As the final days of the Okinawa struggle wound down, the rain began to slack off. Almost overnight, it felt as if someone had turned the faucet off. Abruptly, we were once more back on dry and dusty soil. Almost made you want the monsoon back.
With the end of the military conflict, the entire Ninety-Sixth Division had been loaded on a fleet of LSTs and shipped over to the gray beaches of an obscure island called Mindoro. This hunk of nothing floated out there in the Pacific Ocean without any apparent meaning or purpose except to keep us happy. Called “the Rock” by the men, Mindoro was the holding tank for our impending attack on Japan proper. We knew what was coming.
Every single person who had survived the battle for Okinawa knew they were lucky to still be alive. Sitting out there on the Rock, the men understood they were still faced with only two alternatives: life or death. The odds were decidedly in favor of death.
We didn’t talk about the gruesome fact much, if at all, but we understood that the Japanese would fight to extinction no matter what. Sure, we’d win, but what a price to be paid! And every man knew that the same old story of devastation and death would start all over again once we hit Tokyo. I didn’t want to think about the men I had lost. The memory of those deaths remained a painful path I didn’t want to walk down. As best I could tell, I wouldn’t recall much of what I had seen on Okinawa for decades.
One day on Mindoro, Swinging Bill Arnold sidled up to me. After Sergeant McQuiston was killed, Arnold had taken his place as my go-to guy. Bill had come to the army with some serious problems, but he had overcome his struggles in a significant way. Like a youngster growing up, Bill had left behind the fears from his childhood and turned into a man I could count on. He had supervised loading the howitzers when we broke camp. I saw him coming toward me. I immediately recognized that quizzical look in his eye.
“Major, we’re hearing lots of rumors. Dark rumors.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Like what?”
“We’re hearing that women and children with bamboo spears are going to meet us on the beaches when we land on Japan proper. Is that possible?”
“I was never much on gossip,” I said. “Rumors are rumors. Nothing more.”
Swinging Bill scratched his head. “You’re avoiding the question. Could we end up fighting a bunch of women?”
“Okinawa demonstrated that the Japanese would rather get killed than stop fighting. I’m afraid that’s an attitude we’ll probably run into head-on when we hit their beaches.”
Arnold swore violently. “We been giving chocolate bars to the kids we find on this island. In my wildest imagination, I can’t see myself shooting some little boy running toward me with a bamboo stick. No sirree! I can’t see that happening any way, shape, or form.”
“Well, Arnold, you been praying to survive. Now you can change those prayers. Start praying we don’t have to kill women and children. I think that would make a decent prayer.”
Arnold only shook his head and walked off.
He never told me what had happened on Okinawa to change him, but I could read change in his face and his actions. We had been surrounded by dying and dead men. Bodies of Japanese were scattered everywhere and some had been left lying there in the grass for several days. The horror and stench had been overwhelming, and I knew Swinging Bill had seen the gore. Possibly for reasons I’d never understand, the gut-wrenching sights had had a reverse effect on him and somehow or the other broke the spell of that childhood scene that had so severely haunted him.
Strange how it all works. Sergeant McQuiston had been a real buddy, while Arnold was weird. Now McQuiston was gone and old Bill turned normal. Would never have expected such a thing.
* * *
I’d gone down to Command to see if any news had come in about what was next. I knew the men were worrying about the struggle facing them, and I wanted to have some tidbit to tell them. When I walked in, I was surprised to see such a disorderly scene. Usually men stood at attention or made virtually no noise. Soldiers were standing around in small groups talking while the generals huddled together in private conversations down there on the platform. A group of men had gathered around the communications officer, sitting there like a rock, listening with a headset glued to his head and picking up the latest reports of whatever was coming in from abroad. Obviously, something unusual was going on. I saw Colonel Avery Masters standing by himself. Masters was the commanding officer of the 361st Artillery Battalion and I knew him well.
“What’s the deal?” I asked him.
“You haven’t heard?”
I shook my head. “Just got here.”
“Big story has been coming in. Just getting pieces of it. Apparently, the Air Corps dropped some kind of a brand-new bomb on a city called Hiroshima. One bomb blew the entire municipality all to hell. Killed thousands in a single swipe. Happened earlier in the week. We’re just now getting the report.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. They’re calling it an atomic bomb.”
I frowned. “Never heard of it.”
“You haven’t heard of it?” Avery laughed. “Hell, the generals never heard of it. The whole project’s been top secret, but man alive! Have we ever got a dandy of a bomb. Blows every friggin’ thing in its path to smithereens. Everybody’s trying to figure out what comes next.”
“Could this shorten the war?” I asked.
“Hard to say. Them Japanese don’t seem to be too bright at figuring out when to quit. If I was in charge, it sure as hell would. I guess this A-bomb was dropped several days ago, but it’s got to make a difference in how the enemy are thinking. Shoulda scared the living shit out of them.”
The man at the communications desk jerked off his earphones, jumped up, and ran toward the cluster of generals. He handed one of them a piece of paper. Silence fell over the room. After several moments of talking among themselves, a general went to the podium.
“We’ve just been informed that another A-bomb has been dropped on Nagasaki with similar results. One bomb took out an entire city.”
The men cheered and clapped. Soldiers slapped each other on the back. We had knocked the ball out of the park again. No telling how many of these new bombs we might have, but the Japanese had to know we could take them out one city at a time without even one infantryman stepping ashore. My men would be excited about the prospects for a quick end to the war.
It wasn’t until much, much later that we learned those two bombs left the Japanese high command in complete chaos. Strongly divided factions couldn’t agree on whether to immediately surrender or to keep fighting to the death. A coup almost occurred within their ranks as well as against the emperor. In the end, the emperor voted for surrender and the reluctant generals folded.
* * *
When the report came that the Japanese had finally, completely, unconditionally surrendered, the men went stark raving nuts. Carriers and battleships anchored in the Pacific shot off their giant guns continuously. Men ran up and down the roads firing their rifles in the air. Every machine gun in the army endlessly pounded away at nothing. Men screamed and hollered. The entire military complex on Okinawa had a conniption fit. After years of struggle, the battles were over, and we were still alive.
The war was over.
Men like Swinging Bill could stop praying. They would not be faced with women in kimonos rushing at them with kitchen knives while small children charged with bamboo spears sharpened to a flimsy point. The killing was finished.
The war was over.
I thought about the many men I’d known now buried in the Ninety-Sixth Division Cemetery on Okinawa. Little American flags and white wooden crosses dotted each grave over good men, decent men, patriots to the end. Wherever they were now, even the deceased surely had to celebrate.
The war was over.
Back in the United States, our wives, girlfriends, families had to be weeping for joy. Their loved ones had not become memorial gold stars on a small banner hung in the living room window to commemorate the ultimate sacrifice. Parades could start to march and bands play. People would dance in the streets. Churches would fill with people offering thanksgiving for victory and the cessation of hostilities. Mothers and fathers would weep in relief and for joy.
The war was over.