Posted on 01/26/2015 10:18:51 AM PST by Kartographer
Don Fida, of Syracuse, visits the small boomerang-shaped Pacific island in his sleep.
He remembers the way 22,000 soldiers of the 7th Infantry Division emptied a ship onto Kwajalein and worked their way across the 2.5-mile island, killing close to 5,000 Japanese and losing 177 of their own.
He can picture the way a Japanese soldier crawled out of a bunker waving the underwear of a young American nurse who had been held, "worse than hostage," as he puts it. Fida said his unit rescued the woman, draped her with the clothes of a dead soldier and escorted her onto a U.S. ship.
(Excerpt) Read more at syracuse.com ...
Sad isn’t it?
My son and I are doing our part to not forget these guys.
My son started collecting war memorabilia and weapons last spring. This fall, a guy I work with brought my son a canteen, canteen cup, canteen cover, unit history book and casket flag from a WWII veteran. This vet died in 2004 and his family threw all of this stuff out in the garage on the floor. Somehow, this guy and some friends rescued everything. They gave it to my son. I had the flag cleaned and made a triangular shaped walnut flag case and laser etched the rank, name, dates of service and all of his medals and awards onto the glass cover of the flag case. (It looks like his wife wrote all of his service facts in the back of his unit’s history book.)
This veteran won’t be forgotten.
I spent a few years on Kwaj and got to know some of the battles and the Jap bunkers they were entrenched in. It wasn’t an easy battle although some considered it lighter than others because of our overwhelming firepower.
One of the largest explosions ever seen came on the island of Roi, about 45 miles north of Kwaj, when a satchel charge was thrown into a torpedo bunker.
The diving on Kwaj was excellent since it is warm waters and there was lots to see from those battles.
Kwaj was a necessary stop in our efforts to push back the Jap out of the Pacific. It is fairly isolated being about 2,000 miles from Hawaii, Tokyo, and Sidney; smack dab in the middle of nowhere.
I can only imagine when a man like this asked, “What’s on this placed called Kwaj??”, and the answer was, “Well, you will be.” It would be like going to the moon. Kwaj is about 1.3 miles in total land area. You can practically throw a rock across the width of it. Roi was less than 1 square mile, and from those islands we launched the rest of the Pacific campaign.
WWII, when boys became men.
God bless both of you!
Combat Infantryman Badge
There’s always the danger that an island that small will tip-over and sink if too many people are on it... just ask Democrats in Congress...
Pretty current picture. Kwaj is at one end of a missile range where we fire missiles into for qualification tests and such. I was on a Coast Guard Buoy tender that travelled from Honolulu to maintain the aids to navigation throughout the lagoon and near by islands. About 2300 mile trip one way if I remember correctly. There is/was a department store and the Yuk Yuk club for drinks.
My BIL was on a CG bouy tender for that area, too, back in 1995 time frame.
Pretty current picture. Kwaj is at one end of a missile range where we fire missiles into for qualification tests and such. I was on a Coast Guard Buoy tender that travelled from Honolulu to maintain the aids to navigation throughout the lagoon and near by islands. About 2300 mile trip one way if I remember correctly. There is/was a department store and the Yuk Yuk club for drinks.
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/22/world/in-marshall-islands-friday-is-followed-by-sunday.html
Spent a few months there myself,,I was one of the survivors August 22,1993
That had to be a fun weekend! That island knew how to party!
and I survived August 22,1993
As a former Marine Corps Combat Engineer, this made my hair stand on end and sent me off on a backstory research quest. A couple of hundred guys lost their lives in that incident.
I was standing in the “hole” created by that blast and realized that after looking at the charts made prior to the blast it took out a bunch of shoreline too. It looks like a natural shoreline but you just know anyone anywhere near that blast lost their lives. The concussion was one thing but it also threw out an enormous amount of sand and coral with it.
Enough bang there to sink ten or twenty battleships.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.