Memorial Day: Letter From the Front

My father and an unidentified soldier in a work shack on Ie Shima. If you look carefully at far left (on the top of the files) there is a lethal-looking bayonette. 

My father and the 1902 Engineer Aviation Batallion arrived off Okinawa on 15 April, 1945. As they circulated through those dangerous waters on board LSTs, General Simon Bolivar Buckner made the decision not to have them land on Okinawa, as planned--since the fighting there remained intense--but to land on nearby Ie Shima, where there were a couple of runways in need of repair.

The battle for Okinawa, that had begun April 1, was still raging and would not end until June. General Buckner would not himself survive.

Something Dad Forgot to Mention About World War II: He Had Wings!

My father on Ie Shima with some of the men of "C" Company, 1902 Aviation Engineer Battalion.  Behind him to the left you can see the sea, and, beyond that, Okinawa.  To the right, the American flag flies over the residue of the battle: a new military cemetery.

I've spent the last few months trying to find out more about the history of my father's unit during World War II.  Since I found the letters he wrote home to my mother during the war, I've been working on the outline of a book.

He was an engineer.  He graduated with an Army ROTC commission.  I thought he was in the Corps of Engineers.  But I was wrong. Or at least--sort of wrong.