Ohio War Stories: Share Your Memories

Peace

May 15th, 2008

97th Infantry A post from a site user who made a remarkable, indelible connection at the tail end of conflict from Japan to Germany to the Allied Forces…

The date was December 24, 1945. The place was a small Japanese town about 100 miles northwest of Tokyo. The 303rd Field Artillery Battalion of the 97th Infantry Division was stationed here on occupation duty

Thousands of miles from home, tired from combat in Europe, strangers in strange land, we, the men of the Battery B, gathered in an assembly hall of a former Japanese army barracks for a Christmas Eve service. Catholics, Protestants and barely-believers, we stood in a dimly-lit room to celebrate something we hardly remembered — peace on earth.

The units of the 97th were dispersed over a wide area and the Army chaplains could not reach every location. Our service was conducted a German Roman Catholic priest who had been interned in Japan since the beginning of the war. The music came froma squeaky Army pump organ played by a young Japanese girl.

The service had a mystical quality about it — the ancient Latin words of the Mass, the sing-song repsonses of the young woman. At the end of the Mass, the priest began a homily in halting English. He spoke of peace on earth and our common desires to return home. He mentioned the name of his home town in Germany. Months before, I had seen that name on a map I was using to direct artillery fire. My target had been the hamlet where the priest had spent his childhood.

The irony of that moment is etched in my memory. I’m reminded of it whenever I read of “holy” war and religious revenge. Will we ever learn?

Posted by Scott Gowans

Filed in Japan

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From

May 13th, 2008

This is not a story about politics; just history.

The story runs from Buckeye Lake, Ohio to Japan. In the first chapter, set in the 1940s, the Buckeye Lake Amusement Park (formerly known as Licking Summit Reservoir) was a great place to see big-band stars, to dance, and to have a picnic. One musician who played there was Arthur Cornell, who was drafted soon afterward.

Mr. Cornell got married in Pensacola while he was training for the service, then assigned to the USS Lexington (which is now a museum in Texas). The ship had a long, scar-filled career, was reported sunk several times by Tokyo Rose, but was still helping out with bombing runs on the Japanese mainland when she was ordered away from the mainland for a few days. As Mr. Cornell describes, this was the time when the first Atomic Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. The ship sailed back to japan to allow some specially equipped Corsairs to take photos of the city.