Danny, I trust that your father survived the sinking of the USS Drexler. Okinawa was a very costly battle for the U.S. Navy as well as he Marines and Army personnel that finally defeated the Japanese Army. There were several aircraft carriers involved in the attack on Okinawa and they lost many of their fighters as well as the Army Air force that flew from islands formerly occupied by the Japanese Army that were taken by the strategies used to capture islands with usable air strips that were used for the landing of damaged bombers returning from bombing the Japanese Homeland.

My personal opinion is that the Battle for Okinawa cost so many lives and did so much damage to ships and planes that President Truman saw the necessity of bombing Japan with the atomic bombs to save both Allied and Japanese lives. Thank goodness that President Truman had the gonads to make the proper decision.

I am an official veteran of WWII even though I was sworn into the U.S. Navy on December 7, 1946 over a years after the surrender of the Japanese.

I enlisted at the age of 17 on December 7, 1945 but was not officially accepted until December 1946 because there were so many personnel being discharged after the surrender that the training bases did not have enough barracks to house the returning veterans and new enlistees, therefore I waited for a year until sufficient space was available.

The "cut off" for being classified as a WWII Veteran was December 31, 1946 and all personnel on active duty at that time received the WWII Victory Medal and was granted all of the benefits of the GI Bill passed by Congress.

I am also a veteran of the Korean War because I was assigned temporary duty in Korea in November 1950. I was stationed on the Staff of Admiral Arthur Radford, Commander of CinCPacFlt as a yeoman in the planning Division. My superior was a mine warfare specialist who was a commissioned officer with the rank of Commander.

After the mines had been cleared from both the east and west coasts of Korea we were assigned to the USS Forrest Royal which was the flagship of a task force that was sent to the Chosen Reservoir to protect the transports that were used to evacuate the Army and Marine personnel who were forced to retreat when the Chinese Army crossed the border into North Korea.

Those men were real heros. The temperature was minus 40 degrees and they had been fighting for several weeks and were forced to fight their way back from the Chinese border about 70 miles before they reached the harbor where the Naval transports and escorts ships could evacuate the men.

Those men brought their dead and wounded with them as they retreated. The dead were frozen and sacked like logs in the back of open trucks until they reached the port and the walking wounded were assisted by their buddies and other wounded were transported on open jeeps or trucks that were available.

When the troops were taken aboard the Navy transports they stopped on the main deck without being ordered and commenced cleaning their weapons before they went below decks to take care of themselves.

Marine and Navy personnel usually had "friendly" discussions about the benefits of being a Marine or being a Sailor but after I witnessed those Marines and Army personnel conduct after boarding the transports I developed a respect for those men's dedication to their duty that lasts until this day.

I stayed in the Navy for five years and was either on a ship at sea or on a Island in the Pacific for four years and three months. My home was in Georgia and I only received two thirty day leaves during the five years and that was for emergency that occurred when my father was involved in a serious accident and my mother required serious surgery.

It was my honor to serve the United States of America to the best of my ability and I am blessed to be alive and with no life endangering disease but
have a severe vision problem and experience difficulty in maintaining mobility. WWII Veterans are rapidly going to their reward and will soon be only a memory to loved ones.

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