World War II

On this 66th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, I want to write about comradeship that transcends eras and conflicts. You see the images of this day that always get me are those of the survivors going back to honor their fallen comrades at the U.S.S. Arizona memorial. Those old men gazing down into the waters thinking of the young men who lie entombed beneath never fail to bring tears to my eyes.

As I was contemplating what to write today, I came across an update to a story I’ve been following on CNN, that of 25-year-old marine Sgt. Ty Ziegel, horribly injured and disfigured in Iraq and fighting the VA to receive the full benefits he so richly deserves. Today’s story, featured in the screen capture above, is entitled, “WWII Vet: Wounded Marine’s Story ‘Broke My Heart.’”

In it you will read about 84-year-old Medal of Honor winner Chief Warrant Officer Hershel “Woody” Williams who reached out to Ziegel. This elderly veteran of Iowa Jima crossing barriers of time and age to honor a young Marine made me cry as surely as those images of Pearl Honor ceremonies. (Click here for ABC’s story “Survivors Remember Pearl Harbor.”)

What these stories illustrate to us in tandem is the power of the brotherhood (and sisterhood) of those who serve. Both men, Williams and Ziegel regards the other as a hero and after you read their stories, I think you’ll feel the same day. I can’t think of a better way to remember Pearl Harbor on this anniversary.

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Looking for more good reads from 451Press? Try “Martin Luther King, Made in China” from CurrentEventsWatch.com or “Beat the Christmas Shopping Blues” at LifeTipsDaily.com.

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WWII, World War II, Pearl Harbor, Iwo Jima, Medal of Honor, Ty Ziegel, Hershel Williams

Many years ago I remember reading a book by Kate Hafner, “Where Wizards Stay Up Late: the Origins of The Internet.” (Non-affiliate Amazon link to the book for information purposes only.) It was a fascinating read, but I don’t remember any information about six women who were responsible for hacking into ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) and making it easier for the folks who followed behind them to access and develop the monster leviathan that is the great-great-great-great-granddaddy of the laptop I’m using to write this entry.

World War II was coming to an end and the Army had a unique shortage — not enough male mathematicians. The ABC news story (featured in the screen cap above the text and accessible here) “First Computer Programmers Inspire Documentary” tells the story of five women who stepped forward to fill that void. Their stories have been recorded by historian Kathy Kleiman and the women — Jean Bartik, Marlyn Meltzer, Kathleen Mauchly Antonelli, Betty Snyder Holberton, Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum, and Frances Bilas Spence — are the subject of the resulting documentary “Invisible Computers: The Story of the ENIAC Programmers.”

These women were so discounted by history that they weren’t invited to the 40th anniversary of the ENIAC project and Kleiman only found them after seeing a photo of them standing by the massive computer. Assured by a computer historian that the women were just there as window dressing, Kleiman didn’t buy it and made it her work to track them down and find out the true story.

This is not just the tale of the dawn of the computing age in the closing days of World War II, but also a shocking look at sexism of the rankest order in the United States that persisted well beyond the war years. For more on the documentary, which I can hardly wait to see, click here.)

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Looking for more blogs to read? Try “Once Upon A Time” at the HogwartsHerald.com or “Pleasing Holiday Guests” at EarthlyEating.com.

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WWII, World War II, ENIAC, computer history

This past Wednesday, November 28 was a big day for historians when an enormous archive of German war records was finally made available to the public. Accessibility to the data also means that some Holocast survivors and their families, who have been waiting 60 years, may finally get some answers about the fate of their loved ones at the hands of the Nazis.

The eleven countries that oversee the International Tracing Service finally reached an agreement allowing for the unsealing of 50 million pages of records, a staggering amount of information. Previously the material had only been available for locating missing persons, reuniting families, and providing documentation in cases of compenstaion claims.

While most experts agree that the records aren’t going to change the big picture of what we know about the Final Solution and Nazi Germany itself, they are likely to add new depth to the story and to answer many personal questions. The archive contains references to 17.5 million individiuals and covers 16 linear miles.

As an historian who has conducted research in archives I can tell you that the sifting process will consume the efforts of generations of my colleagues. While computers and technology have dramatically changed how we collect and store data, there are still connections and conclusions that can only be drawn by the mind of man (or woman) laboring over dusty folders and armed with an already intimate understanding of the topic at hand. Nazi Germany and the Holocaust were not my particular area of expertise, but I can freely admit that when I saw the photo above (a screen capture from the original ABC news story, which you can read here), I was fairly itching to get in there and start reading.

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Want to read more from 451Press bloggers? Try “Keep Christmas Worries at Bay” from LifeTipsDaily.com or “Pets Yea, Gay Partners Nay” from CurrentEventsWatch.com.

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WWII, World War II, Nazi, archive, Holocaust, International Tracing Service

Hello everyone! It’s your errant WWII blogger emerging from the holiday mists. I really didn’t intend for our Thanksgiving break to be quite this long, but sometimes circumstances have a way of jumping in the driver’s seat and taking control. So, as a friend said, we’re three-quarters of the way through the Hallothankmas holiday season and trying to keep our heads above the ho-ho-ho waters until 2008 rolls in and we can breathe again.

The last time we talked I shared a story about a P-38 uncovered by beach eroision in Wales. Now I have a report of a Douglas-C47 that has turned up in Bosnia near Sarajevo. It last flew 13 years ago during the Bosnian war for independence when bullets riddled the fuselage. But this is one tough plane. It’s been around since 1944 and flew as an unarmed cargo plane during the Normandy invasion when it dropped paratroopers behind enemy lines to sabotage German batteries preparatory to the landings.

The plane will be taken to Merville, Normandy, restored, and displayed in the local museum. The radio operator on the craft, Joseph “Buck” Buckner died in 2003 but his son said he could recite the plane’s tail number without hesitation. The plane was so heavily damaged at Normandy with holes in the wings and fuselage it couldn’t take off again after its final drop. Engineers patched it up and it went in again for Operation Market Garden, the mission in the Netherlands immortalized in A Bridge Too Far. Ditto for a mission to Belgium. And it appears the C-47 continued to get shot up right through 1994.

This baby deserves to rest quietly in a museum and have its story told. (Click here to read the Houston Chronicle’s article on this story.)

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Ready to read more 451Press blogs? Try “Plastic Bags into Placemats” at GloballyGreenLiving.com or “Five Things Chevy is Doing Right Now to Help Us All Do More and Use Less” at NaturalAndSustainable.com.

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WWII, World War II, Normandy, C-47

The story of the death of Osmond family patriarch George Virl Osmond, Sr., age 90, has occupied a fair amount of space in the news this past week. In part that’s because Marie is a popular contestant on “Dancing with the Stars” right now. In part that’s because Oprah brought more than 100 of his direct descendants — children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren — together for a show on Friday. But to a large degree, George Osmond’s death is news because the man led a fairly remarkable life, guiding the careers of his famous children while maintaining a tight knit and seemingly well-balanced family. There aren’t a lot of stage parents who can boast of that accomplishment.

Just simply based on the man’s age I could have guessed Osmond was a World War II vet, but it wasn’t until his daughter danced a perky quick step to Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy (in sequin bedecked khaki that would have made the Andrews Sisters proud) on “Dancing with the Stars” that that fact was confirmed for me. Marie described how her parents met during the war and how dancing was a part of their courtship. She dedicated her performance to her father who was watching. He died peacefully the next day.

We are reaching that stage with our World War II vets when things like proud legacies and good-byes well-spoken are important to the men and women themselves, but also to their families and friends. Mr. Osmond was granted both and while many this week have eulogized him for his contribution to an entertainment legend — his own children — let’s take a minute to pause and remember he was also a soldier who went to war as part of the Greatest Generation. I hope he and his wife are enjoying dancing together once again.

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Want to look around the 451Press Neighborhood? Read this entry on WatchingRealityTV.com about week seven of “Dancing with the Stars” or check out the Valkyrie featurette on PopCultureBuzz.com.

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WWII, World War II, George Osmond

With life still interfering with the much more important business of blogging, I’ve been trying to get to the keyboard for a couple of days now to write about the death of Brig. Gen. Paul W. Tibbets, pilot of the Enola Gay, a B-29, that dropped the Hiroshima atomic bomb, Little Boy, on August 15, 1945. General Tibbits died on November 1 at age 92.

The plane was named for his mother and like Tibbets, will live forever in the history books as the agent of the dawn of the atomic age. In an interview with Studs Terkel, Tibbets said plainly that he had no regrets. He joined the air corps to defend his country to the best of his ability. “I knew we did the right thing becasue when I knew we’d be doing that I thought, yes, we’re going to kill a lot of people, but by God we’re going to save a lot of lives. We won’t have to invade [Japan].” (For the full interview, click here.)

Tibbets sentiments echoed my father’s own remarks about the bombing raids he conducted in North Africa and Italy with conventional weapons. Most of my Dad’s stories about the war were humorous and interesting, but rarely graphic. One time he did say to me that he would always wonder how many women and children he killed when he dropped his bombs. But like Tibbets, Papa felt he was doing his job in a time of war.

It is terribly easy for us now in an age where we fully understand the horrific geo-political ramifications of nuclear arms, to condemn the men who developed “Little Boy” as well as those who planned and executed its delivery that day in Hiroshima. All too often we fail to put ourselves in the mindset of 1945 after four bloody years of fighting in both Europe and the South Pacific. Without a doubt an invasion of Japan would have been bloody and horrific. As bloody and horrific as Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Frankly, probably not, but Tibbets and the others involved in the raid didn’t know that, nor were the long-term implications of the new destructive technology readily apparent. It took the Cold War to bring that reality home and now we live in fear that instability in nations like Pakistan will lead to a horrible repeat of that August day in 1945.

But that is now and Tibbets’ moment in history was then. And then, Paul Tibbets was a soldier doing his job without question and for that, we honor his memory at his passing.

(There’s a guest book online for General Tibbets that has already run to 32 pages of electronic signatures. Many of them brought tears to my eyes.)

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Ready for some more blog reading? Check out “Bush-Cheney’s Psychosis Diagnosis” on currenteventswatch.com or read “Halloweentime” about the latest nasty bugs going around on dailysciencedose.com.

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WWII, World War II, Paul Tibbets, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Enola Gay

This piece from htrnews.com caught my eye today, “World War II Veterans Sought for Medals.”

Don Schroeder of Manitowoc wants to contact World War II vets who saw service in the Pacific between June and July 1944, specifically the men who participated in the invasion of the Northern Mariana Islands, which includes Saipan and Tinian.

In 2004 the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands commemorated the 60th anniversary of its liberation from Japan with a medallion. Now the Commonwealth wants every member of the armed services who took part in that liberation to have one of the medallions.

Veterans may contact Don Schroeder at 3703 Dale St., Manitowoc, Wisconsin or at gerryanddon [at] sbcglobal.net. VWF Post 3457 in Saipan is handling the distribution of the medallions, which technically cost $10. They’re not asking for the money, but will happily accept donations since the post also maintains a museum. The medallions have a diameter of 2.5 inches and are an eighth of an inch thick on a red, white, and blue ribbon. One side bears the seal of the Commonweatlh of the Northern Mariana Islands while the other reads, “Our Grateful Islands remember Tinian, Saipan, 1944-2004.

Schroeder is himself a vet, having served abord the U.S.S. Sangamon CVE-26, which was an escort aircraft carrier and part of the 5th Fleet under the command of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance at the time.

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Want to poke around the 451Press neighborhood? Try Battlestar Galactic Quicklinks for October 30, 2007 from watchingbsg.com or Emily Takes No Bull! from watchingbones.com.

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WWII, World War II, Mariana Islands, Saipan, Tinian, Don Schroeder

In my deepest heart of hearts I suspect I have a secret desire to receive a letter from the past. These tales of the postman delivering a yellowed envelope with a three-cent stamp in the corner and “Buy War Bonds” emblazoned somewhere on the paper draw me in every time. This story, however, does not come from the United States, but rather from Japan.

It involves a postcard, written by a Japanese soldier during World War II that reached an 80-year-old retired man in Kochi, a state in the southwest of Japan just recently. The card was written by his friend Nobuchika Yamashita in 1943 from Burma, the same year the young soldier died at age 23.

The postcard never reached its destination originally, because it went into the pocket of a U.S. soldier who died 25 years ago. Then his son held on to the card until he passed it on to a Japanese exchange student in Hawaii. The student, Yuko Kojima, now a sophomore at Mukogawa Women’s University, spent two years looking for the intended recipient Shizuo Nagano. It took two years . . . well, really sixty-four . . . but Nagano finall received Yamashita’s card.

Each time I read a story like this I am amazed by the ability of small, fragile objects like a postcard to survive for decades, even finding their way back to their owners or to someone who will treasure the scrap as it were an extension of someone they loved. The orginal story from ABC News (which can be found here) doesn’t mention what the card said. Probably a take on the standard, “How are you? I am fine.” But the message overwhelmed Nagono who never expected to connect with his friend again and that alone makes the words, whatever they were, precious.

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Want to look around the 451Press neighborhood some more? Try this post on the government’s Empty Pockets over at CurrentEventsWatch.com or learn why Seasonal Decorating is for the Birds at BackyardBirdingBlog.com.

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WWII, World War II, Japan, postcard

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution had an interesting article today entitled, “Saga of a Nazi Hunter: Federal Official Who Looks for Aging Suspects of War Crimes Says Focusing on Victims Keeps Him Going.” Without question as World War II recedes farther and farther into history, bringing living Nazi war criminals to justice may be the great grand-daddy of all “cold cases.”

But Eli Rosenbaum, the son of a former Army intelligence officer and the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, is only 52 and he’s still on the case. Last week he located an 85-year-old man who may be Paul Hennss, an SS guard responsible for training the deadly attack dogs used at Dachau and Buchenwald.

The Office of Special Investigations was formed in 1979. In the past 28 years, the office has won cases against 106 ex-Nazis, 64 of whom have been removed from this country. The Atlanta-Journal Constitution article profiles how Rosenbaum became involved in Nazi hunting and describes his investigations and methods. This is a dedicated man, one who saw a death warrant for a six-year-old girl named Fruma Kaplan and was determined to avenge her execution. (At the time, Rosenbaum’s own daughter was six-years-old.)

He has immersed himself in a dark period of human history and openly admits to crying when he reads the documentation of the atrocities committed and the death’s of the victims for whom he seeks justice. People like Rosenbaum continue to live World War II every day and they are committed to pursuing every last war criminal while there’s any chance they still live — years after their victims died. It’s remarkable work and an excellent article that I highly recommend.

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Haven’t looked around the 451Press neighborhood. Take a look at Frugal Mania’s Frugal Halloween Ideas and Globally Green Living’s Sex Scandal Helps Environment.

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WWII, World War II, Department of Justice, Office of Special Investigations, Nazi hunting, war crimes

Last night my elderly housemate was watching one of those entertainment “news” shows while I was fixing supper. I normally just tune out the latest sleazy gossip, but my ears perked up when I heard a report on the new Tom Cruise film set to debut in June 2008. (That’s Cruise in the photo in profile compared to the real German officer he portrays.)

Directed by Bryan Singer, “Valkyrie” relates the involvement of Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg in the July 20, 1944 plot to kill Adolf Hitler. Kenneth Branagh will play Henning Hermann Robert Karl von Tresckow, the German Werhrmach major general credited with organizing the German resistance.

Be forewarned that the above link is to the Internet Movie Database entry for the film, which includes (via a second link on the page) a full plot synopsis that contains significant spoilers for the film. If you don’t know the history behind the plot and don’t want to before you see the film, avoid that second link. I generally brush up on the history beforehand and then look for inaccuracies, but then I’m a big history nerd.

The show I was watching interviewed either Singer of Christopher McQuarrie who wrote the screenplay — I honestly don’t remember which — who said that it was not difficult to turn the story of the planned assassination into a high-tension thriller. As long as they’re reasonably true to the history, I’m fine with that and it is good to see World War II getting some big screen play again. I’ll be looking forward to this one.

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For more 451Press blog posts check out Tom Cruise’s Minute of Silence and Lions for Lambs is on the Move.

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WWII, World War II, Hitler assassination plot, Valkyrie, Tom Cruise

Today I want to share a link to a USAToday article “Learning About ‘The War,’” which puts some finishing notes on the airing of the 15-hour documentary on PBS.

Tonight most PBS stations will begin the second airing of the series, which will continue weekly for seven weeks. It’s a good opportunity for people like me who missed a couple of episodes to catch up with something much less than the marathon intensity of the original airing.

I’d also encourage everyone to have a look at the article “PBS Affiliates, Schools Add to Veterans History Project.” We have to face the scary statistic that more than 1,000 WWII vets die every day — and take more than 1,000 personal stories with them. The airing of “The War” has jump-started a grass roots efforts to collect that material before it disappears forever.

You can visit the Veterans History Project directly and learn how to participate. There are five steps:

- registering with an online form
- downloading a field kit
- preparing for the interview
- conducting the interview
- submitting the collection to the Library of Congress

This project is open to first-hand accounts from:

- World War I
- World War II
- Korean War
- Vietnam War
- Persian Gulf War
- Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts
- civilian supporters

The last category includes war industry workers, USO workers, flight instructors, medical volunteers, and folks who contributed to a war effort in similar ways.

The Veterans History Project accepts video and audio in several formats (see the site for specific details) but the submission must be at least 30 minutes in length. They also collect original narratives such as diaries or journals provided they are more than 20 pages in length, letters (ten or more in each collection), original photos, and artwork. (Again, see the site for full explanations.)

They will not accept photocopies, physical memorabilia (like medals or uniforms), and framed materials but do offer an extensive list of repositories that will accept such items.

Regardless of any controversy the documentary may have generated, if it stimulates renewed interest in World War II studies in our public schools and encourages the active collection of World War II material and first-person accounts, Ken Burns has performed a real service.

If you’re interested in reading my previous posts about “The War” in the order in which they appeared on the blog, here are the links:

- Ken Burns, The War - It’s Hard to Watch
- Let’s Wait to Criticize Ken Burns
- Debate about “The War” Continues
- WWII, Ken Burns, and a Word on Historiography

My final word on the experience of “The War” is positive. As I indicated in my previous comments, you have to take the documentary for what it is and not expect it to be a perfect, encyclopedic treatment of a vast and complex subject. In a massive body of World War II treatments, “The War” is a good addition — not the last word, but a good word in a dialog that will continue through many more generations.

WWII, World War II, Ken Burns, The War, Veterans History Project

Without question Ken Burns has returned World War II to the headlines for the duration of his seven-part PBS series “The War.” I’ve tried to gather a cross-section of reactions across the Internet for your consideration. Please feel free to provide others via comments.

Ken Burns’ The War as Seen Through Teen Eyes - This article from the Christian Science Monitor includes the reactions of four teenagers to watching the first episode of the series.

Old Soldiers Never Lie - An article by Beverly Gage for The Slate subtitled, “Ken Burns’ The War Tells Great Stories, But Is It Great History?” This is a hotly debated point about the series and Gage takes a reasonably well-balanced approach to the controvery with good commentary on Burns’ abilities as a cinematographic story teller.

PBS Conflicted Over Adult Language in Ken Burns - This is an older article from back in August and since I more or less swore when I read it, you don’t have to guess what I think about attempts at white-washing. People cuss. Men at war cuss alot. Period.

Ken Burns’ The War: SNAFU from Episode One - A not so flattering look at what many regard as Burns’ myopic take on a massive subject. (I’ve run across this viewpoint a great deal.)

These links just touch the tip of the iceberg of the debate about the quality of what Burns has done in this documentary. I continue to say the work must be taken on its own merit and does not purport to be an exhaustive treatment of the subject. But since there are four more installments to go, I suspect we’ll be visiting this topic again.

WWII, Ken Burns, The War

As Ken Burns’ series “The War” enters its third installment this evening, criticism of the director’s take on World War II continues to come thick and fast both online and off.

Initially controversy swirled around Burns’ failure to include adequate material on minorities who served in the conflict and aided in the war effort. Burns added material to his documentary, but not enough to satisfy his detractors.

Now many are landing on the fact that his treatment of the “the war” is too Americanized, neglecting the crucial role of the Soviet Union in bearing the brunt of the fighting prior to the Normandy invasion in 1944 and the fact that the civilian population of Europe endured hardship and suffering unknown in the United States.

Neither of these points is up for argument in my book. In fact the other two members of the Big Three, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were quite content to let Stalin and the Soviets serve as cannon fodder. Whole books have been written on the subject.

There is no question that the European citizenry suffered. The fire bombing of Dresden, the starving populace of Stalingrad, the bombed Britons of the Blitz, and the victims of the Holocaust all serve testament to that fact.

In my opinion Burns’ greatest crime is not his treatment of the subject but his choice of a title. He is obviously not attempting to provide an encyclopedia treatment of World War II. I’ve sat through semesters of military history that could not achieve that vast goal. Burns is telling America’s story — really the microcosmic tale of four American communities. It is an experience of war vastly different from that of the Europeans, but one no less valid and no less emotionally charged.

Ken Burns can’t remake his documentary to satisfy all his critics. It is what it is and should be judged on its own merit within the limited scope the narrative attempts to convey. There’s a lot more to come. Let’s let the man tell his story before we declare he’s told it wrong. After all, the accuracy of the story lies both in the voice of the speaker and the ear of the listener. Is it fair to judge Burns for what we expected his story to be or for what it really is?

[tags]WWII, The War, Ken Burns

I’m not sure I can take 15 hours of the new Ken Burns series “The War.” Since my father’s death in 1996 war films and documentaries are hard for me. Generally it takes nothing more than the sight of a man in an Eisenhower uniform to put a lump in my throat. Last night I did fine until Bing Crosby started singing “White Christmas” and then hot tears rolled down my face. The images of grubby G.I.s huddled around record players and radios flashing on the screen were more than I could take. I didn’t fight in World War II, but it is intensely personal for me and Ken Burns has produced an intensely personal documentary. I’m not sure he’d know how to do anything else.

Interweaving images of the homefront and of the battlefield, the first installment of the documentary narrates a straightforward history of the progression of world events from the 1939 invasion of Poland to the bloody American victory on Guadalcanal in 1943. I knew three men who fought on Guadalcanal. One left a leg there and the second suffered from painful jungle rot on his feet for the remainder of his life. The third knocked back a shot glass of whiskey before he told me about his best friend who collected the ears of the Japanese soldiers he killed. The guy was finally sent home on a Section 8 when he beheaded a Japanese major with plans to make a lamp from the skull.

World War II wasn’t pretty and Ken Burns doesn’t make it pretty. You’ll hear things you don’t want to hear. You’ll see things you don’t want to see. During the segment on the Battling Bastards of Bataan (No Mama, no Papa, no Uncle Sam) a slow anger welled up in my chest. You see I knew a man who survived the Death March too. He was never “quite right,” drank too much, kept to himself, and slowly went blind. He almost starved to death and his eyes were damaged beyond saving. People in town said he was dangerous but damaged is the word, damaged beyond saving.

A Bataan survivor spoke of the beatings, the beheadings — at night the Japanese soldier would stick their bayonets out the window of trucks at just the right level to catch men in the throat. He described the way those same trucks swerved to run over men lying in the road — some already dead, some not. In another segment a grayed soldier described listening through a long night as the captured members of his patrol were tortured. The next day the Japanese soldiers who did the deed were captured. The commander asked who had lost friends the night before. Those were the men who got to shoot the prisoners. Very calmly the old man said some would say it didn’t happen, but it did.

While we the second generation may speak of forgiving and healing the wounds of the confict, we have no right to criticize any veteran for the feelings he still carries. You’ll understand that when you watch, “The War.” (For more of my thoughts on this subject, I invite you to read an archived entry on my personal blog, “The Local Nazi.”)

You’re not going to get a John Wayne version of the conflict in what Ken Burns has produced, and he’s been criticized for not portraying the totality of the experience for the nation in an ethnic sense. That may be true, but he’s still made something significant, something difficult, and something important. I may not be able to watch all of it, but I’m going to watch what I can and I highly recommend you do the same.

Click here for the official series site.

WWII, Ken Burns, The War

The oldest survivor of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, Tom Goff, passed away Monday, Sept. 17 at age 100. Goff succumbed to complications from a stroke the previous week.

A native of Glenville, West Virginia, Goff was the fourth child in a farming family of ten. In 1943 he was 36 years old — too old to be drafted — but Goff enlisted and went to war anyway. Twice the age of the men with whom he served on the Indianapolis, Goff was nicknamed “Pappy.”

After surviving the July 30, 1945 sinking of his ship and the subsequent five days in the open seas, Goff came home and settled in Ohio with his third wife.

The chairman of the USS Indianapolis Survivors Organization, Giles McCoy, 82, said, “Everytime we had a reunion, we would introduce Tom as our oldest survivor, and he would stand up there and not know what to say. He was a good man. The kind of man you and I would like to sit and talk with.”

One of his daughters, Bobbie Swinehart said, “Everybody felt he was definitely a hero with what he’d been through. He felt he did his job; that was what he was supposed to do.”

WWII, Tom Goff, USS Indianapolis