THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 4, 1995 TAG: 9506020301
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Olde Towne Journal
SOURCE: Alan Flanders
LENGTH: Long : 114 lines
Thousands who had marched so proudly in countless American cities had packed their instruments, put away their uniforms, and gone home leaving the sidewalks empty of applauding crowds. Millions who had turned main streets across the entire nation into one wild dance party were back to their routines.
It was now June 1945, and even though the United States had indulged in one giant soiree celebrating V-E Day - the end of World War II in Europe - the grisly task of winning back the Pacific and defeating the Japanese awaited them. Miles of sandy island beaches bristling with enemy gun positions, hundreds of snake-infested jungles and malaria-ridden swamps, and thousands of Japanese troops and airmen stood before the American military whose task it now was to bring a final, unconditional end to World War II.
``I am proud to count myself among those veterans who made it to see V-J Day in Tokyo Harbor when the Japanese finally surrendered in August of that year, but believe me when I say there was no time to celebrate with the rest of the nation months earlier when we heard the Germans had surrendered in Europe,'' said Jim Martin, a retired Norfolk Naval Shipyard electrical engineer.
Martin wonders, like so many other veterans, if the nation will pay as much attention to the 50th anniversary of V-J Day as it has to V-E Day.
``We were in the middle of a fight for our very lives,'' Martin said. ``The Japanese were throwing everything they had at us, dive bombers, Zeros and suicide pilots. When we got the brief message over the ship's intercom that peace had come to the Atlantic, it seemed like the real war was just winding up for us.''
Martin was still a teen-ager, having joined as a ``Pearl Harbor Volunteer'' at age 17.
With a brother just 100 yards from him as an anti-aircraft gun director on the heavy cruiser USS Boston, Martin had a ``bird's-eye view'' of the Pacific campaign from his precarious perch on the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown's starboard signal bridge.
``We had some powerful telescopes on the bridge and I could from time to time see my older brother, Edward, when we zigged and his ship zagged in our constant shifting positions to throw off enemy submarine attacks. But there wasn't much time to relax or visit in Admiral Marc Mitscher's Fast Carrier Attack Force. Our ship served as the command ship as well as platform for launching air attacks in support of our forces landing ashore, but we all knew that we would be prime target if the Japanese could get their planes past our escorts,'' recalled Martin.
It didn't take long after the Yorktown met the enemy in the south Pacific and South China Sea to learn that indeed they were not only the largest target in their group with their length over 870 feet, but with their 3,448-man complement of sailors, marines and pilots, they were the most prized target of all for the most deadly weapon the Japanese had in their arsenal.
``Once we all but destroyed the Japanese navy in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, they invoked the weapon of `Special Attack Forces' - the suicide diver, known as Kamikaze or `Divine Wind,' '' said Martin. Neither the crew of the Yorktown nor any other sailor in the fleet had experienced anything like it.
``Many of the Kamikaze pilots were believed to be drugged, and with little flying experience. They had just enough fuel to get them over the target and that was it. Each one carried a bomb that was already armed and ready to detonate on impact, which they prayed would be on our ship. Once we began our attacks on the Japanese home islands after Formosa, they came out in their suicide dives. From that point, when we went to general quarters, we manned our battle stations knowing that the Kamikaze would be among the attackers. The only way to fight them was put up a complete wall of flak and hope they ran into it. You couldn't just damage the plane, you had to completely destroy it,'' Martin said.
Martin remembers one particular dive-bomber attack that came literally within inches of hitting his signal bridge and wiping out the pilot house on the deck below.
``He didn't come up on us in a steep enough dive, but his bomb grazed my deck and exploded below in one of our gun mounts. We took a lot of casualties from that attack, but we could have lost the entire ship on that one. In another attack, I could see the pilot clearly, including his face, as he came over us. As we gripped anything we could get our hands on and swore, my brother's gun over on the BOSTON shot down the torpedo plane which splashed some 20 yards off our side. He lives today in Portland, Ore., but you know something, whenever we get together, I find time to thank him for that one.''
Other memories come flooding back to Jim Martin when he looks back over a photo album with pictures of a young boy in a sailor's uniform amidst others of combat-filled skies with Japanese fighters falling into the ocean below.
``You know, when soldiers want to go back and visit a cemetery or see a monument to come to terms with reality, they can (do so) since it's on land. But for us sailors, there aren't any cemeteries or monuments in the ocean. I can still see those burial-at-sea ceremonies. When they play taps and that's your friend going over the side in that shell-weighted canvas bag, you know the real meaning of `Deep Six.' I saw many a plane come in all shot to pieces, crash land and break apart, while others had to be rolled over the side.''
By August, 1945, the United States had planned a full scale amphibious assault on Japan itself and was ready to accept the hundreds of thousands of casualties it would take to end the war. Both Jim Martin and his brother volunteered to be part of that invasion force.
However, fate took another turn. Two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, thus ending the war. Instead of fighting their way ashore, Martin and his brother watched with thousands of other American sailors in Tokyo Bay as the Japanese signed an unconditional surrender on the battleship USS Missouri.
``It seems like just yesterday for me, but I wouldn't take a million dollars for that experience,'' said Martin. ``I loved the Navy and I would do it all over again without a single hesitation.''
As for the 50th anniversary celebration of V-J Day, Martin added, ``For that, I'll just have to wait and see.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by GARY C. KNAPP
Jim Martin wonders, like so many other World War II veterans, if the
nation will pay as much attention to the 50th anniversary of V-J Day
as it has to V-E Day.
by CNB