The African Americans who served on the USS Mason destroyer had already endured 90 mph winds and 60 foot waves that split the Mason's deck as they shepherded convoys to safety in the Atlantic when their beloved Captain Blackford was replaced with a racist captain who claimed the African Americans sailors he led smelled, couldn’t swim, and were hard to educate . 1st Lieutenant Vernon Baker, also an African American, destroyed six machine gun nests, two observer posts and four dugouts at Castle Aghinolfi in Italy only to see Captain Runyon, his white commanding officer who abandoned the firefight, receive the Silver Star. An illegal immigrant to the US, Jose Lopez, a Mexican American, saved his company at the Battle of the Bulge by single handedly taking out over 100 German soldiers with his machine gun fire. Iva Ikuko Toguri, a Japanese-American who had the misfortunate of being in Japan when the war broke out, found herself nicknamed Tokyo Rose and accused of being a traitor even as she tried her best to help the American POWs and fighting force anyway she could behind enemy lines. Ira Hayes, a Native American, raised the American flag at Iwo Jima, but afterwards could not dispel the terrible combat memories that haunted him when he got home. Hattie Brantley joined the Army Nurse Corps to see the world, but was instead imprisoned under the harshest conditions in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in the Philippines for almost the duration of the war. Their stories and more in this 10th podcast of Always Remember – WW 2 Through Veterans Eyes.

James Graham

Lorenzo Dufau (left) and James Graham (right)

Medal of Honor recipient Vernon Baker

Vernon Baker later years

Medal of Honor recipient Jose M. Lopez

Iva Ikuko Toguri

Ira Hayes

Hattie Brantley in the Philippines

Hattie Brantley's tombstone

As the Allies embarked on their island hopping campaign growing ever closer to the Japanese mainland, they soon discovered that their enemy in the Pacific was adept at presenting new challenges on every island. Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian, Peleliu, Leyte would all forever be ingrained in WW 2 veterans memories - and in their nightmares. Richard V. Morgan remembers Lieutenant Alexander Bonnyman,, who stood atop a heavily garrisoned Japanese bunker directing demolition charges despite his being mortally wounded. Bonnyman would receive the Medal of Honor posthumously. For Dennis Olson, his poems helped him cope with the horrible losses he endured at Tarawa. Later, at Peleliu, 19 year old Arthur Jackson volunteered to secure a position in the shallow enemy trench system wiping out 12 pillboxes and killing 50 Japanese soldiers. He would receive the Medal of Honor for his actions from President Truman himself one year later. In the Philippines, a young L.W. Clark and his buddies lose their appetite as 100 Filipino villagers stumble across the rice fields towards their dispensary seeking medical help after having been bombed by the 11th Airborne, who believed Japanese soldiers were still hiding in the village. Amongst them, a soldier carried a still baby whose guts were hanging over the side of his body, his stomach ripped open by a mortar shell.

Richard V. Morgan

Lieutenant Alexander Bonnyman, Jr.

Dennis H. Olson

Arthur J. Jackson

L.W. Clark and his wife Ella

Bloody Omaha Beach bore the brunt of D-Day’s savage fighting with more casualties than all of the other D-Day beaches combined. Aware that the men he led in one of the first waves to land on Bloody Omaha Beach had no prior combat experience, Staff Sergeant Walter Ehlers single handedly took out several German machine gun nests even while he was in their crossfire. Ehlers was at first elated when he was told he would be receiving the Medal of Honor for his actions, but he was soon brought to his knees upon learning the terrible loss he suffered on Omaha beach. Trying to sleep after having witnessed so much death and suffering on Omaha beach, Charles Toole’s buddy told him that 24 hours from now there’d be a lot more dead in their own company. Toole’s buddy’s words proved eerily prophetic. Thanks to two Texas Rangers, there were far less dead on Omaha beach than there would have been otherwise. Leonard Lomell and his buddy Jack Kuhn climbed the 100 foot cliffs of Pointe du Hoc even as Nazi soldiers fired down upon them, threw grenades, and cut their ropes. Lomell and Kuhn knew the lives of countless Americans depended on them finding the huge 155 mm coastal howitzers the Nazis had hidden above, capable of firing five miles or more out to sea, far enough to hit the troop ships landing for the invasion. Nothing in their 18 years of life could have prepared Frank Caruk and Mark Wilson for all the suffering they witnessed landing in the initial waves at Omaha beach.

Walter Ehlers

Walter and Roland Ehlers

Charles Toole and the podcast host John Ulferts

Frank Caruk and his wife Janet

Leonard Lomell