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24 December 2001

Discussion by Wayne about the WW II

It was in March of 1944 when Wayne was inducted into the Marines. He had signed up at the Post Office
in down town SLC, in the building which is now the County Courthouse. A "Big burley Sergeant who
must have been born in the military because of all the stripes he had up and down his arm" took the bunch
of them to the SLC train station for their trip to LA demanding Pullman sleepers for the troops. He was
told that there was a war going on and that there were no such cars available. The sergeant proceeded to rip
on the attendant, explaining that these Marines were going to go to that very same war and fight in it so
he'd just better find the Pullmans or he'd make a few calls and make sure that they got them. They got the
Pullmans and slept all the way to LA except for a 1-hour stopover in Las Vegas where they visited the
Silver Dollar club because at that time the Train Station wasn't very far from down town.

When they set out to sea, they ended up in the Atlantic, just cruising along at no more than two or three
knots per hour. In the middle of the night they felt the ship really starting to shake and shudder like it was
really going somewhere fast, and when they got up on the deck in the morning they could see an enormous
fleet of American ship as far as the eyes could see from horizon to horizon. This was to be the invasion
force of Okinawa.

Their orders were to "scorch" the land which meant that they were to leave no one alive - take no
prisoners. It ended up that at the end of the war there were more than 150,000 civilians and 100,000
Japanese soldiers killed during that invasion which by itself far exceeded the death toll from the Atomic
Bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After the American dropped the only two atomic bombs they
had, and then threatened to demolish the rest of the Japanese Empire with the rest of the bombs they didn't
have, their surrender followed. The celebration in the bay where all of the fleet was anchored went out of
control with the troop firing all their weapons into the sky. Their fight had been bitter and many had been
lost especially to the kamikaze flyers. The sad part about the celebration is that 11 soldiers lost their lives
due to falling shrapnel from the celebration. on his ship.

During this occupation, they met very little resistance during the beginning but as they caught up with the
Japanese forces, the battle which ensued was ferocious and lasted over 85 days. During this time fire
bombing of major cities was continuous and Tokyo was nearly burned to the ground. Also during these
attacks, the families sent their children up into the mountain and at the end of the war, they came out of the
mountains like swarms of ants. Most of the younger children had died but many of those 10, 11 and early
teens were able to find something to survive on. The taking care of these children was one of the major
projects facing the occupation forces after the surrender of Japan. Red Cross, the military and other relief
organization set up camps to help take care of these orphaned children.

During his stay in Japan, his unit was invited to put together a baseball team and when they got to the unit
who had build a fairly substantial arena for that game they found out they were playing against a team that
had several professional player on it. They ended up loosing substantially, but what was significant about
this game is that there was a huge Japanese audience watching this game for the first time in their lives and
it is from this exhibition game that the Japanese adopted the sport into their culture.