Leanna Conley

by War Stories- A Father Talks to His Daughter (epub)

  No way, Pop!

  “Yeah. When we saw what he could do, it didn’t take us long to start playin’ ball again! We put Hikari on the Old Guys team. What a catcher! Man, he was good. It was like nine young guys versus ‘Old Man’ John and this Japanese kid. They clobbered us in the last inning, 10 to 3!”

  Incredible.

  “After our game, we managed to get through to him we wanted to free any American prisoners–that if he showed us where they were, he could live.”

  ‘Hai,’ he said.

  The next morning, at dawn, the guys and Hikari hiked to the south side of the island, which had a higher elevation. From this vantage point, they could see the layout of what was an actual camp. They spotted smoke coming through the palms. Hikari went first, to clear traps. Slowly they cut a path behind enemy lines.

  Wow. He did that for you?

  “Honey, he didn’t have much of a choice. And then we saw it.”

  For the first time ever, I saw my father’s eyes fill with water.

  “We were just kids.”

  Ten wooden huts for prisoners sprawled out over an acre of land. Barbed wire. Watery ditches. Fences. Cages. An incredible stench, unlike anything they had ever smelled before, came from the smoke they had spotted earlier. They saw arms and legs sticking out of a fire. Two guards on duty were immediately and silently killed. In the distance, a few emaciated bodies slowly walk among the huts with water buckets. As the soldiers crept closer, moans from prisoners confined in bamboo cages became audible.

  A detachment from another division landed that night and met them at Hikari’s coordinates. Together the men surrounded and took the camp where 150 Japanese resided over what were originally 223 Australian, British and American prisoners of war: from Guam, Wake Island, Burma, Singapore.

  They hoped to liberate all the prisoners. They found only 39 alive. Most had been tortured…. Dad never said how.

  The Americans let the bodies of the Japanese dead lie throughout the camp as they cremated the POW corpses.

  When dusk fell, Dad’s band started to walk Hikari out to the beach where they had played like kids only 24 hours before.

  Hikari put up his hand and stopped them at the edge of the jungle. “Biru San.” he said. “It be Biru San.”

  The group faded back into the dark. Alone, the two men stared into each other’s faces.

  “Biru San.” Hikari bowed, again handing Dad his senninbari.

  Papa, you didn’t. You didn’t.

  “No, honey. I didn’t. I let him go.”

  Go where?

  Dad switched off the light.

  “It’s time for bed, sweetheart. I’m very tired.”

  August 6, 1945

  Last night we were on Guam, awaiting the invasion of Japan. I heard about the bomb and fell to my knees with emotion. I wasn’t going to die in an invasion force. We had feared an estimated 5-6 million American and Japanese casualties. Now we can’t even liberate our POW camp in Hiroshima. It was annihilated—along with nearly 70,000 Japanese civilians. I hope to God this is the end.

  September 3, 1945

  We arrived in Hiroshima today. [Not legible] The horizon was flat and gray. No one alive as far as the eye can see, yet. This thick gray dust stuck to our boots and clothes. We have yet to go inland—no idea what we’ll find. This was the first time anything like this was used. The landscape had a strange, eerie sense to it, unlike fire bombs. Unlike anything I’ve seen in my life.

  3 p.m.—The first thing I noticed when we got to the center of town was the outline of human beings on the sidewalks—like a camera negative of their image burned into the cement. We set up a medical tent and brought in supplies. People, like zombies, came down from the highland—their faces half melted. They said nothing and took the food and water we gave them. Later that day, we began to hear cries coming from the few buildings still standing. I am amazed that these pockets still have survivors. I passed by a GI, or what appeared to be an American, wrapped around a tree. He was stoned by the locals.

  November 29, 1945

  It was the crack of dawn when I heard Yoshi screaming in our makeshift infirmary. He was calling for his mother, just like I hear many soldiers do in their last hours. I held his little hand. I told him no sweat and it’s okay. We’ll be playin’ jeep tomorrow, he can shift all by himself, and it’ll be alright. His parents drove in from the country to take him shopping in the city for a new bike the morning of August 6th. If only they had waited one day…

  The Last Story

  On November 17th, 1999, my father fell into a coma and never came back. I thought then of a night just two weeks before. It was the last night I’d hear one of his stories. I knew it.

  He was cozy in his favorite PJs, sitting in his big leather chair, watching Letterman and chewing on crackers—happy as a clam. He hated the hospital, except for Nurse Maria, of course. Every time I was on the phone with him and Maria walked in, he’d drop the receiver. “Gotta go! Nurse has ice cream!”

  Glad to see him actually eat, I humbly sat on the floor in front of his chair, ready to soak in whatever story he wanted to tell. On the plain brown shelves were great books: books on Japanese culture, books on science and the great pyramids, books in Latin. In this little den of knowledge, my father had literally made his sanctuary for some 36 years—and had become somewhat withdrawn—very lonely, except for his business. Any extravagance was for his daughter and his wife—nothing for himself. He was always there for me, long enough to see me grow up and leave home.

  I’d been gone for almost 19 years, but now I was with him, all there, for his final story.

  So, where’s that Purple Heart of yours?

  “In some foxhole!”

  Really? Seriously, Papa, what was it like in those foxholes? Did you throw grenades and fire guns?

  “Yeah, lots of stuff.”

  Did you ever see anyone that you fired at…?

  “Sometimes we just heard them, like in the Bulge.”

  Heard them?

  “We’d be in the foxhole. Shorty Morgan would be on my shoulders firing the machine gun.”

  Wow. He was on your shoulders?

  “Yeah—5 feet,4 inches. Remember, he was Shorty, honey.”

  Right, Papa. But wasn’t there a height requirement?

  “Not for Shorty. Said he’d commit suicide if he couldn’t go in, so he got a note from the doctor to let him fight.”

  For real?

  “Honey, I don’t know.”

  Now, what do you mean by you heard them?

  “Shorty and I got armor-piercing bullets, so when we were in the forest firing, we could pierce through the trees. That’s where the Germans hid, and we’d hear the ‘Ahhhhh.’ After that, we figured we got a few.”

  The bullets went through the trees?

  “Yeah, sweetheart.”

  I also found out more about the Battle of the Bulge that night—a lot of the troops were starving that winter.

  “Nowhere to get food. We tried to machine-gun deer.”

  Dad!

  “Don’t worry we didn’t get a one.”

  Good.

  “Well, not so great. We snuck up on a group in a clearing and fired the meanest guns we had, right in the middle, .50 caliber machine guns, mind you. Firing 600 rounds per minute.”

  Wow.

  “After the cloud of smoke and noise subsided, just the silence, and not one deer on the ground.”

  You missed an entire herd?

  “Yes. Very mysterious.”

  So what did you eat?

  Dad talked about finding a lot of frozen bodies, a few behind the trees.

  So, Dad, what did you eat?

  “We found a family and ate with them.”

  Found a family?

  “Actually, the Southern Germans were not fans of Hitler. They were more Bavarian.”

  Is that good?

  “For us it was.”

  The Krugers were outside fixing their leaky roof when they saw my f
ather and his band. They were terrified. The soldiers lowered their guns. Dad told them they were friends and very hungry. The couple hesitated. Living on a battleground, they knew they’d encounter the Allies eventually.

  “I got down on my knee and offered them my gun. Mrs. Kruger said if we left our guns outside, we could come in. Me, Shorty, John D., and a couple of other guys ate dinner with them.”

  Really, Dad?

  “Yes. We had beer and sauerbräten and all these things my Grandma Margaret cooked. Afterwards we fixed their roof and the plumbing, and told them they could leave with us if they wanted to.”

  Maybe I never told you, but Dad was half German. And later I learned that many Allied soldiers fighting in Europe who were first-generation German, if captured, were executed.

  Dad? Why are you getting up?

  He walked to the shelves, grabbed a tissue and quickly dabbed his eyes. When he turned around, he pretended to be wiping his nose. I still saw the tears.

  Dad paced a few minutes, then sat back down to finish the story. “We were starting to leave the house. Mrs. Kruger came over and hugged me. ‘You look just like my boy,’ she said.”

  As Dad went out the door, he saw a picture of the Kruger’s son on the mantle, the son they had spoken about all evening. Dad stared at it, like the face was one he knew.

  “So, we all waved, picked up our guns and left.”

  Dad, did you know that guy? Who was in the picture?

  Dad bowed his head.

  The realization hit him after he left. Their son was one of the Germans they had shot on the hill, behind the trees, the day before. And only God spared Dad that knowledge while in the boy’s warm house, facing his mother.

  Dad went back weeks later. The house was burned to the ground. He took a small pin from his jacket and placed it on the charred brick windowsill. And that’s where his Purple Heart lies, in the ruins of a small farmhouse, in a black forest.

  The Elephant Epilogue

  I never cried after my father’s death. While the nurses at William Beaumont hospital, the place where I was born and he died, told me my father was lucky to have me with him, I felt I had never done enough. That I made poor decisions, that I should have been there more, tried harder. Even after I learned his cancer was aggressive and little could be done, I felt I let him down.

  The night my father passed was calm. I had stayed up 72 hours talking to him, holding his hand. The nurses couldn’t move me from his bedside. Finally, when other family members insisted they would relieve me, I whispered in Dad’s ear. “Daddy, I’m going to nap…I’ll be back in an hour.” He made a slight movement and raised his hand. Even in his coma, he understood.

  I awoke when my mother called my name, “Leigh, wake up. Wake up. He’s passed.”

  I knew then he had been unable to leave while I was awake and by his side. When I let go, he let go.

  Two days later, my mother and I met with a funeral director to make the final arrangements. When asked if we had clothes for my father, I showed him the suit, tie, shirt, socks and shoes we had brought. With an expression perfected by long experience, he let us know tactfully that the shoes and socks were not needed. The comment hit me hard. Not only would my father no longer need his shoes, neither would he need the glasses I had picked up two days before from the hospital bed’s pullout tray, nor the shaving case we had taken home. My Dad was really gone.

  William Taylor was so beloved that we held two funeral services: one in Detroit, Michigan, and one outside Cincinnati, Ohio, where he was buried in the Rosemont Cemetery. On his tombstone, under his name, the words, “106th Infantry, 28th Battalion, Signal Corps” and “A Brave Gentleman and Father” were inscribed.

  The burial service was held on a warm, clear day in November. The cold had not yet set in, except for an occasional crisp breeze. Our black limousine wound around the hills and carried us down the dirt road to his resting place. As soon as the ceremony was over, I touched the casket before they lowered him into the ground. I wanted to leave my fingerprints on the blue metallic surface for “the duration.” When we left, I looked back through the limo’s rear window. I could see the undertakers inside the black wrought-iron fence. They were already shoveling dirt on his casket.

  One year after, my mother moved from our family home in Michigan to a house in Florida, a beautiful townhouse on a golf course. Retiree perfect. I visited to help her unpack. When I arrived, the living room was filled with all the old furniture, as well as a couple dozen boxes. I couldn’t wait to dig into the boxes to find two of my favorite pieces: a horse and an elephant, both from India, both mirrored, both made of woven silk. They had always adorned our perfect French Colonial living room in Michigan—two beautiful works of art I had played with as a child and had admired growing up. I wanted to place them in just the right spot amid the ottomans and end tables.

  When I unpacked the elephant, it was wet, its silk discolored, half of it rotting. The moment I saw the destroyed figure, I let out a huge cry. Grief shook my body, and I ran outside to the porch. All I could see in the loss of the elephant was the loss of my father.

  I don’t know how long I stayed outside, but when I walked back into the living room, the sun was setting. Enough natural light was left to envelop the room in gold. Three more boxes needed to be unpacked, so I sat on the sofa and opened the nearest one. It held all of Dad’s high school yearbooks, each one filled with pictures of him in the chess club, in the glee club, on the baseball team—with all his scholastic awards. After leafing through the old books, I found his discharge papers, along with a discharge photo. He was smiling under the slightly oversized WWII helmet, with his sweet, charming grin. Yup, honorable discharge, 1946. I stared at it for a long time. Then, something bright caught my eye, something under the brown papers stuffed in the corner of the box. I put the discharge papers aside and dug into the corner.

  To my amazement, I pulled out a little figure made of mirrors and silk cloth, with gold stitching on its four feet. I gasped. It was a beautiful little elephant, one that looked brand new. Its ruby eyes and gold-banded trunk glittered in the light.

  The discovery of the elephant made me realize a truth that continues to grow stronger year after year. I have not lost my father. I will never lose him.

  My little elephant makes sure to remind me every day, as it basks in sunlight on my windowsill.

  Dear Reader:

  War Stories: A Father Talks to His Daughter is an historical fiction based on true stories told to me by my father, William Becker Trojan. Because most of his WWII service records were destroyed in a 1973 fire, and because, generally, soldiers were reluctant to talk about the war in depth with their loved ones, the official details of the experiences my father went through are lost. In fact, the events of 1942 through 1944 are mainly unknown to me—especially those about his early time in the Pacific. I was able, though, to recreate his timeline to add validity to the stories and to the diary entries when I magically found his Camp Crowder ID card stuck in the most unlikely place: a picture album in our utility closet. I had poured through those albums my entire life and had never seen that card. Dad must have known I needed a tip off to start this journey because it fell, literally, into my lap after I started writing the book.

  Dad really did serve in all the places mentioned in the book. He actually did meet Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. He danced with Lana Turner (whom I transformed into Dorothy Lamour). His division liberated Dachau. He was a cryptographer. He received numerous medals, and he drove Japanese children around in a jeep at the risk of facing a court martial. He was stationed at the Palace of Versailles, landed on Omaha Beach, but even more importantly, there really was a “Shorty.”

  This historical fiction was inspired by reading the accounts of countless vets, as well as talking to others in person. I’m very grateful to have Russell Rice, a Marine who served and fought in the Pacific, help me with certain details. Russell served overseas from Guadalcanal to Japan. He was a member of the 28
th Regiment, 5th Marine Division, which raised the flag on Iwo Jima. Russell has been a notable sports writer and author of six hardbacks, as well as a columnist for The University of Kentucky’s weekly periodical, The Cats’ Pause.

  Also, to get his insights, I talked to my uncle, Marrow Conley, who served in Africa and Italy during the war. He let me know, for example, from a soldier’s perspective, Patton wasn’t the most popular guy.

  I am very humbled by and thankful to all the families who shared their history with me in person and online. I especially thank Linda Grissette from the Pershing Rifles who provided not only valuable information, but also the picture of Dad with his Company E, 1st Regiment troop in the beginning of this book. Originally, she sent the picture because it was their only photo in their files from that period—not even knowing my Dad was in the picture. Two months later, after putting together a few facts, I discovered him in the middle of the shot!

  When I began to write this tale, I could not have predicted how much I would learn about the war, how it related to my father’s fight for life against cancer, and how every struggle relates to a greater human experience. My wish is that all who read my father’s “War Stories” will find value and hope as they follow his journey.

  About Bill

  Here I am with Dad in the fall of 1997

  During my father’s career, he showed a great deal of admiration for the Japanese and their culture. He was Executive Vice President of Ogura of America Corporation, a Japanese clutch and compressor manufacturing company. As their manufacturer’s rep for many years prior, he was able to broker deals with the big three automotive giants—Ford, GM and Chrysler—to use Ogura clutches. Dad was responsible for bringing the entire operation to the States. The company was based near our home in Huntington Woods, Michigan, outside Detroit. In keeping with Asian tradition, Dad, of course, made sure the door of the factory faced East.