'Greatest' soldiers reflect on service

SANDPOINT — One of America’s most precious resources  — its World War II veterans — is dwindling.

The earth-shaping event of the 20th century, World War II forged America’s status as a superpower and restructured the geopolitical sphere. More than 16 million Americans participated in the conflict that left between 60 and 80 million dead — 400,000 of that number Americans.

But our connection to this critical moment in American history weakens every day.

It is worth noting as America celebrates Veterans Day today, that of the 16 million original participants, the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs estimates only 2 million are still alive and 850 die every day. That number will only increase with passing years according to a 2009 USDVA study that placed the median World War II veteran age at 86.

Charlie Wood is a hair above that average at 87 years old. But in 1942, he was 19 and freshly enlisted with the Marine Corps.  

The military drafted Bob Johnson a year later in July 1943. He signed up with the Army Air Corps — the precursor to the Air Force — a day before his 19th birthday.

“I was in college and single at the time, so I knew they were coming for me,” Johnson said. “But the war was the place to be at the time, so I didn’t really mind.”

By that point, Wood had already witnessed some of the Pacific Theater’s most grueling battles. As a radio mechanic aboard the USS Tangier, he saw action in the Guadalcanal Campaign and Bougainville Campaign before spending about a five months of 1944 in the Philippines. While engaged in the Philippines Campaign that liberated the islands from Japanese, he and his Marine buddies developed an intense dislike for Gen. Douglas MacArthur. The famous military leader would clear a beachhead and then dump the area on the Marines, forcing them to mop up all remaining Japanese forces, Woods said.

“We made signs that said, ‘By the grace of God and a handful of Marines, MacArthur returned to the Philippines,’ but they made us take them down,” Woods said. “We just hated that guy.”

Woods developed immense respect for the Philippine natives, who hated the Japanese for their brutal three-year occupation of their islands. He said the natives would guard American airplanes or sneak-attack Japanese soldiers during the night, cutting their throats with homemade bolo knives.

“One time I saw a Filipino with horrible burns on his hands,” Woods said. “I asked him, ‘What happened to your hands?’ and he said a pipe that he’d converted into a gun exploded when he tried firing on an enemy soldier.”   

Meanwhile, Johnson was back in America waiting to for the Army Air Corps to determine his fate.

“I wasn’t volunteering for anything, but I was also willing to go wherever they sent me,” he said. “It was basically a matter of them using me where ever I was needed.” 

The Army swore him into service at Spokane and then shipped him off to Santa Ana, Calif. to a large military base for training. He waited for his orders there with the rest of the flight cadets. Before much time passed, the Army told him that he and his group wouldn’t receive flight training. He still has no idea why that was the case.

“Who knows how the Army made its decisions?” Johnson said.

The Army Air Corps shipped Johnson around the country from California to Florida until the war’s end in August 1945. He underwent various training programs to learn how to load bombs and set up .50 caliber machine guns while manning various bases around the country. 

 “A lot of people think that if you were in the Army during World War II you were shooting up the Japanese or the Germans,” he said. “But we still had to maintain our military here in the United States, too.”

According to Johnson, life on those bases was dull. He spent many moments lying on a bunk with nothing to do. To relieve the boredom, he tried to acquire jobs around the base.

“I worked in the mail room sorting letters as often as I could,” he said. “The downside was that soldiers would come to me hoping for letters, and they were always disappointed if there wasn’t anything.”

While stationed in Colorado, he acquired what he jokingly calls his war wound. He and his friends decided to go horseback riding one afternoon. While riding an unruly horse, a barbed wire fence gashed Johnson’s leg.

“We weren’t really supposed to be there, so I figured I couldn’t get medical attention on base,” he said. “Luckily, there was a doctor nearby that shut up the wound with these small clamps.”

In August 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki, forcing the country’s surrender. Wood was on a train returning from furlough at his hometown of St. Charles, Ill., when word of Japanese surrender reached his car.

“Everyone must have had alcohol stashed in their suitcase, because suddenly the liquor bottles started coming out,” he said. “The officer on board told us, ‘I don’t want to see a sober man on this train by the time we reach the next station.’”

The war was finally over, but a conflict on the scale of World War II doesn’t simply end. New information about the era surfaces every day. Woods himself learned only last summer that his older brother, who was not allowed into the military due to his work at Cornell University, was involved in developing a weapon key to the Allies’ victory.

“He told me that he created the plastic explosive that destroyed railways and caused Hitler so much trouble,” Wood said. “But he couldn’t tell me at the time because the government wouldn’t allow it.”     

Johnson and Wood aptly represent the range of experiences that World War II encompassed. Some followed the war to its conclusion from one key battle to another. Others never saw action at all, but played an equally key role by maintaining the national infrastructure.

But the country won’t enjoy that essential tie to our national past forever. It’s important that we learn from our World War II veterans while we can.

“You hear a lot about how the greatest generation is passing on,” Johnson said. “But I think that’s a disservice to all the younger folks that have done great things for the country. What’s really important is to use the freedom veterans have given us to live our lives for some good.”