Posted on 08/14/2026 10:37:39 PM PDT by PghBaldy
A young man who once wondered if he would live past 1941 will be turning 105 years old Saturday.
James (Pat) Bollich grew up in Louisiana. He trained at Fort Polk and arrived in the Philippines in November, 1941, less than a month before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
Jamie Bollich wrote, “U.S. and Filipino forces retreated to the Bataan Peninsula when the Japanese invaded the Philippines, but after four months their food and ammunition ran out and the 70,000 troops were forced to surrender.”
(Excerpt) Read more at lufkindailynews.com ...
I got together today with a 102 year old submariner of WWII who closed out his career mapping the mines of freaking TOKYO harbor for the Invasion. USS Redfin. Frank X. Reisinger, Jr.
Frank is vertical, cogent, muscled, and short.
I assume this is a great article, but I am not disabling my adblocker or paying a subscription fee to read it.
Proof that whatever doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.
My dad was also in the Army Air Corps. He was a heavy equipment operator. He came ashore on the third day of the invasion of Leyte island. He said they had to walk on the bodies of the Australian and US Marines that died establishing that beach head.
They brought in bulldozers and pushed the bodies into giant pits to clean up the beach prior to MacArthur coming ashore to make his I have returned speech.
Dad said that the wading into the water from a landing craft was to make it more dramatic for the news reels.
There was a concrete quay just to the left of the picture that they all got off onto.
Dad also went into Wee Wack. On the north side of New Guinea. Again after the Australians had captured the area. There were still Japs in the interior of the island. And headhunters. I am not sure if that was before or after the Leyte invasion.
He was eventually shot in the head and abdomen. The head shot he figured was a ricochet. It went through his helmet but not his skull. Thr abdomen wound put him in the hospital for six weeks. Due to the infection that happened in the jungle environment.
He also lost all of his upper teeth from the but end of a Japs rifle.
He went in as a private and discharged as a staff sergeant.
Although during one of the battles he was field promoted to Captain because all the officers were injured or dead. He was the senior sergeant. He returned from the Pacific on a hospital ship.
👍👍👍👍👍
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.