re: Peleliu WW2 Chat

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I got my copy signed last summer. In a few podcasts I listened to (maybe the Jocko one), Henry teased about a Sledge brothers at war book that would cover Eugene’s brother in Europe. He was a tank commander or something around Normandy if my memory is correct.

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Henry and I have talked about his uncle’s wartime service, which as an old tanker is especially interesting to me. I’ve long suggested he should do a book about him.

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Why hasn’t he been back to Peleliu and Ngesebus since 1999? I’d be going once a decade. He did hint at wanting to go back soon and taking his son Jack along.

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I didn’t realize it had been that long. His son is the same wage as my daughter. In fact the last time I saw Henry was at the Botanical Gardens. They were there getting prom pics for his son and I was there for the same reason with my daughter.

Henry actually worked for me for a while as an inspector. But being out in the blazing Alabama sun was more than he wanted, which I understand at our age. So now he’s back in an office job.

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The defenders knew they were going to die and didnt care

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Of course they cared.

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They were chewed up and spit out by that point.

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Correct. My grandfather flew 56 missions in a P51 out of Lesina Italy in European theater. He was sent back home to Atlanta for a few weeks rest then told to report to Miami to go to South Pacific to escort bombers and do strafing missions on the Japanese islands. He didn’t end up leaving Miami as Japan surrendered right before he was to be shipped back out. I asked him if he was worried about doing more missions after all he went through in Europe. His exact quote to me was “No, we had already knocked out all of Japans navy and anti aircraft weapons it was going to be like shooting ducks on a pond”. I do believe one P51 was shot down at the tail end in Japan though. He also told me his commanding officer told him their mission in Japan was going to be “total destruction of everything and everyone on the islands”. To his dying day my grandfather hated the Japanese more than he did the Germans.

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I know that it's a symbolic way to remove a soldier's manhood, but for two cultures thousands of miles apart to do the same thing, when I don't recall ever reading about that happening in European wars, it just boggles my mind. They say that Native Americans came from Asia via the Bering land bridge. I'm wondering if some Asian culture pieces survived thousands of years on both sides of the Pacific.

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What's interesting is to study the actual rise of the Japanese culture that we faced in WWII. It wasn't something totally old or ancient. The worship of the Emperor as a deity came about through the Meiji restoration and was a state-sponsored cultural overhaul through the late 19th century.

I heard/read many years ago, that the Allies were going to have enough planes to basically assign one to every street in Japan for the invasion

Hyperbole but it pointed out the material dominance the Allies (primarily the US) had by then...

My grandad earned a purple heart and silver star at peleliu and another in the Philippines. He was a good man.

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With the Old Breed is the classic "ground level" story about the fighting on Peleliu.

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One of the greatest, if not the greatest, POV books on war in history.

My dad grew up in Arkansas. He hitch hiked to California when he was 16. He joined the army in WW2. They put him in the glider troops. He requested to be a paratrooper since the pay was 50 dollars more a month. He went to pour kerosene on a fire and poured it on his legs when he was 12. Had third degree burns. The doctor told him he could walk out of the army right now.

He ended up in the 11th Airborne. I want list all the places he trained but he did go to Camp Mackall NC by train and back to San Francisco. From there to New Guinea.

The 11th Airborne invaded Leyte island. After fighting across the island the rested and then they landed on Luzon.

My dad was hit in the forehead by a sniper. He was blinded and started crawling toward his buddies. He was shot in the back of his thigh and another bullet grazed his back and hit him in the back of his head. He remembered guys walking by and saying he was dead. He would respond that no I'm not.

They strapped him to a wing of an airplane and flew him to a field hospital. When they stripped his clothes off he went into shock and passed out. He came to when the doctor was working on the back of his head.

He was blind for a period of time and started getting part of his vision back. He had tunnel vision.

He was on a hospital ship back to San Francisco and then moved to San Antonio. From there he was to be discharged back to Arkansas.

While at the hospital in SA he received his back pay. He bought a billfold and one morning he woke up and someone had stolen his money.

He was out in the hall one day and saw his cousin who had been in Europe fighting the Germans. He had lost a leg. My dad borrowed money from him to get back to Arkansas.

Sorry so long. But, I'm leaving a lot out. I could almost write a book on his lofe when he was young, training, fighting and his life history afterwards.

Taliban did this too.