The Last Men in the Last Battles of World War Ii: From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima Via Guadalcanal, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa

By Joe B. Keys and Ted R. Keys

Welcome to a meeting with The Last Men in the Last Battles of World War II. Travel with them as they scale enemy escarpments, attack heavily armed caves and fly in cockpits against Kamikazes, visit them on Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Peliliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, and learn why Admiral Nimitz said, “Among these men uncommon valor was a common virtue.”
This book presents selected stories about thousands of Army Infantry, Sailors, Pilots and Marines who fought a brutal enemy. Hear Chaplain Sydney Wood-Cahusac say of those who did not return “Immortality is not our gift to give, but we can recall them as individuals, as human beings, as friends and not just as number.”
The Keys, through personal interviews with eleven of these men, their sons, or best friends, have captured stories that present them as real persons with feelings about the war, the enemy and their buddies wounded and dying nearby. Read stories of how Sergeant Major Hank Clark led others to save New Zealand and how Mustang pilot Bill Stringer downed three enemy planes, though badly wounded while sleeping in his cockpit. Some Cam Home captures stories about the men’s families, jobs, joys, and problems after returning home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Mar 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781480887923

Joe B. Keys

Joe B. Keys has been a Marine, a claims adjustor, an accountant, a professor, a university administrator, consultant, founder of a national association, editor of several professional journals and a minister. He studied at Tennessee, then Vanderbilt, and completed a PH.D at the University of Oklahoma. He served later as a Visiting Scholar at MIT. He is the author of twelve other books. Ted Keys, co-author and son, has worked as a journalist, editor, web publisher, and in the fields of telecommunication and corporate consulting. Ted is an avid teacher, writer, public speaker, and student of history.

Book preview

Key Role Players from Interviews over

Past Eleven Years (All Deceased)

Lt. Colonel James (Red) Qualls, USMC, platoon leader on Iwo Jima, led men to knock out thirty caves and twenty machine-gun nests; shot by Japanese while rescuing men. Bronze Star. Star football player and preacher. Quarterbacked for Navy while in OCS. Interviewed.

Army Air Corps Lt. Bill Springer, P-51 pilot nearly killed on Iwo Jima; had three confirmed kills of Japanese Zeros; shot down once. Ditched once on Okinawa but made it back. On return, managed a restaurant and flew charter flights. Ted and Joe Keys interviewed.

Major Dutch Van Kirk, Army Air Corps, navigator for Paul Tibbetts on the Enola Gay when atomic bomb dropped to end World War II. Returned and resided at Stone Mountain, Georgia. Flew charter flights and lectured widely. Interviewed.

Pharmacist’s Mate Buddy McDonough as a medic on ships; often served as MD in emergencies scheduled to be embedded with marines on Okinawa, but war ended before. Interviewed son Steve.

Chester Nez, USMC code talker who grew up on a reservation, fought, and practiced code-talking in many of the World War II Pacific island battles. Friend of and worked with Hank Clark when he was scout for General Buckner; last of the twenty-nine code talkers, received a Gold Medal from President Bush. Clark discussed him, and literature was plentiful.

Navy Lieutenant and pilot Kenneth Nitro Glisson on the carrier Lexington and others; nicknamed Nitro for flying skills he used. Engaged in mopping up hot spots in Japan after the surrender. Returned to graduate with engineering degree from Auburn; legend in TVA. Interviewed. Attended military funeral in 2018.

Sergeant Major Haskell Hank Clark, USMC, a marine’s marine. Began at age seventeen as an artilleryman on ship in Pearl Harbor attack and shot down at least four Japanese planes. Mortarteam leader, other islands including Guadalcanal, where wounded. Scout for Gen. Buckner, Okinawa; fought in many other Pacific battles. Artillery man in Korea and Vietnam. Twice drill instructor at Parris Island and platoon leader for Marine Corps One helicopter, traveled with and guarded President Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson. Led rescue of entire country of New Zealand from invasion by Japanese when able-bodied men were in Indonesia. Recognized as hero in New Zealand. Interviewed dozens of times. Military funeral Christmas Eve, 2019 attended by Joe Keys.

Seaman First Class Donald McCoin, seabee, major support group on many islands including Okinawa. Returned as builder and leader in local church. Interviewed son Ed.

Private First Class Desmond Doss, US Army, Okinawa; only conscientious objector to win the Medal of Honor in WW II; saved lives of over a hundred men while under fire. Interviewed pastor and best friend, Les Spear. Same battle as Hank Clark.

Lieutenant Joe Foss, F4F pilot, greatest Marine Corps ace of World War II with twenty-six kills; later governor of North Dakota. Took Hank Clark up and successfully semi-crashed after three. Won Medal of Honor and became general in Marine Corps Reserves. Hank Clark flew once as his artilleryman and shot down four Japanese planes. Interviewed Hank Clark about him. Extensive literature.

THE LAST MEN IN

THE LAST BATTLES

OF WORLD WAR II

From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima Via

Guadalcanal, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa

JOE B. KEYS * TED R. KEYS

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Copyright © 2020 Joe B. Keys * Ted R. Keys.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Archway Publishing

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Bloomington, IN 47403

www.archwaypublishing.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®

Copyright © 1973 1978 1984 2011 by Biblica, Inc. TM.

Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

ISBN: 978-1-4808-8791-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-8792-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020902344

Archway Publishing rev. date: 04/16/2020

PREFACE

This book is the child of many persons, but more than anyone, it belongs to and is a tribute to the men shown above who fought courageously in the bloody battles of the Pacific in World War II and WE DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO THESE WORLD WAR II VETERANS OF THE PACIFIC ISLAND BATTLES AND TO THEIR FAMILIES.

My son Ted and I conducted the interviews beginning in 2007, with men all of whom have passed from this life. We greatly appreciate sacrifices the army, army air corps, navy, and marines who fought on the Pacific islands. We have shed more than one tear while hearing and reading about their suffering and sacrifices during that war. We were saddened again when we lost each of them who had become my friends. WE DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO THEIR FAMILIES

DAV

WE DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO all the men and women of the American military and our allies who lost their lives in World War II and to their families due to the grave injustice of Pearl Harbor and the battles that followed that event. We understand even more fully that life is short and tenuous—especially for those in the military—and that

FREEDOM IS NEVER FREE.

WE DEDICATE THIS BOOK WITH ALL OUR LOVE TO

LOUISE MORTON KEYS,

KIND, BEAUTIFUL AND BRILLANT WIFE OF JOE

AND LOVING MOTHER OF TED, KIM & KRISTIE

AND A GRANDMOTHER WHO GAVE UP MUCH

PERSONAL TIME AND PROVIDED

ENCOURAGEMENT FOR ALL OF US

FOR MANY YEARS

and

To All Of

THE ALHZEIMERS ASSOCIATIONS

SPECIAL DEDICATION TO Walter K. Clair, MD, MPH Professor

of Medicine, Executive Medical Director/Chief Medical Officer,

Vanderbilt Heart and Vascular Institute for his prayerful and skilled

work in saving the life of author Joe B. Keys in a crisis which many

professionals would have deemed hopeless and for continuously

dedicating himself to patients in this manner; and for obtaining the

excellent education and experience at a level that allowed him to do so.

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Semper Fi

Welcome to our stories about the men of the

WWII Pacific battles and their wives and families!

Sgt. Joe Keys

CONTENTS

Prologue : Pearl Harbor

1 .    The Doolittle Tokyo Raid

2 .    Sergeant Major Hank Clark: A Marine’s Marine

3 .    First Marines Initiate Operation .Watchtower--Guadalcanal

4 .    The Battle of the Mountain of .Blood on Guadalcanal

5 .    Joe Foss, Marine Ace, Picks Hank Clark to Fly Shotgun

6 .    John Basilone: Nightmare for the .Japanese—Dream for Sgt. Lena Riggi

7 .    Sergeant Major Hank Clark Helps Save New Zealand

8 .    Colonel Chesty Puller And Other. Regimental Commanders Land On Peleliu

9 .    Red Qualls—From Cisco, Texas to Abilene Christian College

10 .    A Landing boat’s View of Iwo Jima

11 .    Red Qualls on the Sifting Sulfur Sands of Iwo Jima

12 .    Bill Springer Rides Wild Mustangs from Iwo Jima for B-29s

13 .    The Notebook

14 .    Never Assault the Japanese without a .Pharmacist’s Mate

Like Buddy McDonough or William D. Halyburton Jr.

15 .    Seabees—Naval Construction Engineers

16 .    The Big One--Okinawa

17 .    Desmond Doss and Ernie Pyle—. At War without a Weapon

18 .    Hank Clark and the First Marines March toward Shuri

19 .    Sugar Loaf Hill—Road to Shuri Heights and Castle

20 .    The Deaths of the Generals, Medal of Honor to Courtney, and Victory!

21 .    Hank Clark—Drill Instructor, Platoon Leader Marine Corps One for President and Lady Bird Johnson

22 .    Nitro Glisson or the Atomic Bomb?

23 .    Dutch Van Kirk Navigates the Enola Gay for Paul Tibbets– Pilot and Aircraft Commander

24.    The Surrender

25 .   Some Can Go Home Again

Epilogue: In Defense of the Bomb

References

End Notes

PROLOGUE

Pearl Harbor

Pastor Bill Owens spoke at the funeral and at graveside from Revelation 21 beside Sergeant Major (Ret.) Hank Clark’s flag-draped coffin brought in by six marines in dress blues, all of whom had at least three hash marks and three up and one down or more. They fired a twenty-one-gun salute. Hank was born March 12, 1923, and died December 19, 2018.

Hank responded to Joe Keys with these words:

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I was sworn in to the US Marine Corps in Nashville. I took a train for Parris Island Recruit Depot and arrived in Yemassee, the train station in Beaufort, South Carolina. This was in 1940. We boarded a bus from which we unloaded to a cussing, snorting, ‘I have got your ass now’ junior drill instructor. After ten weeks there, I was transferred to advanced combat training in Quantico, Virginia, where I learned to use an M-1, a .50-caliber machine gun, and a .45 pistol and learned more about the use of a bayonet and hand-to-hand combat. Later, I became an expert in the use of all of these including artillery, mortars, and rockets while stationed on the Big Island of Hawaii, and I became somewhat familiar with flamethrowers."

Background on the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor

Japanese admiral Isoroju Yamamoto, the imperial navy’s commander in chief, had for some time urged a preemptive strike on the US primarily because we were blockading Japan’s supply lines supporting its aggressive moves into China and other Asian areas. He launched a fleet of six big aircraft carriers with 414 planes, two fast battleships, two cruisers and tankers, several destroyers, and sixteen submarines. That was the armada that did the damage to Pearl Harbor.

Yamamoto made three mistakes in his attack on Pearl Harbor. First, he failed to catch our carriers in port, and that left us with the major weapon with which the Pacific war could be fought. Second, his pilots did not target and destroy Pearl Harbor’s huge fuel tanks, which would soon resupply the arriving carriers and the repaired and reequipped ships. Third, Yamamoto chose not to make a third strike on Pearl in fear that American bombers would catch his fleet with ammo and supplies exhausted or with only enough to make the return trip to Japan without a major battle.

On December 7, 1941, a surprise military attack was launched by six Japanese aircraft carriers. In all, 353 Japanese fighters, bombers, and torpedo bombers attacked Pearl Harbor.¹ They were equipped with specially adapted aerial torpedoes that had anti-roll mechanisms and a rudder extension that allowed them to operate in shallow water. Previously, the US had been convinced that an enemy could not successfully attack Pearl Harbor because it was so shallow.

Aircrews bombed battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, and destroyers. Dive bombers attacked ground targets. Japanese fighters prevented air counterattacks by strafing and destroying as many parked US aircraft as possible around Pearl Harbor. A second wave of 171 planes attacked aircraft and hangars on Kaneohe, Ford Island, and Hickam Field. In ninety minutes, 2,403 Americans died, almost half of whom died in the explosion of the Arizona’s forward magazine,² and 1,000 had been wounded.³ Fortunately, the American carriers’ location remained unknown to the Japanese, and they apparently did not have time to find them.⁴ Admiral Nagumo believed the second strike had essentially satisfied the main objective of his mission—the neutralization of the Pacific Fleet—and did not wish to risk further losses.

It was fortuitous that Hank Clark was in Hawaii and after this training served as an artillery man on the USS Curtis. Departing Pearl Harbor on June 2, 1942, the Curtiss later served as flagship for several commanders and eventually arrived at Okinawa. Parts of the following interview were conducted by author Joe Keys and parts by Emmett Genipap, staff writer for the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

Hank Clark Fights Back at Pearl Harbor

The USS Curtis operated out of Norfolk and in the Caribbean for training and in fleet exercises through the spring of 1941; it was one of fourteen ships to receive the early RCA CXAM-1 radar. On May 26, it got underway for Pearl Harbor from which it served as a guard ship as well as tending two patrol bomber squadrons. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the Curtis fired at the attacking Japanese aircraft. At 08:36, it sighted a periscope of a Japanese midget submarine and opened fire. A torpedo from this submarine missed the Curtis sand hit a dock at Pearl City. Four minutes later, the same submarine surfaced and was further damaged by gunfire before diving again, after which the destroyer Monaghan sank the submarine with a ram and depth-charge attack.

At 09:05, the Curtis hit a Japanese plane, which crashed into its number 1 crane causing casualties and starting a fire. Three minutes later, it was attacked by a dive bomber, and a bomb struck the Curtis near its damaged crane and exploded below decks setting the hangar, main decks, and number 4 handling room on fire. The damaged aircraft crashed off its port beam. With nineteen dead and many wounded, the Curtis’ crew managed to extinguish the fire and commence emergency repairs. Divers from the naval shipyard, and civilian contractors began work on the ships that could be re-floated. Within six months, five battleships and two cruisers were re-floated so they could be sent to shipyards in Pearl and on the mainland for extensive repairs. A few US fighters were able to get into the air and do some damage to the incoming Japanese. However, only one of our ships was in open water and closes enough to engage the enemy. Amazingly, Hank Clark (sergeant major USMC Ret.), whom you will read much more about later, was on the Curtis clear of the torpedo bomb. I’ll let him tell the story.

On the morning, December 7, 1941, the imperial Japanese navy air service attacked Pearl Harbor while Hank was enjoying the day on the deck of the USS Curtis as it was coming into dock. The Japanese swept in just before 08:00, and in an instant, the Hawaii naval base was a war zone. It was a horrible day, really and truly. We were sitting there just happy and enjoying ourselves when all of a sudden we learned we were under attack The Japanese planes were coming over and dropping bombs and strafing and everything. Our ship did an about-face to get back into open water, where it would have room to maneuver. The crew scrambled to help repel the attack, and I manned a quad 40 mm gun firing on the planes dive-bombing docked ships.

Out to sea, we could protect ourselves and actually move around. From there, we went after the Japanese. They of course turned and ran toward the open sea after they had done the damage. We shot down I forget how many planes. We had a kamikaze pilot who made a dive on the ship. We hit him, and I could have reached out and touched the plane as it hit the water behind us. It came that close. If it had been another three feet over, he would have gotten us.

The Curtis was damaged in the attack but returned shortly after to assist in its aftermath. We came back to the scene of devastation, and I began to grapple with the scope of what had happened. I was so scared that I didn’t do too much thinking except thanking the Lord that he had protected us. It was something I want to remember but yet I don’t want to remember because of all the good men who are still there.

December 8, 1941

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One day after Japan’s attack, the Japanese declared war on the United States and the British Empire. President Roosevelt gave his famous speech to a joint session of Congress calling for a formal declaration of war on Japan. In less than an hour, Congress approved his request.⁵

It is one of the most famous American political speeches. The six-minute speech excerpts are below. Roosevelt broadcast, included one of the most famous speeches in the history of the United States

The Photo above shows Roosevelt delivering a speech to Congress. Behind him are Vice President Henry A. Wallace (left) and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn. To the right, in uniform, in front of Rayburn is Roosevelt’s son James, who escorted his father to the Capitol. ⁶

Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Senate, and of the House of Representatives: Yesterday, December Seventh, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan… The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu… No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.⁷

After the US picked up the pieces from Pearl Harbor and began its offense, Roosevelt said, There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

The Recovery Begins

The Oklahoma, while successfully raised, was never repaired. The Arizona and the Utah were too heavily damaged to be salvaged. Today, the two hulks remain where they were sunk. The Arizona is now a memorial that many including the authors of this book visited.⁸

On December 11, 1941, Nazi Germany and Italy declared war on the US. Congress reciprocated with a declaration of war against Germany and Italy later that day.

Fortunately for the US, its aircraft carriers had been untouched by the Japanese attack, and the Pacific Fleet was able to conduct offensive operations that initiated a turnaround in the war. The Japanese had believed that the ultimate Pacific battle would be fought by battleships, a fatal flaw in strategic thinking. As a result, Yamamoto and his successors hoarded battleships used in Okinawa when the mainland battle looked unlikely.⁹ Admiral Hara Tadaichi summed up the Japanese result by saying, We won a great tactical victory at Pearl Harbor and thereby lost the war.¹⁰

Thousands of miles away, Robert Millican, a seventeen-year-old native of Cleveland, Tennessee, heard about the attack as he was driving with a friend. The pair stopped at a service station and came in to find a group of adults listening to reports of the attack coming in over the radio. They were talking to each other, and I was just kind of listening in on the conversation. I made no comments because I didn’t know what to say. They were talking about what a horrible time it was. They were very angry and they were saying what this country would do to the Japanese, and it turned out they were right. I was a little scared because that was huge news. Something I had never heard before. I had never heard about Pearl Harbor and not much about the Japanese. After he learned more about the attack, he joined the Marine Corps. He said, I spent months serving as a rifle instructor on American bases before shipping out to fight in the Pacific. Millican was in Okinawa when the first atomic bomb was dropped bringing a halt to the conflict.

Wayne Shearer, who lives in Hixson, Tennessee, was a senior in high school and riding in the car with his family when they heard the news he said:

We were driving around after church on Sunday afternoon listening to the radio, and then suddenly there it was. It was on the radio that the Japanese had attacked us at Pearl Harbor, and most of us had no idea where Pearl Harbor was. My dad was a WWI veteran. He was driving the car, turned around, and said, Wayne, you know what that means? And I said, Yes sir. I’ll do my part.

He and his classmates were corralled into the school auditorium the following day to listen to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s address to the country: We were looking forward to going. A couple of the fellas even volunteered when they were seventeen. They were just patriotic and they wanted to fight for their country.¹¹

Survivors

Donald Stratton, a fresh navy recruit, was on board the Arizona and told his story in Reader’s Digest. He began on a melancholy note. It has been said that when an old person dies, it is like a library burning down. For the past 75 years, I have tried to share what I remember of World War II, but a day will come when I can no longer speak. Then what will become of everything I experienced on December 7, 1941? That’s why I write this account. I awoke on my cot … At 5:30, reveille sounded. He learned that 230 miles north of Oahu, a Japanese attack force was gathering; it consisted of six aircraft carriers, two battleships, two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, nine destroyers, eight tankers, and three submarines that escorted the carriers.

They turned east into the wind and increased their speed to 24 knots … The carriers launched 183 planes, the first wave including 51 dive-bombers, 40 torpedo bombers, 49 horizontal bombers, and 43 fighters. At 6:30, chow call sounded, and I ate typical Sunday fare: coffee, powdered eggs with ketchup, fried Spam, pancakes. Our USS Arizona was one of the 185 ships … moored in the harbor that day … Because of poor weather, the fleet’s three aircraft carriers remained at sea. At 6:45, outside the harbor, the USS Ward sank an unidentified sub and reported this to authorities at Pearl Harbor, but no alert was given to other ships in the harbor.

Shortly after 7:00 A. M. at the Opana Point Radar Station on the Oahu’s North Shore, army privates Joseph Lockard and George Elliot completed a shift, but Lockard stayed to give the more inexperienced directions. They spotted a number of planes flying in formation but unfortunately decided they were planes from the USS carrier group returning to the base.¹²

Carol Kitano, of Burien, Washington, says that her father, William E. Clothier, was a twenty-year-old marine private aboard the battleship USS Nevada when Japanese torpedo planes and dive bombers attacked Pearl Harbor. Her father was interviewed many times about his experiences. He recalled that Sunday.

The day was bright and beautiful and just before 8a.m. he and a friend were dressing for church. We had been undergoing several alerts, and we were sure that it was someone playing with the guns. An officer came through yelling General Quarters, we are being attacked. Clothier was on gun 10 and saw a plane go down in flames right in front of him as he ran into the gun case mate. When a burst of bullets ricocheted off the side of the ship, he realized it was no drill. We were hit again and again, and the ship started to sink. A marine gunnery chief in the station opposite mine had his clothes torn off him, and three men were killed by a blast. The chief raced onto the boat deck and grabbed a machine gun and kept on fighting. He was cited with the Navy Cross for his action.

The bombed Nevada, now sinking rapidly in the channel, would have blocked all boats if a tug had not pushed the battleship to the beach. Even though the ship was partially submerged, men kept firing their guns. The captain’s boat had been overturned, and he waded through oil-slick water to reach the Nevada. His first remarks upon reaching deck were, My God! My God! What have they done to my boys? The Nevada earned several battle stars and was the only battleship present at both Pearl Harbor and the Normandy landings.¹³

One further consequence of the attacks on Pearl Harbor and its aftermath was that over 110,000 Japanese-Americans, including US citizens, were removed from their homes and transferred to internment camps.

Miss Golden Gate Bridge -Answer to Pearl Harbor in a Nutshell

At approximately 11:00, just two hours after the first bomb was dropped and some 2,500 miles east of Pearl, a lone telephone operator and newlywed, Pauline Ruth Black, was on duty in Pacific Bell Telephone Company’s toll center in the sleepy little farming community of Lake Port, California, 120 miles from San Francisco but serving six other Pac Bell offices. An unidentified long-distance operator placed a call to the twenty-three-year-old:

The Japanese had just invaded Pearl Harbor, and there were a lot of casualties—no other details.

Pauline Ruth Black, was on duty in Pacific Bell Telephone Company’s toll center ninety-five at the time of our interview and a resident of Cookeville, Tennessee, home of the authors, said, I was stunned and shocked as were the other six operators I called. I knew our lives would never be the same …I couldn’t know how long it would take to beat the Japanese or how many of our young men would die trying. Pauline was a winner—she had just won the local county beauty review and was named Miss Golden Gate bridge for the opening of the bridge. Citizens such as this young woman wondered not if we would win but how long it would take. The attack prompted US industries and supporting civilian units to develop more rapidly than the Japanese could imagine the greatest war machine and the most willing sacrifice of patriot sons and daughters the world has ever seen.

Recently, Norm Black, Pauline’s son, called and said hundreds of relatives came from as far away as California to Cookeville, Tennessee, for his mother’s 101st birthday. A month later, she concluded a beautiful life while sleeping.

Hugh Sidey, a well-known journalist, was asked by Life magazine to establish the context for the Pearl Harbor story for a fiftieth anniversary edition. The veteran journalist died before the following excellent piece of work was published in Life:

Pearl Harbor is the story of the worst battle defeat ever suffered by the U.S., and of how courage and ingenuity rose from the smoldering wreckage to build the world’s most powerful war machine and, in victory’s aftermath, to wage peace with even greater scope and success. There—the Territory of Hawaii—and then—December 7, 1941—came one of the most devious attacks in history. Even Charles Lindbergh, the world’s most famous person joined the crusade and eventually fought as did 15 million other men and women.¹⁴

You will read next about a quick trip to Japan by some courageous American fliers that cost many of them their lives. Then the US Navy and Army prevailed in many battles, and the marines did what marines do on island after island until they and the army had defeated the Japanese in the last battle, Okinawa.

On Guam, a large airfield was captured, and even on tiny Iwo Jima, an airfield was secured as a base for P-51s to escort B-29s to Japan and make straffing runs. It also allowed emergency landings for B-29s on the way back from Tokyo and Pacific islands with wounded in need of first aid or planes out of fuel or shot up and in need of repair. These airfields were bought with courage, blood, and lives of many men such as the ones we will now tell you about often in their own words.¹⁵

CHAPTER 1

The Doolittle Tokyo Raid

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The Doolittle flight team: Lieutenant Col. Jimmy Doolittle

(left); Roosevelt’s first response to Pearl Harbor

President Roosevelt wanted an immediate response to the Pearl Harbor attack. The Joint Chiefs of Staff thought this could not be done, but a submarine captain shared with the president an idea about how to do it. He suggested that an aircraft carrier load aboard a number of B-17s, which when stripped down of all unnecessary weight and fitted with catapults could take off and make it to Tokyo from five hundred miles out.

There was only one problem: after the planes left the carrier deck, the carrier would have to immediately turn around and head for home leaving the B-17s without a place to land unless they could make it to China. President Roosevelt agreed with this plan, and the Doolittle flight team was born.

Lieutenant Colonel James Jimmy Doolittle, US Army Air Corp was asked to lead a bomber raid on Tokyo. He asked for crews and gathered sixteen US Army Air ForceB-25 Mitchell medium bombers. He made special preparations so that he could launch them from the USS Hornet, a navy aircraft carrier, deep in the western Pacific. There was a great likelihood that this would be the last and final mission for the pilots and five-man crews, so only volunteers were selected.

The Hornet was spotted by the Japanese military before the team’s scheduled liftoff time, and the planes had to depart for Tokyo when the carrier was more than five hundred miles away. That meant they would be in the air longer and not have enough fuel to reach Tokyo and return to the China coast.

On Saturday, April 18, 1942, the planes departed for Tokyo and other places on the island of Honshu. This was the first air raid to strike the Japanese home islands. Industrial targets were hit, and sections of the target cities were destroyed. The raid provided an important boost to American morale back home and throughout the armed forces since it demonstrated that Japan was vulnerable to American air attack.

Fifteen aircraft reached China, but all crashed; the sixteenth landed at Vladivostok in the Soviet Union. All but three of the eighty crew initially survived the mission. Eight airmen were captured by the Japanese army in China, and three were later executed. The B-25 that landed in the Soviet Union was confiscated, and its crew was interned for more than a year. Fourteen complete crews, except for one crewman who was killed in action, returned either to the United States or to American forces.¹⁶

After the raid, the Japanese army conducted a massive sweep through the eastern coastal provinces of China in an operation now known as the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Campaign searching for the surviving American airmen and torturing and killing any Chinese suspected of assisting the Doolittle crews.

When Doolittle returned, he was certain that the loss of all his aircraft would lead to his court-martial. Imagine his surprise when he received the Medal of Honor and was promoted two steps to brigadier general.¹⁷

CHAPTER 2

Sergeant Major Hank Clark: A Marine’s Marine

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We interviewed Sergeant Major Haskell M. Hank Clark at his Hickory Valley Retirement Center near Chattanooga. Joe Keys found Hank by chance having lunch at an American Legion Post on Ringgold Road in Chattanooga. The authors never dreamed there would be a ninety-four-year-old veteran sitting at the luncheon bar who had been in so many of the Pacific battles—exactly the kind of man we were seeking to learn from about the Pacific battles beyond Red Qualls’s Iwo Jima stories.

We became friends with this retired marine sergeant major, who was still quite strong and had a keen memory of most of the preceding seventy-plus years. We continued over a year to interview him about his life and his Pacific battles.

On December 19, 2018, we were sad to see Hank Clark leave this present world, but all who knew him thought his dedication to his Christian faith and his love of country and of family took him to a better place.

First, there was a traditional funeral life celebration with several of Hank’s favorite songs—Peace in the Valley,The Old Rugged Cross, and something we had not seen before in the many military funerals we witnessed or conducted. Hank had requested that his funeral end with the playing of The Marines’ Hymn. A daughter and two granddaughters spoke. Hank’s five daughters said, We were his boys. Catlin, a granddaughter, said that when they chided Hank about not coming home more often, Papa (as she called him) said jokingly, "If the Marine Corps