Tag Archives: World War II

Yes, they were heroes

They’re old now. They’re in their late 80s or in their 90s.

They once were young, full of eager anticipation and they wanted to fight for their country. They had joined the fight of their lives to save the world from tyranny.

And 70 years ago, on June 6, 1944, thousands of them jumped out of landing craft and ran ashore at Normandy, France to liberate Europe from the Nazis who had occupied the continent.

Some of them returned to that beach today to remember the chaos, the blood, the sacrifice and what they did on behalf of the world.

Many of them don’t consider themselves heroes. Many of us who came along later will disagree vehemently with that view.

They surely were heroes. They are heroes to this day.

It was called “D-Day.” Why that name? There was no symbolism, no hidden meaning. It’s commonly accepted that “D-Day” meant merely, well, that was the day of the massive amphibious assault.

Was the assault performed without a hitch? Hardly. There were mistakes all along the huge front. Landing craft opened up and men drowned in too-deep water. Airborne troops flown in behind the German lines were dropped in wrong locations. Chaos ensued.

The men persevered. They fought their way off the beaches, facing deadly small arms fire and a determined enemy.

These heroes were not to be denied.

They are old now and they are leaving this world at a quickening pace.

But oh, how we owe them for what they did seven decades ago.

They are heroes. All of them.

R.I.P., heroic American

An American hero has died. He’s the last of a special brand of fighting men who, when duty called during our nation’s bloodiest war, answered in a unique and inspiring way.

Chester Nez, 93, died in Albuquerque, N.M. He was the last of the original 29 Code Talkers, Navajos who were tasked with developing a code that the enemy could not decipher.

http://www.oregonlive.com/today/index.ssf/2014/06/last_of_world_war_iis_original.html#incart_river_default

I long have wondered something about the tactic developed during World War II that produced the Code Talkers: Who in the world at what was then called the War Department come up with this idea?

It was utterly brilliant.

Nez was one of 29 men who formed the first Code Talker unit. The Navajos developed a glossary that they expanded into a full vocabulary of terms they used to communicate with each other in the Pacific Theater of operations. The Japanese had been able to crack many encryptions. The Navajo code? Forget about it.

The Code Talkers were speaking in a language that had not put into writing. The Japanese would hear and could not tell what language it was, let alone what the U.S. Marines who spoke were saying.

“It’s one of the greatest parts of history that we used our own native language during World War II,” Mr. Nez said in a 2009 interview with the Associated Press. “We’re very proud of it.”

The next year, Mr. Nez said that “the Japanese did everything in their power to break the code but they never did.”

The Code Talkers would be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2001 and would be acclaimed for the genius they used in employing such an amazingly innovative tactic to use against a fierce enemy.

May this great hero, Chester Nez, now rest with the others who helped their nation win a titanic struggle.

Cruz needs a visit to the ‘woodshed’

OK, I have to make one more point about Sen. Ted Cruz’s latest rant involving his Republican Party elders.

He’s disrespecting two of them in a big way.

Cruz took it upon himself to suggest that Sen. John McCain and former Sen. Bob Dole didn’t stand for “principles” when they ran unsuccessfully as the GOP nominees for president in 2008 and 1996, respectively.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-08/cruz-draws-bob-dole-rebuke-over-stand-for-principle-comments.html

What’s so very troubling about this whipper-snapper’s comments is that he has called out two of more distinguished war heroes ever to serve in the U.S. Senate.

Cruz, let me add, never served his country’s military.

Dole shot back immediately at Cruz. “Senator Cruz needs to check the record before passing judgment,” the 90-year-old Dole said in a statement. “I was one of President Reagan’s strongest supporters, and my record is that of a traditional Republican conservative.” Ah yes, “traditional conservative.” That’s how Dole describes himself. He’s the kind of conservative who’s fallen out of favor with the current corps of firebrands who are mounting a takeover of a once-great political party. Cruz is the non-traditional conservative, to be sure. Indeed, he’s becoming the non-traditional senator, a Lone Ranger.

For the record, Dole suffered grievous wounds fighting the Nazis near the end of World War II. He lost the use of his right arm and was nearly killed on an Italian battlefield in April 1945.

And Sen. McCain? He was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967 and spent more than five years being tortured as a prisoner of war by his communist captors. He, too, suffered terrible wounds when his plane was shot down over Hanoi and he parachuted into a lake in the middle of the city.

These men need no lecture about honor or principle — particularly from a loudmouth such as Ted Cruz.

That’s all I’m going to say about that.

President vs. Military: Nothing new in Gates book

My friends on the right are having a good time these days dissecting former Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s assessment of Barack Obama’s presidency, particularly the part about the president’s strained relations with the military. He writes about it in his memoir, “Duty.”

I have been wondering about that. Is it really unique to this president, or to the office, that the commander in chief would have difficulty with the brass?

I tend to think not.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/01/15/gates_obama_was_suspicious_of_militarys_motives.html

The link attached here contains part of an interview that Sean Hannity had with Gates in which Hannity seems to seek to lure Gates into acknowledging some kind of special animus between this White House and the Pentagon.

Again, is that really new and unique to this administration?

I am going to share a brief personal recollection on that very subject.

My late uncle, Tom Kanelis, was a career Army officer. He enlisted in 1943 and then received his commission some time after that. He then served during the Korean War, where he saw all kinds of hell as an infantry officer with the 2nd Infantry Division. He would serve a total of 27 years in the Army before retiring in 1970 with rank of colonel.

His last post was at the Pentagon, where he served as a staff officer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He attended many high-level briefings with the Joint Chiefs and their civilian bosses, namely the defense secretary and his staff.

I asked Tom about the brass’s view of civilian authority. He was pretty unequivocal. The brass resented all civilian authority, period, he said. I was shocked to hear that. “What about Ike?” I asked of President Dwight Eisenhower, the former general of the Army who — as you will recall — played a huge role in defeating Hitler’s forces during World War II. Didn’t matter, Tom said. Once Ike took off his uniform and and then entered politics, he added, he became one of “them.”

Yes, this is just one example. Other officers have different views of different presidents. Ronald Reagan is held up as the recent example of a commander in chief who had huge respect among the ranks of the brass.

I also know that the brass at the highest levels won’t say directly whether they disagree with a civilian edict. They take an oath to follow lawful orders without questioning them.

Gates’s revelations about Barack Obama and his top military commanders doesn’t surprise me in the least. They’ve existed at some level throughout the history of the Republic and will exist for as long as the nation exists.

That means forever.

That was some vets’ ‘reunion’

I have just come home from a reunion of sorts.

I didn’t know anyone else there, but it seemed like we were all brothers and sisters. An Amarillo restaurant treated veterans and active-duty military personnel to free meals tonight in honor of Veterans Day. My wife, Kathy, told me about it this morning. We decided to go, given that I’m an Army veteran. I thought it was a nice gesture on Golden Corral’s part to give us a free meal.

To be honest, I wasn’t quite prepared for what we saw when we got there.

The line was backed up to the door. We walked in. A gentleman was handing out stickers that said “I Served.” He asked Kathy, “Are you a veteran?” She pointed back to me and said, “He is.” I reached for my wallet to produce my Veterans Administration identification card to prove my veteran status. “I don’t need it,” the man said. “I believe you.”

I looked up and down the lengthy line that twisted back from the serving area. All these men and a few women were wearing military gear of some fashion: t-shirts inscribed with some branch of the service; ball caps denoting Vietnam War veterans, Iraq War and Afghanistan War veterans, vets from the various armed forces. I noticed a couple of quite elderly gentlemen I guessed to be either Korean War or World War II veterans.

One young former Marine wore a t-shirt that said: “Marines: Making it safe for the Army.” I wanted to remind the young man about a saying we had in Vietnam, which was that “The Army did all the fighting, the Marines got all the glory, and the Navy and the Air Force got all the money.”

I chose not to possibly spoil the moment.

I heard couples exchanging histories with each other. Where did you serve? When? Did you go to such-and-such?

Perhaps the most interesting veteran was a Vietnam War Marine adorned in his dress blues. He was a corporal. His uniform jacket had all the requisite Vietnam War ribbons on it. I was amazed he could still get into his uniform. Good for him.

It was quite a party tonight at the Golden Corral, which was one of several eating establishments in Amarillo that honored our veterans.

I want to thank them all and not just for tonight’s gesture of good will and generosity.

They deserve thanks for echoing the nation’s renewed spirit of gratitude for those who answered the call to duty. America didn’t always honor its vets in this manner. Vietnam veterans know what I mean.

Thank you for making us feel special.

 

Tribute to my favorite veteran

On this Veterans Day, I thought I’d pay tribute to someone who served his country with honor during its darkest moment.

I got the idea from a local radio station which on Monday is going to field phone calls from listeners talking about their “favorite veteran.” I’ll forgo that call and just write it here.

His name was Peter John Kanelis. He was my father. Dad was a proud World War II veteran.

He told me the story about how he found his way into the U.S. Navy.

Dad was anxious to get into the fight shortly after the Japanese navy and air force attacked our military installations at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. That attack occurred on Dec. 7, 1941. Dad was enrolled at the University of Portland in Oregon, where he lived with my grandparents and his six siblings — two brothers and four sisters.

It was in February 1942 that he decided to enlist. He went downtown — to the Marine Corps office. The door was locked. He walked across the hall and enlisted in the Navy on the spot.

As I recall the way Dad told the story, he didn’t have to wait long before shipping out. He went to San Diego, Calif., for three weeks of basic training. The Navy then put him on a ship and he steamed for England. He would learn seamanship skills along the way.

Dad ended up serving in three combat campaigns in the Mediterranean theater: North Africa, Sicily and the Italian mainland. He fought hard. An Italian dive bomber blew up Dad’s ship during the battle for Sicily. He was picked up fairly quickly by a British ship.

It was during the Italian mainland invasion that Dad endured 105 consecutive days of aerial bombardment from the German Luftwaffe. He told me he lost a considerable amount of weight during that time, eating mainly fruit.

Dad continued his service for the next several weeks as the Allies fought to secure Italy. Then he came back to the United States for a time. He enrolled in an officer training program at Dartmouth College, but didn’t make the cut.

He then was shipped to the Philippines, where he was staging for a likely invasion of Japan.

President Harry Truman then ordered the dropping of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The war ended. Dad came home, married my mother and I came along three years later. My sisters would round out our family eventually.

Dad died much too early in his life. He was just 59 when he perished 33 years ago in a boating accident. Mom fell victim to Alzheimer’s disease; she was just 61 when she died four years later.

Dad’s service during World War II was not uniquely heroic. He merely did what millions of other Americans did. He answered the call to service when his country needed him. Those of us who came along owe everything to the 16 million young men and women who served during that horrible time.

My father was one of them. That’s why he is my favorite veteran.

One degree of separation from Churchill

Winston Churchill was without question one of the 20th century’s greatest statesmen/warriors.

He led Great Britain through its “darkest hour,” the Blitzkrieg launched by the Nazi air force during the Battle of Britain. PBS, as it does so well, is chronicling Churchill’s life in a three-part series shown on KACV-TV, Amarillo’s public television station. The second installment airs Sunday at 7.

It tells of the Battle of Britain and how Churchill rallied the Brits to ultimate victory over the Nazi tyrant Adolf Hitler.

http://www.pbs.org/churchill/

But I want to digress a bit and declare with this post that I have one degree of separation from the great British leader, which is to say a member of my family actually had a close encounter with him. I think that means I’m one degree separated from Churchill.

What the heck, if it doesn’t mean such a thing, well, it should.

My late father, Pete Kanelis, served in the Navy during World War II. Most of his combat duty occurred in the Mediterranean Sea, during the invasions of North Africa, Sicily and Italy. When he wasn’t manning an anti-aircraft gun on the deck of the ship to which he was assigned, Dad performed a number of boatswain’s mate duties.

One of them was to stand guard, along with a British marine, outside a conference room where Churchill was meeting with the Allied commander of naval forces in the Med. Dad’s guard duty was captured in a photograph published in the London Daily Mail. The picture was interesting in this regard: The Brit stood about 6-foot-4 inches tall, while Dad topped out at about 5-foot-9.

As Dad told the story, the two of them snapped to attention as the meeting broke up. Churchill came out of the conference room, chatted up the British marine, then turned to Dad, patted him on the head and said, “Well done, Yank.”

I’ve looked for many years for film footage of that event, thinking that some newsreel photographer had a camera rolling. Alas, it’s not to be.

My father, though, had a brush with one of the world’s most heroic leaders — and for that I am so very proud.

Hiroshima gets personal with me

Allow me this bit of personal reflection on what arguably may be the most globally significant event of the 20th century.

President Harry Truman ordered the dropping of a very large bomb on a Japanese city 68 years ago this week. It was on Aug. 6, 1945 that a long-range B-29 bomber nicknamed the “Enola Gay” took off from a small Pacific island and headed for Japan. The Enola Gay, named after the mother of the plane’s pilot, Col. Paul Tibbitts, dropped a single bomb on Hiroshima. It killed tens of thousands of people instantly. It sent a clear message to the Japanese Empire: We’ve got this great weapon and we aren’t afraid to use it.

The president ordered another atomic bomb mission three days later. It caused similar devastation damage to Nagasaki, Japan. Five days after that, the Japanese surrendered. And on Sept. 2, 1945, U.S. Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur — who commanded all Allied forces in the Pacific — accepted the signed documents in Tokyo Harbor that ended World War II.

***

Why am I so interested in all of this? Why the personal stake?

My late father was serving in the U.S. Navy at that very moment in history. Pete Kanelis was a boatswain’s mate stationed in the Philippines. I do not know precisely what he would have done when the inevitable invasion of Japan would occur, but he would have been a part of what virtually everyone in America believed would be the bloodiest battle imaginable to secure a final victory.

Dad had been through hell already in another combat theater, in the Mediterranean Sea. He had taken part in three invasions: North Africa, Sicily and Italy. He had endured during one stretch 105 consecutive days of aerial bombardment from German and Italian aircraft. When they sounded general quarters aboard ship, Dad would strap himself into a 3-inch/50-calibre gun. Dad recorded at least one kill firing that weapon, a German JU-88 medium-range bomber he shot out of the sky.

Dad’s luck ran out, though, when an Italian dive bomber sank his ship. Dad dived into the drink, where he treaded water before a British destroyer picked him up.

After that, Dad came back to the States for a time, and then was deployed to the Pacific Theater.

He didn’t talk too much about those experiences. He would respond when I asked him but he didn’t volunteer this history of himself.

The tide of battle had turned in the Pacific by the time Dad got there. It was just a matter of time before our forces would win that war. But the president, brand new in the office after the death of President Franklin Roosevelt in April 1945, learned of this frightening way to end the war more quickly. The atomic bomb had been exploded successfully in July 1945 near Las Cruces, N.M. The brass presented the president with the option of dropping one of those bombs on the Japanese.

Truman’s decision — based on what he knew at the time — was the right one. Second-guessers have questioned the wisdom of that decision, but they — unlike the president and his national security team at the time — have the wisdom of hindsight. Truman knew he had to something to end the bloodshed and in his mind, this terrible weapon was the best option available to him.

The Japanese knew immediately after the two weapons fell on them that their effort was doomed. So, rather than risking perhaps millions of Japanese and American lives in a futile fight, they surrendered.

One of those American victims could well have been my father. Thus, you see why I am grateful for President Truman’s courage.

The president well could have saved my father’s life and, as they say, allowed me to be here today to write about it.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Queen prepared doomsday speech

Queen Elizabeth II once wrote a speech that, thank God in heaven, she never had to deliver.

It was a speech noting the outbreak of World War III, to have been delivered in 1983.

http://engineeringevil.com/2013/07/31/queens-world-war-3-speech-found-in-the-archives-the-dress-rehearsal-for-disaster/

It was a dress rehearsal for disaster, as the link here notes.

Here is a portion of what Her Majesty the Queen wrote:

“Now this madness of war is once more  spreading through the world and our brave country must again prepare itself to  survive against great odds.

“I have never forgotten the sorrow and pride I  felt as my sister and I huddled around the nursery wireless set listening to my  father’s inspiring words on that fateful day in 1939. Not for a single moment  did I imagine that this solemn and awful duty would one day fall to  me.”

She was noting, of course, the outbreak of World War II, when Adolf Hitler’s forces invaded Poland and sent the world plunging into its bloodiest conflict. Elizabeth hadn’t yet ascended to the throne.

These are the kinds of documents that are worth preserving for all time, if only to remind us that foresight does exist in the highest places.

Still, when I read those remarks I couldn’t help but think of another great individual’s remarks about the consequence of a world war in the nuclear age.

They came from Albert Einstein, one of the fathers of the atomic bomb.

He said: “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

Obama: We won the Korean War

President Barack Obama made an interesting – some might say startling – assertion the other day in commemorating the 60th anniversary of the truce that stopped the fighting during the Korean War.

He said the good guys actually won the war.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/313883-obama-we-will-not-forget-korean-wars-legacy

The Korean War long has been thought of as the nation’s “forgotten war,” coming so soon after the end of the World War II and as another war, in Vietnam, was just beginning to get stoked. Roughly 40,000 Americans died during the Korean War in some of the most intense and bloody combat this nation has ever seen.

It’s also been a matter of conventional wisdom that the fighting ended in a stalemate. South and North Korea never have signed a peace treaty. An armistice – plus the presence of U.S. military personnel and the threat of nuclear annihilation – have kept the two sides from shooting at each other.

President Obama put a different spin on the outcome while paying tribute to the U.S. veterans who fought in Korea.

“That war was no tie. Korea was a victory,” he said at a Washington ceremony in remarks to Korean War veterans. “When 50 million South Koreans live in freedom, a vibrant democracy … a stark contrast to the repression and poverty of the North, that is a victory and that is your legacy.”

When you look at it that way, the Korean War surely was a victory for our side.

The president also said this:

“Unlike World War II, Korea did not galvanize our country, these veterans did not return to parades. Unlike Vietnam, Korea did not tear at our country, these veterans did not return to protests.

“Among many Americans tired of war, there was, it seems, a desire to forget, to move on. Here in America, no war should ever be forgotten, no veteran should ever be overlooked.”

This veteran thanks you, Mr. President.