My father, a USNR fighter pilot, was enroute to participate in the invasion of Japan when the war ended. He got as far as Saipan.
I was going through some of my dad's things the other night, and stumbled across the diary he kept while on his way to support the invasion of Japan. My dad, John R. Cooper, was an F6F pilot in the USNR, in Air Group Eight. VF-8 left Alameda on May 18, 1945, and returned on October 19th; I was born about a year later, so I guess I'm one of those 'A-Bomb survivors' who might not have been born had the bomb not been dropped. His diary contains no combat stories, since he never saw any combat. But as a record of military life, it made me smile, having been in the Army myself. As a record of the events of those days in the South Pacific, I think some of you might find it interesting - maybe some of you were there with him, or know somebody who was. Here are the people he mentioned: Snider, Lt.Cmdr. Cagle, Fletcher, Bob Einar, Johnny Bogdan, Barney Stelzer (Steltzer?), Bill Lyons, 'Weasel' Turner, Tom Coalson, Jack Carson, Schroder, Brother Galvin, Battaglia, Mendoza, G'mitro, DeGolia, Rosen, McGuire, Commander Ruehlow, Donaldson, Letts, (Harold "Hank"?) Bosacki (who I think drew the excellent pen and ink drawings in Dad's diary), Ted Daily, McComb, Lesicka, Cox, Admiral Sprague, Bill Anderson, C.M. Brown, Capt. Braun, Cmdr. Hoover. The ships he was on: CVE-1 USS Long Island (Alameda > Hawaii), CVE-81 USS Rudyerd Bay (Hawaii > Guam), USS Bennington (Saipan > Eniwetok) , CVE-74 USS Nehenta Bay (Eniwetok > Alameda). Dad spent most of his time on Saipan, but the other places mentioned were: Puunene, Barbers Point, Kahului, Rota, Guam, Orote, Kagman, Eniwetok, Kwajalein, Marpi Point, Tinian, Tanapag, Wenger, Runit Island, Engebi Anyway, with all the discussion these days on 'dropping the bomb' I decided to transcribe his diary, which I did - 14 typewritten pages of it. For anyone interested, I uploaded it as VF8.zip to the Aviation History section of the library. Hope you find it interesting.