Lando 
Posted on 08/21/2005 5:37:13 PM PDT by Lando Lincoln
One evening 60 years ago this past week, two friends and I got drunk. This was the day the official surrender of the Japanese Empire was broadcast.
Now, crowds in London might have cheered the end of war in Europe, and maybe they were celebrating the fall of Japan on Broadway. Where we were, I do not remember anybody cheering. It had been a long war, and we were tired.
I was then platoon sergeant of a roughhouse, special 72-man separate platoon. "(Sep)" in our designation meant we could operate independently. We were over strength and carried two officers. I was 19 when the colonel interviewed me; a little older and I would not have touched that assignment with a 10-foot pole. We were staging for what we knew was the invasion of Kyushu, the southern island of Japan, coming on or about Nov. 1, 1945. We were part of 800,000 men, with another million-plus to follow in March 1946.
The panjandrums estimated a million American casualties, and they may have been right. On the last islands we seized in 1945, Japanese were killing or wounding one U.S. soldier or Marine for every one of their troops. On Iwo, there had been only 22,000 Japanese, not all prime combat material. We suffered 20,000-plus casualties, 8,000 dead. In the Pacific we took 950-odd dead and wounded per day throughout July. The guys not yet born who study documents and complain about the bomb were not around then. We knew the war was over; the enemy did not.
V-J Night was a gift. It gave my 21st birthday back to me. Some of you who were there know what I mean. It was a fine night for drinking, even a bottle of rotgut laced with warm (old-style, real-sugar) Coke, a wartime perk. Who cared what it tasted like; soldiers drink for effect.
Others marked the occasion in different ways. One man took a .30-caliber carbine with a banana magazine and started shooting up the compound. After a short debate about killing him, cooler heads prevailed. He hit no one and ran out of ammunition. He may have been a nut case, but he went home first.
Midevening, the officer of the day ran by, shouting that troops were taking vehicles from the motor pool and driving them into the Pacific. So what? They would just be left to rot, anyway. Seeing our condition, he ran off. "Damn if I'll be killed on the last day of the war playing traffic cop," my friend Tech. Sgt. Lewis said.
We drank to that.
I've found that most Americans do not understand the war year 1945. They think the war ended when we landed on D-Day or when we started bombing Tokyo. The issue, yes, not the war. The Army suffered its worst losses after D-Day — 27,000 in one week at Bastogne alone, almost as many as D-Day and the following month. Most deaths in my college class came in '45, the same as our class numeral.
The Navy lost more ships in 1945 than during any year of the Pacific War. The kamikazes sank 34 and damaged 368 more, killing some 5,000 sailors. People who say suicide bombers are unprecedented are ignorant. The warlords recruited young Japanese, many teenagers, filled them with fanatic rant, taught them to take off but not land carrying a 250-pound bomb in an obsolete airplane. Four thousand of them in all.
The Navy countered in a smart if cold-blooded way: throwing out perimeters of small picket ships, knowing the kamikazes would dive on the first ship they saw. No major troop or supply ship was sunk, the war was not affected.
Suicide missions are scary, do human damage. Born of cynical desperation, they never win a war, at least against good soldiers, sailors and Marines.
Been there, seen that, and I do not forget.
Lando
Lando
Thanks Harry!
WWW II bump...
He is a fairly well known author. Writes alot about Texas history and such. I'm sure others know more about him than me.
I think he is right to explain to those willing to listen that we faced suicide attacks before and won. I think he is right to point out that WWII in 1945 was not a walk in the park.
Your MSM isue is beyond the scope of what he is saying. The MSM undermining the War on Terror may be the determining factor or it may not. Only time will tell.
His 1960's book Lone Star is still the manual history of the State of Texas and its people. It is especially valuable in that it was written with a modern but pre-PC eye.
I have that book. Outstanding reading if you enjoy Texas history, and culture.
This DE had been hit by a kamikaze during the Okinawa operation and heavily damaged amidships, and yes, they recovered the body of the Japanese pilot amid the wreckage. Several men were killed, and the repaired battle damage was easily discernible.
He is also the author of "This Kind of War" a history of the Korean War. Outstanding book. Outstanding writer.
Great article!
Of course, the Mexican nationalists and racist gringo-bashers are trying to rewrite the story of the Alamo, to diminish Travis and Crockett, and by extension all English-speaking white Texans qua white. They're also eloquent on the personal faults of Jim Bowie, and his family connections and composition.
Their message, of course, is the MeCha one: "Your culture is vile, your seed weak, and you have, and deserve, no heroes."
The scum are even trying to teach this line in Texas schools, starting with the universities.
Fehrenbach (note correct spelling) is a well-regarded American historian. His books on Texas history and on the signers of the Declaration of Independence (among others) are richly detailed and involving. I consider him stronger on vivid writing than on strict attention to the precise factuality of individual points of history, so to speak.
Sorry about that ... I see everyone else fixed the spelling already.
T.R. Faharenbach is one of the best authors of Texas History over the last 50 years. For more of his works do a search on Google and get an education.
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