Dem
47
GOP
53
This week, and continuing for the next three weeks, we're running stories about the people who have helped to keep America safe over the years. Many of the submissions we get run 500-2,000 words, and so work well as their own standalone item. But we also get a lot of briefer reminiscences. So, on Fridays this month, we're going to present collections of those. Here's the first set:
M.D.H. in Coralville, IA: When the U.S. used two atomic bombs, my late father—who would later meet my mother as a grad student in Madison, then join her in teaching at UW-Milwaukee for many years; he taught U.S. History, and she taught Modern Europe and also English)—was a crew member on an ammunition ship in the Pacific. My father's first thought on hearing the news of the bombings on the radio was, "Now I know I will have a future."
He wrote his second thoughts in a letter home:
Most of these people were killed by the radiations of the blast. I believe that nothing in the world can justify the use of such a bomb. It cannot be kept a secret indefinitely. We have loosed on the world the monster that can destroy us all. It could be the greatest disaster since the Flood.In December 1945, his ship passed under the Golden Gate Bridge at night. Somebody had arranged for lights in houses on the hills of San Francisco to spell out "WELCOME HOME." In the galley, where Dad was one of the cooks, "Pat and I could not make salads fast enough" during the final few days before the crew was paid off and allowed to go home, because everyone had only had canned and frozen food for months at sea. "Allowed to go home," of course, didn't mean leaving right away; it took a while for thousands of sailors to arrange transportation out of San Francisco.
I doubt the Golden Gate Bridge could have looked more beautiful to anybody than it did to the crew of the Whitman Victory that night in 1945.
P.G. in Boston, MA: My Great Uncle was Robert Carver North (possibly a name familiar to one of the Electoral-Vote.com authors). As far as I know the story, he volunteered for the Marines the day after Pearl Harbor. Early in the war, he volunteered for a role as a Marine ground spotter. The role entailed arriving days or weeks ahead of an invading force, and getting in position to direct aircraft and naval bombardments to assist the main Marine assaults. He was more or less on his own from the time he was dropped, usually in a one man dinghy, until the Marines arrived at his position some days or weeks later. He was in combat several times, including the Battle of Saipan. In July of 1945, he volunteered for a suicide mission to land on the Japanese mainland in preparation for the U.S. invasion. As he told me this story, the assignment was volunteer only, as he would be assigned a location where he would surely be overrun by the Japanese prior to the invasion reaching his position. The mission was scrubbed due to Japan's surrender in August after the dropping of the atomic bombs.
After the war, he became a professor of Political Science at Stanford University, earning his Ph.D. through the GI Bill. During these studies, he published a book that in places took aim at McCarthyism, and, as noted in his obituary, drew a rebuke from former President Herbert Hoover. Apparently, Robert Carver North was a constant splinter in his mind. High praise, indeed! He wrote several books, and is credited with pioneering quantitative analytical methods in international studies. In the 1960s, at a conference in India, he met a Japanese man he started a collaboration with, apparently co-authoring several articles (although I can not find these online). The conversation that triggered the collaboration was one in which the two men discovered that not only had they both served in combat, but they were likely shooting at each other's foxholes at Saipan. The work my great uncle was most known for was his analysis that war is not the default state of human relations, but an aberration. His work largely focused on trying to understand the measurable factors that led nations into war, and whether we could avert armed conflict through better understanding of those factors.
I only met my great uncle a few times. He lived his adult life in California, near Stanford. I was born and raised in Massachusetts. I learned some of Robert's story from my grandmother. However, in the summer of 1999, my mother and I took a trip to California to visit much of her extended family. One night, while staying with Uncle Bob and his wife, Dorothy, Bob took me aside, and talked to me for 2 or 3 hours about his war experiences. That fall, when I talked about that conversation, she told me that what Bob had talked about, she had never heard before. I don't know what triggered the flood of memories or the need to put them into words. Perhaps I reminded him of the person he was when he went off to war, as I was 20 at the time. Robert Carver North died in 2004.
D.L. in Upper Saddle River, NJ: My father-in-law, Emil L. Nelson, grew up on a farm in Eastern Montana and joined the Montana National Guard after graduating from high school in 1939, presumably to help pay for college at the University of Washington. The Montana National Guard regiment was combined with other National Guard units from the Pacific Northwest to form the 163rd Infantry Regiment, which was assigned to the 41st Infantry Division. The 163rd Infantry Regiment left San Francisco for Australia early in 1942 and were deployed at the end of the year to Papua New Guinea to help defend Port Moresby from the Japanese. They were sent to fight along the Sanananda Trail, which was an elevated road descending the Owen Stanley mountains to Port Moresby and surrounded by jungle swamp. The Japanese controlled the road, the Americans and allied units were positioned in the jungle. Emil did not like to talk about his combat experience, but eventually he shared some of the details with us. He remembers being near the road one day, in the jungle, when a large contingent of Japanese troops began passing by, far outnumbering the members of his unit. They had to quickly crouch down in the jungle cover and remain completely silent while the Japanese troops cleared the area.
In a battle in early 1943, his unit was pinned down by a Japanese machine gun emplacement that had the high ground. Emil was one of a few soldiers who were given the task of destroying the pillbox that housed the machine gun. He was able to climb up the mountain slope to reach a position where he could throw a grenade into the pillbox, resulting in the elimination of the threat. While throwing the grenade he was shot in the upper arm and shoulder and was flung backwards down the slope. It took several days before he could be evacuated to a field hospital, during which time he was put with other injured soldiers in the jungle. Flies laid their eggs in the soldiers' wounds, and many soldiers were determined to remove the larvae in order to keep the wounds clean. Emil allowed the larvae to remain and they consumed the dead flesh around his wound, which he credits for his survival. Many of the soldiers who removed the larvae died of sepsis from the rotting flesh before they could receive treatment at a field hospital. He received a Purple Heart and a Silver Star for his actions that day. Here is the text of his Silver Star citation:
The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star to Sergeant Emil Leroy Nelson (ASN: 20929239), United States Army, for gallantry in action while serving with Company F, 2d Battalion, 163d Infantry Regiment, 41st Infantry Division, in action against the enemy at Sanananda Point, New Guinea, on 18 January 1943. The gallant actions and dedicated devotion to duty demonstrated by Sergeant Nelson, without regard for his own life, were in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself and the United States Army.After recuperating in an Army hospital in Australia, he was assigned to General MacArthur's motor pool and served as his driver for a period of time. For the rest of his life, he absolutely detested MacArthur and was never shy about expressing that opinion in the strongest terms.
J.M. in Arvada, CO: My maternal grandfather, Maurice Botham, was a career Navy man. Oddly, that meant my mom went to high school in Billings (a cross-posting with the Air Force in Montana) but they ended back up in the Seattle area after retirement, where I grew up.
My grandfather passed away in the 80's, when I was 11, so I only have 'kid' memories of him and I was never old enough to even understand asking him about the war. Lately, I've been reading Ian W. Toll's Pacific War trilogy, so I asked my mom what she remembers about my grandfather's service. After some back and forth with her and my uncle, I found out that he missed the Battle of Midway as his ship, the USS San Diego, was escorting the Saratoga but they didn't arrive in time. He eventually ended up on the USS Ticonderoga and was aboard it on January 21, 1945, off (now) Taiwan when it was hit with a kamikaze attack. He survived the attack and stayed on board as the ship limped back to Bremerton, WA, for repairs. While in drydock he was given leave and took the train to Portland, OR, where he met a nurse. They eventually got married and raised three kids, added a fourth college-age daughter (who was my mom's college roommate and who was far from home looking for a family at the holidays), 9 grandkids, and I've lost count of the number of great-grandkids at this point. I didn't know my grandfather as any sort of sailor or military man, but I know that, like most people of his generation, he sacrificed a lot for the war effort.
S.D. in York, England. UK: This is inspired by R.A. in Paris, who wrote: "Like many veterans, he would talk about his military experiences but never about combat."
My grandfather served in World War II. Before his birth, his parents had desperately wanted a girl, so they already had a name picked out: Shirley. When he turned out to be a boy, they gave him the name anyway.
Just before he shipped off to the war, he and my grandmother found out they were expecting their first child. Knowing he would be overseas for the birth, my grandmother asked him, "What should we name the baby?"
He replied, "I want a Junior."
My grandmother completely misunderstood his meaning. Thinking he meant a literal namesake for himself, rather than just "a son," she dutifully named my uncle Shirley Jr.
I share this story because it is practically the only thing our family knows about my grandfather's time in the war. Whenever I asked him as a child where he served or what he did, his answer was always the same: "I served in the South Pacific." He refused to share anything else with anyone.
Now that I am an adult, I can understand that war is hell. He simply couldn't bring himself to speak about the things he had experienced and witnessed.
He went on to raise five children in total. He was not an easy man, but I will never forget his "non-story" of the war. It speaks volumes all on its own.
J.R. in Barto, PA: My father-in-law, Bill Eaton, grew up in a tough Texas oil town and signed up in 1939 for what was then the Army Air Corps. His posting to Hickam Field on Oahu meant that some of the first shots of America's war were fired at him. The Army sent him to the southwest Pacific, where he crewed B-17s in combat, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross and Silver Star. Bill's wartime experiences made him a nearly absolute pacifist. Remembering him on Memorial Day, I'd encourage your readers to consider and respect the central lesson taken from battle by one of the best men I have known.
Thanks to all of you. We'll have more next week. (Z)