A few of you know I’ve been in a little bit of “funk” the past month or so…
No real reason… just things.
But I had a GREAT Father’s Day! So a belated and short post.
It started out with seeing my “second” dad – Old Man Jack. I last visited Jack on Memorial Day… but it was a bit saddening to see that his only daughter hadn’t been by.
It’s always good to see him – although I didn’t stop by in my LOUD supercharged Mustang he loved so much.
Of course, you can only have one dad… and mine’s 94. We had a Father’s Day Brunch at his assisted living center and his luckily, his appetite was back. We enjoyed a special Father’s Day brunch. Meat and potatoes! His fave!
He then finished off his lunch with…sweets! Man, he’s got a sweet tooth! These were Japanese candies sent to him from my cousin Masako (and Izumi) in Hiroshima. (He had four. lol)
Does he look content? LOL
And someone “special” had called… and wanted to give me a Father’s Day hug! Ou-la-la! She is a gal with one of the sweetest souls around…and she shall remain nameless. 🙂
She’s had a positive impact on me. 🙂
And then… the grand finale…
I headed up from Fashion Island in Newport Beach to Pomona…My oldest son, Takeshi……graduated from Cal Poly Pomona! He’s even got a straight A streak going! And he BEAT his brilliant sister in Organic Chemistry by getting an A! She will never hear the end of that one… 🙂
Congratulations, son! And a BIG thanks to my ex and his step-dad. I couldn’t ask for a better guy.
I don’t think an old man can ask for anything greater than that superific day!
Marge and I at Riverside National Cemetery, Memorial Day Weekend 2013
A LETTER…
[Please also see “Mr. Johnson, USMC” if you wish to learn the background of this couple from the Greatest Generation by clicking on the link.]
Dear Marge,
Well, Marge, you made it indeed… To see your beloved husband Johnnie for Memorial Day.
A heroic US Marine who fought on-board the USS Enterprise in World War II.
Decorated.
And he was but 17 years old when he set sail for the Battle of Midway.
Seventeen. You said he was still in high school when he signed up for the Marines. Unbelievable.
We were met by thousands of American flags being planted by hundreds of Boy Scouts and volunteers. You were so happy to see the red, white and blue saturating the cemetery, bit by bit.
While the Boy Scouts hadn’t made it to your husband’s resting place yet, we had our own little flag… and your beautiful bouquet we were able to pick up along the way. You were so pleased with them but we made it a promise the next bouquet will be the colors of the USMC – scarlett and gold. You knew he would like that. Yes you did.
It was only the Saturday before Memorial Day but you were so elated to see how many people were there already…and we arrived at 10:00 AM! You were worried we wouldn’t be able to find a place to park when someone upstairs opened one up for us.
You were so anxious to visit him that you made it out of my car in record time and walked as quickly as you could!
While you used your stroller to get to the general area of his grave site, we had to leave the stroller and walk the last twenty yards on very saturated ground. You were holding onto my arm so tightly as the muddy earth gave way as we walked. Remember? My shoe sunk into the soil and inch or more.
And when we got there, we couldn’t find any water decanters… They were all being used by the hundreds of other mourners…but by some lucky grace, we ran into Vicky… She had bought 1,000 beautiful flags on her own and her niece was placing them neatly all along the columbine. She went out of her way to find one for you!
Vicki and her niece holding another bunch of the 1,000 flags she had bought to place along the columbine.Some of the 1,000 flags purchased by Vicki and placed by her niece for our fallen.
Your bouquet was so beautiful, Marge. You said quietly Johnnie – your husband of 66-1/2 years – would like them so much. You miss him dearly, don’t you Marge? I miss him…
And like the last time, on Easter Sunday, you talked with him…
She is talking to Johnnie… True love and devotion…
You shared with me again of how he left your life…and you were there for him til the very end… and how alone you felt because you are the last one alive from amongst your friends. There is no one else. You said you still look for Johnnie at your assisted senior care center to ask him a question but he doesn’t answer…
Thriving love…
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We promised to go back in two months, yes?
I will be calling you because he means so much to you… and it means so much to me.
I wish people would understand your love and devotion.
Marge and Mr. Johnson on their wedding day in June 1945.
In the 2012 limited release movie, “Memorial Day”, children are playing at their grandparent’s home in a rural setting. It is Memorial Day weekend. A 13 year old boy stumbles across a dusty box in a barn.
The box is his grandfather’s WWII Army footlocker, emblazoned with the unit insignia of his famed unit, the 82nd Airborne. It is filled with “souvenirs” he had brought home from war.
The young grandson probingly asks the grandfather for the stories behind the souvenirs to which he curtly answers no – and bitterly orders the boy to take the footlocker back to where he found it.
“It’s Memorial Day…” says the grandson.
“Damn straight it is,” barks back the grandfather.
The young lad digs in, not wanting to fall short in his quest for answers, and pushes the footlocker even closer to his grandfather.
The grandson then doggedly asks, “What is it I’m supposed to remember?”
Checkmate.
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Memorial Day.
In essence, a day to remember, honor and pray for those nameless souls who were KIA (Killed in Action).
To remember those that didn’t return from war. Young boys. Young men.
But as the young boy in the movie asked, “What is it I’m supposed to remember?”
Do YOU have an answer to that boy’s question?
I didn’t…and perhaps still don’t as I was not shot at, bombed or strafed…nor killed.
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My photo of WWII vets at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. July 2010
The only thing I do know is that WWII combat veterans do NOT want to talk about “it”.
And that’s our problem, I feel. Because these combat vets are unable to share with us the horror they lived through 70 years ago, it helps diffuse the essence of Memorial Day.
They are unable to share for their own sanity’s sake.
As WWII combat survivors (a.k.a., now collectively known as “vets”) would bravely crack open their bottled abominations to talk about “it” with me, I will venture to blurt that possibly – just possibly – they feel unbearable guilt and shame for what they saw…or did…or did NOT do… but that they survived to talk about “it”.
But their buddies didn’t.
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(Note: World War II is the focus of this story. WWII was a cataclysm of never to be matched magnitude again. There was wanton destruction of entire cities and civilians. Inflicting casualties on the enemy was expected and accepted by the majority. This is not to downplay Korea, Viet Nam or our current war on terrorism. There are different rules of engagement now with much different social expectations by the “good guys”.)
Perhaps you will let me take a chance with trying to bring to light some of the “it” things you may or may not know… If you can at least read about the combat experience, perhaps it will help YOU appreciate Memorial Day even more… and of those that are not with us today.
I’ve collected these personal observations, comments and facts from talking with several bona fide WWII combat vets and just plain reading. Nothing scientific, of course.
So here goes:
Nearing death, as grievously wounded young men take their last gasps, the most often said word was, “Mama”.
Under fire, many would curl up into a fetal position shaking uncontrollably while their buddies would somehow raise their weapons to shoot back… only to get showered with their blood and brains as a enemy round obliterated his buddy’s head. It is not about cowardice. It is FEAR.
About 25% of them peed in their pants. About 10% shit in their pants. (Old Man Jack did both…and he was not ashamed to say so. Ergo, his quote from Two Old Men and a Father’s Day Anguish: “If you got killed with shit in your pants, you got buried with shit in your pants.”)
Another 25% of these brave young boys and men were so scared or were so repulsed at the gore, e.g., at seeing liquified brains spewing from a shattered skull, they vomited.
One Marine told me he was to silently kill a Japanese sentry using a makeshift garotte only to find the sentry had fallen asleep face up. He couldn’t use the garotte as the enemy’s helmet was in the sand and the enemy could let out a scream if he used his Kabar. At the appointed minute, my friend had no choice but to jump on the sleeping soldier and grip his Adam’s apple with all his might… to keep him from yelling, too. He knew the enemy died when his body went limp and urinated. My friend did, too. He said he thinks he gripped the enemy’s throat for over two minutes. His hands couldn’t stop shaking. It was his first hand-to-hand kill.
After hearing sounds at night, frightened soldiers or Marines would unleash a violent and impenetrable barrage of carbine and machine gun fire. When they reconnoitered at day break, they discovered they had mistakenly slaughtered unarmed men, women and children. They would vomit then, too. (I can’t imagine what went on in their souls for the rest of their lives.)
Sometime in 1943, Army psychiatrists took a survey of “frontline” troops. Less than 1% said they wanted to go back into battle (I understand this was exclusive of the more higher trained units like the Rangers or Airborne). Almost NONE of the Silver Star recipients wanted to go back. But they did.
Army psychiatrists found that 60 days was the limit for being on the front lines…before a soldier would crack. Old Man Jack was out on the front for just about a year for his first deployment on “those stinkin’ islands”.
A Nisei 442nd vet told me just the sound of the Nazi MG42 machine gun would make them shit in their pants. It could fire up to 1,500 rounds a minute and chew through tree trunks behind which they were seeking cover. Sometimes, a buddy’s top half would be separated from the bottom half by the MG42…and they saw it happen.
Another Nisei vet told me they were on patrol when they came under a barrage. As he and a buddy dove into a shell hole for cover, his buddy’s arm went into a rotting, foul mass of a decomposing German’s remains.
Human souvenir hunting was rampant – and most extreme in the Pacific Theater. Correspondents documented in their reports that a number of Allied military “boiled” Japanese skulls or left them out for the ants to eat away most of the flesh, then kept them. Sailors would leave a skull in a net trawling behind their ship to cleanse them of flesh. For some, the skulls were too large or awkward so they would keep ears or noses. (In fact, Customs had issues with these skulls when a military man would bring them back to the US after discharge.) And as Old Man Jack witnessed in “Old Man Jack-isms #4“, some would collect gold teeth.
A souvenir skull. Someone had etched “1945 Jap skull Okinawa” onto it.
In a battle report, several very young Marines cut off the heads from Japanese corpses, impaled them onto stakes and pointed the faces at the enemy across the way to taunt them. When their commanding officer ordered them to take the severed heads down, they replied something to the effect of if we eat like animals, fight like animals and look like animals, we are going to act like animals.
Old Man Jack mentioned something he called “squeakers”. He didn’t elaborate on it too much but it’s when fear becomes so overpowering, men would get dry mouth or start gagging… a problem if you were an officer trying to give orders under fire to keep men alive. They would “squeak”.
“Take a very, very ripe tomato. Throw it with all your might against a weathered cedar plank fence. Listen to the sound of the impact. That’s what it sounds like when a bullet hits your buddy.” A Nisei vet told me that.
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These next images, to be politically correct in today’s world, will be very upsetting to some so a warning to you… But these must be seen to help comprehend why many combat veterans don’t want to talk about “it” and therefore, the difficulty in helping us answer, “What am I supposed to remember?”:
A dead and frozen Nazi is propped up like a road sign.The booted feet of a dead Japanese soldier, foreground, and his hand protrude from beneath a mound of earth on Iwo Jima during the American invasion of the Japanese Volcano Island stronghold in 1945 in World War II. U.S. Marines can be seen nearby in foxholes. (AP Photo/Joe Rosenthal)Perhaps this is similar to what Mr. Johnson saw during the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands and Guadalcanal where he was gravely wounded. Note the position of this dead sailor’s feet relative to his upper body. National Archives.A US Army soldier lays as he died on Okinawa while the fighting continues around him. National Archives.Dismembered Japanese soldier on Luzon, 1945. US Army photo archives.British military removing burned German corpse from knocked out Panzer IV tank. National Archives.Dead Japanese soldier in decomposition. Perhaps this is an example of what Old Man Jack tried to suppress in his recollection of his morbid experience in “ID patrol“. US Marine Corps archives.Two from the US Army 3rd Armored killed in action in France. National Archives.Dead Kamikaze pilot. Notice the rubber glove on the US sailor’s right hand. US Navy.Dated March 3, 1944
Perhaps some of the other “it” they saw involved civilians.
Records related to this photograph of a slain young Russian female indicate the photo was taken from a dead German’s wallet.A description that was attached to this photo state a young girl is led away from her sister who was just killed. Notice the camera in the old man’s hand. He also sports some kind of arm band.
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So why these gruesome photos of carnage and violent death?
Are they REALLY necessary for you to see?
I believe so… and the preceding photos were relatively tame to be quite honest. There are much more gruesome ones in private collections. Old Man Jack had a collection but I only got a glimpse of ONE picture early in our relationship and it was of a severed Japanese head. He never brought the photos out again.
But it’s important that Americans today understand “it” went to the hundreds of thousands of now silent US military graves… and “it” also remains tightly bottled up in the few surviving combat vets from WWII.
They have a right to keep “it” bottled up. Vacuum sealed. To keep their sanity although they relive and suffer horribly through “it” each night.
Field grave for an unknown US Marine. Some souls will never be identified.
Thousands of graves on a “stinkin’ island”… all killed in action.
Iwo Jima. US Marine Corps.Saipan burial of a Marine killed in action.French civilians erected this silent tribute to an unknown American solider who has fallen in the crusade to liberate France. Carentan, France., 06/17/1944Some souls will never be found.Somewhere in northern Europe.Like this torn photograph of an Iwo Jima battlefield cemetery, memories of young boys who lost their lives so violently are fading away.
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Memorial Day.
To remember those killed.
But without seeing, understanding or accepting the horrible demise these young fighting men encountered ending their short lives, the true meaning of Memorial Day is lost.
It is not truly about the combat vets alive today or who passed away since war’s end… but they sure the hell are part of it. Those alive mightily grip a key to their secrets – preventing your entry into their private internal hell.
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I will remember this when I visit the graves of Old Man Jack and Mr. Johnson this Memorial Day and will think of their fallen comrades.
And I will thank them and their unnamed buddies when I enjoy my barbequed hamburger this Memorial Day weekend and a cigar.
They died for me.
So I could enjoy my hamburger and cigar.
And I shall
A final, short tribute to those resting in graves today:
My father’s decades old story about how he broke his elbow became the topic in the earlier story, “正覚時” (Shoukakuji).
Shoukakuji is the name of the Buddhist temple – a hop, skip and a jump from my father’s family home in Hiroshima.
Temple entrance. My father’s home is behind me and to the right.
The temple’s reverends supported my family’s religious needs for over a century now.
Aunt Michie’s wedding.
Funeral services for my grandparents and my father’s siblings. Including my Aunt Shiz just this last September in “The Spirit of Aunt Shiz and Kharma“.
Including my Uncle Suetaro who was killed in action as an Imperial Japanese Army soldier on Leyte in the Philippines.
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When Masako-san, my son Takeshi and I walked to the temple in 2013 to investigate my dad’s story of how he broke his elbow, we were greeted by the Reverend. He was 90 years old and still had his wits about him.
While he did not recollect my father, he validated the placement of a large round rock under the pine tree that hasn’t been touched for as long as he’s lived at the temple…. And that’s a loooong time. I’m sure he was born there.
And that there was a big branch of a pine tree that has since broken off recently.
He said he knew my Aunt Mieko who died in 1939.
And miraculously, he mentioned Uncle Suetaro. The reverend said they played together as children and that he was always a jokester and smiling…and that he could hear him playing his “fue”, or flute, from his second story room at the house.
Until then, not even Masako-san knew Uncle Suetaro played a flute…but there was no proof.
Just the recollection of a 90 year old reverend.
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My tennis elbow pain kept me from retouching the old vintage photographs I had brought back from Hiroshima last September.
And the project was at a standstill since late October. That was as depressing as Obama V2.0.
But from three weeks ago, I am attempting to slowly restart the retouching project as my elbow pain has subsided greatly…and I came across the group photo you saw at the beginning here.
This was the backside since I know you ALL can read ancient Japanese:
Written by Uncle Suetaro himself. I believe – BELIEVE – it says, “February 21, 1939. Performed for First Sino-Japanese War anniversary.”
As retouched:
As retouched. Uncle Suetaro is the slightly taller one just to the left of center. If you click on the image, it will enlarge. Look in his right hand.
But as I enlarged the image to begin retouching, something caught my (old) eye.
I noticed Uncle Suetaro was clutching something in his right hand.
A case.
A case more slender than the others in the group picture.
It’s not a trumpet or a trombone, that’s for sure.
Or for a cue stick.
It sure looks like a flute case.
Oh, heck. It IS a flute case.
I say so.
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So words from the mouth of an old reverend started an eighty year old circle… to this vintage photograph of young boys.
All of whom likely lost their lives in a violent war.
The short-lived Pony Express of lore… We need you. I think.
In 1860, a number of riders apparently rode on horseback at full gallop from roughly St. Louis to Sacramento over a number of days. They would ride from station to station where they would switch to fresh horses. These stations were anywhere from five to 25 miles apart given the terrain. A rider would ride for about 75 miles. Wild Bill Hickok was a rider in his youth – about 15 years old. He rode something like 320 miles in a little over 21 hours because the next rider had been killed. Imagine that…
Anyways, it was a rider on one horse. One horsepower, you can say.
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About a month ago, I mailed an envelope with two DVDs from Los Angeles to Ohio. Not much further in distance than the Pony Express route in actuality.
I mailed it on Monday.
It reached its destination eight days later on Tuesday the following week (because Monday was a holiday). It took a week, for argument’s sake.
Perhaps the mail truck didn’t see a parked car along the way.
Or maybe the driver wanted a “Pimp-my-Ride” look and stopped off somewhere along the way to get it done?
Or maybe instead of one horsepower, it was one boy-power. Ignore the air mail signage. It’s fake.
In today’s time of man-made hearts and boson particles, I feel there canNOT be an excuse for such lackadaisical service. (Did you hear that Hermione’s invisibility cloak can be a reality?)
And the US Postal Service wonders why they are going out of business… as did the Pony Express after about a year. They lost $200,000 on about $90,000 in revenues.
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Well, you say, “Give the Postal Service a break. It was only one piece of mail.”
I knew you’d say that.
On February 26th, I sent via official “Priority Service International” a package to my cousin in Hiroshima. They alluded to “7 – 10 day service” in their ads.
This package had all the gizmos. Tracking number. Web tracking. Etc.
The status as of March 8th of my “Priority Service – International” package.
On March 8th, I checked the status as my cousin hadn’t emailed me to say she got the (surprise) package. Lo and behold, the last web entry was February 28th, that is was processed through the LAX sort facility…but that was it.
Fini. No more progress. Disappeared…like Obama during the Benghazi attack.
I had to call the US Postal Service as you are unable to inquire on an international priority package via email. Waited close to ten minutes.
She told me the package had left the United States, that it was in Japan, and that it can take “up to seven to ten days for it to be delivered”.
I said, “No, I believe it’s lost here stateside so can you please initiate a trace? Besides, its been 7 to 10 days.”
Her reply: “You can initiate a complaint (trace) after ten working days as it can take seven to ten days to get delivered.” Didn’t she just say that?
I said, “Well, I mailed it Monday two weeks ago and today’s Friday.”
She said, “Ten business days will be Monday, March 11.”
You can imagine the response when I asked for a refund.
Can you see steam or the egg frying on my head?
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Monday, March 11th. TEN working days since I mailed a Priority package to Japan – with the USPS assurance of delivery in “7 to 10 working days…” going through my head.
Had to call again. One “working day” later to place my complaint and initiate a trace.
This time, she asked me for details. “How much did you declare?”
“I don’t remember. Your clerk spent five minutes inputting tons of stuff and I filled out a form in triplicate. Shouldn’t it tell you on your screen?”
You can imagine the answer… No.
Had to hang up and look for the receipt from TEN DAYS AGO at home that I fortunately found.
Long story short, called again the next day (the 12th) and at the end, guess what she said? “It will take up to 21 days for Japan to research, find the package and reply.”
I said again – very nicely – the Japanese aren’t that sloppy. That the package was still HERE… in your SORT FACILITY at LAX.
She said (politely), “No, the information tells us it was shipped to Japan so its there.”
Double GRRRR….
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So they finally initiated a trace.
And guess what. The Postal Service was wrong. It was NOT in Japan.
I was wrong. It was not at the LAX sort facility.
Instead, the Postal Service found it… likely in the same post office I shipped it from as the package “re-arrived” at the LAX sort facility after the trace was initiated!
The Postal Service wonders why they are losing money.
The workers just don’t care.
Well, I’m making sure my future packages are arriving in Japan by using UPS or FedEx.
Picked up the wall portrait of my kids from Alan Miyatake of Toyo Miyatake Studios.This appears to be an artistic rendition of one of Alan’s photographs of Ms. Condoleezza Rice?The famous grandfather of Alan, Toyo Miyatake.
Went to visit dad… The workers there told me he’s not eating much as of late. He only had a small salad with a little bit of chicken for lunch. When I asked him if he was hungry, he said no but when I showed him one of his favorite Japanese treats, he went to town.
Number one.
There goes number two!
Number three down the hatch!
He’s happy now. 🙂 And he did finish the last ball.
Took him one of Alan’s 8×10’s…labeled. He’s 94 now.
My bud Brian drove down from Reno for St. Paddy’s Day weekend – no better excuse to share a stogie together!
Played around with my new Canon SX260 HS point and shoot camera. Never had one that I can remember but it was fun to shoot with.
Superior close up capability.
Hand held. Look at the detail… Not bad for a shaky ol’ fart?
I’m keeping an eye on all of you! Who’s got Visine?
Fish eye setting…
My neighbor’s new son, Gabriel. The father is USAF… I pray for his safe return always.
And finally, these were for me. Like father, like son! LOL
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.
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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.
Japanese Prime Minister Kan in blue visited Iwo Jima (now renamed Iwo To) in 2010 to help find and exhume Japanese remains. He is the only Japanese Prime Minister to do so.
Indeed, the camaraderie amongst the survivors as well as those linked to the battle by relation or history is rightfully still strong. It is vital to the preservation of bravery, courage and love of country.
Please click on image to see a brief yet touching video.
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As mentioned in an earlier blog, the US Army also participated but not in a manner you would expect.
Per Dr. James McNaughton’s authoritative book, “Nisei Linguists”, Tech Sgt. 5g Terry Takeshi Doi “landed with the assault waves on 19 February 1945”. Doi was a member of the US Army’s top secret Military Intelligence Service (MIS). Doi would be awarded the Silver Star for his actions on Iwo Jima; he went into cave after cave armed only with a flashlight and knife to persuade Japanese soldiers to come out. I believe he is still alive.
Another MIS Nisei, Tech Sgt 3g James Yoshinobu, was fighting in his second world war; he had fought for the US in WW I (that’s ONE) and was 47 years of age while fighting on Iwo Jima. He landed with the 4th Marine Division and was later awarded the Silver Star.
One MIS Nisei, Sgt. Mike Masato Deguchi, was seriously wounded by a land mine and died of his wounds shortly after war’s end.
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Oddly, these Nisei may have never joined the task force sailing out of Pearl for the invasion of Iwo Jima. The Nisei contingent was stopped at the security gate and were prohibited from proceeding because they “looked Japanese”. Only with the accompaniment and support of a few Caucasian officers were they finally allowed to pass and board their transport ships.
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Sixty-eight years later, let us today deeply and reverently remember these brave boys… whether they be American or Japanese…or both. The iconic flag-raising would be tomorrow, February 23.
“She’s the most beautiful thing I had ever seen,” said Old Man Jack in a trembling voice and with very wet eyes.
On March 3, 2003. Truly.
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He was referring to the F4U Corsair. I had taken him to the Chino Planes of Fame Museum in Chino, CA. The WWII aircraft there – all of them – fly.
That’s right. They get up in the air.
Planes that were engineered with a minimal lifespan as they were meant for combat were still spinning their props for the men who flew them – or worked on them.
Old Man Jack was one of them.
Do you know what these beautiful planes look like? What they may have sounded like to Old Man Jack 70 years ago? Ever see one fly? A vid I took at the Planes of Fame Airshow:
In case you haven’t figured it out, his Corsair is “on the tail” of a famed Zero of the Imperial Japanese Navy in this mock dogfight. I filmed it almost ten years ago at an air show there at Chino Planes of Fame.
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Old Man Jack was an “AMM 1/C” during WWII, or “Aviation Machinist Mate First Class”. He could have re-upped after the war and been promoted to Chief Petty Officer but like Mrs. Johnson, Carol would have none of that.
I am not positively sure as Old Man Jack would only give tidbits here and there but he was responsible for the aircraft. Before flight – and while remembering this was at the front lines on “those stinkin’ islands” – he would get into the cockpit and make sure all essential bells and whistles worked after his crew worked on it all night. I also believe he was to pilot one on occasion to maintain his certs. Very simplistically said on my part.
US Navy ground crew servicing a Corsair on what appears to be Guadalcanal – where Old Man Jack was. National Archives 127-N-55431
The pilot was headed off into harm’s way. The pilot’s life depended on Jack and his crew. It’s airworthiness.
But one thing is for certain – Old Man Jack said many times “there just weren’t enough spare parts so we had to make do.”
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But back to the story…
Our friendship had begun to solidify by then… I had mentioned to him that I was a member of the museum and that he wouldn’t have to worry about me paying for his entry. But that wasn’t why he hesitated. You will see why. And I found out later myself why he was so hesitant.
Back then, the museum’s WWII hangars were divided into the two main theaters of operation: the European and the Pacific – where Old Man Jack was stationed during the thick of things.
We meandered through the European Theater hangar. He recognized them right away. The P-51. The P-47. Others.
He had brought along his “walking chair”; it was light and when folded up, it was a walking aid. If you press down on it a certain way, it would spread out into a little chair. Well, he was doing good…and I was happy.
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To get to the Pacific Theater hangar, you would leave the European Theater hangar and mosey across a tarmac.
Chino Planes of Fame and “X” marks the spot.
It was a hot day. Old Man Jack was in a t-shirt. Blue, of course.
We were slowly making it across the tarmac. I knew a Corsair was in there – pretty as the day she rolled off the assembly line. As the hangar door was cracked open, you could see the wing spar.
Then Old Man Jack stopped. At the white “X” marked in the map above. Dead in his tracks.
He propped open his chair.
He sat down.
I was wondering if he was tired. We were out in the sun. Why’d he stop there?
I walked back to him. His hands that still firmly shook your hands were on his knees. His head was bowed down.
Then I saw it.
His shoulders were shuddering a bit at first, then began to bob up and down.
The man who had a barrel chest…the man who worked on these planes as a young man whose bushy eyebrows had turned white with age …was crying.
Deeply. No sounds. He was holding it in…
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I walked away.
The plumbing in my eyes broke too.
I think he cried quietly for about a couple of minutes. Out there on the tarmac. In the sun.
Old Man Jack then straightened up. He wiped his eyes.
“Young man, earn your pay. Give me your hand and help me up.”
Old Man Jack was back.
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We walked over to her – Jack’s beloved Corsair. His eyes were still wet.
I remember him saying very quietly while trying very hard to hold back his now visible anguish, “I knew a lot of young boys who flew them,” his voice cracking with 70 years of nightmares tormenting him. “Some of them just didn’t come back. I could never stop thinking, ‘Did a Jap get him… or was it me?'”
Nothing more need be said.
A very, VERY proud Jack Garrett, AMM 1/C showing off his barrel chest as best he could.
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That’s when he told me she was the most beautiful girl in the sky. But like any woman, she was a pain to keep happy.
“We didn’t wear shirts because it was so _ucking hot; I’d burn my stomach and chest on that hot metal.” He pointed at the wing spar (the bottom of the “gull wing”) and said, “We would always slip on those damn spars. You never had good footing.”
He then recollected other things. He told me “We’d stick a shotgun shell into a breech under the cowling and fire it off to turn over the engine.” As I surely didn’t know much better back then, I asked why. “Because the dumb son-of-a-bitch who designed the plane didn’t put in a starter. That’s why.” Oh, boy (with a smile). “And if she didn’t turn over, you only had a couple more tries at it before you had to let it cool off.”
Old Man Jack then smiled a bit when he admitted he fell off the wing while taxiing once. “Like a dumb smart ass kid, I stood up on the wing when the pilot was taxiing. You were taught to lay on the wing to point which way to go but (the wing’s surface) was too damn hot so I stood up. We hit a bump and off I came.” (Note: the Corsair’s nose was long to accommodate the powerful engine. It was so long that it obscured the pilot’s forward view during taxi and landing.)
One more thing he said. “There was nothing better than seeing the flight come back after a patrol at wave top, do victory rolls then peel off.” He was a bit choked up.
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When we got home, he said to me, “I didn’t know how I would react if I saw something and that’s why I put you off in going. But I feel good about it now. Thank you, young man.”
He gave me that solid Jack Garrett handshake…and a hug.
I think he enjoyed the visit…and no better way to end my first six months of blogging.
And someone “special” had called… and wanted to give me a Father’s Day hug! Ou-la-la! She is a gal with one of the sweetest souls around…and she shall remain nameless. 🙂
She’s had a positive impact on me. 🙂
Masako and Spam Musubi 