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My youngest brother must have caught our dad at a good time; it was near the end of his life, and he decided to talk about WWII. My father and his brother, Armando, were called up on December 9, 1941, two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. They did not return home until the end of the war.
I had asked him about the war numerous times before, but he never wanted to talk about it. Most of the people who served in the Pacific Theater would not talk about what happened. I do recall asking him once about prisoners, and he said we didn’t take prisoners, nor did the Japanese. The other thing that he answered was when I asked him if he felt that the atomic bomb should have been dropped. Without hesitation, he said yes. I wondered why, and he said too many of us would have died in Japan; they were getting ready to go there.
They were in four campaigns, the last one being in Okinawa. They were in the 27th National Guard Infantry Division, a New York Army National Guard unit that fought in the Battle of Okinawa in 1945, the final major battle of World War II in the Pacific. After island-hopping campaigns, the division landed on Okinawa in April 1945 and fought in intense, muddy conditions to break through Japanese defenses like the Shuri Line before being sent to Japan for garrison duty after the fighting ended.
It is largely true that Pacific Theater soldiers were generally less likely to discuss their war experiences publicly compared to their European Theater counterparts, primarily due to the unique, brutal nature of the fighting and cultural factors after the war.
Key Reasons for the Silence
- Extreme Brutality: The Pacific War was characterized by exceptional ferocity and a high casualty rate. Japanese soldiers rarely surrendered, often fighting to the death or committing suicide, which led to a “pitiless quality” of fighting with few prisoners taken by either side. U.S. Marines were even initially forbidden to write about the true horror of their experiences in their letters home.
- Dehumanization and Racism: Widespread dehumanization of the enemy was prevalent on both sides. This racial element contributed to the war’s barbarity and made the stories less palatable for “good versus evil” narratives that captured the public imagination in the same way the fight against the Nazis did.
- Unfamiliarity of Location: Unlike Europe, where most Americans had ancestral ties and understood the geography, battles in places like Guadalcanal, Saipan, and Okinawa were in unfamiliar, remote locations. The public had a hard time relating to these distant battles.
- Nature of the Trauma: The sheer psychological and physical trauma—including the constant stench of death, disease, and harsh jungle conditions—was difficult to convey to civilians. Veterans often felt that those who hadn’t been there wouldn’t understand.
- Post-War Processing: Many veterans simply wanted to return to normal life and repress their horrific memories. Culturally, the WWII generation often just didn’t say much about such traumatic things.
While some stories eventually emerged years later through memoirs and oral histories, the initial and widespread post-war silence among Pacific veterans was notable and distinct.