My grandfather had a similar arc, but died quite young after twenty years in the Army Air Corps and then the Air Force, drinking wild turkey and smoking unfiltered cigarettes. He received all the Pacific campaign medals you could think of - New Guinea, if I recall, along with the Philippines and Japan - but as far as I know, he did not fly on the planes themselves but maintained them. Enlisted men did not fly by and large, which is a blessing for him. On the other hand, maintaining those machines certainly seemed to be a traumatic experience, as anyone with a bit of interest in the subject can learn. Anyway, your grandfather was not alone.
Yes, and he (and possibly your grandfather) only seemed to find genuine solace in the company of fellow veterans, ideally the other members of the crew (all of whom remembered the “old man” very fondly, I would later learn)
This makes sense. My other grandfather served in Chosin on Fox Hill. They were all wounded after three or so days and nights in subzero weather surrounded by a veritable Chinese "horde," stripping the enemy dead for weapons and using the frozen bodies as makeshift fortifications. There are no words for that sort of horror, though he wrote it up for Leatherneck magazine, leaving out many of the horrid details. He wrote up Hector Cafferata for the medal of honor, but lowballed the number of enemy he killed, because he didn't believe anyone would believe it... they remained a band of brothers for decades as members of the "Chosin Few".... of which very few remain now, I am sure.
yeah, surely no way to capture one of the wildest encounters (maybe the wildest) of the past century short of being there (and, like you noted, many things about being there are best left unsaid)
What a captivating tale--both the patrol in 1944 and the after-story. I'm jealous that you have these records of his time in the service. My grandfather was also floating around the Pacific in the fall of 1944, but on the USS Iowa, a battleship. As I kid, I imagined him manning a gun and shooting at Japanese planes. But in reality, he was was a signalman. I think they used various kinds of flags and lights/shades to signal to other ships in his fleet. He didn't say that much about his service, and I don't remember much of what he told me when in the fifth grade I had to interview a veteran. The only story I remember involves a typhoon. In December of 1944, his fleet found itself at the center of Typhoon Cobra. Several ships sank with all hands; his ship sustained damage that forced it to return to San Francisco. He told me that typhoon was so strong that the ship teetered from side to side, and the vomit on the floor of the berthing where he was strapped in was ankle deep. And I'll always remember that horrifying detail (perhaps exaggerated). After a repair in San Francisco, the USS Iowa returned to the pacific and softened up various places before infantry invasion, including Okinawa. I wonder what battle scars he brought back? He lived a rather ordinary but seemingly satisfying life, first returning to his native Topeka, Kansas. And then, after marrying and having two kids, he moved to the Chicago south suburbs, where he worked as a clerk for Santa Fe Railroad. He left behind a little book in Japanese that he picked up in Okinawa and an issue of Life magazine that featured USS Iowa on the cover. I wish I had more. Thanks for this story--brought back memories of my grandfather.
I wish we had all these stories from all these guys, who did some incredibly different (meaning there’s nothing like it today and you can’t just make up the recollections of some guy on a battleship without having done that). The only reason I have all this info — including insights to his state of mind after the war (via diaries) and even news clips of his divorce being finalized and so on — is because he and my dad were both a) pack rats and b) failed writers (Grandpa Bateman fancied himself some sort of John Fante-esque Ask the Dust slice of life guy, my father was inspired by William Burroughs and I’ll have another piece coming on his literary output soon) and so left behind copious records of their lives. Obviously, they’re complaining or unhappy much of the time, as writers do — even this diary is mostly about physical pain (crewmates were in awe of how big that abscess on his leg was) and mental stress — so maybe in that sense they’re more forthcoming than the typical greatest generation/silent generation (in the case of my dad) guys who just suffered in total silence. Either way, the real value to researchers from this diary has been the detailed minute by minute breakdown of the battleship sinking.
Yeah, your grandfather's account is pretty remarkable for its specificity. Even though he doesn't really share his feelings, a reader can get some sense of what it was like. For my grandfather, I have just one image in mind when I think of what he went through: vomit sloshing across the floor / as the ship's stabilizers / were pressed to the limit [line breaks for haiku effect]. If he wrote any of this down, I suppose my grandfather would have been in the Poundian strain of writers. But I think this is just what he remembered most. Now I remember that when my fifth grade teacher gave us the "interview a veteran" assignment, my mother told me very sternly, "Don't ask your uncle Dave" (so I asked my grandfather). Uncle Dave grew up on an apple farm in Illinois and then joined the Army in 1966 or 67. Apparently, he saw some shit in Vietnam, but no one except perhaps his wife knows exactly what. He drank a six pack of Old Style tallboys every evening, and his memories remain submerged there to this day. A few years later, curious about what these men went through, I found Studs Terkel's oral history "The Good War," and this helped to fill in some gaps. This was before all those gory WWII movies--Saving Private Ryan, Thin Red Line, etc. More recently, I discovered Paul Fussell's books, which are some of the most compelling on the topic of men at war.
Yeah, no matter how good son Samuel was with that one bodybuilding book and long cultural studies article, dad Paul was the superior writer. The Great War and Modern Memory was a top five book from grad school for sure
This is great. You handle the material very well and your grandfather's story makes the documents even more compelling. All around great stuff.
There’s still a place for historians like us
My grandfather had a similar arc, but died quite young after twenty years in the Army Air Corps and then the Air Force, drinking wild turkey and smoking unfiltered cigarettes. He received all the Pacific campaign medals you could think of - New Guinea, if I recall, along with the Philippines and Japan - but as far as I know, he did not fly on the planes themselves but maintained them. Enlisted men did not fly by and large, which is a blessing for him. On the other hand, maintaining those machines certainly seemed to be a traumatic experience, as anyone with a bit of interest in the subject can learn. Anyway, your grandfather was not alone.
Yes, and he (and possibly your grandfather) only seemed to find genuine solace in the company of fellow veterans, ideally the other members of the crew (all of whom remembered the “old man” very fondly, I would later learn)
This makes sense. My other grandfather served in Chosin on Fox Hill. They were all wounded after three or so days and nights in subzero weather surrounded by a veritable Chinese "horde," stripping the enemy dead for weapons and using the frozen bodies as makeshift fortifications. There are no words for that sort of horror, though he wrote it up for Leatherneck magazine, leaving out many of the horrid details. He wrote up Hector Cafferata for the medal of honor, but lowballed the number of enemy he killed, because he didn't believe anyone would believe it... they remained a band of brothers for decades as members of the "Chosin Few".... of which very few remain now, I am sure.
yeah, surely no way to capture one of the wildest encounters (maybe the wildest) of the past century short of being there (and, like you noted, many things about being there are best left unsaid)
Thank you for sharing this, love your work
I’m glad you enjoyed. I always try to mix it up with the work!
What a captivating tale--both the patrol in 1944 and the after-story. I'm jealous that you have these records of his time in the service. My grandfather was also floating around the Pacific in the fall of 1944, but on the USS Iowa, a battleship. As I kid, I imagined him manning a gun and shooting at Japanese planes. But in reality, he was was a signalman. I think they used various kinds of flags and lights/shades to signal to other ships in his fleet. He didn't say that much about his service, and I don't remember much of what he told me when in the fifth grade I had to interview a veteran. The only story I remember involves a typhoon. In December of 1944, his fleet found itself at the center of Typhoon Cobra. Several ships sank with all hands; his ship sustained damage that forced it to return to San Francisco. He told me that typhoon was so strong that the ship teetered from side to side, and the vomit on the floor of the berthing where he was strapped in was ankle deep. And I'll always remember that horrifying detail (perhaps exaggerated). After a repair in San Francisco, the USS Iowa returned to the pacific and softened up various places before infantry invasion, including Okinawa. I wonder what battle scars he brought back? He lived a rather ordinary but seemingly satisfying life, first returning to his native Topeka, Kansas. And then, after marrying and having two kids, he moved to the Chicago south suburbs, where he worked as a clerk for Santa Fe Railroad. He left behind a little book in Japanese that he picked up in Okinawa and an issue of Life magazine that featured USS Iowa on the cover. I wish I had more. Thanks for this story--brought back memories of my grandfather.
I wish we had all these stories from all these guys, who did some incredibly different (meaning there’s nothing like it today and you can’t just make up the recollections of some guy on a battleship without having done that). The only reason I have all this info — including insights to his state of mind after the war (via diaries) and even news clips of his divorce being finalized and so on — is because he and my dad were both a) pack rats and b) failed writers (Grandpa Bateman fancied himself some sort of John Fante-esque Ask the Dust slice of life guy, my father was inspired by William Burroughs and I’ll have another piece coming on his literary output soon) and so left behind copious records of their lives. Obviously, they’re complaining or unhappy much of the time, as writers do — even this diary is mostly about physical pain (crewmates were in awe of how big that abscess on his leg was) and mental stress — so maybe in that sense they’re more forthcoming than the typical greatest generation/silent generation (in the case of my dad) guys who just suffered in total silence. Either way, the real value to researchers from this diary has been the detailed minute by minute breakdown of the battleship sinking.
Yeah, your grandfather's account is pretty remarkable for its specificity. Even though he doesn't really share his feelings, a reader can get some sense of what it was like. For my grandfather, I have just one image in mind when I think of what he went through: vomit sloshing across the floor / as the ship's stabilizers / were pressed to the limit [line breaks for haiku effect]. If he wrote any of this down, I suppose my grandfather would have been in the Poundian strain of writers. But I think this is just what he remembered most. Now I remember that when my fifth grade teacher gave us the "interview a veteran" assignment, my mother told me very sternly, "Don't ask your uncle Dave" (so I asked my grandfather). Uncle Dave grew up on an apple farm in Illinois and then joined the Army in 1966 or 67. Apparently, he saw some shit in Vietnam, but no one except perhaps his wife knows exactly what. He drank a six pack of Old Style tallboys every evening, and his memories remain submerged there to this day. A few years later, curious about what these men went through, I found Studs Terkel's oral history "The Good War," and this helped to fill in some gaps. This was before all those gory WWII movies--Saving Private Ryan, Thin Red Line, etc. More recently, I discovered Paul Fussell's books, which are some of the most compelling on the topic of men at war.
Yeah, no matter how good son Samuel was with that one bodybuilding book and long cultural studies article, dad Paul was the superior writer. The Great War and Modern Memory was a top five book from grad school for sure