
World War II in the Pacific, narrated by my grandpa - jonmrodriguez
https://soundcloud.com/luciddreamworld/ww2-with-richard-t-williams
======
jonmrodriguez
My grandpa, Richard Williams, lived next door to me when I was a kid, and he
helped raise me like a parent. He taught me carpentry, plumbing, and
electricity, and through countless days together in his workshop he was the
one who got me excited about hardware engineering.

I hope to live as he did: to travel every part of the world; to meet and
befriend people of all cultures; to be easygoing, and full of childlike
wonder; to be a friend even to former enemies; to be driven and hardworking to
the point of exhaustion; to cheat death repeatedly; and to make the absolute
most of our incredible time on this wonderful world.

:)

~~~
phil21
I love your hopes :) Your Grandpa sounds like a pretty awesome dude!

Bookmarked for later listening, but heard he's a fellow Minneapolis native.
Woo.

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GuiA
How wonderful. Thanks for sharing this.

My grandpa was in the French resistance. He left the family farm at 17 to join
the maquis (French wilderness) where he lived for 2 years, trying to hamper
the German forces (eg. blowing up trains). He then participated to the
liberation of Royan, and received the croix de guerre. It blows my mind to
think about what he must have felt like- when I was 17, I was reading computer
magazines in my bedroom.

My cousin and I wanted to record him talking about his life, and then he died
unexpectedly. There's always a "next time" until there isn't.

------
saryant
I'm fortunate to have my grandfather's writings of his time in World War II:
[http://86thchemical.us/Site/Bills_Memories.html](http://86thchemical.us/Site/Bills_Memories.html)

Back in college I spent a semester in France and during the weekends I tried
to partially retrace his steps during the war. I went to Normandy and
photographed the graves of the seven men from his unit buried there and I
visited the bridge over the Rhine he helped capture—my family has the Nazi
flag that flew over the Bridge at Remagen, which he removed and replaced with
the American flag.

He never _talked_ much about his time in the war but he did write it down.

------
bane
WWII was unbelievably vast. If you look at the numbers, men, equipment,
fronts, battles...all with logistics, supplies, planning and other
administrivia handled _by hand_ before computers and modern communication
systems. It boggles the mind. I mean, they didn't even really have good
photocopiers

When I was in high school, I had the honor of being chosen as a "musical
exchange student" along with a dozen other musicians from local schools to
spend a summer in and around Yekaterinburg. While there, we formed a small
chamber ensemble and played music for various local groups, including several
WWII veteran retirement homes (Great Patriotic War Vets). After our
performance, many of the very old vets came up and were beyond warm in
thanking us for coming and playing for them. A few mentioned remembering the
Soviet-American alliance and lamented our animosity since then, they hoped our
countries could be friends and we'd have a long future together.

Curious, we visited various GPW memorials and museums and such. It was a
pretty intense education. It was the first time I had ever really heard a non-
American perspective on the war and the scale of the Soviet involvement,
something I had been completely ignorant of before that point, kind of blew my
mind. It really set in my mind the importance of not accepting the education I
was fed and to expand my horizons to try and look at things from different
angles.

It gave me the travel bug and I try and go out of the country at least once a
year since then.

~~~
hga
The USSR, _at the official level_ , was _never_ free of animosity towards us.
Just a few things from what I'm studying right now, plus one big one:

They didn't shut down the Comintern, their official organization for
subverting and destroying us, until 2 years minus about 5 weeks after
Operation Barbarossa (the Nazi invasion), while we (the US) started supplying
them with equipment on credit ~3 months after (for gold and minerals before,
while the first arrangement was hammered out).

They refused to supply us with meteorological info, which seriously hindered
our campaign against Japan.

They seized all the B-29s that were forced to land on their territory (was
later copied as the Tupolev Tu-4); while this was consistent with their need
to maintain their neutrality towards Japan after some engagements in Manchuria
(where they owned the Japanese, but they _really_ needed those troops; Georgy
Zhukov earned his spurs and vital experience there), holding the crews was
not, I think. They were " _allowed to escape into American-occupied Iran_ "
per Wikipedia and e.g. Tillman's _Whirlwind: The Air War Against Japan,
1942-1945_ ([http://www.amazon.com/Whirlwind-The-Against-
Japan-1942-1945/...](http://www.amazon.com/Whirlwind-The-Against-
Japan-1942-1945/dp/1416584412/)).

This of course says absolutely nothing about how the two peoples felt about
each other, and our mutual gratitude for what the other did in terminating
Nazi Germany with extreme prejudice.

Was your visit during the Cold War?

~~~
bane
No, mid 90s, not too long after the curtain fell. I'd add that we didn't know
_anything_ about where we were going which turned into some hilarity when we
arrived with winter clothes expecting cold and permafrost (being in Siberia
and all that), and instead getting 100 degF weather with 90% humidity. The
exchange was loaded with these kinds of cultural and environmental learning
experiences, neither group knew _anything_ about each other. It was really a
meeting of two complete alien cultures. It was really the point of that kind
of thing though wasn't it?

The Russian families who took us in were some of the warmest, most hospitable
people I've ever met. They really worked hard to integrate us as well as they
could and give us a memorable experience. In fact almost everywhere we went,
even out into the deep countryside, we were treated incredibly well by almost
everybody.

We got to return the favor later when their kids came to stay with us, and
apparently that particular exchange program continued on for many years after
that. I'm almost sad to say I don't think the Americans they met were as
universally warm or welcoming.

------
rdtsc
My grandpa didn't talk much about the war. I'll never know what he went
through. He went all the way to Berlin with the Soviet Army, that's the only
thing I know.

The other one was sent to China, Canton (not sure how accurate this is, as
that is in the South, not North or West, as I would have imagined). It was to
"help fight off the Japanese". He also never wanted to talk about the war.

~~~
classicsnoot
I know this outs me as a cloistered american, but my mental narrative of WWII
is woefully bereft of accounts outside of the US Britain, and Germany. The
thought of your Pop Pop slogging through the countryside towards Berlin gave
me goosebumps. Where is that movie, i ask you.

Thanks.

~~~
brudgers
The scale of the War in the Soviet Union was vast. 26,000,000 is the commonly
agreed on estimate of USSR deaths from the war. The theatre contained hundreds
of divisions - many times those in which the US and Britain fought.

A book on Stalingrad I recently enjoyed:

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0140284583/ref=redir_mdp_mobil...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0140284583/ref=redir_mdp_mobile)

~~~
classicsnoot
Understand, I am well aware of the facts and figures of the East's struggle. I
have sat and talked with nearly 50 WWII vets at length, and not one of them
from anywhere but the US, Britain, and Germany. The road to victory that
Mother Russia took is informative when considering the events of the present.

~~~
brudgers
As I was writing, I refrained from referring to the the theatre as 'Eastern'.
The term tends to turn encourage us to turn our backs on the way in which the
Second World War shapes the politics of China and Korea [or Koreas] and the
way in which the US interprets them.

China was the first of 'the Allies'. It went to war with Japan in July 1937 -
more than two years before France and Britain against Germany and four years
before the rest of the Allies engaged Japan, i.e. China fought against Japan
alone for longer than as one of 'The Allies'. Rana Mintner's _Forgotten Ally_
was on the new shelf a few months ago at the public library:

[http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Ally-
China%C2%92s-World-1937...](http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Ally-
China%C2%92s-World-1937-1945/dp/061889425X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1401370700&sr=8-2&keywords=china+second+world+war)

More recently I read Bruce Cummings _The Korean War: A History_. Now I no
longer write North Korea's actions off as crazy. That's the country whose
founders fought Japanese imperialism before and throughout the war. The
American military maintained Japan's administrative structure in the South
when it 'established itself' their following Japan's defeat. South Korea has
had foreign troops in it continuously since 1895. North Korea sees that as
problematic.

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Korean-War-History-
Chronicles/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Korean-War-History-
Chronicles/dp/081297896X/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1401370140&sr=8-7&keywords=korean+war)

------
dba7dba
Around late 1990s and early 2000s, right when the internet started getting
into people's homes with Mozilla web browser and IE, I noticed many memoirs
that were put up by the old veterans themselves. I spent much time reading
through them.

Sadly many of those memoirs are not around anymore as their accounts were
shutdown or the web hosting company itself went out of business.

I fear much history is being lost in the transition from pen/paper era to
digital era.

~~~
ekianjo
> Sadly many of those memoirs are not around anymore as their accounts were
> shutdown or the web hosting company itself went out of business.

How about the wayback machine ? Did it save anything ?

------
ericcumbee
Bookmarked to listen to later. listened to the first few minutes and it sounds
great. I did my Eagle Scout Project to honor the Veterans at my church. It
ended up being more or less a book with a 1 page general biography of each
veteran (unit, rank, commendations, notable events etc). I really wanted to do
some more in depth personal interviews and recorded narratives with each
veteran but they did not really care to talk much about it. The ones that did,
was off the record. I had quite a few wonderful conversations that I wish I
could have captured doing it. The sad thing is most of those guys are not
around any more.

~~~
dba7dba
Glad to see someone who is interested in history and got to do meaningful
project related to history.

Another repository of oral history that may be worth checking out is
[http://www.goforbroke.org/oral_histories/oral_histories_vide...](http://www.goforbroke.org/oral_histories/oral_histories_video.asp)

Unfortunately the videos are now offline but you can still access some if you
contact them. There were some wonderful interviews years ago that I was able
to view.

------
brudgers
E. B. Sledge's autobiography, _With the Old Breed_ describes his combat
experiences as a Marine in the Pacific and is worth reading if your interested
in that history.

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0891419195/ref=redir_mdp_mobil...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0891419195/ref=redir_mdp_mobile)

My grandfather served in the 504 PIR. He never talked with me about his
experiences at great length, but the two vignettes he related that stick with
are both about his being terrified, the one I remember from my teens was: They
were holed up in a house in the Ardennes. It was night and he had to urinate
so badly that he took the risk of stepping outside [historically. the 504th
was trucked in from reserve to stop Panzer Group Piper and stem the rout]. As
he relieved himself, he looked up and for a moment mistook the snow covered
saplings for enemy soldiers.

The second, is from my early twenties. Blunt and simple: being in a trench in
Italy while the Germans dropped antipersonel bombs on him was more
'unpleasant" than I could imagine. That was true. He had a successful
professional career after the war. but fought depression up until his death.
I'm both sad that I miss him, and glad that I do.

------
Swizec
My great grandmother spent some time in a work camp. I don't know which one, I
don't know how long, all I know is that she gave birth to one of my dad's
aunts inside the camp. According to her it "wasn't that bad". Apparently the
guards would even play and joke around with the baby.

Her feelings about the war might be colored by having found the family farm
burned down to the ground by the partisans (communist version) upon her
return.

Such a shame she died before I was old enough to truly appreciate having a sit
down with her and listening to the experience she'd have to share. All I know
are scattered bits and pieces, mostly from second-hand retellings.
Unfortunately as a kid I never liked talking to her - her voice was feeble,
she had a thick accent and local dialect, both of which made her very
difficult to understand and kind of scary to talk to.

------
tragomaskhalos
The story of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, mentioned in the narrative,
is an extraordinary and tragic one; at that stage of the war the US Navy's
Pacific operation was so vast that the ship's disappearance essentially fell
through the cracks of the bureaucracy and was not noticed for several critical
days. "In Harm's Way" gives a compelling account of the sinking and the
subsequent ordeal of the survivors.

------
dkroy
I have always wanted to record an interview my grandpa on his military
experience, and I did. I was not smart and didn't record the interview. I may
interview him again, but just record the whole interview if he is willing to
again... I am also a fellow Minnesotan, not sure why, but I felt a little
pride there.

~~~
daeken
Do it. Just do it. If you don't, you'll regret it when you can't anymore. All
of my grandparents have passed away, and I missed out on so many stories; one
of my biggest regrets in life.

------
kayoone
This makes me really sad as my grandpa passed away last year and i just
realized i could have saved his life's story for everyone that cares. Good
stuff, we should all do something like this, maybe even build a database to
share these kind of live stories ?

------
tragomaskhalos
Reading the other comments reminds us that in general the men who fought in
the war were reluctant to talk about it, which is why first-hand testimony
like this is so valuable for future generations.

Of course, many of them were horribly traumatised by their experiences, which
goes a long way to explaining their reticence. My stepdad, for example, was in
a position that was overrun by a German attack - he shot a fellow who fell
dead on top of him with his hand over my stepdad's face. My stepdad then had
to "play possum" until a counterattack in turn evicted the Germans. For the
rest of his life he would wake up terrified and in a cold sweat from the
recurring nightmare of that dead hand on his face.

------
davidw
It'd be awesome if you could get a transcript done, although I realize they
can be kind of expensive.

------
catmanjan
Interesting to listen to, wish there was more.

Is the hissing in the background an oxygen machine?

~~~
jonmrodriguez
There is more! A full hour! :-D At some point I may post the rest, I just got
the recordings back from a data recovery shop; they were on a hard drive that
crashed 4 years ago with no backup... Talk about lucky

The hissing is just the noise from a cassette tape recorder, I recorded this 7
years ago before I had a smartphone. My grandpa was healthy right up to the
bitter end!

