A veteran — whether on active duty, retired, served one hitch, national guard unit or reserve, deployed multiple times or never — is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to “The Government of the United States of America” for an amount “up to and including his life.”
When invited by Tim Davis, president of the Greatest Generations Foundation, to journey back to where we had engaged in World War II combat, the decision of 11 Marine veterans was not as easy as it might appear on the surface. After all, their battles in the South Pacific had been unbelievably traumatic encounters. Several had been wounded and all had witnessed the killing and wounding of thousands of their fellow Marines while defeating the enemy in a grueling person-to-person conflict.
Bruce Heilman today …
|
… and in World War II
|
What reactions and emotions might be triggered by a return, 65 years later, to locations and memories that you had partially erased from your minds over the years? Would it open old wounds of grief for fallen comrades and of bitterness for the Japanese? Would this be a journey of sadness and sorrow? Could we after all these years find solace from deeply ingrained emotional scars? Could a healing be effected by revisiting those remembered places now overlaid with nature’s cover and utilized for constructive purposes?
These and other questions had to be answered by each of the Marines, now 65 years older than when they endured these experiences on those long ago “gone but not forgotten” battlegrounds.
Finally, with an affirming and even longing spirit of anticipation, 10 Marine survivors of the Battle for Iwo Jima and I, who landed on the beaches of Okinawa, decided to make the journey.
Due to a quirk of circumstances, I, too, am an Iwo Jima survivor, however. A plane in which I was riding crashed on takeoff from the Iwo airstrip and for a few brief seconds all on board faced certain death. By God’s grace, however, we walked away.
Thus, over the years I have been accepted by Marines from that battle as a survivor, although my engagement was swift and sudden while theirs was slow, prolonged and hostile. My respect for their grueling ordeal thus demands this clarification of how I too became an Iwo Jima survivor.
We 11, dubbed by Tom Brokaw as part of “The Greatest Generation,” were blessed to be given an opportunity to return to the scenes that had laid the foundation for who we had become. These lines are a summary of our experience involving 11 of the 17 million who served in World War II, of whom fewer than two million survive. They are dying at the rate of 30,000 a month. We were further blessed by being accompanied by a group of students from the College of the Ozarks.
The purpose of our trip was to provide a unique learning experience for the students by observing firsthand the dedication and commitment of World War II veterans as they engaged in defending their country.
Each of the Marines developed a deep affection for the student who was his escort. Mine held my hand when she thought I might slip and fall in the mud as we visited a cave on Okinawa. I did fall, failing to remember as she did, that I was no longer the 18-year-old Marine who climbed these ridges so long ago.
Because of our common background we Marines were able to interact with each other seriously or with a bit of disarming humor. We could shed tears or we could be filled with anticipation as we observed, remembered, reflected and wondered whether it had all really been true. After all, while many things were the same, much had changed.
These long ago experiences and the resulting reflections flooded our minds as we journeyed toward places to which we had had no expectation of ever returning. I recalled that in early 1945, I began a journey from San Diego to the South Pacific. I had joined the Marines as a 17-year-old when in my mother’s mind’s eye I was just barely dry behind the ears. Yet, a few months later at age 18, I was joining a host of other Marines aboard a troop ship attached to a convoy bound for points unknown to the hundreds of Marines in the bowels of the ship.
Following the initial seasickness, and coming to grips with the reality of it all, we progressed beyond Hawaii and moved into the deep Pacific where potentialities of serious consequences lay ahead. Occasionally, this uncertainty was interrupted by reality. When a Japanese submarine was observed tracking our convoy, appropriate action was taken to minimize the risk of losing a ship and hundreds of Marines.
The greatest concern was of being torpedoed on a dark night while deep in the hold of the ship. Getting out would be the first priority; the alternative would be to drown. Surviving in oily and burning water was the next challenge with sharks to follow. Being rescued under these circumstances whether or not in the heat of battle, even if one survived, was uncertain at best. A high school classmate of mine was on the “Indianapolis” when it went down with casualties of 1,200 out of 1,500. He and most others failed to survive the sharks.
The news being picked up by the convoy and passed along in daily bulletins was neither positive for the Marines nor for the sailors aboard ship. More and more Japanese suicide squadrons were rendering disastrous damage to our ships off Okinawa. If that was our destination, then we speculated that we might not survive the suicide planes long enough to become reinforcements for outfits already landed and in mortal conflict with a determined enemy.
Not only were we to become the fresh troops which would bolster the forces already on Okinawa, but we would also be a part of the forward force for the coming invasion of the Japanese homeland. That battle, projected to take place on Nov. 15, 1945, was to be a do-or-die situation with the latter appearing to be the most probable result. My journey to the battlefield was representative of that which each of the Marines now returning to the South Pacific had experienced.
Fast-forwarding 65 years would find all of us on a journey which would not require a long period of adjustment, or sweltering nights in the hot hold of a ship nor being deprived of tasteful food and drink. We would, on this later occasion, fly in a Japanese airliner, have a grand meal in flight, see two movies, relax in a pleasant environment and arrive in a period of only 15 hours at the country which had been the enemy of long ago.
From Tokyo we flew to Okinawa, now a prefecture of Japan. Immediately upon landing a strong impression of the nature of change struck me. The immense overlay of buildings, roadways, airport facilities, massive traffic and swarms of people was almost overpowering in contrast with the destruction I remembered.
As we entered a Marine Corps base I observed the American and the Japanese flags flying together and remembered that this was land where many Marines had died to take down one of those flags while Japanese had died by the thousands to prevent the raising of the other. Such contradictions, no matter how confusing and disconcerting, result from the continuous shifting of the sands of time.
We drove near the city of Naha to the beaches where I had landed during the war. Here I had dug in and slept on the beach the first night after landing. Hearing the sounds of aircraft and shelling in the distance made me aware of the serious nature of our engagement. Today that landing beach is overlaid with progress. Comrades have moved on or passed on and memories affect very little the things that matter today. What was important in the past, even if earthshaking then and seemingly worth dying for, is of little consequence in the minds of those who now live there.
In the 82 days of battle on Okinawa an average of some 2,500 people died every day. This included American Marines, soldiers, sailors, Japanese warriors and tens of thousands of Okinawans. The Okinawans were begged to come out of their caves, but fearful their women would be raped and all of them tortured, often they refused and were thus treated as combatants. The caves were then destroyed by flame throwers, dynamite and bulldozers. It was that kind of war.
My college student companion in her blog commented, “My veteran said that it’s hard for him to connect the Okinawa he is seeing right now with the Okinawa he fought on.” Further she observed, “As we looked out on an idealistic scene of pristine sand, green grass and beautiful blue water, it was hard to envision the vast number of ships and landing craft once riding those waves. As we looked over the beach my Marine described what is was like to land and dig foxholes, and how it felt to be engaged in combat.”
We were invited to attend a Marine Corps Battle Colors ceremony at Camp Foster. At the stadium we were given front row seats and introduced by the commanding general as honored guests for the evening.
One student recalled, “The crowd stood to their feet and applauded as the veterans took off their red caps and waved them proudly. It was indescribable to see these men honored by so many people who admired them for their bravery. A line formed that stretched for probably 60 yards. People were taking pictures and thanking each veteran personally.”
We Marines were touched as well by the hundreds of people standing in line just to shake our hands. Many were high school and grade school students. Even small children wanted autographs, a request which we Marines accommodated with pride. To them we were ancient warriors.
Next time: Iwo Jima and Hiroshima. Bruce Heilman is chancellor of the University of Richmond.
Bruce Heilman: Today and during World War II