An interesting thing taken for granted

My oldest son, John, was watching the history channel with his great Uncle. They were watching a WWII documentary of the Japs last attempt to repel the Americans on Okinawa. Uncle was not to engrossed in it but was in the room.

On comes a film clip of a Jap Bomber coming in low over the trees. It was landing on the American Airstrip, and had 40 or 50 Jap soldiers on it. Very casually Uncle Jim says " I remember seeing that" .

Sometime later I asked him about that incident, he told me yea, he was a radio man and they sent him down to the beach with a couple other Marines to look for a beach invasion. This was the days before advanced radar and other detection devices.

I also asked him if he saw any action. He said no, since I was a radio man I was never closer than 100 yards to the front lines. Well occasionally they had to string wire for the radios to the front. In 1945 portable radios were huge by today's standards ( they had vacuum tubes), the batteries were heavy and short lived. His main job was to repair the radios and charge the batteries. He may not think his job was a big deal but I think it was very important.