My dad was one of the early combatants in WWII on the American side. He had belonged to a National Guard unit prior to the Pearl Harbor attack and so was almost immediately mobilized. He was shipped to the South Pacific mid-1942, and landed on Guadalcanal in early November 1942. He remained in theater until 1946, saw action on Guadalcanal, New Guiney, and the Philippines before becoming part of the occupation force in Japan after the surrender. During his time in occupied Japan he got a 'dear John' letter (I guess in his case it was a 'dear Joe'
). He was introduced to my mom shortly after his return to the US while still 'on the rebound' - something I didn't find out about until I was an adult but helped explain much of the friction in their marriage while I was a kid
.
He didn't talk about his WWII experience much, with a few notable exceptions. He was wounded on Guadalcanal in 1942 on US Thanksgiving day - and he repeated this story every year on Thanksgiving when I was a kid. Short version, he was supposed to relieve a buddy at a forward observation post. Before he was going to head out, his buddy radioed in that he was already there, and my dad was already at his buddy's next assignment, so they should swap assignments and just say where they where and my dad concurred. Shortly thereafter, a mortar shell landed in my dad's foxhole - he got a piece of shrapnel in his neck, the other three guys in the foxhole were much more seriously wounded (one lost his foot). While my dad was in the field hospital, feeling sorry for himself since he wasn't supposed to be in that foxhole, he found out an artillery round had fallen short and landed on the outpost he was supposed to be manning, killing everyone. Sort of added a new dimension to 'Thanksgiving'.
On Guadalcanal, my dad had been the company intelligence officer - which meant he was allowed to have a camera, and he had a photo album from his time on Guadalcanal. He liked to sit down with us kids and go through it - talking about those dark but memorable days.
Some of it was hard for a child to listen to or appreciate - such as 'this was my buddy Bob- he was killed by a Jap sniper the day after this was taken'
. As I got older, I was better able to appreciate what he'd gone through, and became very interested in WWII history, especially with regard to the Pacific theater.
I always wonder about people who say, given the chance to live their life again, they'd not change a single thing
- really,
never a decision they regretted?
One of my biggest was right before my dad died, we'd traveled to a family reunion. My dad had sat down with one of my cousins to go through that Guadalcanal photo album (that cousin had lost an uncle on the other family tree in one of the sea battles around Guadalcanal). My mom asked me if I'd like to listen in and I responded to the effect of 'I'd heard it before' and went back to the magazine I was reading - it never occurred to me that might be the last chance I'd ever have to hear it (he was in apparently good health and 'only' 70). That night he had a severe asthma attack, stopped breathing, and went into a coma - 48 hours later he was dead
Post war, my had dad kept in touch with several of his military buddies, and regularly went to the reunions. I have a memory of one visiting us at our house - the guy had lost a leg to a land mine - and they spent many hours talking alone on the back porch (another regret - I wish I'd listened in)
One of my more interesting memories is, back in the mid-1980s, I'd read a book about the history of war. One thing claimed in the book was that researchers had discovered that well over half of the soldiers in WWII (all sides) were sufficiently adverse to killing that they either didn't fire their weapons, or intentionally fired to not hit anyone.
I thought this rather hard to believe so I asked my dad about it. His response was strange - along the line of 'that's a very interesting claim'. I got the very distinct feeling it was something he really didn't want to talk about. Knowing my dad, I find it hard to believe that it applied directly to him (for most my life, he'd hated the Japanese with a passion - I don't recall him ever referring to anyone Japanese as other than a disgusted "Jap" - in fact I knew 20 years before their bankruptcy that General Motors was in trouble when he - a lifelong GM guy - bought my mom a Subaru) but maybe he knew it applied to fellow soldiers.