My earliest memory I was five or so and was sitting on my grandfathers lap while we "read the paper". It was one of my favorite things. He was fond of wearing a tank top t-shirt. I saw the bullet hole scar in his shoulder and asked how he got that.

He replied "that's where that German shot me in the war".

I simply asked if he shot him back.

He replied "I shot his stinking head off"

You can imagine the words my grandmother had for him next. Quite hilarious. He was plain spoken man and told it like it was.

On the banks of the Rhine River after the capture of the Remagen Bridge. His unit was sleeping in a field and German planes tried to bomb it at night. He jumped up and put on boots and ran to a nearby ditch. As he was sitting in the ditch he noticed something very strange. He was looking at two left feet... He had put on his left boot and his tent mate left boot. Also told of seeing jets for the first time as they tried to bomb the bridge..

When my brother and I would spend several weeks with the grandparents during the summer we would always lay in bed and listen to his stories... War stories, fishing stories, baseball stories ( he was a minor league ball play before he got married) stories of his childhood in Muskogee,Oklahoma.... He was a great story teller.

I got his unit's war book at some point after he passed. He never told the stories about finding the extermination camps...

Most of the stories of my dad in the Pacific came from some who served with him that I got in touch with after he died. As I mentioned, others came from him swapping stories with others who fought in that war that I heard them talking about it. A very few happened late in his life after he had a stroke. I suppose the stroke damaged some part of his brain that made him able to talk about it, or want to talk about it. One story he told involved a pretty much instantaneous killing of an entire Japanese platoon and retelling it caused him to cry. No one should ever have to witness their father crying.

One story I overheard him tell was his landing on Tarawa. Those who have done much reading on that battle know that there were so many miscalculations and errors and stupid mistakes and our Marines and Navy personnel paid the price. On the night before they landed, they cleaned their weapons and coated them with cosmoline. As soon as they hit the beach, the sand stuck to their weapons. Dad was a BAR man and once he got fully to the coconut log seawall he had to clean his BAR.

He saw a Japanese soldier raise up and fire his rifle at the Marines coming ashore. It happened three or four times as he got his BAR ready to fire. Once he did, the Japanese soldier raised back up and dad shot at him. But missed. He talked of being so scared he "couldn't grab his ass with both hands and a ten to one swage." Dad was 23 1/2 years old, so older than most, he had run away from home when he was 11, had lived in a tent for a couple of years during the depression with slightly older uncle. So he knew hardship, he knew struggle and hunger and had, by necessity, grown up faster than many and become a man early in life. And yet all this, the fighting and killing, was beyond his (and likely anyone's) ability to cope with.

Again the Japanese raised up and dad missed him again. The third time he missed dad felt that the Japanese then knew someone was seeing him, actually targeting him, and the shots were not just random fire coming from the beach or the LVT and Higgins boats. Dad figured the Japanese would come up somewhere else and sure enough he did. Dad said to himself that he had to kill this man, either calm down enough to kill him or most likely he would be dead himself before the sun set. When the Japanese raised back up he shot him in the forehead and his helmet (or hat) and what was in his head went out the back of it. He said after that, though still scared, he was more able to function.

As you delve into things, there are so many things that come up, questions that can't be answered since those who were there are now dead. I had figured that in this situation, he had set his BAR to fire semi-automatic since he had a single, fixed target. But pictures I have show him with an M1918A2 which had two rates of fire, slow automatic and fast automatic. I suppose he chose slow automatic but can never know.

Much of our documentation showed dad as a member of L/3/2 which were in Higgins boats and the Higgins boats could not get across the coral reef so the Marines had to wade in, wading 400 to 800 yards and being shot at the entire wade. (After my first trip to Tarawa, I learned he was in K/3/2 so came in on an alligator.) I wanted to recreate his wade in. I walked out what I guess was 400 yards or so and turned to look at the beach. (One of the Marines who was in my dad's squad had borrowed one of my books and had written in it and marked where they came ashore.) I lined up on where he came in and began my walk. Wearing flip flops, shorts, a fishing shirt and carrying only a phone and a camera, I thought about him in boots, those much thicker cloth uniforms of the day, a helmet, trenching tool, Ka-Bar, (possibly a grenade or two), that 20 or so pound BAR, bandolier with ten 20 round magazines of 30.06 ammo, etc. and I couldn't wrap my head around it all. All on a frame of 145 or so pounds.

After the wade in, I walked the entire length of Red Beach 1, so that I know my feet crossed where his did in 1943. I don't ever say "walk in his footsteps" though. Not worthy of saying that. Though I could recreate where he came ashore, I could not recreate the sound, the smell, the fury of that day.

I had hoped my children would one day visit Tarawa. I was glad none were there that day. No child should ever witness their father crying.

Sorry for the long post.

Posted this about five years ago on the 75th anniversary of DDay:

Felt like I owed this to my dad on the 75th anniversary of D-day. What could I post that wasn't just another....let's not forget their heroism? Instead, I decided to post something that gives a little more insight into the psyche of those very young boys who were seeing horrific things expecting to day on any given day. This one probably won't make any History Channel documentaries:

Quick background: My dad didn't talk much about the combat he saw in WWII. He was in the 505th parachute infantry regiment of the 82nd Airborne, Company I, 3rd battalion. Eisenhower once stated that the 505th was technically the most decorated unit of the European theatre having been awarded four presidential unit citations. He jumped at Normandy and liberated the first French town, Ste. Mere Eglise. He jumped in Holland at the second bridge, saw heavy combat in the battle of the bulge, and fought his way on into Germany. The 505th then occupied the American sector of Berlin. He marched in the 82nd airborne victory parade in NYC on January 12, 1946 upon his return and was discharged through San Antonio the following month. He was awarded a silver star, two bronze stars and two purple hearts during his service. He never talked about the combat he saw....just with a sentence or two here or there. He did say a couple of times that my uncle who was killed during the breakout from Normandy and buried in France was a hero. (He was the first 19 year old to volunteer from Beaumont, Texas.)

He did not volunteer to serve. He was a very poor farm boy living in Vidor, Texas, and working at the shipyard in Port Arthur when he was drafted into the army at the age of 20 in 1943. He was sent to Camp Wolters in Mineral Wells, Texas for basic training. Toward the completion of basic, they asked for volunteers for the airborne. He said he figured he was going to die anyway and since it paid twice as much as the regular infantry and you got to wear really cool boots that the young girls liked....he volunteered and went to jump school at Fort Benning. He completed jump school and was immediately shipped to the UK as a replacement in the 82nd Airborne prior to D-day.

While he did not talk about the combat, he did talk about the women. He did not care for the British women but was very enamored with the French and German women. I think he was injured too quickly in Holland to ever form an opinion of the Dutch women. Although I never saw him set foot in a church, he was straight as an arrow once he was married. I can't remember him ever once not being either at work or with his family. In his spare time he never met friends....just constantly took us wilderness camping. (hard core, two weeks without seeing anyone and using buried ice blocks in a canvas tarp for a fridge kind of camping). Would drink one beer a year when we were on vacation camping and encouraged us to never gamble.

Well, he had a box of his war souvenirs that included stolen German materials, Nazi coins, Gestapo armband, pieces of one of his parachutes, old rations, tools etc. But he also had a letter among the souvenirs that he always kind of bragged about. He said the letter was from his French girlfriend, Gossette. Was the only letter amongst his souvenirs. According to the letter, she sent it to him on August 11, 1945 while he was occupying Berlin. (It's interesting she sent it on this date as it would have then been clear he wouldn't have to go to die in Japan as was expected). But it was in French and he said he never was able to read it. Now, I always felt sure he must have had it interpreted....but clearly he did not. After he had been dead for about a dozen years, I had a French colleague interpret it for me. My French colleagues eyes lit up with a spark as he silently read it. Here are the contents of the letter from his French "girlfriend" revealed publicly for the first time on this 75th anniversary of the night he first set foot in France as interpreted by my colleague back around 1993:

"As promised, I am writing to you. Today being Saturday and having been in bed for several days because of a toothache. I am coming to write you.

Douglas, this letter is not a love letter but simply a reflection of your conduct towards me. When I met you for the first time, it was at the door of the establishment. You then accompanied me to this place where we agreed to meet. A few, calm days went by and I felt that you loved me. One night that it was raining real hard you absolutely wanted to go walking to the place where we first met. When you realized that I wasn't going to give in and go for a walk, you left with a simple "good night."

A few days later you came back to the house where once again we "got together." One night I introduced you to an adjoining room which was my personal bedroom so that I could stay longer with you and we would be more comfortable together. This lasted quite a long time and I won't hide myself from telling you that I was really happy to be there alone with you.

It may have been otherwise for you, I don't doubt that you were happy, but I don't think you were in love. I am not an idiot. I felt it when you told me "I love you Gossette." You didn't understand me. But I would answer, "why tell me lies?" I despise that because there was really no truth in what you were saying.

If you had loved me as you so often said, you wouldn't have acted as you so often did. When you came with your dear Antoinette....if I hadn't been there then, I would have understood that you would have passed you free time as you felt. Again if you had loved me, you wouldn't have told me about your relationships with Denise, Dellile, as well as our mutual friend, Jacqueline.

One day that I remember very well which reflect your lack of honesty.....sometimes you told me you could not have any children. You told me one story about the American nurse and one famous evening you told me that our mutual friend Jacqueline was pregnant. Thus I was disappointed by all of this.

If I had found myself pregnant from you, I wouldn't have wanted to have the child. If you had loved me, would you have shown my letter to another lady who was your intimate friend. The lady friend told me that was a cowardly act. If you had loved me, would you have gone after me as you did Antoinnette? Would you have bad-mouthed me with the tall blonde by telling her I did not kiss well?

Let me remind you that I paid you to come spend five minutes with me and to remind you of the moments that we spent together and not with a simple kiss. As for myself, if I had not loved you...would I have given you money? You think I would have spent my time admiring you liked I used to do when I could have had a customer that would give me 400-500 francs? No Douglas, don't believe that. Now don't be angry with me because I was writing you, I should have told you face to face since I have the reputation of being very straight-forward. People have always admired me for my honesty.

Do not believe that all French girls are the same. If today I am a *****, it is not to enrich myself but because of the moment I spent with you. I don't need to do it to make a living. With these words I am leaving you with no ill feelings and I send all my affection. Here is my address in case you felt the need to answer me; which I doubt cause you have not been honest with me in the past.

Name and address which I am not going to include in this post."


My commentary: BSC certainly doesn't appear to be a new thing.

Well, my mom and dad met about four years later when my dad was working on an oil tanker running between Port Arthur and New Jersey. They got married after two months and left that area of Texas as quickly as they could. They didn't have kids for four years, and I came along late in their lives. They remained married until the day he died. Very much a straight and narrow guy as I mentioned. Never talked about the heavy combat but only smiled as he said the women were very nice.