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The latest @HardcoreHistory pod episode "Supernova in the East V" is making me think a lot about my grandfathers who fought in the pacific in WW2 (Army and Marines). Filling in context for their oral history. Some remarkable stories they told:
U.S. supply ships were often sunk - they were always hungry. Japanese soldiers carried rice pouches on their uniforms. My marine grandpa's unit would take maggot-infested rice from dead soldiers, boil it, and eat both the rice and the cooked maggots from the top.
He said Japanese soldiers were willing to make sacrifices US troops wouldn't. The unpredictability led to danger. Under heavy machine gun fire, Japanese soldiers were known to jump on the barrel, making them vulnerable until they moved the body or shot through it.
Grandpa had total respect for the Japanese soldiers' ability and resolve.
Post-war, he spent decade as an EMT cop in NYC. A career of discovering rotting corpses, retrieving severed limbs, sorting through fatal car accidents. After the pacific war, he was unfazed to this kind of work and never asked for a transfer. (Only cases with kids were emotional)
Amazingly and thankfully, my grandpa was a teetotaler, and managed through the emotional trauma in an era before therapy had mainstream social acceptability, especially I imagine for a member of the police force. I never appreciated this aspect of him until much later in life.
My other grandfather did not have the same traumatic stories, working the supply chain from the safety of Australia. Still, this episode put his stories and years of his life in context for me as well.
Thanks for doing these podcasts and telling these stories. Big fan of all your work, and on a personal note, thanks for helping me relate to my grandfathers in a way I never had until now.
