U.S. Army - how's that for a surprise?
He was a specialist Sergeant who constructed and manned battle field radar units - went ashore on D+1 at both battles.
He was training with new radar equipment in Hawaii for the invasion of Japan when the War ended.
He was big fan of the atomic bomb!
I don’t blame him. :^) By August 1945, 45 cities in Japan were turned to smoking ruin by incendiary bombing. Japan didn’t surrender. The first atomic bomb destroyed Hiroshima. Japan didn’t surrender. It took a *second* atomic bomb to bring about surrender, but even that almost didn’t work.
https://time.com/5877433/wwii-japanese-surrender-coup/
“”My Dad was at Saipan and Iwo Jima.
U.S. Army - how’s that for a surprise?””
Most of the Pacific war was fought by the Army.
My dad was a communications officer on Peleliu in “45. He was also on Angaur and Saipan and made it through the war.
The guy I most admired on Iwo was John Basilone. He had just married, was a CMH winner from his exploits on Guadalcanal, and could have stayed at Pendelton as a gunny, but begged the brass to let him “go back for the finish”. He died at the airport on Iwo Jima leading a platoon of Marines. RIP John.
“He was big fan of the atomic bomb!”
Everyone who was in the military at that time LOVED the bomb.
A former neighbor of mine fought in Europe and was shipped to the Philippines after Germany surrendered. He had made the landing on Sicily, been wounded during the fighting inland and shipped off to England for recovery. Once out of the hospital and rehabilitation he was snatched up for Normandy. He was under no illusion he would live through another fighting swim.
When someone told him about the atomic bomb he asked what it was. Nobody knew.