WWII Letter

April 24, 1945

Dearest Mother,

The war is terrible. Today, our brigade along with thousands of allied soldiers stormed the Sakishima airfields. We were backed up by British planes and ships that provided firepower. However these blasts make it impossible to move around or to see. They say that these blasts are helping us to destroy the enemy's heavy guns but they don't mother. They don't. Several times a day, friendly bombs and Japanese mortars blow our good men to pieces. I knew when I joined that I might die but that honor was more important. I didn't know what war was like then. Now I want only to come home, away from all of the death and destruction. Yesterday as we were landing at one of the islands when the Japanese kamakazis attacked. They sunk two of our ships and I coud hardly bare to see all of the poor men who were scrambling to escape from the sinking ships only to be killed by the kamakazi's bullets or to drown. Lator that day, we won an important piece of land in the hills where many mortars were located. But we payed for it in blood. All throughout the scorched and splintered tree bodies were strewn everywhere. The smell and the flies was enough that even Big Johny Thomason couldn't hold it in. At the end, we came across 5 young Jap soldiers who were trapped in one of the caves. Rather than living, and being captured, they decided to blow themselves up with hand grenades. Those Japs and their honor. That is the only thing I respect about them is how they love their country and value their honor. War is terrible mother. It really is.

Your Loving Son,
Howard A.