Dad at the Battle of Midway
Tuesday, June 5th, 2007Thanks to Glenn at Ballseye’s Boomers for reminding where Dad was in 1942.
Dad’s been gone for almost a year now and the stories got pretty mixed up and far between, in his last year or so, but I remember quite of bit of most of them when I’m correctly prodded. 
Dad carried a BAR during his tour of WWII. An island hopping adventure, looking to meet new people and use them for target practice. He told about how on the landing boat, heading for the first island, he stripped everything off the BAR except the sling. He said it was just to heavy. He spoke of his partner, his ammo man. The big guy who carried the big bag of loaded 20 round BAR magazines, along with his own M-1 Carbine and ammo (and later just a .45, so he could carry more ammo for the BAR)
He said they had swept over innumerable islands and cleared them of enemies, and were scheduled for some R&R at the rear. He said they were only in the rear long enough to get down about half of a 3.2 beer, when the order came to head back to the field. It seems that a company of Marines were pinned down by snipers, ahead of the battle line on Truk island. It was raining, (like it did nearly everyday) and everything was mud and puddles of water in the shell holes. His group moved slowly toward where the Marine’s were pinned. Moving from one shell hole to the next, splashing down in the muddy water. As darkness came, they were in linking up with the Marines, and he and his ammo guy, spent the night in a large shell hole, under a rain poncho, lying in about 8 inches of muddy water. The word was, it was very dangerous, and to keep out of sight.
They didn’t hear a sniper shot all night long and in the morning, the sun came out. Stiff and chilled from the night in the water, he told the ammo guy he was going to sit up and have a cigarette. Ammo guy, tried to talk him out of it, but he to stubborn and mad. He leaned the BAR on the edge of the crater, then pushed his helmet up on a stick. No bullets. Next he raised the helmet a little further, this time on his head. Again no shots. Seeing a couple of other American heads popping up, he decided that the sniper’s had pulled out, so he followed through, he sat up and litup a soggy G.I. issue cigarette.
About half way through it, he felt a burning in his chest, then heard the rifle crack. He slid down into the mud, and blacked out. He awoke a time later, and his ammo man and the medic were hovering over him. “Ammo dude”, talked with him and slipped and small Japanese notebook, and half a pack of Japanese cigarettes into his pocket.
It seems that when the sniper had fired, hitting Dad squarely through the right lung, Ammo dude had seen a puff of smoke in a Palm bush/tree. Ammo guy, grabbed the BAR and proceeded to put a couple of magazines into the small tree. This was pretty unhealthy for the sniper, and he didn’t make it to the hospital zone. When things cleared out later that morning, a couple of the Marines brought a few of the snipers personal affects over and gave them to Ammo man.
I never saw any identification papers, just the half pack of cigarettes, the little note book with some scrawling in Japanese, and a Japanese shoulder patch, all purportedly taken off the sniper’s body. (I still have them)
Then medic patched Dad up and someone transported him back to the beach where he was treated in a large white hospital tent. He remembered the tent being straffed by Japanese planes, the bullets kicking up the sandy floor, and finishing off more than a few of his fellow injured soldiers. He remembered the Doctor’s using a very long needle, to stick through his ribs into his lung to suck out the blood, so he could breath. He said it hurt a lot worse than getting shot!
He lost some time and the next thing he remembered was waking up on the deck of a huge white hospital ship. It was so full, they had injured on the deck under while hospital tarps. He remembered being frantically and roughly carried below decks and hearing machine gun bullets zinging and whining and Japanese planes straffed the Hospital ship. It turned out that this episode turned out to be the Battle of Midway.
Dad was shipped back to Hawaii to recover well enough to be shipped home. When they figured he was strong enough, they put him back on a boat to states, destination, a Military hospital in Colorado. He still had the Jap cigarettes and the notebook, but regretted not having a Japanese sword,, and also having lost the large hand made combat knife he had bought in Hawaii, before he shipped off to war.
In the hospital when he was nearly well enough to be discharged, he was wheeling through one of the wards, chatting with various others, when he noticed what looked like -his- knife, laying on a bedridden soldiers window sill. He asked the guy where he got the knife and the guy answered that he had found it on Truk Island after a large battle. They talked and Dad told him about where he was shot, and a rough location, and the guy said, “Well, then I guess this is YOUR knife” and gave it to him.
Here’s a picture of Dad’s lost and found Hawaiin knife at the top, a hand made copy of a Randall #1, I made a few years ago, in the middle, and the old Western Cutlery knife my Dad carried when hunting before he went to war, at the bottom.
Top is leather handled, full tanged, 5.5 in blade, with steel guard and aluminum butt.
Middle, full tanged, sharped halfway on top edge, Rosewood handle, bronze guard.
Bottom, aluminum guard, leather then fake pearl, then leather handle, aluminum butt.
When he finally made it home after a couple of years of recovery, and was able to get out hunting again, he alway’s carried that old Hawaiin blade and usually a lever action Winchester.
Another thing I can remember about those stories, is the day he was released from the hospital and discharged. They dumped him in California, with only the clothes on his back and a few bucks. He wanted to call home to Arkansas to get his parents to send him money to get home, and went to a Red Cross center. The Red Cross, said they couldn’t allow every drifter who came in to use their phones and told him he didn’t look that hard up. No help to be found there. He wandered around town for a bit, and found a Salvation Army post. When he went in, they made him as a returned soldier, got him hot coffee and a sandwich, gave him a light jacket, (it was raining) and allowed him to use their phones to call home an arrange his travel there.
He was alway’s a bit hard toward the Red Cross and the Japanese, and had a big soft spot for the Salvation Army. (rightly so I guess?)
The only thing I personally remember about this portion of Dad’s life, is going to a V.A. hospital to visit him in the second half of the 1950’s. I must have been about 5 or 6. I remember sitting with him on the lawn in front of the hospital, asking him about the war, when he was coming home, etc, etc.. I don’t really remember why he was there, but I’m fairly sure it was war related, some kind of relapse or followup stuff.
He quite smoking in the late 60’s because his doctor told him that the smoke was killing his “good” lung. He never smoked or drank again after that Doc visit. He retired from G.M. with 30 years, and had a nice long retirement. His breathing gradually got worse as he got into his 80’s, but it was his heart that finally gave out. Many of his late life hospital doctors, couldn’t even tell that he had been shot through the right lung. They often ask him about the small round scar on his chest and his back, and the scars on his lung in the xrays. (The medic who patched him up, told him he was very luck that the Jap sniper had been using their smaller caliber rifle, had it been the alternative rifle, there would have been no saving him.
Share cropper’s son, to large farm owner’s son, in Arkansas, signed up with his brother’s after Pearl Harbor, drifted to Indiana and Michigan, married Mom and worked as a mechanic and raced jalopies, until GM hired him, then worked 30 years, and retired to a good long retirement. Not bad for a Southern boy. I’m afraid (and glad) that I won’t have any of those kind of stories to tell my Grand kids.
~~>Greybeard
My wife had one when she was a kid, and we thought we’d take a shot at getting her a replacement.