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I was in my late teens when my HS history class was covering WWII in the SPT, my father told me about the day he shot and killed a Japanese soldier.

His unit was going from building to building in Manila as the city was in the final stages of being liberated, searching for any remaining enemy holdouts.

He was alone on the second floor of a partially bombed out building when he heard a noise. He shouted out in English – “Identify yourself!” (in case it was another GI) then quickly, after no answer “Surrender - Hands up!”

Although he also told me that in many cases, they did not take prisoners as it wasn’t always logistically possible to do so in battle, and yes, while he didn’t participate, he saw some captured Japanese soldiers lined up and shot. But my father having heard of the atrocities committed by Japan and anger over Pearl Harbor, didn’t exactly shed any tears at the time.

A disheveled and confused looking uniformed Japanese soldier came around the corner. My father wasn’t sure if he had his hands up or not as he was partially in shadow, so in a life or death split second decision, my father shot him - a single bullet to the man’s head.

My dad said they were under orders to search the bodies of those they killed, if possible, in case they had anything on them useful for intelligence; maps, codes, etc., especially if they appeared to have any rank.

My dad searched the dead soldier’s pockets and found he had no weapons on him what so ever, but did find Rosary Beads in one pocket and in the other pocket he found a wallet and in it found many pictures of the man’s wife and children and an older couple he presumed were his parents, Catholic Prayer cards and what appeared to be a hospital ID card, partially in English indicating as my father later remembered was in Nagasaki, over ten years old leading my father to believe the man was probably a medic and perhaps had been a doctor before the war. Probably like my father, drafted into service.

He placed the Rosary Beads on the man’s chest and put the wallet back in his pocket and walked away.

My father believed he was right to kill the man as he didn’t know if he was armed, had a grenade, etc., and that some Japanese would booby trap themselves in order to kill GI’s, but said the images of the pictures of the man’s wife and children, the Rosary Beads and Prayer cards never left him.

My father talked about it again not long before he died in 1996. He told me of all the “Japs” he had killed in the war, after all these years, these images still haunted his dreams.

He wondered if the man’s wife, children and parents had survived the war, the bomb and if he could meet them before he died, if they would pray the Rosary with him and forgive him.