Chapter 34 - 1945 Joe, Henry & Stanley as the Atomic Bombs were dropped

Chapter 34 Version 1

1945

 “It’s a bet that you can’t lose!” Joe was told by a sailor in his unit on Okinawa on August 1, 1945.

“Something big is going down soon. Either nobody is talking or nobody knows just what it is but the scuttlebutt is that it is big – big enough to end the war soon. Officers are taking bets that the war will be over by the end of the month. If you take the bet and win then you are no worse off and you have some extra cash. If you take the bet and lose, then you get to go home. You can’t lose this bet.”

On July 16^th in the desert near Alamogordo New Mexico, a blinding flash preceded the sound of fury as a mushroom cloud sprouted over the desert. The test of a plutonium based atomic bomb proved that the bomb was indeed real and so the US could have a total of ten bombs ready for use against Japan by the November 1^st invasion date for the home islands of Japan. One made out of uranium and nine made of plutonium.

A few hours after the Trinity test was made near Alamagordo, The USS Indianapolis left San Francisco bound for Tinian in the Marianas Islands. The Indianapolis was delivering the components for “Little Boy” – a uranium 235 atomic bomb that contained about half the world supply of weapon grade U235. Even with a show of force of atomic bomb size, if we couldn’t prove to the Japanese that more bombs were coming, there would still be a reluctance to surrender. The delivery was made on July 26^th and the USS Indianapolis continued west into the Philippine Sea toward Leyte where Stanley and the USS Rocky Mount was undergoing an overhaul in preparation for the November 1^st landing on the Japanese mainland. The plan was that the Indianapolis would then proceed on to Okinawa to join the invasion fleet. Two days later the Indianapolis, traveling under radio silence, was hit by two torpedoes from a Japanese submarine and sunk in twelve minutes. As the character Quint was to retell the incident in the movie “Jaws”, of the 1,197 crew about 300 went down with the ship. Of the nearly 900 that survived the sinking only 317 were rescued after days of survival at sea with relentless shark attacks. It is the worst loss of life from the sinking of a single ship in US history.

A second bomb – “Fat Man” – arrived at Tinian’s North Field by air transport on July 28^th. Its high explosive triggers came a few days later on August 2^nd. While “Little Boy” was long and thin, “Fat Man” as the name implies was on the rotund side. It was a plutonium implosion design bomb destined but not originally targeted for Nagasaki. Plutonium is two elements heavier on the periodic table than uranium. Uranium shares the same naming root as the planet Uranus. Since the next element after uranium was named neptunium after Neptune, it was only logical to name the next element after the planet Pluto and so it became plutonium.

On August 5^th, Colonel Paul Tibbits’ B-29 “Enola Gay” named after his mother and  armed with “Little Boy” left North Field on Tinian and headed for Hiroshima. He was accompanied by two other B-29s, “The Great Artiste” carrying instrumentation and the later named “Necessary Evil” for photography.  After first flying over Iwo Jima and then onto Hiroshima, “Little Boy” was dropped at 8:15am Hiroshima time. The planes were over eleven miles away when the detonation occurred and the blast shook the aircraft but did no damage. On the ground, up to 80,000 people, 20,000 being soldiers, died. 70,000 more were injured. The planes returned to Tinian.

On August 6^th, President Truman informed the world of the destruction of Hiroshima and again called for the unconditional surrender of Japan. He had made a threat of utter destruction of Japan on July 26^th with his Potsdam ultimatum which was rejected by the Japanese.

On August 9^th, “Fat Man” was flown to its intended target of Kokura but the weather and smoke from bombings from the nearby city of Yawata obscured the target. Yawata had been fire bombed by 224 B-29’s a day earlier. Bombings like this were being made from Yonabaru Airfield where Joe was on Okinawa striking both the Japanese Mainland and Japanese positions in China. After three bombing runs were made with “Fat Man”, air defense over Kokura were getting too close and the alternate target, Nagasaki was bombed instead. Estimates vary of the dead but estimates range from 39,000 to 80,000. Low on fuel due to a mechanical problem with an auxiliary fuel tank, the B-29 was flown to Yontan Airfield on Okinawa. There was a successful high-speed emergency landing at Yontan with engines shuttling down due to lack of fuel. 

Yontan had been the site of the Giretsu Raid less than three months before with the Japanese targeting Henry’s VMF-533 Marine night fighter squadron. Yontan was also about ten miles from Yonabaru where Joe was located. A second larger Japanese Giretsu special forces attack on Okinawa airfields was scheduled for Aug 18th.

The Japanese wrestled with the terms of the surrender but it was clear that the US had more than one bomb. The Japanese had their own scientists working on an atomic bomb project so they knew what the technology was. They were also reporting that people were dying from radiation sickness. The US response was that they were misreading the effects of high heat exposure and this was just Japanese propaganda. Finally on Aug 14^th, the Emperor of Japan decided to accept the unconditional surrender terms and a prerecorded address would be broadcast on Aug 15^th. The night of the 14^th/15^th, a group of military officers staged an attempted coup to destroy the surrender recording. Failing to find the recording, the leaders of the coup killed themselves.

General Douglas MacArthur, now in Manila, was assigned the task of accepting the surrender and organizing the occupation of Japan. He required a surrender delegation made up of both civilian and military officials to come to Manila for instructions on receiving the occupations forces and make preparations for the formal surrender signing. The delegation would include members of all of the branches of the Japanese military. On Aug 19^th, a sixteen-man delegation flying in two unarmed Japanese Betty bombers that were painted white with green crosses where the red rising sun insignia had been. The planes took off from Japan and headed for Ie Shima. They first traveled westward to avoid any contact with Japanese fighters who had orders to shoot down all planes returning to Japan including Japanese planes. They then went south and were met with B-25s who guided them into Ie Shima with a thick cover of P-38 fighters overhead to avoid any incidents from Japanese aircraft that may want to derail the surrender process. The call designations of the two Japanese aircraft were Bataan 1 and Bataan 2. The significance of the call designations was not lost on either the Japanese or the Americans. Thousands of soldiers, sailors and marines lined the runway on Ie Shima as the surrender delegation’s planes landed. Henry watched as the planes made perfect landings on the white crushed coral runways. Only specified squadrons were allowed in the air as Ie Shima was designated a no fly zone including American aircraft. So none of the VMF-533’s planes were in the sky that day. The crew of the planes stayed on Ie Shima while the delegates transferred to a C-54 transport for the flight down to Manila.

Under usual circumstances, the military would never show an enemy their forces in the field. The windows of the C-54 would have been shuttered as they flew. But these were not usual circumstances. The C-54 was routed south down the slender island of Okinawa and banked so that the surrender delegation was given a good view of the other ten airfields operating on Okinawa including Yanabaru and the navy activities at Buckner Bay where Joe was stationed. On Okinawa, the Japanese strategy was to pull back into the mountains. The strategy for opposing the landings on the Japanese homeland was to be changed. Of the six thousand aircraft left in Japan, three thousand were to be used as kamikazes with the primary targets being the landing craft approaching the beaches. Joe’s training was as the motor man on a three man crew of a LCI – Landing Craft Infantry. If assigned to do that job on a November 1^st amphibious assault, Joe would certainly be in harms way.

While this was not a negotiating trip but a surrender trip, the Japanese were granted extra days to contact their far flung military units for the ceasing of hostilities. The Japanese were also granted the dignity of demobilizing their own forces under the direction and oversight of the occupying force. The delegation never met directly with MacArthur but the objective of the meeting being accomplished, they returned to Ie Shima the next day. The Bettys were refueled and left to return to Tokyo. In an unfortunate incident, the Betty with the high level dignitaries was not given quite enough fuel for the return trip. The Americans blamed it on the conversion of gallon to liter measurements. The Betty had to ditch just offshore in Japan. Fortunately, nobody was injured and the documents being carried were saved so there was no delay in the peace process.

On that same day that the surrender delegation returned to Japan, the USS Rocky Mount with Stanley aboard was reassigned as the flagship of Admiral Thomas Kincaid – Commander of the Seventh Fleet. On Sep 1^st after completing post repair trials in the Leyte Gulf, the Rocky Mount steamed to Manila where the admiral’s staff was received on board. The Rocky Mount then proceeded to Jinsen, Korea to rendezvous with Admiral Kincaid who accepted the surrender of Japanese forces in Korea on Sep 9^th in Seoul.

On Sep 2^nd, the formal signing ceremony for the Japanese surrender took place in Tokyo harbor on the USS Missouri. General MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz signed the surrender document. World War II was officially over. The boys still standing could now come home. 

Chapter 33 - 1968 The Draft and College as a High School Senior

Chapter 33 Version 1

1968

Joining the military is usually an option. For some it is more than an option. The draft was in full swing in the late 1960’s. Those who were not in school were likely to be drafted and sent to Vietnam. John always knew that college was in his future. With his work with his father and uncles in the construction business and his comfort with math and science, he decided to pursue a degree in civil engineering. He had been working with his father Joe and his uncle Stanley in the construction trade and at the Zywar Bros. lumber/hardware and paint store located on Northampton Street. He just needed to have the draft not interfere with this plan.

Joe thought that UMass in Amherst would be a good choice as John could save money by commuting from home. John wanted to go away to college and he scoured the college bulletins in the high school library and applied to four schools as the $20 application fee was pricy for the day – over a day’s work at the $1.90/hour minimum wage. MIT was the stretch. Rensselaer and Worcester Polytechs were the probables and Lowell Tech was the safety school. He took tours of WPI and RPI. After his interview at WPI, John’s parents were called in:

“Your son will probably be accepted but there is almost no chance of any scholarship” they were told. John’s parents did not tell John what they were told as without a substantial scholarship, WPI would be too expensive for him to attend.

John’s friend Frank was intent on going to WPI and wanted John to come to Worcester to “our college”.

John’s friend Richard was awarded the Rensselaer medal in his junior year that included a half tuition scholarship to RPI. Richard decided to go away from technology and to the humanities at Hampshire College leaving the half tuition scholarship unused. When John toured RPI, he quickly made up his mind. This is where he belonged. The pre-engineering curriculum was highly structured and John needed the structure. He felt comfortable on campus and they did have upper class dorms so he would not have to consider joining a crazy fraternity or living off campus.

In January the college letters arrived. Thick ones were acceptances and thin ones were rejections. MIT was a thin one. Lowell, WPI and RPI were thick ones. Then it was time to wait for the scholarship letters. To Jane’s surprise, both RPI and WPI offered about a third of the cost in scholarship. That was enough to go to RPI.

John was not a natural leader. He joined the math club and the chess club to bolster a weak resume of extracurricular activities along with having an interest in those areas. To his surprise, he was elected president of a rather large math club. The math club advisor had some ideas and John organized a dance to raise money for a math scholarship prize at graduation even though that would be the only dance he would ever attend in high school. He also ran a math contest with the winner being drawn from the correct entries at the dance.

John had been working with his father during the summer and on Saturdays and Friday evenings at the lumber yard. Last summer they built an addition on the M&M service station on Parson Street. He lifted concrete block onto the staging and mixed the mortar using a 1/2/3 measuring system – one shovel of hydrated lime/two shovels of Portland cement/3 shovels of fine mason sand. Add water to get a nice consistency that doesn’t get too gritty when picked up between the thumb and the index finger. But Joe decided to leave his association with Stanley and take a job as a maintenance craftsman at the Easthampton School Department in 1969. At the School Department he would have a pension and health insurance for his family. John would not be working with his father this summer. John had taken the civil service exam and scored in the 96^th percentile but did not get a summer job with the post office. So Joe, before leaving the lumber yard, asked a customer who was the head nurse at Northampton State Hospital if John could get a summer job at the hospital. The answer was “Have him come up to the hospital, fill out an application and have an interview”. John did and had the world’s shortest interview.

“Why do you want a job at the state hospital?” asked the head nurse Miss Florence.

“I am going to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the fall and need a summer job to help pay for the tuition.” John responded.

“Well if you are good enough to get into Rensselaer that is good enough for me. You can start as soon as you graduate from high school.” John later found that Rensselaer’s first professor was Amos Eaton and Eaton was the head nurse’s name.

Graduation was approaching in the middle of June of 1969. John liked to notice what his friends were reading. Generally, his liberal friends were readers and his conservative friends read less. John received conservative ideas from TV’s Crossfire (“Up From Liberalism” by William F. Buckley, Jr.) and from articles in his own subscription to the conservative “National Review” magazine and from conservative politicians. He read “Six Crises” by Richard M. Nixon. John went with his friend Mike to see an address by South Carolina US Senator Strom Thurmond at UMass.

A liberal friend Lynne was reading “Soul on Ice” by Eldridge Cleaver. John lent Lynne his copy of “The Real World of Democracy” and never received it back. He hoped it was given a good home or better yet, traveled to other readers and in a sense became homeless.

John’s friend Richard was reading “The Poetry of Rock” by Richard Goldstein – a collection of rock music lyrics of the 1950’s and 1960’s presented as poetry. John bought his own paperback copy. In it he found lyrics like Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne”, Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and the Association’s “Along Comes Mary”. John was always a music lover and sang “Let Me Go Lover” as a young child at a relatives wedding. That was his last public performance as his singing ability could be rated minimal. Joe had bought a large black walnut console stereo at an auction and John began buying music albums. “Bee Gees First” was the start and then it was one or two albums per month with consultations to Stereo Review magazine. No genre was out of bounds with music from Johnny Cash to Pete Seeger to Bob Dylan to Simon and Garfunkel to the Rolling Stones and Beatles. Each album was first played multiple times without looking at the lyrics to get the overall mood. Then the lyrics were studied.

John had just purchased a copy of Crosby, Stills & Nash’s debut album when it was time to get ready for golf. John had made the last position, seventh man, on a six man golf team as a junior. There were some very good golfers on the team including his best friend Bob. John was always looking to get better and so he bought two books on golf – “Slammin’ Sam Snead’s How To Play Golf” and Gary Player’s “Positive golf: Understanding and Applying the fundamentals of the game”. Trying to change his swing, John was very inconsistent in his golf that spring. The clubs that his father had bought for him when he was a freshman were now too short and he was playing with a full set of clubs borrowed from his uncle Stanley. One of the better golfers on the team recommended that John let a younger player have the last spot on the team to get some experience for the next years as there were almost all seniors on the team. John declined as the spot on the team entitled the player to golf four times per week for free. The coach decided to have a two hole playoff for the final alternate’s spot on the team between John and a sophomore. John was down by two strokes after the first hole and shanked his tee shot almost into a stream from an elevated tee while his opponent was safely off the side the green by about 10 feet. John took out his $2.00 wedge he bought at Caldor’s and chipped to about a foot from the cup for a par. His opponent double bogeyed the hole and John won the spot by winning the next two holes.  Later that spring, John had his best round he would ever golf – two over par for nine holes. John got to the course late one day and there were only three high school girls left to join from the golf club which played once per week. After double bogeying the first hole, he played par golf the rest of the round with one birdie offsetting one bogey.

The EHS golf team was undefeated the first year he played and untied/undefeated the second year. Six golfers played in match play format. The team member with the highest medal score sat out the next match and the alternate played. John played every other match and never lost a match…but he did tie quite a few. In one match he lost the first four holes and won the last four for a tie. The golf team received a bid to compete in the Massachusetts State High School Tournament his senior year. The School Board decided that the team would not compete. After inquiries were made and offers to cover their own transportation and costs, the golf team was ordered to stand down. If the discussion continued, the School Board let it be known that they would take it out on the golf coach. The golf coach was well respected and liked so there was no more pushing the issue. That is the kind of politics that children of the 60’s were rebelling against although the decisions being protested were more of a life and death nature as the KIA numbers for the week broadcast on the nightly news were coming in near a steady 200/week from Vietnam.

John’s senior year was full and he knew in the back of his mind that he needed to register for the draft. He would be eighteen in mid July. He needed a college deferment or risk being drafted. In his mind he had the phrase “within one week of your eighteenth birthday” as the required registration period so there was about month to do that after graduation.

Chapter 32 - 1945 - Henry and the VMF(N)-533 on Okinawa

Chapter 32 Version 1

1945

“At this spot the 77^th Infantry lost a buddy, Ernie Pyle,. 18 April 1945” – inscription on the monument above the grave of the war correspondent most respected by the fighting men of World War II as he reported the war from their vantage point.

Pyle was heading to the front lines on the island of Ie Shima off the northwest coast of Okinawa in a jeep with one other soldier. They came under machine gun fire from a Japanese machine gun nest bypassed during the fighting. Pyle and the soldier jumped into a ditch for cover. Ernie peered over the top of the ditch and was killed by a bullet in the head.

“Listen my children and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere

Twas the eighteenth of April in ’75

And hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year…”

recited John to a classmate in eighth grade to complete his assignment to memorize part of the classic poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

“Listen up gentlemen! The five thirty-three has been in the Marshalls for exactly one year. That is going to change today. We have been given orders to report to Yontan Airfield on Okinawa. We are leaving on May 7 and have three days to fly 2,500 miles. The 15 Hellcats will be flown in accompanied by five R5C transports. The R5Cs will take essential spare parts and a skeleton crew. The rest of the squadron will be transported by ship with a transit time of approximately three weeks including the packing and loading of our equipment and personnel. Our first leg is the flight to Saipan in the Marianas Islands. That is just over 1,000 nautical miles. Personnel flying with the Hellcats and those on the R5Cs are posted on the bulletin board. Any questions?”

“Isn’t 1,000 miles out of a Hellcat’s range?”

“The Hellcats will be fitted with 150 gallon belly tanks for added range.”

“Any other questions?”

The members of the Marine Night Fighter Squadron VMF-533(N) were letting the news sink in and already planning what they needed to do before leaving the Marshalls.

“What is the second leg?”

“Iwo Jima”

“Questions?”

“Pilots will be briefed on weather conditions before take off. They will be expecting us in Saipan. We don’t want to be another VMF-422 incident. Gentlemen, you have your orders.”

As the staff sergeant in charge of ordinance and armoring, Henry was going to be transported by ship. He was well aware of the reference to the four twenty-two squadron as Henry was assigned to the four twenty-two for a month in November 1944.  During November, the five thirty-three was reassigned from the airstrip at Eniwetok to the airstrip at Engebi. Early in 1944, twenty-three planes of the four twenty-two were reassigned from Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands to Funafuti Island and were to fly 469 miles to the new airfield.  Disaster ensued. They did not get an escort. They flew directly into a heavy storm. They were also not expected at the new airfield. Ten of the planes were lost in the storm. The pilots that survived spent three days in rafts before being spotted and picked up by a PBY. The PBY was overloaded and couldn’t take off so they had to wait for a destroyer to take the pilots on board. Of the remaining thirteen planes, twelve had to be ditched in the ocean as they were not allowed to land. The four twenty-two was provided new planes and was back in operation about six months before Henry was assigned to the squadron. But the squadron would become infamous in aviation lore and the incident was the basis for a documentary entitled “The Flintlock Disaster” in 2012.

The 533 flew into Yontan Airfield on the central west coast of Okinawa on May 10^th and was operational in 36 hours. The landings at Okinawa had begun on April 1^st and the Japanese had mounted fierce resistance inland in the rugged hills. In addition, kamikaze attacks were swarming to Okinawa from the main Japanese islands. The weather was being a problem as it provided cover for the kamikazes and the Japanese bombers. What was needed was a force to patrol against the Japanese air attacks at night and in bad weather. Four squadrons of radar equipped planes were brought in to Okinawa as soon as the ACORN units could get the captured airfields operational. In addition to Yontan, there were ten other airfields on Okinawa with Kadena and Yontan being the largest on the west coast of Okinawa. Yonabaru Airfield was located about ten miles away from Yontan and six miles from Kadena. Yonabaru Airfield was on the southeastern coast near Buckner Bay where Joe was with ACORN 29. Another large airfield would become operational on the small island of Ie Shima off the northwest coast of Okinawa in June. The 533 was to become the most successful of the night fighter squadrons and they took little time to be noticed by the Japanese.  The Americans would also be forced to take notice.

On May 17^th the five thirty-three suffered its first and only loss of a plane and pilot. Undisciplined anti-aircraft shooting from the flagship of Vice Admiral Turner downed one of the Hellcats and Colonel Black Jack Magruder was livid. He requested a meeting with Vice Admiral Turner who was in charge of amphibious forces and went to Turner’s flagship to state his case. The USS Rocky Mount with Stanley on board had been Turner’s flagship when Kwajalein was taken in the Marshalls in early 1944. Turner promised that discipline would be maintained and that Magruder’s planes would be able to carry out their missions over the waters around Okinawa. The next day the five thirty-three shot down five Japanese planes. The night fighters were making an impact and an impression on the Japanese.

In late 1944, the Japanese main islands were being hurt badly from bombings carried out by long range B-29 bombers from Saipan, Tinian and Guam in the Marianas Islands. In order to stop the bombers, the Japanese devised a plan to create a special forces unit called the Giretsu Airborne Unit to raid the new bases and destroy many B-29s while mounting a counter attacks from the ground to retake the airfields that had been captured by the Americans. This raid was to be launched from Iwo Jima on January 17^th 1945. American intelligence identified the plan and bombers were sent to Iwo Jima to disrupt the plan by bombing the staging areas of the Giretsu Unit. This bought enough time as Japanese planes and pilots needed to be replaced so that the Marianas Islands were secured and the raid was cancelled. When Iwo Jima itself was attacked, the raid was to be made on the captured airfields there but the garrison of Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima fell too soon for the attack to be carried out. Meanwhile, Okinawa was now under attack and on May 16^th, the Japanese Sixth Army requested that the Giretsu Unit attack the Yontan and Kadina airfields on Okinawa.  

For the Giretsu Raid twelve “Sally” medium bombers manned with 136 commandos were sent from Kumamoto in Japan for a night raid. Four of the Sallys were to hit Kadena under the command of Captain Okuyama and eight were to hit Yontan under the command of Captain Watanabe. Other bombers were to attack decoy locations such as Ie Shima while there was to be some softening up of the defenses of Yontan and Kadina before the Sallys arrived with the commandos. The Sallys were to belly land with wheels up to stop short and block the runway. The commandoes then were to destroy aircraft, mainly B-29s and Hellcats, and also blow up fuel dumps and airfield support buildings. Reinforcement soldiers were to arrive in the morning.

On May 24^th the Giretsu struck. Only one Sally belly landed at Yontan and dispatched its commandos. The five thirty-three shot down five of the invaders while another night fighter squadron shot down one other. None of the Sallys made it to Kardena. Marine anti-aircraft units protecting Yontan shot down the six remaining Sallys. One of the Sallys crashed into an anti-aircraft battery killing two marines. The commandos destroyed nine airplanes, none being B-29s or Hellcats, and damaged 24. A 70,000 gallon gasoline storage tank was set on fire and a number of buildings were damaged. In the back pocket of Captain Watanabe was a map of Yontan with sixteen red x marks on it. They were the usual spots where the fifteen Hellcats were parked. The other x was the tent location of Black Mac himself. None of the Hellcats or the squadron commander were destroyed. Aside from the marines killed in the anti-aircraft battery, one pilot from the five thirty-three was killed manning a searchlight on the control tower. He was killed by a stray .5mm round from friendly fire. Japanese reinforcements never arrived and Yontan Airfield was back in service by mid-morning on May 25^th.

On May 30^th, Henry and the rest of the squadron arrived by LST. His record of service includes the statement “Participated in Action against the enemy at Okinawa 30 May 1945 to 8 June 45”. The ship actually landed at Ie Shima and the arriving squadron members set up shop on Ie Shima with the Hellcats and the skeleton crew moved to their new location on Ie Shima on June 15^th.

On June 22, Lt Col Magruder logged a kill. The final total for the squadron was 35 kills and 1 probable. This included six kills for Captain Robert Baird, the only night fighter ace in WWII. Eighteen pilots had at least one kill. Only two pilots were lost and these were killed due to friendly fire. The squadron received the Presidential Unit Citation for their heroics, safety record, and combat readiness.

On July 30 the last of the five Japanese planes to be shot down in July by the 533 was west of Zampa Misaki near Yontan Airfield.

The victors usually write the history surrounding the events of battles. The Japanese wrote of the valor of their Giretsu attack and built shrines throughout Japan commemorating the raid.

In eighth grade John recited from memory, as best as he could remember, the poem by John McCrae, a Canadian medic in the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium from World War I in 1915:

“In Flanders fields the poppies grow,

Between the crosses row on row,

That mark our place and in the sky,

The larks still bravely singing fly,

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead.

Short days ago we lived,

Felt dawn,

Saw sunset glow.

Loved and were loved and now we lie,

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe,

To you from failing hands we throw,

The torch be yours to hold it high,

If ye break faith in us who died,

We shall not sleep,

Though poppies grow,

In Flanders fields.”

The Japanese considered the Giretsu raid a success and a second special forces commando raid, much larger than the first, was planned. Training was underway for the scheduled August 18^th attack on Okinawa’s eleven airfields.

Chapter 31 - 1997 -Joe Recalls the Battle of Okinawa

Chapter 31 Version 2

1997

“ACORN 29 waited about five months to go to Europe but were never called” recalled Joe.

Joe rarely mentioned what he did in the service to his family. He told his wife Jane never to ask him about the war back in the 1940’s and she never did. Joe was slowing down and he was recalling growing up and going to school as he sat in his glider rocking chair with his feet elevated. He did not want to go through another heart by-pass operation and his diabetes was getting worse. It was a weekend afternoon and Joe and John were in Joe’s living room at Laurel Park in Northampton. John grabbed a piece of blank paper and started to take detailed notes of the conversation.

“We went to California on a ‘troop Pullman” which was a boxcar with six bunks high. The railroad trip took five days. We went to Port H (Hueneme, California) near Oxnard and retrained for the Pacific. Then I was at 29 Palms in California in the Mojave Desert to maintain planes practicing for dive bombing.”

“It got up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit in the daytime and we were living in tents so when it got down to 60 degrees at night we thought we were going to freeze to death. For R&R we went to Ojai.”

On November 1^st,1944 Joe received an advancement in rank to MMS3c – Shop Machinist Mate 3^rd class which made him a petty officer. Two days later, Joe left on his annual leave and took a train back to Massachusetts across Kansas. He had a 15 day furlough – 5 days home in Massachusetts with five days travel time to and from home. His leave was over on November 18^th. Then again it was a case of “hurry up and wait”. But this time ACORN 29 was eventually called to be part of the invasion of Okinawa in the spring of 1945 about two years since he joined the navy. A troop ship, the SS Robin Wently, left from San Pedro, California with Joe aboard.

“First we went to Hawaii and going over the Pacific was as smooth as glass then to the Marshall Islands, and then to the Carolines. When we arrived at Okinawa, ACORN 29 was divided into six units with me in the last one.”

“The first units of ACORN 29 were involved in action taking Okinawa. The sixth unit was on Okinawa one week after the first assault. Fighting was still going on inland. I never had to do my job as a motor man on a three man crew of a landing craft on Okinawa. At the beginning, there were twelve hour shifts from 6pm to 6am hauling gasoline in fifty-five gallon drums from Buckner Bay up to the airstrip. We couldn’t use our headlights so that we could avoid sniper fire. There were tiny lights on the truck in front of you so you had to be very close or you would lose your way.”

  

 “The safest place to sleep was on the beach except at sunrise when the kamikazes came. They flew in very low over the beach and out into Buckner Bay where the ships were. As soon as you heard the air raid sirens, you got off the beach as fast as you could. The anti-aircraft guns on the ships would be trying to shoot down the kamikazes so they would be shooting straight into the beach and a lot of guys were killed from friendly fire. “

The Americans did something very different with their pilots than the Japanese that gave them a decided edge. The Americans rotated their pilots from the front lines and the experienced pilots were used as instructors for the new pilots that were being trained. For the Japanese, it was a one-way ticket to the front lines. With MacArthur severing Japan’s supply line for oil from Southeast Asia through the Philippines and Borneo, pilot training was curtailed to conserve fuel. The result was many inexperienced Japanese pilots over the skies of the Philippines  and Okinawa. The kamikaze also did not need much training and the fuel for a kamikaze mission was only enough for a one-way flight. This also eliminated the possibility that a kamikaze would return to base. There were also kamikaze piloted bombs that were dropped from mother aircraft. These manned bombs glided to near the intended target before the pilot engaged a jet engine. These manned bombs would have caused more damage than they did if the pilots had more training. Their accuracy was their overall problem.

The kamikaze was not limited to the skies. There were a variety of ships and submarines outfitted for suicide missions. This included the world’s largest battleship – the Yamato. Five days after the start of the invasion of Okinawa, the Yamato and nine  escort ships set sail from Japan to Okinawa. The mission of Operation Ten-Go was to beach the Yamato and any surviving escort ships in shallow waters off Okinawa. The Yamato would then be used as a stationary fortress to wreak havoc with its huge deck guns on Allied positions on Okinawa. The Yamato was spotted and sunk by aircraft before it ever approached Okinawa. The battleship as an instrument of war was fast becoming a relic of obsolete technology as was demonstrated with the sinking of the German Bismarck and the British Prince of Wales battleships.

“After Okinawa was secured, I made parts for airplanes and did maintenance on aircraft. The kamikaze attacks continued. The Seabees in ACORN 29 got the Yonubaru airstrip up and running. The four engine bombers were hitting Japan and Japanese controlled areas in China from Yonubaru airstrip.”

“I would go up in the planes when they were testing replacement parts I had made. I went up one time and the brakes failed when we were landing. The plane stopped just short of the junk pile at the end of the runway. That was the last time I went up in a plane on Okinawa.”

The Battle of Okinawa is referred to as the “typhoon of steel” with fierce ground combat, flying kamikazes and an armada of ships. The navy combat deaths ended up at 4,907 with 34 ships sunk and 368 damaged - nearly all by kamikaze attack. Fifteen amphibious craft and twelve American destroyers were sunk. Allied losses include 763 aircraft and the army suffered over 7,000 killed in action and over 31,000 wounded. For the Japanese the losses were staggering with the destruction of about 1,900 aircraft in kamikaze missions alone and over 110,000 killed in action.

The island was riddled with caves and the Japanese were holding out inch by inch. The only way to clean out the caves were with grenades and flame throwers. It took 82 days to secure the island. Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner was killed four days before the island was declared secure on June 21^st, 1945 after the initial landings on April 1 which was also Easter Sunday. He was killed inspecting the front lines when an artillery shell exploded nearby peppering him with sharp shards of coral. He was the highest ranking American officer killed during World War II.

War correspondent Ernie Pyle was also killed by a Japanese machine gunner in an area that was supposedly clear on the small island of Ie Shima off the western coast of Okinawa. The difficulty in securing both Iwo Jima and Okinawa made the planners of the mainland Japan assault raise the expected casualties in the upcoming invasion of the main Japanese islands.

There was a photo group attached to ACORN 29 on Okinawa and Joe collected a number of generic photos of the island along with group photos of his unit. He also brought back some coins, Japanese paper money, bullets, a knife, a mirror decorated with used antiaircraft shells and his white sailor hat. These mementos were stored in a white shoebox on the top shelf of his closet. Some pictures showed cliffs and caves on Okinawa.

“Some of our guys were pretty macho. There were Japanese soldiers holding out in caves on the cliffs and our guys would put a knife in between their teeth and go into the caves after the Japs. They would go in but no one ever came out.”