Honor Thy Father – Chapter 20

First and foremost, thank you to all who have read my past blog posts and my book, “Homey’s Adventures.” 

As promised, I am writing this book as a sequel to the happy ending of my first book. I decided to share this with you. So, without delay here is Chapter 20 of my third book: 

Chapter 20 – More Japanese Desperation 

My dad’s 20^th mission was one of those: “I can’t tell you where we went, but here are some newspaper articles that tell you where we went.”: 

I suspect dad’s plane dropped the mines in the Japanese Nippon harbor. The navy was starting to plan a naval bombardment of Honshu on the main Japanese island. The battle of Okinawa was still raging. The first atomic bomb would not be tested until July 16^th, 1945. So, the army and navy were still planning on invading Japan. 

One of the articles mentioned the failed Japanese amphibious assault on Okinawa. On May 3, the second counterattack began. The Japanese 24th Division, charged with breaking through the American positions with a direct frontal assault, took a fearful beating. The Japanese failed to make any meaningful penetration of American positions, and their efforts to land infiltrators behind American lines by boat met the same fate. By May 5, it became clear to General Ushijima that the offensive had failed. The total Japanese losses in this fruitless counterattack reached 6,227 dead. 

I noticed that the Japanese used whaling boats as landing craft. With the potential of losing over 5,000 men, one would think that they would use landing craft and not whaling boats. To me, this looks like another sign of how desperate the Japanese were. The high command did not seem to care about loss of life. 

This reminds me of a scene in the movie “Patton.”: 

As Patton’s army sweeps through France, he surveys wreckage on a battlefield. He asks an aide how he knows the Germans are in trouble and then answers his own question by pointing out that the Germans are using carts.  The Japanese using whaling boats was like the German’s using horse drawn carts.  

My dad’s 21^st mission was to again bomb the kamikaze airfields in Kyushu: 

My dad includes articles on the attack of the Oshima oil storage facilities. Japan had no oil producing land. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor because: 

1. An Increased Need for Natural Resources 

Japan had an increased need for natural resources like oil, minerals, and steel as their goals for expansion in Asia and the Pacific increased.  

                     2. Restrictions: 

The United States also had an obvious interest in these natural resources, and in response to the Japanese aggression, the U.S. Congress placed restrictions on doing business with Japan. And, if that were not enough, Japanese assets in the United States were frozen.  

                    3. Expansion in the Pacific 

President Roosevelt moved the US Pacific Fleet from California to Pearl Harbor in 1939. This move was a threat to Japan, who wanted to expand in the Pacific. Military leaders and politicians saw a war between the U.S. and Japan as inevitable, with the solution who attacked first. Japan did just that. 

At this point in the war, one of the primary American strategies was to deprive Japan of all natural resources. Even though my dad hardly ever complained in these journal entries, I believe my dad and mom wanted Japan to surrender so that my dad could go home to his wife and soon to be born baby boy. The Japanese high command had different thoughts. They were willing to sacrifice anything to not lose. 

End Of Chapter 20 

I encourage anyone who had a parent or grandparent who flew in the B29’s from Tinian Island in 1945 to contact me. Without these heroes protecting our freedoms, we would not be able to celebrate our country’s founding on Independence Day. 

You don’t want to miss my next blog. It’s the ending to “Honor Thy Father.”  Follow my blog to make sure you receive it. 

If you do not want to wait that long and you have not read my first book. I encourage you to go to my website, www.homeysadventures.com. You can read the first two chapters for free, and you can also buy it. Or you can buy it from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and many other fine retailers. Just search for it using the words: Homey’s Adventures by Jim Wish. 

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I liken myself to the Vienna Violinist described in chapter 5 of Homey’s Adventures Too. I play (write) for your enjoyment and mine. God bless you all.