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WW II Memories
By Kris Fresonke
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Ben Kuroki
A Japanese-American aviator, awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross three times, describes anti-Japanese feeling during the war.
"My most vivid WWII memory: my nationality was a real problem. I learned I had to fight like hell for the right to fight for my country!
"I requested assignment in B-29s, and was stunned to learn that War Department policy prohibited Japanese Americans to fly them. I escalated my right-to-fight war and, fortunately, influential people went to bat for me. Secretary of War Henry Stimson granted me an exception. However, on departing for the Pacific, FBI agents twice tried to remove me from our plane. The agents, wearing sidearms, ordered my pilot, Capt. Jim Jenkins, to stop. But Jenkins ignored them because he felt we were unnecessarily being harassed. I flew 28 missions in B-29s...
"Was it all worthwhile? Would I do it all over again? The categorical answer is, yes!"
Al Webster
Hiding from a hurricane on Okinawa.
"A hurricane hit the island of Okinawa with winds of 225 mph. I decided to crawl into a Japanese grave. It was built solidly in the side of the hill and contained only eight or 10 funeral urns.
"I stayed in the grave for six days, just sticking my head out for a drink, and once to throw a particularly obnoxious urn away. On the sixth day, the wind ceased. I crawled up the hill and found a large [piece of] canvas buried in the mud. I also found a two-foot stick. I put the stick under the canvas, and climbed in. When I woke up four hours later, I was unable to move—my body heat had made the mud around me rock solid. I was finally able to crawl out.
"I went to the beach… I didn't find a living soul, or a body. I heard later that 4,000 people were killed by the storm."
Everett M. Combs
A Purple Heart recipient recalls heavy bombing in Okinawa.
"I was in Okinawa from the first day to the last, so I know there is a Hell. In Okinawa, the Japanese had a weapon we referred to as the 'Screaming Mimi,' a spigot mortar that would blow a hole 10 by 15 across and 20 feet deep. On April 15, 1945, one of these mortars hit, about five feet from me. I was blown against my gun, I had four or five splits in my steel helmet, the heel was blown off my boot, and there were numerous tears in my fatigues, but it did not draw blood. I had a roar in my head for about 10 days."
Leon Windle
An Okinawa foxhole and a near miss.
"During the battle of Okinawa, two of my comrades had a Japanese mortar shell land in their foxhole without exploding. The shell bounced off the bottom of the foxhole and came to rest on the stomach of one of the men who was reclining. Those two guys had a moment of sheer terror while they tried to figure out what to do with that live shell."
Richard Henkels
A historic sighting in Okinawa.
"It was a beautiful, clear day. The blue sky seemed an infinity away. I led a patrol to the north end of Okinawa after a battle in which more than 30,000 Americans were casualties in six weeks of bitter fighting. Our mission was to capture any Japanese who fled from the battle. One of the soldiers looked to the north and saw a strange cloud on the horizon. We watched as it climbed into the sky, in a strange oval shape, like no cloud we had ever seen. Bored after watching for a few minutes, we proceeded with our mission.
"Later we discovered we had seen the first atomic bomb dropped on Japan."
George C. Thompson, Jr.
A GI sees Hiroshima after the bombing.
"We entered Hiroshima, what was left of the city, nothing. What a horrible memory. Hundreds of thousands of people died instantly and thousands more died over time, and it affected the health of the children born years after.
"The heat from the bomb was so hot, it melted the flesh from the body, and some were burnt to a crisp. The imprint was outlined on the cement."
Richard Hallagan
An adventure at the end of the Pacific war.
"Right after the end of World War II in the Pacific, we had just completed a combat mission. There were crews to fly our planes back to the U.S. Right after takeoff, the nose wheel hit a small hill at the end of the runway… we were critically damaged. We were told to bail out. I jumped first, and … landed badly in a rice paddy. Filipinos smuggled me into their barrio. They had not heard the war was over. When the village chief interpreted, they erupted, calling me 'MacArthur'! They paraded me on an oxcart down the road for miles to a U.S. battalion."
Martin Diamond
A GI in occupied Japan describes the blasted landscape of the war.
"The 914th Engineers… were sent to Japan to occupy the country … in Yokohama on September 7, 1945. The front of the boat dropped down. We all exited in full combat gear with rifles at the ready. It looked to me as if the entire Japanese army was standing in formation, at attention, facing us. We stepped on Japanese soil. None of our rifles was loaded. This order was given so as not to create any incidents from soldiers seeking revenge...
"We got on trucks and drove through Yokohama. The scene was surreal. As far as the eye could see, the streets were laid out in grids and wherever there had been a building was now an empty lot. Everything had been destroyed—burned to the ground. However, spaced throughout the area were metal safes, small and large, the only things still standing."
Edmund C. Stone, Jr.
A Pentagon employee experiences the war's end.
"I called [my wife] Sallie. I told her I was ready to come home. She and all the people in the area where we lived were celebrating the end of the war. She picked me up shortly after 2 a.m. She was familiar with the area of the Pentagon in which I worked. Later she told me that the only light in my wing of the Pentagon was the one in my office. I had been the one to turn off the last light in that wing. She saw that light go off and knew the war was over. That was her celebration!"
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