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Page 1
Wayne Wilberg was twenty-one years old, and he had been a Marine for a long time. He'd driven trucks. He'd slept on the ground. He'd worn the same green dungarees until they were thin at the knees. Tonight he stood on a hilltop in Okinawa, and something in the air felt different.
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Page 2
He looked down at the water. Ship after ship after ship filled the bay — more than he could count, more than he had ever imagined. "There were about 2000 ships out in Buckner Bay," Wayne would say. As far as his eyes could see, from one edge of the world to the other.
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“There were about 2000 ships out in Buckner Bay.”
Page 3
Then — a flash. A boom that rolled up the hill like thunder. Then another. And another. Every ship in the bay lit up at once, guns firing straight into the sky. Tracers tore through the dark like rivers of fire. The noise was everywhere.
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“They had been told the war was over and they were so excited that they started firing their ammunition to celebrate.”
Page 4
Wayne had never seen anything so beautiful in his life. The lights kept arcing up — gold and orange and white — bursting over the water again and again. It was just like home on the Fourth of July. Only a thousand times bigger. "It was like a huge July 4 celebration," he said.
From your journal · prints on the back pages
“It was like a huge July 4 celebration.”
Page 5
But why? Why was the whole Navy shooting at once? Wayne looked at the men around him. Nobody knew. He turned to his sergeant. "We asked our superiors what was going on," Wayne remembered, "and they went to find out."
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“We asked our superiors what was going on and they went to find out.”
Page 6
The sergeants walked away into the dark. Wayne and the others waited on the hill. The guns kept booming. The sky kept blazing. Every second felt like a minute. Every minute felt like an hour. Still the lights kept going up.
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Page 7
Then footsteps — fast ones — coming back up the hill. The sergeants returned. Their faces were not smiling anymore. "They come back and told us to take cover and not to come out until told to do so."
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“They come back and told us to take cover and not to come out until told to do so.”
Page 8
Wayne dropped. Everyone dropped. They pressed themselves flat against the rocky hillside. Down in the bay, the Navy still didn't know. The Navy just kept celebrating — gun after gun after gun, blazing away at the sky.
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“The navy just keeps celebrating.”
Page 9
Then Wayne understood. What goes up must come down. Every bullet the Navy fired into that dark sky was still a bullet — still made of metal, still moving fast. "All those bullets that went up had to come down and they were coming down in our area."
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“All those bullets that went up had to come down and they were coming down in our area.”
Page 10
The lights were still beautiful from down there on the ground. But now Wayne could hear them — a whistle, a tick, the snap of metal on rock. All around him. He did not move. He waited. That was the order, and he would keep it.
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Page 11
At last the guns went quiet. The order came: all clear. Wayne stood up slowly. His legs were stiff. The bay below was dark and still. The biggest celebration in the world was finally over. But it had cost something. "Thirteen men got killed that night," Wayne said quietly.
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“Thirteen men got killed that night.”
Page 12
Wayne looked out at the silent bay — two thousand ships resting in the dark. The war was really over. He had made it through the fighting. He had made it through the celebration too. He had learned that sometimes the bravest thing is the hardest thing: stay still, stay low, and wait for the all clear.
From your journal · prints on the back pages
“That particular day we were up on a hill and could see the ocean. There were about 2000 ships out in Buckner Bay. They had been told the war was over and they were so excited that they started firing their ammunition to celebrate. It was like a huge July 4 celebration. We asked our superiors what...”
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Where this story came from
This note prints on the last page of every book in this collection, so a reader can trace it to its source — set once for the whole series. It shows in the 3D preview and the printed PDF.
This book was drawn from the journals, kept 1944-2013.