[Inyo-Mono]

My Father was in the Philippines and New Guinea also. He was a bombardier on a B-24. He once told me the reason that flight crews carried a .45 was not for defense if the plane went down, but to use on themselves in case they survived the crash and were about to be taken prisoner by the Japs.

[sneakers]

My dads papers say he served New Guinea and the Philippine Island of Luzon. He was in Co. C of the 760th Field Artillery Battalion. If if wasn’t for ‘the bomb’, we probably wouldn’t be here today, Inyo.

My dad passed away in 2000. I wonder what he would say if he knew that my son - his grandson - is in the navy stationed in Japan today!

[dr_lew]

Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier ~of~ the Queen!

[Maigrey]

I guess I was quite lucky. My (paternal) grandfather was a HM-5 with the Marines in the Pacific. I never learned what happened (he passed away when I was 10, and I was too young understand about WWII at the time.

I would have relished (not enjoyed, since war is a necessary horror sometimes) hearing some of his first hand accounts. I wonder what all he did see while he was in, and in the Pacific.....