[Homer_J_Simpson]

I planned to have some more material prepared about my family history to post here but I didn't quite get it done yet. At least as well as it should be done. So I will give it another shot and ping you all again when I am ready to add it to this thread. I should also write up my "what does it all mean?" thoughts and add that.

Just before D-Day, 14 or 15 months ago, I had a 30 day supply of news ready for posting. Since then I have steadily burned that down to where, for the last couple months, I have been racing to stay ahead of the calendar. That is my pitiful excuse for not having some well thought out remarks ready to finish up with. But I will do it, even if I only get half credit for being late. In the meantime, feel free to contribute your own thoughts on what we might learn from the biggest event of the twentieth century.

25,000 Men Ready (Jones) – 2-3
Japanese Premier Insists on Order – 3
Japanese Reduced to Poverty in War (Adler) – 4
Surrender Ceremony Marking Japan’s First Defeat in Her 2,600-Year-Old History (photos) – 4-7
Japanese Give Up Pacific Bastions – 5
Yamashita Yields in Philippines; Wainwright Takes the Surrender * – 6-7
Canadian’s ‘Boner’ Postponed Peace ** (Trumbull) – 8
334 U.S. Ships Hit in Okinawa Battle (Lawrence) – 8
Claims Old Bases – 9
World News Summarized – 9
Army Cuts Release Points to 80 for Men, 41 for Wacs – 10
Latest War Casualties – 11
Aiding of Wounded Called Army Task – 11
Communiques – 11

Editorials – 12-14
Japan’s Surrender
The Labor GI
Nomads Again
Back to School
National Nursing Needs
Grindstones
Topics of the Times

* My plan from the beginning was to end this series with the news reports of the surrender ceremony on the Missouri. I expected that news to appear in the Times on the 3rd, not realizing it took place on Sept. 1, New York Time, with the newspaper coverage appearing on the 2nd. But after I finished gathering the news from that date I took a peek at the following day just to see what I would miss. When I saw the Yamashita story, which revealed he surrendered to the CO of the 128th Infantry Regiment I knew I had to go for one more day, since that was my father’s unit from March 1943 until he was evacuated from Leyte Island in January 1945 – HJS. (128th Infantry Regimental coat of arms comes courtesy of CougarGA7.)

**Any student posting off-color, inappropriate remarks in reply to this article title will be sent immediately to the office of the Vice-Principal to be severely disciplined.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/8/03.htm

September 3rd, 1945 (MONDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: Sloop HMS Modeste is commissioned.
FRENCH INDOCHINA: In Laos, Franco-Laotian forces enter Vientiane and release interned French civilians.

NORTH-WEST PACIFIC: The Soviets sever all communications between Japan and the Kuriles and Sakhalin.

COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita, the commander of the Philippines, surrenders to Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright at Camp John Hay, Baguio, Mountain Province, Luzon, Philippine, Islands.

Off Wake Island, the Japanese surrender in a ceremony on board the destroyer escort USS Levy (DE-162).

Off the Bonin islands, Lieutenant General Yoshio Tachibana, the local commander, signs the surrender documents on board the destroyer USS Dunlap (DD-384) off Chichi Jima. General Tachibana is later convicted and executed for a particularly gruesome series of war crimes perpetuated against U.S. airmen who had been captured in the area during 1944-45.

U.S.A.: Top songs on the pop music record charts are
(1) “Till the End of Time” by Perry Como;
(2) “On The Atchison, Topeka And Santa Fe” by Johnny Mercer;
(3) “Gotta Be This Or That (Part 1)” by Benny Goodman and his Orchestra; and
(4) “You Two Timed Me One Time Too Often” by Tex Ritter.

[Tax-chick]

Is it a badger or a wolverine?

[Vermont Lt]

Thank you, again. A masterful job.

When did Korea start? (Just kidding.)

[BroJoeK]

Homer: " My plan from the beginning was to end this series with the news reports of the surrender ceremony on the Missouri."

Did I misunderstand?
Is this your last daily posting?
Somewhere I seem to remember seeing you intended to run into, wasn't it November, 1945?

Oh, well... Homer, if so, am so glad I had the opportunity to check in this morning, of all mornings....

My Dad's 33rd ID doesn't land near Wakayama until September 25, was hoping to make a big deal of that.
But in reality, it's all over now, mostly, except the shouting.

Thanks so much for all you've done!

[laplata]

Thank you again, Homer.

[henkster]

In preparing the distribution list for this post, I know I left some people off who should not have been, but I wanted to say thank you to every one who made comments and engaged in the discussion on these threads. Everyone’s contributions in the comments to Homer’s posts made this exercise so enjoyable. As much as I’ve studied about World War 2 there is so much that I still don’t know, and all of you helped me learn more, and challenged me to question and re-examine previous notions I’d had. And the discussion, while lively at times, rarely descended to personal attack. It was the most enjoyable prolonged intellectual exercise in which I have ever participated.

Of course, I can’t say enough about Homer’s work here, to have taken the time to assemble the posts and to make them every day without fail for what...seven years, was it? The effort he put into this project was simply amazing. Without his dedication none of this would have been possible. Thanks again. And again.

And I am very thankful that Free Republic hosted this forum.

[Colonel_Flagg]

These threads have been a masterpiece of historical discussion, a feast for the eye, and a true accomplishment for you.

Thank you for all you have done. This is a backbreaking amount of work and though I’ve mostly lurked these threads rather than post on them, they have been required reading.

A tip of the cap to you, sir!

[Homer_J_Simpson]

You can buy a ride in a B-25 this weekend here in Watsonville.

http://cityofwatsonville.org/municipal-airport/wings-over-watsonville-fly-in-2/ride-a-b-25-wow

[colorado tanker]

Well, Homer, the word “boner” had a rather different common meaning in 1945. Does anyone remember Merkle’s Boner and if so just what he did, or failed to do?

[CougarGA7]

Congratulations on the completion of this herculian project. I know more than one historian who has used this project as a source as they research their own particular venues. You have provided a significant contribution to the scholarship of the Second World War. Thank you for all the hard work you have done.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

It has taken me longer to my wrap up than I thought it would, but now that I am no longer working against the calendar I seem to have slowed down a bit.

If you have been following this series from the beginning you may be wondering how the story ends for my family members who served. I’ll start with my uncle. To summarize his record, 2nd Lt. L.D. Walker arrived at the 381st Bombardment Group (Heavy), Ridgewell, England, with pilot Billy Chason and the rest of the B-17 crew on which he was the navigator, on December 7, 1943. Lt. Walker is in the front row, kneeling, second from right in the photo.

After a period of training they began flying missions near the end of December. On their 4th mission, to Oschersleben Germany, Jan 11 1944, they were shot down. All 10 crewmembers made it out of the aircraft and became POWs at Stalag Luft I, Barth, Germany. They were liberated by the Red Army on May 1, 1945.

After the war Lt. Walker remained in the Army Air Corp. My knowledge of his post-war activity is sketchy. I believe the Army sent him to school for post-grad work in mathematics and physics, after which he worked on missile programs. When the U.S. Air Force became a thing he switched to that branch. He split time between his wife’s family home in the San Joaquin Valley of California and a home in Manhattan Beach, CA, which was near the defense contractors with which he worked. His oldest son told me a few years back that he once went to visit his father at work one day and met all the Mercury astronauts. My uncle also worked on the Atlas program. That about exhausts my knowledge on that subject. Major Walker retired from the Air Force in the nineteen sixties to live at the family home in the San Joaquin Valley. He passed part of his knowledge along to the next generation as a teacher of math and physics (I think) at a local community college. He enjoyed his hobbies of pyrotechnics, winemaking and distilling spirits. I understand he got his first experience in the latter activity during his time as a POW. He passed away too young in 1972.

Now for my father. Delmer W. Deardorff joined the army in early April, 1942 at Monterey, California. He was sent to Camp Roberts, at Paso Robles, for what I take to be combined basic and advanced infantry training. After that he was assigned to an M.P. unit in Oakland for a while. So he didn’t ship out for the Pacific until January 1943. He was assigned as a replacement to Co. F, 2nd Battalion, 128th Infantry Reg., 32nd Infantry Division, which had lost about half its men during the Buna campaign on New Guinea. After another period of training the division went back to New Guinea. My father’s regiment took part in the Saidor and Aitape campaigns on that island. In November, 1944, the 32nd landed on Leyte, Philippine Islands, where they took part in bitter fighting through the end of the year. Sometime before Christmas 1944 F Company was cut off in the mountains of Leyte without supplies. Private Deardorff was declared MIA and his family was notified. He was recovered and hospitalized on Jan 3, 1945. In March 1945 he arrived at Madigan General Hospital at Ft. Lewis Washington. He remained there recovering from his physical ailments until April 1946.

I know little of the time after my father left the service. He returned to his parents’ home in eastern Oregon for a while. He qualified for disability payments. He was physically unable to do the kind of work he did before the war, which was ranching and logging. At the hospital they gave him training in clerical work of some type but, as is typical for PTSD sufferers, he had a hard time with that kind of work environment. He also had problems with addictive behavior. At some point he went to northern California. I am guessing he live with his younger sister and her husband there. That is where he met my mother, a divorced mother of three daughters. They married in 1951 and I debuted in February 1952. Within a couple years the family packed up and returned to Baker, in eastern Oregon. That is the scene of my earliest memories. Few of those involve my father because he still suffered from the tropical disease and trauma he suffered in New Guinea and Leyte Islands, and spent a lot of time in the hospital. He passed away February 25, 1958, a week after my 6th birthday. My mother had had enough of eastern Oregon at that point so we went to southern California for a new start. We lived briefly with my uncle, Major Walker, in his Manhattan Beach home and then my mother took me and the daughter still living at home to begin again on our own. We live in Manhattan Beach until 1966.

Here is a picture of my father in all his glory taken in April 1942, when he left for the army. Then a photo he had taken a few months later.

The following is the last photo of him I know of, followed by a picture of his headstone at the cemetery at Durkee, Oregon. I was startled when I first noticed last week that the headstone is inscribed with the wrong Company. I guess after posting all those letters with Co. F in the return address I was more inclined to notice such a thing.

Here is a collection of his insignia and ribbons that survive.

Finally, you may recall that most of the letter my father wrote, or at least the ones I have, were addressed to C.L. Deardorff. Here is a picture of that gentleman with his only grandson, circa 1960.

I have some general thoughts on the war I might share, but that will have to wait for another post. If anyone has questions about this project or whatever, ask away.

[Jim Noble]

I can’t tell you how much I have enjoyed your work. Thank you.