My Pre-Birth II
In this calender I charted out my Dad’s known Service Activity, based on his military records that I acquired. During his military tour, he was last stationed on Tinian Island, the same Island that the Enola Gay bomber flew from when it delivered its cargo of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
It wasn’t until this past December 2013 that I was actually able to establish the fact that my Dad WAS both IN and AROUND NAGASAKI, taking pictures, just 10 DAYS after the bomb was dropped and just a few days after Japans unconditional surrender.
The verifying of his ‘trip’ to Nagasaki was evidenced by the pictures he took that were kept in a file that was not discovered until 68 years later, this past December, (see page referencing Nagasaki). Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki happen to be about 6 hours flying time from Japan… Personally, I suspect that he flew to Japan see what all the ‘talk’ on Tinian was, about what just happened in Japan… being a Marine and all, this was a no-brainer, that the two BIG bombs that ended the war were delivered by planes from this island… (duh).
The war was just now over and he was at the end of his military service… so, he flew Japan to check it out… like, why not..???
I mean like I would have if I was right there, the war was just over by a matter of a few weeks and I was a gung-ho marine.
There were several instances where I recall him talking about his ‘service’ experience, when I was just a kid, as he said something about he went to an “unauthorized” area, too close to a ‘ground zero’ area, for too long, (this was ‘marine talk’).
Another time later, I over-heard him in a conversation with one of his friends that he had to be treated for radiation burns; also mentioning that he was almost dishonorably discharged because he was in this restricted area and was injured and had to be treated for having acquired those radiation burns because he went where he wasn’t supposed to be.
While growing up I never, ever recall him talking much about any of his other war experiences, at all, and 50-55 years ago I wasn’t much of a listener either; but his military records that I ordered, indicated he was at Sipan, Okinawa (participated in “Combat Action” ) and finally stationed on the Tinian islands at the end of his tour.
In the last 10-15 years of his life, he had diabetes, osteomyelitis, intestinal cancer, needed a triple heart bypass operation, had cancer and high blood pressure, etc. (and a few more related illnesses I don’t remember). However, from ALL the reading I’ve done about the ‘Atomic-Veterans’, these health issues were quite common among military personnel who were close to highly irradiated areas.
Also, I’ve read that according to surveys, of these Atomic Veterans, that 20% of their children had birth defects…
My dad passed away at Bay Pines VA hospital and is buried in the VA cemetery, St. Petersburg Florida, at 64 years young, June 27, 1987.
