Posted on 04/01/2018 8:30:33 PM PDT by BBell
My dad knew a guy who was on the Bunker Hill.
That was some horrendous duty. Dad was awarded the Purple Heart when he was hit by a sniper on Okinawa. Fortunately, the sniper's aim wasn't perfect.
Dickie O’Brian - Medford , MA. Rest in Peace.
“He might have been a Democrat, but I still have to give some thanks to Harry Truman for dropping those bombs”
Old school democrat not remotely like our current understanding of the term.
When I said "there"....I was referring to the So. Pacific...
No worries...!!
I will find it and read it....
Recommended reading:
“Killing Ground on Okinawa: The Battle for Sugar Loaf Hill,” written by James Hallas.
One of the the deadliest single battles in Marine Corps history - 1,656 Marines dead and another 7,429 wounded during the 12 day siege to take Sugar Loaf Hill.
Pictures of Sugar Loaf Hill, about 50-feet in height and 300 yards in length:
“Things turned much worse for urban Japanese starting in February 1945 when Curtis LeMay began low-level (more accurate), concentrated firebombing of major Japanese cities.”
I was surprised to learn that the bomb sighting was useless for high level bombing due to the air currents over Japan.
Low level bombing was the best way to be accurate with the bomb load.
It didn’t hurt that many houses in Japan were traditional bamboo and burned to the ground in minutes.
Pilots/crew reported the heat was so intense over the target area they saw screen doors floating at 10,000 feet. The turbulence was mind boggling...
I have a picture of the original memorial to Pyle. My dad took it for the Battalion newspaper.
“Pilots/crew reported the heat was so intense over the target area they saw screen doors floating at 10,000 feet. The turbulence was mind boggling...”
Made Dresden look like a campfire?
A neighbor of mine was in the occupation forces in Japan right after the surrender. He had already fought in Europe. He said the devastation was terrible that comparing Japan and Europe was useless, only Berlin was as bombed out as Japan.
When hep cats get together
And every time they meet,
Here’s the way you’ll hear them greet
(Greet)
A hubba, hubba, hubba, hello dad,
Well, a hubba, hubba, hubba, I just got back,
Well, a hubba, hubba, hubba, let’s shoot some breeze,
Say, whatever happened to the Japanese?
Hmm, a hubba, hubba, hubba, haven’t you heard?
A hubba, hubba, hubba, slip me the word,
I got it from a guy who was in the know,
It was mighty smoky over Tokyo.
A friend of mine in a B-29 dropped another load for luck,
As he flew away, he was heard to say,
A hubba, hubba, hubba, yuk, yuk.
________________________________________
Perry Como had a gold record with this song in 1945. Excerpted from MetroLyrics.
I was listening to a talk by Victor Davis Hanson. He said by August 1945, LeMay had about 2000 bombers at his disposal, which were flying daily missions. The largest Japanese cities had been firebombed to the point that 50-70% of their area was destroyed, and LeMay had already started on medium-size cities. LeMay's plan was, with the end of war in Europe, to bring that up to 8,000-10,000 bombers by spring of 1946.
IMHO, the Emperor of Japan was "lucky" the US used atom bombs. If gave him the face, and political cover, to argue to his most hawkish, dead-end elements that unless they surrendered, Japan would simply cease to exist before too long
Dad was a corporal in the 3rd Amphibious Corps, Signal Battalion. He was suited up to go in the first day, but there were no casualties on the beach; it was a huge traffic jam. He had to stand down and wait till the second day.
Because of Okinawa, after VJ Day, he had enough combat points to go home three times over, but the Marine Corps declared him “essential” and sent him to Tientsin to help build a million watt radio transmitter.
When he finally got back to South Carolina all the pretty girls had been scooped up by the men who had beat him home, so he was a bachelor for another year. Then one day, he and a friend saw some pretty Winthrop College freshmen girls walking along Oakland Ave. and stopped to offer them a ride to town. One of them was to become my mom. He let them off on Main St. and of course managed to be ready just at the time they needed to ride back. On the way back, the girls in the back seat were speaking in French and mom said that they thought these guys were cute.
They let them off at the school and driving away in the ‘39 Ford Coupe he said to his friend,
“Did you get what they were saying? They liked us, said we were cute.”
“WHAT!? Well where are ya goin’? Let’s go back and ask ‘em to go to dinner with us!”
“OK, but I’m tellin’ ya, that brunette is MINE!”
For those of us without any military experience maybe someone can enlighten me. Had we not developed the atomic bomb, wouldn’t it have been less costly in Allied lives just to clamp a blockade around the islands and just starve them out? If memory serves Japan was not self-sufficient even in food much less raw materials. Cutting them off from China and Korea would have soon led to even worse shortages.
During a lull in the fighting, Dad was sitting in the mud drinking coffee from a metal cup, and set the cup down for a moment. When he picked it up again, as he was sipping the coffee, he noticed that he had set the cup on the chest of a dead Japanese soldier. It always bothered him that he was not bothered by that.
My Dad was there.
At the time there was no talk about "saving allied lives" there was only talk of absolute unconditional surrender, which everyone knew the Japs would never agree to do.
Tokyo and Sendai, 1954 to 1957.
Okinawa, 1964 to 1967.
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