Condolences on the Beach

My father's brother was a Marine in World War II. He was killed by a sniper during the battle for the coral atoll of Palau.

A considerable amount of time later, my father, a sergeant in the Air Force, had just waded onto a Philippine beach 800 miles west of Palau when the officer commanding his advance party came up to him with an envelope. He opened it and handed my father an American Red Cross message reporting the death of his brother. Then, while troops and equipment kept coming ashore, the officer handed Dad a cup, opened a whiskey bottle and poured it into the cup.

After a few words of condolence, the officer moved away and Dad went on with his work but he never forgot that brief moment of empathy shown by his commanding officer. 

Pray for peace.

Sergeants from the Fifth Bomber Command

There's my dad, in the back row, to the right of the sergeant with the glasses. I found this photo on a great site PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF BOMBER COMMAND STATION LIFE
PREPARED BY MAJOR BERNHARDT L. MORTENSEN.

My dad is mentioned in the memoir as one of the men who organized "The Bomb Bay Review." After the war, Dad worked for the Jersey Journal. I guess writing is simply part of my genes.

For Veteran's Day, I give my thanks to all who have served our country. To those who are serving now, I offer my prayers.

Gaining a Future

This is an anniversary for my father. Seventy-three years ago, he walked into a recruiting station. I am here because he did not die in combat, though his brother did. My father wrote this short article about his experience. In the photo below, he is on the right.

Gaining a Future

by Raymond Kierce 

Seventy-three years ago on May 8th, I was a twenty-year old novice journalist and college freshman, but there was a war going on. I knew that if I was drafted I would not have a choice in which branch of the service I would serve. So I caught a bus from my parents' Jersey City home and went to a military recruiting facility. I passed the physical and enlisted in the Army Air Force.

After training at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, and a golf course in Miami Beach, my fellow recruits and I were shipped to San Francisco where we boarded an ocean liner and sneaked out of port.

Racing across the vast Pacific with only dolphins as our escorts, we celebrated the Crossing the Line with King Neptune when we crossed the equator.

I soon found myself with the Fifth Bomber Command on the other side of the world in New Guinea. The Japanese government gave us an explosive welcome with an air raid by 100 bombers. It was quite a sight as our P38 fighters tore among them.

The Japs owned most of New Guinea at that point. American and Australian soldiers stopped their advance 17 miles from Port Moresby. Port Moresby is only 530 miles from Australia. Australia came very close to being overrun by Japanese forces.

For the next three years, the Allies pushed ever closer to Japan, seizing back territory, island by island.

In August, 1945, to my surprise, I was given a leave home to Jersey and ordered to return to Clark Field, Manila, in thirty days.

I learned many years later that President Harry Truman had ordered plans drawn for Operation Olympic (attacking the southern island of Kyūshū) and set November 1, 1945, for the invasion of Japan.

More than 40% of all servicemen still in uniform in 1945 would have been assigned to two amphibious assaults. At that time, it was estimated that American casualties would have totaled one million during that invasion.

Since I would have been back in the Philippines in September, there is no doubt in my mind that I would have been assigned to the invasion of Japan.

When the two atomic bombs were dropped to end the war, millions of servicemen gained a future, including me.

One Long Dark Night

My father has rarely talked of his experiences as a sergeant in the Air Force during during World War II. He was stationed in New Guinea and the Philippines. When I was young he told us of a few humorous incidents, but nothing that ever even hinted at the horrors of war. For instance, once he was assigned to fly on a plane to Australia to pick up musicians and supplies. On the return trip, one of the plane's engines died and to make it back safely those inside had to lighten the load--part of which was gin. Did the men on board get toss the gin into the ocean? Of course not. They tossed out the musicians' instruments.

This story always made everyone laugh, and Dad has always been rather witty. However, since Mom died, he's become much more philosophical. And he still gets emotionally choked up--over just about everything.

Last Sunday, as we chatted after dinner, he related some war stories he had never told us. In one of them, he told how Japanese paratroopers floated down from the sky at dusk one evening on the island where he was stationed. My father set his men along a perimeter but as night wore on, he could not see the men and he did not know if the perimeter would hold.

He told us he was never so glad to see the dawn and to discover that indeed his men were still there. Dad got choked up as he told us the story.

Dad told us how he slept under a canvas roof for three years. How his job was to get men to work on an landing strip made of metal plates. How the enemy would come in with "daisy cutters" and shoot at the men. How the enemy planes would drop bombs on the landing strip.

Last year, I posted a photo I found online of my father. You can find the post here.

Dad wears a cap with the emblem of the Fifth Bomber Command sewed onto it. Most people have no idea what the emblem stands for. However, only a few weeks ago--at the dermatologist's office--we met another elderly man who had served in the Fifth, though in Korea. My father got choked up again, simply amazed after all these years he had found someone else who belonged to the Fifth--who knew what the emblem stood for.

I am glad my father made it back to New Jersey.

I pray for all those soldiers who are fighting now.