Posted on 10/24/2009 9:21:54 AM PDT by Saije
For 64 years, Norton Anenberg guarded a present.
He kept it in the attic. Or tucked in his desk.
But one day in 1990, acting on a longtime desire, the then-vice president of an oil company pulled open his office's file cabinet and declared it was time to act.
"You know something," the now-76-year-old Covina resident remembered saying. "I'm gonna find this family."
The present was the war flag of a World World II Japanese soldier, given to Anenberg by a family friend returning from fighting in the South Pacific in 1945.
And it wasn't until August, after nearly twenty years of trying, that Anenberg finally accomplished his dream of giving the flag to that deceased soldier's family.
It all started when a mischievous Anenberg, 12 years old, asked his older brother's friend, who was heading off to fight in the Pacific, for a rifle as a souvenir.
"I was a kid," said Anenberg, who grew up in Boyle Heights.
Two years later, the friend, Lester Waldinger, returned and hand-delivered the present. Waldinger was still dressed in his U.S. Marine Corps uniform. And his present wasn't a rifle - it was a flag.
It was a normal-sized Japanese flag, three-by-five feet, and covered in writings.
Time passed and Anenberg grew up, all with the flag stored safely out of sight.
At age 17, in 1952, he volunteered for the Navy and served three years, including in the Korean War.
He got married, had kids and started a career in the oil business.
The flag stayed put for a long time. The desire to find the soldier's family didn't bubble through until that day in 1990.
Then it became a mission.
(Excerpt) Read more at sgvtribune.com ...
Fascinating story.
It is nice that the gift was appreciated.
My father, on a pleasure trip to Japan in the 70’s, was attacked by an old man when the old man saw my father’s Marine Corps ring.
A friend of my father’s who served with him in the Pacific in WWII found a letter on the body of a Japanese soldier, either on Guam or Okinawa. Many years later he decided to track down the man’s family and finally succeeded in getting the letter to them. They were extremely grateful.
>>My father ... was attacked by an old [Japanese man when he] saw my father’s Marine Corps ring.
An amateur radio friend of mine was a WW2 radio intercept operator in San Francisco. He was fluent in the “Kata” Morse code*. He is a consultant for a Japanese radio company and, in trips to Japan over the years, has heard many “hams” in Japan using this code. Despite repeated efforts over the years to meet the guys he listened to in the war, they have to a man refused. They’re still PO’d at us.
*In the international code, we would send the word “Toyota” in 6 letters. In the phonetic Kata code, it is sent in three: “To - Yo - Ta”.
The man who now owns the flag is a vet and has the right to do whatever he wishes to with it. However...
His brother’s friend went through extreme difficulty if not outright hell on Earth to get that flag for a smartass little boy who had no idea what the older boy was facing. I’d treasure that flag like I treasure the burial flags of both my grandfathers.
When you read about how the Japs poured gasoline on POWS and then set them on fire, while alive...then machine gunned the ones who tried to flee...or about how they’d use live POWS for bayonet practice...or how they maintained rape brothels comprised of the local populace...I don’t think they should get a damn thing back. The flag should be in a museum because of how it came to be here and who brought it...and failing that, if neither of the two parties or their family wants it, it should be spit on, stepped on, and then burnt to hell. It’s only true value is that an American man conquered the holder of it and took it as his due...barring that, it’s just a piece of crap some Jap made in the hopes of murdering Europeans/Asians.
“Suddenly, in an orchestrated and obviously planned move, 50 to 60 Japanese soldiers under Sato’s leadership doused the wooden shelters with buckets of gasoline and set them afire with flaming torches, followed by hand grenades. The screams of the trapped and doomed prisoners mingled with the cheers of the Japanese soldiers and the laughter of their officer, Sato. As men engulfed in flames broke out of their fiery deathtraps, the Japanese guards machine gunned, bayoneted and clubbed them to death. Most of the Americans never made it out of the trenches and the compound before they were barbarously murdered, but several closed with their tormentors in hand-to-hand combat and succeeded in killing a few of the Japanese attackers.
Marine survivor Corporal Rufus Smith described escaping from his shelter as coming up a ladder into Hell. The four American officers in the camp, Lt. Cmdr. Henry Carlisle Knight (U.S. Navy Dental Corps), Captain Fred Brunie, Lieutenant Carl Mango (U.S. Army Medical Corps) and Warrant Officer Glen C. Turner, had their own dugout, which the Japanese also doused with gasoline and torched. Mango, his clothes on fire, ran toward the Japanese and pleaded with them to use some sense but was machine-gunned to death.”
http://www.historynet.com/american-prisoners-of-war-massacre-at-palawan.htm
One atrocity of many.
You make nice with them...I know that two generations ago they did this my countrymen, and but for sheer circumstance it could have been either of my grandfathers. Or your dad. Or your grandpa, or uncle, or great uncle. Funny how there’s never been a movie about it...
They can be PO’d at us all they want.
The younger Japanese tour guides were mortified. Dad just stood there while they pulled the old man off of him.
Well, not really. As Mother tells it- Dad just stood there, laughing, while they pulled the old man off...
What a shame it would be if some thought that cruel ....a brother saw Iwo Jima “live” and and a brother-in-law was gone for four years, a portion of which involved gathering body parts in the South Pacific.
Some of us will never forget and will not let our children forget.
You stated that quite well, Spike.
You articulated your feelings, and reinforced them with fact, and you did it well.
I feel for you, having to carry these kinds of feelings all through life.
Peace.
Well said. I cannot add. Facts are facts.
Thanks for the compliment(I think).
Both of my grandfathers went in the ground holding the same feelings I expressed, along with millions of other in their generation. It didn’t seem to impede their long and successful lives.
Thank you both.
Your welcome.
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