Posted on 02/17/2023 8:44:02 PM PST by Saije
The year is 1968. The sea breeze tousled the sod of an Okinawa golf course. Dick Johnson stood on the fairway, 9-iron in hand, eyeing the green. The outing was a break from his high intensity work in the back of a B-52 bomber, manning the electronic defense systems while his crew flew missions to Vietnam...
Johnson gazed at the concrete mounds bordering the golf course, originally built to fortify the island from the Allied invasion decades earlier. He imagined his father, Richard W. Johnson, landing on these same beaches in 1945, taking part in the bloodiest battle of the Pacific campaign...
This moment on Okinawa flooded back to Johnson’s memory when his son brought him an old Japanese flag found tucked away in the family keepsakes of their Lehi home. The flag had handwritten characters circling the bright red sun in the middle...
For over 70 years, the Myochin family’s fate looked like the losing side of this coin flip. Their eldest son, Norito, volunteered to join the Japanese Imperial Navy...He was 22 when he was killed in action. Not a trace of him came home...
Then the Myochin family was notified of a flag, or yosegaki hinomaru.
It was the flag held by the Johnsons in Lehi, Utah...The Johnson family had mailed their flag to the Obon Society, which specialized in the collection and return of these unique artifacts, in hopes the family could be identified. Translators identified the names on the flag, tracing it back to Norito.
After seven decades, the Myochins learned that Norito died on the island of Peleliu, that this object was carefully taken and preserved by Richard Johnson for years and passed on to his children...”
(Excerpt) Read more at deseret.com ...
This was a very touching story, thank you for posting it.
What a story of a different time...I am glad the Myochin family founf closure and peace with the return of the Family Flag...and how the Johnsons kept that flag all these years as a rememberance rather than a trophy.
The acceptance of the Myochin family that the father of the man in front of them killed their loved one—but that is the nature of war. None of the families wanted it, but it is what happened.
I enjoyed the article
Great story.
Recently read two books of US marines fighting in Peleliu…nothing “touching” about the jap flag and what the marines went through and the death toll to take the island.
The family in Utah apparently has no idea what their relative went through to survive that battle.
Reading the two books, I did not see how the two authors could relive what they went through to write those books when they were in their seventies.
Thank you
You might be interested in the Gettysburg reunion of soldiers as well
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1913_Gettysburg_reunion
My father was a BAR rifleman with the 1st Marine Div and was in the first wave to hit the beaches of Okinawa. They made it to the beach, but the those coming in behind em weren’t so fortunate....pretty devestating. For awhile, they were essentially trapped on the beach...couldn’t go back, couldn’t go forward...pinned down for hours. He didn’t talk too much about it when I was a kid. I do remember him telling me he spent the last few months of his enlistment as a hand-to-hand combat instructor and you really didn’t want to piss the guy off...lol. ...don’t ask me how I know! They tried to get him to re-enlist, but he had seen and been through enough. He didn’t do it...most of those he knew that did died in Korea.
A year or two before he passed away, two Marine historians/stenographers spent some time with him at his home in Maine recording his WWII experiences. A couple of times, they just had to stop because it was just unreal what he was describing. All three of em was practically in tears. There is no doubt: war is hell.
Do you think we would have any "touching" stories about some jap family returning the Stars and Stripes to some family in flyover country?
Would we get any tear jerkers about some girl whose life was "shadowed" by jap attacks on Pearl Harbor, or in the Aleutian Islands?
I find it interesting that this story appeared at the same time as this thread: https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4131939/posts
That thread is about best films. Casablanca and Best Years of Our Lives are two being considered. Best Years has a scene at 25:39 where, actor whose name I can’t remember, gives his son a flag found on a dead Japanese soldier. That flag would appear to be the same sort of “unique artifact”. Perhaps at that time the significance was not yet appreciated.
I thought, one very interesting coincidence as I watched “Best Years” for 53 minutes before seeing this thread.
It is an interesting story, and glad the family had a little closure. Over the years I’ve mellowed out regarding enemy soldiers simply because the lower ranking ones are really no different than American soldiers in that they are doing what they believe is right (based on propaganda) or they are drafted and have no choice.
They go to war, they participate in the horrors, they die, they come home maimed physically and emotionally. And their families miss the MIA’s as much as American families do.
I think WWII had a good ending, where Germany and Japan were beaten into unconditional surrender, then their countries rebuilt in a compassionate way where they are now allies. The military industrial complex will see to it that will never happen again.
Powerful stuff!
I served during the Vietnam era but was lucky enough to have never been ordered to SE Asia. I guess God had other plans for me. But I have wondered how honorably...or dishonorably...I would have performed if I had been sent there. I cannot honestly claim that I’m convinced that I would have served bravely rather than like Corporal Upham.
The only thing “touching” is knowing most likely the jap was burned up by a flame thrower in a cave/bunker then buried by a satchel charge all because he thought the emperor was a god and to die for him was a good thing.
Interesting and touching article.
Maybe this is peripheral, but I’ve noticed lately that we (collectively) seem to give the Japanese a pass on the actions of their parents and grandparents. Yet the Germans don’t get the same indulgences.
“... because he thought the emperor was a god and to die for him was a good thing...”
Their whole population thought that way, Deaf....and fierce warriors that would fight to the death too....think kamikaze pilots.
There were plans for a ground invasion of the Japanese homeland that would have resulted in a HUGE number of American casualties....I, for one, probably wouldn’t even be sitting here typing this now had it gone that way.
As bad and controversial as the nukes were, they saved thousands of American combat soldiers’ lives. Personally, I’m thankful...very thankful.
My Dad fought in Korea.
On the three occasions he talked about it, he cried.
The only other times he cried were upon realizing that my nephew was born with catastrophic disabilities and might never live outside of the hospital, at his mother’s funeral, and at my mother’s funeral.
Otherwise, he was unshakable.
That’s when I understood that war is a special level of hell.
Call me an old softie I guess.
Yup....it’s obvious that your Dad,like mine,deserves the title “The Greatest Generation”.
True.
He was an incredible man. Strong, brilliant, uncompromisingly ethical, a loving father and great provider.
We were lucky to have fathers like them.
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