Monthly Archives: February 2020

World War II

Jimmy Stewart – They Don’t Make Them Like They Used to

8 Comments

I’ve admired Jimmy Stewart for what he was.

A simple American.

I will always remember his poem about his dog “Beau“. A truly touching tribute to his beloved dog on Johnny Carson.

He rarely boasted of his military career and if it was brought up, he simply acknowleged it.

But the facts are he flew combat missions over Europe during WWII when any mission could end in death… through enemy action or mechanical malfunction. Face it. Mechanical reliability was often as best they could muster. No triple redundant systems like in our current Warthogs.

He also flew in B-52s over Viernam. Vietnam was also no milk run with SAMs.

I hope you will read this synopsis of his bravery in spite of his success as a Hollywood actor. Please click on the link. Thank you.

Jimmy Stewart, USAAF pilot.

20 February 1966

World War II

Dad Would Have Been 101 Today

2 Comments

Last a
My last picture of Dad a month before he passed, flanked by my two youngest kids. 2018 Los Angeles.

As Dad passed away less than two years ago at 99 years of age, he would have turned 101 today if he were still around.  I truly believed he would be the first Kanemoto to live to be 100.  Unfortunately, he just quietly passed away after eating a good lunch – eating was his pastime.

When I was in elementary school, I remember being at Belvedere Park in East Los Angeles. I might have been maybe eight years old. It was a breezy day and he had bought us brand new kites.  A wind gust pushed the kite and therefore, the spool got pulled out of my hand.  The kite took off – as did my Dad chasing after it.  To this day, I thought to myself, “Darn.  Dad can run fast.”  I didn’t know until just a little over six years ago he was a high school track star in Hiroshima.

1962a
Dad trying to teach me how to ride a bike.  East Los Angeles, 1962.

Anyways, I thought of him today and his high school yearbook.

A link to his 1937 Hiroshima high school story is here.

I hope you are playing jump-frog with your favorite brother at Zenshouji, Dad, and eating loads of odango.

Happy birthday!

c-10-492
Dad at bottom left then (clockwise): younger sister Mieko, my Grandma Kono, older sister Shiz and younger brother Suetaro who was killed as a Japanese soldier in 1944. King and Maynard Streets, Seattle, WA.  Circa 1925.
World War II

Iwo Jima

4 Comments

The horrific battle for Iwo Jima would start in a few days 75 years ago. The iconic flag raising would be one week from now.

A story I wrote in 2013 about Iwo Jima and a little known fact that 50 Japanese-Americans US Army soldiers also fought there.

Masako and Spam Musubi

DC My two smallest kids had the honor to see the memorial first hand in June 2010.

Life has been quite unpredictable for me for the past six weeks or so – as well as tiring.  I am quite behind in reading many of your fine blogs and that is on my priority to-do list.  But it is a hollow descriptive for me to say I am tired.

I am still alive.

Twenty-nine thousand are not.

_____________________________________

The battle for Iwo Jima began 68 years ago on February 19, 1945.

Sixty-eight years ago.  Just yesterday for many.

Sixty-eight years ago, about 29,000 young men met horrible deaths on that demonic volcanic island – 22,000 Japanese soldiers and 7,000 Marines.  That unforgiving island still has not given up all of her dead to this day…  American and Japanese.

Kan Japanese Prime Minister Kan in blue visited Iwo Jima (now renamed Iwo To) in…

View original post 329 more words

World War II

Operation Detachment – The Battle for Iwo Jima

3 Comments

Iwo Jima was 75 years ago this month… God bless the Corps.

Fix Bayonets!

Note: So much has been written about the Battle of Iwo Jima, by individuals far more qualified than myself, some of whom participated in it, all of whom conducted extensive research on this iconic battle, that I have avoided the effort for years.  But the Battle of Iwo Jima has called out to me to write something in tribute to the men who served there.  What follows is my unworthy summary an event that traumatized its survivors for the balance of their lives.    

Iwo Jima 001American successes in the Pacific campaign forced the Japanese war machine to reevaluate their situation.  By the end of the Marshal Islands campaign, senior Japanese naval and army officers realized the truth of what Admiral Yamamoto had predicted three years earlier.  Japan had awoken a sleeping giant.

It was always Japan’s intention to create an inner perimeter defense of its home…

View original post 5,718 more words