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STAR SPANGLED WRAPPED FOR HOME
In June of 1942 The Imperial Armed Forces of the Japanese Empire occupied the island of Attu, taking the few natives and some missionaries as prisoners of war. Attu is the westernmost island in the Aleutian chain off the coast of Alaska.
Almost a year later, in May of 1943, our combined forces, the Army and the Navy joined in their efforts to retake the island. Some 549 U. S troops died in the Battle of Massacre Bay. Many more of our troops were wounded in the battle that lasted for approximately three weeks.
The battle was a frontal attack directly into the occupied village on the south side of the island. The Japanese were dug in, into cozy caves under the thick tundra covering the surrounding mountains that circled the village and port. You can imagine the difficulties of a frontal assault upon an enemy you cannot see. The Japanese crouched within the tall tundra grasses directly in front of these holes, raining deadly machine gun and rifle fire into the midst of our steadily advancing troops.
Toward the end of the month, the Japanese realized the American forces were winning the battle. They gave orders for all their forces to retreat and under the few short hours of darkness, they found their way to the north side of the island. In the dawns early light, they were picked up by the Japanese naval forces.
Many of the Japanese troops never received the orders to retreat and remained where they were. In the following few days some 2,351 Japanese dead were found according to reports. Many of them had chosen death to surrender, especially the cave dwellers. They merely pulled the pin on their grenades, held them to their chest and blew themselves to kingdom come. Their remains, or pieces of their remains were apparently tossed back into the little caves under the tundra. These niches became their final resting place. The remaining battlefield dead were then picked up and buried in mass graves that were dug and then covered with huge bulldozers. Only 28 prisoners were taken!
In proportion to the numbers of troops committed, it is believed that this was the second most costly battle, in terms of casualties, in the Pacific. Topped only at the battle of Iwo Jima!
I was assigned to the Department of the Army, Office of the Quartermaster General, 9106 Technical Service Unit, Graves Registration Service out of Fort Mason, California. As administrative assistant, it was my responsibility to verify the identification of all the returning American World War 11 dead from the entire Aleutian chain.
In the summer of 1948 this unit was dispatched to Little Falls Cemetery on the island of Attu. Only five years after their battle, these enemies in life, the Japanese and the Americans were disinterred and brought back for re-burial in a national cemetery at Sitka, Alaska. They would share common ground for all eternity!
The remains however, of any American was shipped directly home at the request of the next of kin
On Attu, the Japanese were the only ones to be interred in mass graves. The Americans were placed in single graves, neatly plotted and each spot easily identifiable. This made our task much easier.
I sometimes read the unmailed letters and and looked at the pictures in their billfolds. Wedding bands and personal effects had been left on the bodies by the necessity of haste to bury the dead after the battle had ended. I found the exact same items on both the Americans and the Japanese. We made no effort whatsoever to personally identify the Japanese. We only identified our own returning heroes. I wept in silence, for both!
We did our job well and I can assure every next of kin that every soldier we placed in the national cemetery or sent home was who we said he was. No mistakes were made!
The personnel of this service unit were extraordinary. The respect, the dedication, the passion and tenderness shown to our returning dead heroes was absolutely astounding. Fifty years later I still get misty eyes as I visualize the loading of each individual casket, flag draped in a very precise manner, and each receiving a smart military salute by members of the work crews. Respect for their dead comrades as they departed on their long journey to their final resting place.
This experience has had a profound affect upon my life. I was forced to look at the horrors of war in a different perspective. I found two letters, one on a Japanese and the other on an American. Both letters were to their wives and children. I am still haunted by the fact that each of these letters said the exact same thing! The fickle finger of fate had somehow placed these two otherwise, soul mates, on the same battlefield. It would truly be ironic if they personally faced each other in direct and personal mortal combat, in that place and in that time!
War is truly hell! Our country, our glory and our sacred honor are most always caught up in the balance. And death is truly final! As I reminisce the past, I once again salute these often forgotten heroes who died too young and too soon!
I leave the following reminder that we will see a repeat performance……somewhere in this old world!
In the spring of nineteen forty-eight
The big war now was past.
Hardy men with picks and spades
Set out to get the last
Remaining heirs of gold-starred Moms
Killed directly west of Nome,
We had to dig them up again
And then return them home!
Our peach-fuzzed heroes, were interred
In neat rows, if you please.
Not stacked in layered, stinking pits
Like the unnamed Japanese.
Now we’d agreed on the Mighty Mo
To perform these ghoulish acts;
Treat theirs like ours in all respects,
Now, that’s an actual fact!
When the raging battle on Attu
Was cleared of all its smoke,
Some drunken sergeant, full of hate,
Now this here ain’t no joke.
Bulldozed a gruesome, gaping pit
And let the dead Japs fall
Or heave them in and let them lie
Live hand grenades and all!
A chicken colonel ordered us
To disinter, the Japanese.
We though we’d all be blown to hell
But, this colonel, we must please.
"There ain’t no ships that come and go;
This, you can plainly see.
So give your heart to God, me lads,
For your ass belongs to me!"
We dug them Japs out one by one,
Guarded by that crazy loon.
No picks and shovels on this job,
We done it with a spoon!
We placed them in a rubber pouch,
As we all prayed to our God,
"Relieve us from this terrible task
And send a demo squad!"
We finally sacked up all the Japs
And draped our lads beneath a flag
Brushed lip prints from the colonel’s butt
And to the ship we drag.
We had just left port, as we got word
On the stinking radio,
"Dig up one more at Adak base"
And of course, we’d have to go!
Stay with me now, ye sons of lore,
My tale has just begun!
The ghoulish nightmare is o’er;
We actually had some fun.
We borrowed a jeep at Adak base
Then drank ‘til we were stiff.
We mooned the loon in the officers club
And drove the jeep off a rocky cliff!
We took a boat to a little isle
Just north of our Adak rendezvous,
To disinter the last G.I.
Brought back from World War 11.
We had a disinterment slip
That told us where to look.
Ten paces from a cabin door
Beside a babbling brook!
We found our hero PDQ
And uncorked some White Horse scotch.
D-handled spades began to dig;
This job, we could not botch!
But much to our stunned surprise
When flesh and air did meet,
Someone yelled like hell and said,
"This bastard has three feet!"
"Three feet, my ass." Someone said
As we took another drink.
"Hell, I’d want three of something else,
Look here, what do you think?"
Neatly socked, beside our man
As plain as you could see
Was an extra foot on a hairy leg,
Whacked off, below the knee!
"Let’s see that disinterment slip!"
I yell and then I moan,
"Now where in hell did that come from?
This bastard died alone!
A weatherman, here by himself
And confirmed by his last breath.
The snow slid down upon the hut
And smothered him to death!"
Our weatherman was packed away
Star spangled wrapped for home.
He was destined for a special spot
Beneath the rich Nebraska loam.
But, in a box, beside my desk
Atop an old beer keg,
Unreported to Uncle Sam
Was that damned old foot and leg!
Weeks later we got drunk as hell
As the clock moved toward midnight.
We packaged up that foot and leg
To do what we thought right!
A few fast words were said in haste
Then we sang in harmony.
Slid that leg from beneath the flag
And buried it at sea!
Years later, I was sipping suds
In a place called Hare and Hound.
A stranger limped up to the bar
And this is what I found!
That SOB had lost his leg,
You won’t believe me anymore!
On an island north of Adak base
Beside a cabin door!
A Navy man, lost in a storm,
His raft had washed ashore.
He saw a cabin beneath a cliff
And when he got to the door,
An avalanche of snow and stone
Hit his leg with jagged rock.
Severed it below the knee
And jammed the door lock!
He dragged his stub back to the raft
And headed back to sea.
The Coast Guard later picked him up
And he was discharged, an amputee!
I never told him ‘bout that foot
We’d laid to rest that day.
Hell, he’d done spoiled my mystery tale
And I think it’s best that way!
I’ve counted cadence, hut, two, three,
In the cold and sweat and gore.
To the beat of greedy armory czars
Building A-bombs by the score.
I’ve watched my buddies scream with pain
And fall upon their face.
While evil men with corporate hearts
Zap the whole damned human race!
I’ve disinterred the rotting flesh
Of heroes large as life.
Lain to rest in shallow graves
"Neath showers of bullets, rife!
I’ve read their unmailed notes to Mom,
Of thing that might have been.
I’ve pinned them in a cold white sheet
And tucked them in again.
I’ve drunk my toasts to these unknown men,
Unspoken words of cheer.
I’ve wondered why in hell they died,
‘Twixt the taste of tears and beer.
I’ve cursed our leaders, then and there
As we carried young heroes back
To Mom and Dad, to hearth and home
A cold and lonely shack!
I’ve heisted M1’s to the sky
And watched our hero’s toddling sons
Hold hands with tear stained beauty queens
And then we’d fire our guns!
I heard the preacher say "Amen."
As someone says "He’s gone!"
Then we’d go down to the local bar
And really tie one on!
I’ve folded many a tear stained flag
And marched in many bands.
Heard many words from broken hearts,
Filled pits in clays and sands.
I’ve learned when men play games of war,
Someone will live and cry,
But the saddest part, the starring role,
Our youth must fight and die!
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