[Soterik]

My father was also in the South Pacific in WWII. He was a front line medic with the 41st division. Initially a National Guard unit formed mostly from men from the Pacific NW states, they were nationalized shortly following Pearl Harbor as I recall.

He wasn't a conscript, and joined with a whole bunch of other buddies when they were 17, and they lied about their age.

Dad spent almost 4 years in the South Pacific, battles such as Salamaua (72 days of continious battle), Lae, Buna-Gona, Nassau Bay, Biak, Hollandia.

The 41st division killed and captured more Japanese than any other division, and were nicknamed the "bloody butchers" by Tokyo Rose after the battle at Sanananda. My dad says they wore the title proudly. I know that at Milne Bay the Japanese slaughtered all 36 Australian soldiers they had captured, the Australians ultimately had a very good victory there.

Dad's kinda tired of all the Marine stories... but understands the reason there is so much documentation of these battles is that the Marines had photographers, and camera men with them. That's another reason there are so many Australian pictures as well, they had photographers also. My father said they had nobody to record the battles they were in that traveled with them, so that's why there are so few pictures from the regular "army".

All very interesting to watch, but dad isn't watching it....he remembers it all too well, though he'll be 87 this summer. He still thinks of his life as before WW2, and after. I've been too several of the reunions, and it's nice to hear the stories of the fun times they had. They don't talk about the bad stuff.

regards,
Eric