After our June 7 broadcast of D-Day Reunion we received many stories from all over the nation. We will continue to add stories as they come in. (Email stories to now@thirteen.org)

Again, we encourage you to do an oral history for the Veterans History Project. We have easy-to-follow — instructions.

We have received stories from veterans and children of veterans, refugees and children of refugees and those affected on the homefront and abroad. They make for excellent reading.

D-Day Stories — Long Lost Friends — Brothers in Both Theaters — Refugees — Memories of the Philippines — Second Thoughts — Nagasaki — Homefront Heroes — Thanks Again — From the Blitz to 9/11

SECOND THOUGHTS

A Veteran's View

Hi,
I am a veteran of WW2. I was a radar 2nd Lt. and thought at the time that the success of the war depended on my participation. At one point my roommate and I volunteered for an extremely hazardous set of operations that was experiencing 50 % casualties. I survived but he never came back. Another instance of my mindset and devotion occurred when I was on a plane that delivered flour to Paris in support of the Battle of the Bulge. When I got off the plane a Frenchman approached me, probably the first American he had any contact with, and confronted me with the question as to why we were bombing them. In fact, I knew that we were dropping bombs on the French working in factories manufacturing war materiel for the Germans but I was just following orders and never thought that I had any responsibility for killing innocent civilians. I think the rationale for those bombings everywhere were that they interdicted the manufacture of war materiel and, when dropped on enemy territory, deflated enemy morale.

Later I learned that this so-called "strategic bombing" that resulted in the death of so many innocent civilians in places like Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the villages of Viet Nam, Cambodia and Kosovo actually had little impact on the outcome of the wars.

As for WW2 in Europe I learned that the German army had effectively been defeated by the Russians before we landed at Normandy. This meant that if the landing had occurred before the defeat of the Germans we could have claimed a part of the credit for their defeat. But it turns out that the late invasion of Western Europe was for the purpose of assuring a U.S. role in how the spoils were to be divided up afterward Therefore the veterans you interviewed and their comrades who died were pawns in a geopolitical game and those who died were victims of that game.

I also learned after the war that the dropping of nuclear bombs on civilian Japanese populations had more to do with the intimidation of the Soviets than the threat from further resistance from Japan and that the Japanese had made overtures to surrendering conditional only on the survival of the emperor, something they were granted by McArthur after their unconditional surrender. These are my thought in the wake of tonight's program glorifying my fellow veterans of WW2.
--Bernard Feldman

Hero with Homefront Heartbreak

My granddad died in Overlook VA Hops., NJ. He used to type all day in his small apt. in the projects in Newark NJ before he went to the VA. His memories of WW2, were not of victims "in the killing fields". His marriage to an English speaking Chinese woman, and 2 "Army-brat" girl offspring (mom and aunt), become victims of hate crimes upon granddad's return to the US...sect'y. of State Cordell Hull wrote my G.Granddad that since my grandma was of Chinese birth, she couldn't be admitted to the US for permanent residence. The American Ambassador told G.Dad to go back home and not miss the steamship "President Coolidge", to set sail Sep 30th, 1941, if he missed it he would be in a Japanese concentration camp eating rice and fish heads. He goes on for pages, seeing Japanese aircraft carriers, and smoke screens around 3 Japanese destroyers, etc, finally in Honolulu after several stops, tank troops to Manila etc..all this was by a large loan by the sec't of state.

Six years passed before my grandma was allowed to come to the US through the American POW info bureau. These 6 angry years, of prejudice in Lincoln Park NJ, and working at the " Breeze, Newark NJ, as a cartoonist, was 1 of many jobs G. Dad tried, as he could speak and write Chinese...the anger caused his 2 girls to suffer prejudice, and G.Dad couldn't get care for them and hold a job too long anywhere. His mom, Smiths, said "Not in my house", and he wrote Benton Harbor, MI, Aunt Emma Van Antwerp, also said she sides w/ the Smith mom.

My Granddad, enlisted when he was 19, he writes enlistment into the NAVY, training in electrical engineering, going worldwide, Panama Canal, Philippines, then switches to the US Army-taught pathology lab work. He changes service again, as he types his "History of J. Willard Smith's Experiences in Peiping, and Shanghai China". Starting June 28th, 1920 I enlisted into the Marine Corps in NYC, as maintenance electrician. I was discharged June 27th, 1924, I stayed in China, he writes. He never attained much rank, w/ all his serving in different military services...experiences were his goal.... And a search for a wife, I think He's had some great news articles printed of his life about him, and fine editorial cartoons drawn by him.... But he died a poor man, (I'm the only unlucky one who enlisted in the family, as the VA in NJ, used to dye Granddad's hair blue-well at least they washed his hair back then-and all the relatives, said don't enlist.). His papers tell of accomplishments in China that today translate into globalization of China into the World economy!

There's pages of success in China to hate crimes and a sad ending back stateside...I remember climbing the staircases and awful smells of the incinerators in the hall. up and up and up to visit my Grandparents and Aunt Carol in the UGH! Projects in Newark, NJ...I was small and afraid of the roaches in the bathroom, as my grandmother would tell me "Don't be afraid " as she tried to kill them for me. Thanks for reading.
--Mrs. Rose M. Burke (DAV... many ! thanks to the American Legion)

NAGASAKI

A Daughter Searches

I watch all the WWII programs on television. My dad served with the 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Pioneer Battalion, Co. C., 3rd Platoon.3rd squad. Nothing is ever televised about the cleanup of Nagasaki the day after the bomb was dropped. Dad talks about helping to rebuild the Nagasaki baseball stadium, the destruction of Nagasaki and other parts of Japan. Dad has gone to many 2nd Marine Division reunions in the Northwest and the 2nd Pioneer Battalion is never recognized. We did find out that after the war ended, the 2nd Pioneer Battalion was disbanded and incorporated into, I think, the 18th Battalion. I have searched everywhere I can possibly think and have found nothing either. You do such a fantastic job of reporting, I am hoping you can help me. Dad is now 80 and would like to see this group of men honored too.' Thanks for any help you might be able to give. --LJ