‘Bucket list’: Georgia man visits Angel Island to honor father’s memory

A Georgia man has traveled across the U.S. to recreate a old family photograph taken on Angel Island.

Gerald Layson, 74, flew with his family to visit the same spot where his father, James Alton Layson, was photographed during World War II. The photo, taken around 1941, depicts a young U.S. Army private sitting on a rock in a beach, with the vague image of a bridge in the background.

“I’ve always seen a picture of my dad on this rock,” Layson said. “For probably 50 years, I’ve been dreaming about going. I never imagined actually going, but here I am.”

James Layson was born on April 3, 1914, in Monticello, Georgia, and stationed at Angel Island shortly before going overseas in World War II. Shortly after that, he was captured by Japanese forces and became a prisoner of war.

He returned home after spending three and a half years in a prisoner camp in China, surviving the infamous Bataan Death March, starvation and abuse.

“He was a good man and a good father,” Gerald Layson said.

The staff at Angel Island State Park staff helped Layson get down a steep trail to Point Blunt, which is not open to the public.

“There’s a lot of people who have special connections to Angel Island,” said Casey Dexter Lee, a state parks employee. “We really wanted to try to make this happen for the family. We always want to know more about those connections and are very glad to make this happen.”

The trip was a surprise planned by Layson’s daughter, Christi Evangelo. She said her father has talked about visiting Angel Island her “whole life.”

The family planned to attend a wedding in San Diego anyway, so it “only made sense” to go to the Bay Area and make her father’s dream happen, Evangelo said.

“He normally would never do anything for himself,” Evangelo said. “I’m just so excited to see him check something off his bucket list, and I don’t know that he has anything else on that bucket list.”

Emma Layson, Gerald Layson’s wife of 44 years, said that every time his father came up in conversation, he mentioned sitting on that rock. She said the experience was beyond anything she could have imagined.

“His dad was just his hero,” she said.

Before the Angel Island excursion, Evangelo had to identify where the photo was taken. A relative familiar with the area recognized the Bay Bridge in the image, which helped narrow down the location to Point Blunt on the south side of Angel Island.

On the beach, Gerald Layson said the feeling was “strange.” He said he didn’t have the words to describe being where his father once was, and knowing what his father would soon endure.

“He was here,” Layson said. “He never knew what was ahead of him, what he was about to face.”

His father was liberated from Camp Hoten Mukden in Manchuria in 1945, when he was 31 years old. He then spent about six months at Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco, according to hospital admission files.

He died of a heart attack in January 1972, when Gerald Layson was 21.

Layson said his father instilled in him a strong work ethic, a sense of selflessness and the importance of forgiveness.

“I never heard him say anything bad about the Japanese,” he said. “He left it there. The biggest thing is, he forgave.”

At Point Blunt, Gerald Layson remained on the rock long after photos had been taken. As he began to leave, he turned to the rock one last time and saluted in a final goodbye.

“I feel it here, his presence,” he said.