s Liberty ship was fired on while resupplying troops at Anzio in Italy and the ship was credited with shooting down a German fighter plane, said his brother, who now lives in Buxton.

Mr. Brien — known as Henry to his siblings because he had reversed his first and middle names on his birth certificate to confound any Navy investigators who questioned his age — was also on a supply ship in the Pacific, supporting troops invading Okinawa, his brother said. A typhoon blew the ship far inland, he recalled being told, but again Mr. Brien emerged unscathed.

Mr. Brien’s last assignment with the Navy was in 1946 aboard the destroyer Solar, which occasionally spent time in Casco Bay. He was aboard when it was offloading ammunition in New Jersey. A crewmember dropped a charge, setting off a series of explosions that nearly blew the ship apart.

Seven crewmembers died and more than 100 were injured, including Mr. Brien, who “ended up in the Hudson River” with a small nick on his leg, his brother said. For years, Mr. Brien would joke that he deserved a Purple Heart, his brother said.

After the Solar incident, with the Navy downsizing after the war, Mr. Brien was offered a choice: be court-martialed for lying about his age or take an honorable discharge. He took the latter course and enlisted in the Air Force, where he spent 30 years, mostly working on arming fighters and bombers, his brother said.

Mr. Brien died only a few weeks after a younger brother, Edward R. Brien, who died in San Diego, Calif., at age 81 on Sept. 19.

Ernest Brien said his brother Edward was “a professional scholar” with a law degree and a master’s and doctorate in special education for the blind.

While in the military, Ernest Brien said, his brother was posted to San Francisco, where he enrolled at the University of San Francisco. He was in the same class as future Celtics great Bill Russell, Ernest Brien said.

Mr. Brien got his law degree from the University of San Diego and opened a practice, but spent so much time on free cases for the poor that “he never got rich,” his brother said.

That was Mr. Brien’s nature, said Montgomery, who recalled that whenever her brother returned home for a visit, he was always barely making his return flight because there was one more neighbor to say goodbye to.

“He was always trying to help somebody out,” she said.

Ernest Brien said he wasn’t sure where his brother’s interest in helping the blind came from, but he worked at the San Diego Service Center for the Blind, serving on the organization’s board for 28 years until earlier this year.

Montgomery said the family was scattered a bit over the years, but most stayed in Maine and her brothers all came home at least once a year for family events.

Kathleen Giering, Ernest Brien’s daughter, said the family originally came from Canada. She said the family always thought their surname was originally O’Brien, but the “O” dropped off somewhere along the line.

Some of her great-uncles, she said, went by the name “Brine,” but a little research a few years ago revealed it had been “Brunn” in Canada.

“The birth records are so screwed up, if you wanted to do genealogy — ugh,” she said. “My uncle (Gerald Brien, who lives in Harrison) was doing it for a while and he just gave up.”

Staff Writer Edward D. Murphy can be contacted at 791-6465 or at:

emurphy@pressherald.com

 

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