In the early twenties, my great grandfather and his brother started a liqour store in Auburn, New York. The economy was blossoming and bussiness did well. Then came prohibition. My ancestors were forced to close shop. As the depression set in in the thirties, my grandfather and his brothers restarted their fathers bussiness and was one of the only bussinesses opening up in at the time. This new bussiness did quite well, and as my grandmother said "Theres always money for booze". When my grandfather was twenty eight, he married the subject of my interveiw, my grandmother Peg Lynch, to become Peg Anderson.

Anderson Brothers Liquor store went on well, run by my grandparents and my grandfather's brothers. But seeds of trouble had been planted in Europe as the 30's came to an end. When my grandmother first heard of Hitler and Mussolini, she didn't really beleive it or even care at first. As things progressed into war in 1939, my grandmother fealt that we should stay out of it and let Europe fight its own wars. I asked my grandmother if the depression seemed to lift any as the war progressed and she said no, it didn't really change anything. When France was conquered by Germany, my grandmother was in disbelief that one man could influence a nation so much.

On the fateful sunday that Japan bombed Pearl Hearbor and as things progressed to war, my grandmother's attitude changed. She felt that Japan had no reason to attack and that it was necessary to stop Hitler and Hirohito. Then on my grandfather's birthday, he received the one thing that would change his life, a notice that he was to be drafted into the Navy.

At first he and grandma were in disbeleif and thought of it as a prank, since my grandfather had just turned 32. But the fact remained, he had been drafted to surve his nation agaunst the Japanese. He took a railroad to Great Lakes, Illonois, the Navy training center. He trained their for months, then was transfered to San Diego, then to Hawaii. He was assigned to a LCS boat which was responsible for muiltiple tasks such as landing Marines on hostile beaches, carrying Navy SEAL teams to remove mines, and to escort ammunition ships from enemy airplanes. My grandfather loathfully called it the "rust bucket" or the "tin can". All during this time, my grandfather sent postecards, letters and telegrams to my grandmother and his brothers. My grandfather's brothers were also drafted, first my older great uncle Herb was drafted to a desk job, then my younger great uncle Dick was recruited, but by the time he was done training the war was over.

My grandfather's job was a radar operator who would stare at the black screen for hours looking for anything that would resemble an aircraft. When he spotted an aircraft, he would report it to the other picket ships who would confirm it and then inform the main fleet. The younger sailors on his boat called him "pops" because of his old age of 34. The "rust bucket" was a heavily armed LCS ship equiped with several machine guns and anti-aircraft artillery, as well as a rocket system and a radar system. This ship was more heavily armed than a battleship for arms to ship size and was versatile for completing different tasks.The ship participated in the battle of Okinawa and some lesser known skirmishes.

In the battle of Okinawa their ship first took Navy SEALS to look for mines on the coasts and secure the beaches from other booby traps. It then landed Marines on the beach, which was the most peaceful time during the battle. They next escorted ammunition ships to resupply the ground forces on the island. Then they were part of a picket station, which was an area where several LCS ships and destroyers would gather and keep radar observation to give warning to the other Navy vessels in fleet around Okinawa.

Every week letters between my grandmother and grandfather were exchanged, until Okinawa. During the battle, my grandmother didn't hear from him for three months until the battle was concluded. As my grandfather spent more time out at sea, his hatred for the war, and of the Japanese was growing. He found it unbelievable that a human being would give up his life and individuality for his country while being cruel and merciless to their enemy. Several times, kamikazis would come so close to striking his boat, everyone on bourd would be thrown up in the air and covered with water. My grandfather once tryed to keep a diary, but it was soon drenched with water and tossed overboard.

When the war was over, my grandparents were releived. My grandfathers boat was once so undersupplied, he began to have to write on wax paper instead of regular paper. My grand father took no joy from pillaging the abandoned Japanese installations like so many other men did. Some soldeirs brought home Japanese helmets and uniforms and even guns they had found. My grandfather once traced an inscription on a Japanese coastal battery he found and sent it to his wife at home.

After the war ended, it was still several months later until he arrived home. For a while he was unable to walk after staying on the boat so long. The only time my grandfather ever fealt he was to die was during a typhoon that ravaged the fleet, and at one point lifted his ship clear out of the water. After the storm he caught Malaria but recovered. Grandma also had her own troubles at home.

While Grandpa was guarding the seas, my grandmother guarded their business. Grandma was glad to take care of the liquor store while her husband and his family was at war, but the one thing she did dislike was taking care of my grandpa's two brittany spanials. My grandpa also asked about the dogs alot in his letters, so she knew she couldn't try to sell them. My grandma described having to use blue ration books to buy essencial foods and supplys, but she felt it was worth it if it helped the war. When asked if she ever thought we would lose the war, she replied only when she heard of the Japanese kamikazis; she felt that the Japanese would fight until the bitter end and that it might be impossible to stop such an enemy.

My grandmother knew several local freinds who died in the war, including one close freind of my grandpa whose fellow picket ship sunk as my grandfather watched on in greif. When the western union man came into the liquor store with a telegraph, my grandma feared the worst. But when the man came to the counter he asked if she could help him find the family of their freind who died, and she let out a sigh of releif but she was also burdened with comforting her freind's family.

When the bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, my grandmother looked on without pity. She felt that the only way the Japanese would surrend was by force. She was surprised at the strength of the weapon, and also how the government developed it under wraps for so long. For three years my grandma had operated the family liqour store, and also took care of my grandfather's beloved dogs. After the war, she kept all the letters, telegrams, postcards, and pictures sent to her by grandpa. It is from these letters that I learn alot of my grandfather's struggle to survive.

Through catching three diseases, surving several battles and two sinking ships my grandfather had been one of the brave men of the "unknown fleet" of small ships that were just a building block of the United States Navy. One third of all the picket ships on Okinawa were either sunken, destroyed, or damaged by Japanese aircraft. The visions of steel buzzards circling his ship would haunt my grandfather to his grave.

Since the war my grandfather kept a grudge agaunst all Asians or Japanese because of seeing Japanese pilots throwing themelves into American ships, and of hearing stories of Japanese war crimes such as the Bataan Death March and other injustices. One time while in a restaurant, a family of Asian Americans came and sat down, and he sat up and left the restaurant. During the Vietnam War, he felt that Asians were tricky and that we should just let them fight it out themselves. He also felt that his children's generation shouldn't be exposed to the horrors of war. When my mom took a World War Two history class, he told her he didn't care if she took the class, but he would not answer any questions about what he went through. But my mom was surprised one night to catch him reading through her WW 2 book secretly.

The only time my grandfather went to American Legion meatings was to listen to his freinds talk about the "good times" in the war, when they were on leave in Hawaii or after the war. My grandfather died in 1982 of cancer, and he carried many of his experiances to the grave, even though he talked sometimes to my grandma. It is from his letters that I am able to gain some idea of what he went through.

Okinawa, the stepping stone to the Japanese mainland, was once called "The most fortified position the world has ever seen" by an unkown military expert. This small, seamingly innocent island was covered with ridges, valleys, hills, and mountains carved out of coral. It was located south of Japan, where air strikes could be launched, and radar stations set up. But this is the place where the the American marines and G.I.s would be pitted agaunst some of the last of Japan's suicidal soldiers under General Ushijima.

The Japanese knew very well that to make a good stand on Okinawa was to delay or even prevent the invasion of the Japanese mainland. If the Japanese could keep their airfields on Okinawa, they could easily cripple the U.S. navy surrounding the island. The Japanese had several thousand airplanes on Okinawa, some were meant to be used in Kamikaze raids, but most were for more conventional uses.

To defend the Island, tunnels and caves were dug straight through mountains of coral and rock, to create several defensive lines of ridges and mountains where Japanese could easily fire down on the American Infantry and could be well covered from the American's small arm fire. Most of the tunnels, pillboxes, and tombs were also very safe from American artillery, from land, sea or air. After taking heavy casualities, the only way Americans could clear an enemy out of a pillbox or bunker would be to concentrate machine gun fire through the observation area or to bravely charge in close enough to place a grenade or satchel charge in the pillbox. After taking the hill or ridge, Americans would then have to regroup and move on to the next position.

The leader of the Japanese operation on Okinawa was General Ushijima and his two lietenant genarals, Cho and Yamahara. All three of these men were self proclaimed sameraii to whom surrender was unthinkable. Before the American amphibiuos landing on Okinawa's beaches, General Ushijima wisely decided agaunst trying to defend the beaches, but rather to let the Americans come on shore, then save the fighting to be taken in the more defendable mountains.

The first stage of the Americans' plan to invade Okinawa was to first bombard the beaches on the north side heavily before the invasion. But even with the bombardment, American stratagists were planning casualtys as high as 90% dead or wounded of the first marines in. The invasion played out well, with amtracks (amphibious tractors) landing on the beaches unopposed. Quickly Marines acquired a beachead and began moving supplies on land. Many U.S. forces mockingly called the day "love day" because of the ease of which the invasion took place. Within the first few days the soldeirs had taken objectives in the northern part of the island that were planned to take weeks of hard fighting. The only resistance the soldiers saw was an occasional land mine placed in the road that could be shot with a rifle, then bipassed. Many soldeirs had taken pet ghoats, ponies, or rabbits and sang songs during the night. But this calm was about to erupt into a storm as U.S. forces approached the first of enemy lines.

On April 8th, the marines approached the Motubu peninsula, where 2,000 Japanese soldiers were waiting under Colonol Udo. Here there were tunnels between hidden bunkers and pillboxes, mortars set up on the opposite side of the mountain. The marines bravely shot into these fortifications or called mortar fire on them, and then rush in only to discover a trail of blood to even suggest they had even been once occupied. Marines slowly charged up the 1200 foot high mountain slowly taking caves and bunkers until they finally took the other side. The rest of the peninsula was secured by April 20th, and the northern part of Okinawa was secured.

The next objective was Kakazu ridge, which was actually two ridges in close proximity to each other. Here Army G.I.s received no artillery for cover but rather tryed to use the element of suprise in their favor. The Japanese put the majority of their forces on the opposite slope of the ridge with mortars and small artillery, while leaving some scattered soldeirs in the bunkers and caves on the front slope. While one company of the attack was pinned down, another company made it up the ridge where hand grenades and satchel charges were exchanged over the ridge killing many on both sides. while the Americans were pinned down under artillery fire, the Japanese launched a series of counter attacks on the soldeirs, who were on hill of solid rock and coral, unable to dig a hole for cover from the fierce artillery fire. The attacking Japanese ran through their own mortar fire just to be repeled by the Americans. Eventually the Americans had to withdraw under the cover of smoke bombs, carrying their wounded with them. The entire operation had cost the regiment 70 dead, and 256 wounded, while the Japanese may have lost as many as 600 men.

More forces were called in to take the ridge, but this time the Japanese were better prepared. As American G.I.s charged up the hill, the Japanese firing their inaccurate, but deadly artillery, starting a landslide that covered more than a dozen men with earth. At one point there was such a thick shower of mortar fire coming down, it was predicted more than sixty shells a minute fell on the brave soldiers. Before the Americans retreated, another 45 soldeirs were dead.

It was after the news of this Japanese victory that Lietenant General Cho recomended a counter-offensive to retake some airfeilds that had been lost. The Japanese thirty-second army split into small groups no larger than 2 dozen men, and planned to strike the un-prepared American forces during the night of April 12-13. The plan was executed horribly with the small groups becoming lost and wandering right into American positions where they were promptly killed. Sometimes a few groups would converge and charge the American position, but quickly destroyed by American artillery and mortars. A third of the Japanese forces were killed, and the Americans suffered few casualties.

As the Army G.I.s slowly came down the Island, General Buckner, the comander of this operation, kept his hardened, highly trained first and sixth Marine divisions in the north for several weeks. Why he did this is not exactly known, although many beleive he wanted the Army to claim the credit for crushing the Japanese on Okinawa. Finally, General Buckner integrated his forces when it became obvious that the Army couldn't handle this alone.

Meanwhile, the Navy ships outside Okinawa were in a great peril. The Japanese airfeilds in the south were still in operation and still spewing out Japanese kamikazis and bombers which ravaged the ships on the coasts. The ships could not just leave as they were responsible for keeping the soldeirs on the island in supply of food, ammunition, and other essetiantals. The ships also directly supported the troops by bombarding enemy positions before the infantry attacked.

As the marine and army soldiers made their way down the island, it became obvious this was going to be a bitter victory. Their were several brave individuals who received the Medal of Honor for their courage. These individuals acted bravely such as one man repeling 20 charging Japanese by first shooting his gun then throwing grenades, then mortar shells, risking his own safety to save his freinds close behind. One man even won a medal after being wounded, then as him and his group of wounded comrades made their way to safety, he dove on an enemy grenade to save them, and then still lived.

The Japanese in the south were becoming apprehensive as ground was continuily becoming lost. General Ushijima and his two subordinates were preparing themselves for their Samuraii destiny. But in the last few days, it was determined Yamahara was to try to make it back to Japan to report on what had happened. How this was to come about was that he would dress in the clothes like one of the natives of the island, then sneek back to the mainland. Cho and Ushijima were to keep their honor as Samuraii and commit hara kiri.

After this, it was assumed the honorable Japanese soldeirs would fight until the end.

As the Marines were closing in on the southern most part of the island, Cho and Ushijima wrote to Japan of how they utilized their resources to defend the island to the most, but could not stop the enemy. They both went out apon a cliff overlooking the island, then said a few words. In the meantime, the Marines below the cliff heard the voices and began hurling grenades up towards the voices. The two generals then stabbed themselves in the guts, then seeing blood, the aid nearby came and severed their necks with a Samuraii saber.

The island was slowly being conquered by the superior forces. A suprise however, did come out of this; several thousand Japanese soldeirs surrendered themselves to the American forces. Before now most Japanese commited suicide or foeght until they were killed. This new development showed a slow change in Japanese morale toward the end.