| Physical | Psychological | The Return Home |
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When the Price of War gets Personal
On December 7, 1941 , at the break of dawn around 8AM , Japanese planes attacked the US naval base of Pearl Harbor. The blow came quick, leaving 5 out of the 8 battleships sinking or sunk and killing over 2400 Americans. Colonel Herbert Blackwell, who served in the US Army based at Pearl Harbor wrote, “ It looked like war, but I just could not believe my eyes. I just could not believe that Japan could make an air attack from such a distance without our Navy having some warning .” Surprise was the general feeling at the time. Blackwell, himself, was not involved in the conflict, but from what he saw and wrote, we can get a good idea of what went on that fateful day and how the soldiers there dealt with it, “However, as soon as we found out that this was the real thing we cut this time in half. Speed limits were ignored. Some units began firing within 45 minutes from the time they were alerted. All units were firing before the attack was ended, and we shot down 4 or 5 planes. The AA fire I first saw was from the Navy.” The next day, on December 8, 1941 America declared war on Japan and officially entered World War II. The personal price that the American soldiers had to face during the war was both physical, psychological, only emphasized when they returned home to America .
The Physical Tolls of War
First, let's talk about the physical tolls experienced by the soldiers. By the end of World War II, 291, 557 of the 16, 112, 556 soldiers had died. That's about 2 people dying for every 100 soldiers sent in. Although that may not seem like a lot, remember that killing men and seeing men die is relatively new to all of these men.
Lieutenant Kermit Stewart wrote after attacking some Japanese troops near Fort Stotnesburg in the Philippines , “Actual battle is the very essence of emotional drama. In some of the tightest places I've been in I've been aware of the stark drama of the situation… Fortunately, they have no heavy guns in this position, and I'm personally fairly safe in this campaigns far. The worst worry I've had is not to hit our own men and so far we've been rather lucky, or I should say the GIs have been lucky… The cost in human lives, material and labor simply can't be estimated. ” The “stark drama” Stewart talks about is emphasized and highlighted in First Lieutenant John Doyle's letter to his father after the battle of Guadalcanal, “All the time you hear the bombs shrieking their way down, and you pity the poor souls in that area. The next time it may be your turn .” It was definitely a life-or-death situation for all of these soldiers. Many still retain that they escaped unscathed only because of pure luck. Private Geddes Munford writes to his parents, “Most men get killed in battle because they forget to take cover or make some such tactical mistake.” Going into battle (Operation Torch in North Africa ) on November 8, 1942, Lieutenant Robert Lewin describes the initial battle scene, “The ride in was miserable, soaking wet and freezing cold. Pretty soon the shore came into sight, that shore we had studied from maps for so long, and the guns were shooting at us… But they never got near our one little boat.” Either you were in the right place at the right time, or not. Even when a battle is won, there is a sense of sadness and remorse. In the battle of Iwo Jima, where one of the most famous photographs of World War II was taken (shown below), over 12,000 American soldiers gave up their lives for this hoisting of the flag over the summit of Mt. Suribachi [iwojima.org; March 7, 2007].
http://misunderestimation.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/08/iwo-jima-flag.gif
This kind of physical turmoil and emotional adrenaline would stay with these soldiers for life.
The conditions that these soldiers lived under were also very bad. Colonel Herbert Enderton describes the differences between what he thought fighting in Europe would be like and what it really was in a letter to his wife, “… fields full of grain in the distance; with winding streams leading to the river; evergreen forests on the far bank, etc. The picture post card scenery is probably still here, but has lost its attractiveness. The winding streams running through the valleys are remembered only because our doughboys got their feet wetter there or because the artillery got stuck there… most of the men are too cold and tired to see anything picturesque about it.”
The cold, harsh weather of Europe had changed all of the soldiers. Once upon time, they were all keen on admiring the majestic beauty of Europe . Now, they're so tired that they don't even care. Lieutenant John Doyle talks about the lack of food, “ But I have to go back and eat lunch. There may not be another for a while.” Lieutenant Russell Lloyd wrote to his wife, “I cannot go into any of the details but I'm on Tarawa in the midst of the worst destruction I have ever seen. You have seen pictures of city dumps and people living in holes or pieces of tin made into tent shaped huts. Well that is us and the dirt, dust and smoke is awful, however we are getting it cleaned up. ” Even reporters who were stationed all around Europe and the Pacific felt the pain of these soldiers. Ernie Pyle, combat reporter, wrote, “They are the mud-rain-frost-and-wind boys. They have no comforts, and they even learn to live without the necessities . ..They are young men, but the grime and whiskers and exhaustion make them look middle-aged…They are too tired.” By “they”, he means the American infantry of the Armed Forces. We can tell from Pyle's writing that he has a high level of respect for these men. He concludes that, “… in the end they are the guys that wars can't be won without.”
Phil Leveque, who fought in the 89 th Infantry Division ( some members shown above), wrote, “ We were driven by the belief that we had to defeat an obscene enemy to get to go home. The American Infantryman did everything that was asked of him and more. General Ridgeway of the Paratroopers said with conviction....."The best military weapon is the American Infantryman." THAT WAS US!” Although the Infantry had its share of glory, many men had to pay for it. Just from Ernie Pyle's account of the infantry, we can tell that they probably witnessed the most death in the war. S ol R. Brandell remembers, “ When we got him inside the cellar, which was our immediate CP, and unrolled the blanket, we saw a bloody, sticky mass of flesh, bones, intestines, etc., inside and outside of what was left of his "Ike" jacket .... his face was unrecognizable and a small part of his skull, and brain, was missing! The Staff Sergeant, my "rooftop" buddy and myself gagged repeatedly and almost vomited.... we looked for some rags so we could wipe the wet and sticky blood and some intestinal (?) fluids off our hands and sleeves using some of our canteen water.... the Sergeant estimated the Lieutenant had been hit with at least 30 bullets (9mm Parabellum) to both his head and torso! Although, by this time I had seen many, many dead men during combat, I had never, till that moment seen a man so close-up who was so horribly torn, almost to pieces, as to barely resemble a human being !” Captain Robert Neelands also had a face-to-face experience with death. He describes a particularly disturbing situation, “ Then, we heard a man screaming from the plane, "Help me, please, won't somebody help me…He kept screaming for us to keep trying to get him out… I never could stand a man screaming . .. the Colonel, that is C.O. of the base, borrowed someone's .45 pistol... He walked as near as he could to the man and raised the pistol. The boy screamed, "Please, Colonel, for the love of God, don't shoot me, please, please, please."…Again he raised the pistol and we could hear the boy scream, "Please, oh God, please let them try just once more." The colonel shouted to him, " I have to boy, you'll burn alive. I'm sorry ."…The boy in the plane seemed to be kicked twice by an invisible foot. His eyes kept watching the colonel for what seemed an eternity and then his head rolled slowly toward the fire as if in unbelief that he should die .”
Long-Term Psychological Problems
The colonel, himself, also could not believe what he had just done, leading into the psychological effects of the war. “The colonel stood staring into the plane, seeming only then to realize that he had shot a man. His hand dropped to his side slowly. It seemed minutes before he even seemed to remember that he had the gun. Then he threw it with all his strength into the burning plane, turned and walked a few steps, buried his face in his hands and cried in long, shaking sobs. It was an old corporal that put his arm around his shoulders and led him away. I wanted to be sick, but I couldn't. I wanted to forget it and couldn't. I slept, or tried to sleep, with it last night. I have been living with it since .” These types of situation tend to lead to a mental disorder called the posttraumatic stress syndrome (or PTSD). Studies have shown that veterans exposed to violent situations, like the one described above, are 13 times more likely to have PTSD than non-combat veterans, even after 45 years of peace. Deirdre Johnston of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, who has witnessed many episodes of PTSD said, “The evidence suggests that many of the individuals who served in combat are likely to have dormant or partially controlled PTSD,” A medical dictionary describes the syndrome as, “… accompanied by bouts of intense fear, helplessness, or horror. Characteristic symptoms may include
- persistent re-experiencing of the traumatic event(s).
- avoiding experiences or people that trigger memories of such event(s).
- increased arousal, to include nervousness, over-reaction to sudden noises, (are you jumpy?), difficulty sleeping (night sweats), and nightmares (ever hit your wife, girlfriend in your sleep, or are they scared to wake you up?).
- bouts of "inappropriate" rage and-or depression.
- difficulty relating emotionally to others.
- feelings of extreme alienation and meaninglessness.
- isolation from others (do others see you as cold, unfeeling?).
- in the most extreme cases, persistent thoughts of murder and-or suicide.
Out of the over 16,000,000 soldiers that served in WWII, more than half of the men saw combat. If you look at the graph below, you can see that 12 million out of the 16 million soldiers served in the Army, the Navy or the Marines.
With that said, we can safely assume that PTSD was a big problem for most of the men fighting in WWII. This kind of personal price will follow them for the rest of their life. In fact a study of Harvard University alumni has shown that 59% of World War II veterans who experienced heavy combat were either chronically ill or dead by the age of 65. One such person who might have experienced this kind of guilt is Brigade General Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr. On July 26, 1945 , the three largest Allied powers at war in the Pacific: the United States , Britain and China issued the Potsdam Declaration. It demanded the Japanese government to surrender immediately or face “prompt and utter destruction”. On July 28, Prime Minister Suzuki announced that his government would ignore the Declaration. Strangely, Harry S. Truman gave the official order to drop an atomic bomb over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on July 25, a day before the declaration was issued and three days before it was rejected. This kind of eagerness displayed by Truman was later criticized by the American people. According to General Groves, though, Truman's decision "was one of noninterference--basically a decision not to upset existing plans." Paul Warfield Tibbets then began his journey to where he would be part of one of the most influential events in history. On August 5, 1945 , Tibbets writes in his journal, “ I am not sure if I should do this. I am going to kill so many innocent people. People like my mother with little children whose only mistake was living in Hiroshima . I am not sure what I will do when I get over Hiroshima , will I lose my nerve and not drop the bomb, or be brave and do my job and let it go? I am not sure which would be worse, being brave and following orders or losing my nerve and not dropping the bomb. But tomorrow I am expected to follow the orders of President Truman, and that is what I am obliged to do.” In his journal, he feels guilt for what he's about to do. Ironically, while he worries about killing people like his mother, he names his plane Enola Gay after his mother.
This plane would later end many the lives of women like his mother. However bad his uncertainty was the night before; Tibbets still dropped the atomic bomb over Hiroshima on August 26, 1945 at 8:16AM , killing over 140,000 people. Three days later, another atomic bomb was dropped over Nagasaki . Tibbets was not proud of his actions. In his subsequent diary entries, he experiences many typical symptoms of PTSD. In the end, he couldn't even bring himself to marry and have children.
9/6/45 : I am having terrible nightmares . In my dreams, I see little Japanese children screaming and crying. It is horrible. I can't write about this anymore.
8/6/55 : Ten years have passed since that day. I still have the nightmares. I have remained a career soldier. I could never bring myself to marry and have children . I would always imagine what it would be like to suddenly lose them in a bombing. I would feel guilty having what I took away from so many others.
Mushroom Cloud over Hiroshima
Coming Home
Carrying with them their physical and psychological tolls, the American soldiers of World War II made their way back home. For some, it was a long-awaited reunion with family and friends. For others, it was an empty house. That was the case for Robert Johnson, a veteran Navy soldier from World War II. When asked about his marriages, he hesitantly said, “I've been married twice. My first wife, she…she couldn't wait for me. She didn't wait for me. She just left.” Tearing up, he apologized, “I'm sorry. I just get really emotional about these kinds of things.” For many men, this was the case. This only prompted them to find other (and better!) girls to marry and start a family with. When these World War II soldiers had first entered the war, most of them were in their 20's and 30's. American involvement in the war would last 4 whole years. Robert Johnson, for example, was stationed in the Pacific theater of the war. He was drafted at the age of 23 in 1943. At the time, he was already married and settled down. By the end of World War II, his life had been uprooted. Not only did he have to suffer the physical and psychological harm that came naturally with fighting in a war, he also had to come home to his familiar life shattered. His job that he used to hold at the factory was given to a woman, a problem that many soldiers came home to. If you look at the graph below, it shows the percentage of men and women working. As the percentage of female workers goes up, the percentage of male workers go down. Today, 45% of the work force consists of women.
Do female workers still have a place in post-war America , though? Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady of the United States , thinks so. In an article she wrote for Click-7 Magazine in August 1944, she says, “An ever-growing number of young women in every walk of life are taking jobs as they finish school or college, but the main job of the average woman in our country still is to marry and have a home and children… Many women, because of the urge to help their country and their own men during the war, will have acquired skills—skills which they will be able to use in the future. But I do not think they will use them if they have families and homes calling them back to a different kind of existence .” Although she does admit that the women's future in the work force really depends on job availability, she still believes that women should pursue what they really want to do in life. Apparently, many women thought the same way and this thought process contributed to the high levels of unemployment in the United States :
Soon, these problems resolved themselves. Women continued working, but a large number of them also quit their jobs to take care of their children that they had with the returning World War II soldiers. This generation is later referred as the baby boom generation.
The world around these men recovered. Europe embraced Germany and Italy again. Japan began marketing its technology successfully around the world. The United States had once again, got themselves involved in a conflict. But the personal effects of the war would stay with these men forever. Whether they had watched their best friend die in front of them, pushed a button that killed thousands of people or had their first love disappear from their lives, each one of these soldiers had paid the personal price for their actions.
