On Dec. 7, 1941, Stanley Holzhauer was 16 years old living on the family farm. The family didn't have a radio. His uncle was the sheriff, and drove out to their house that Sunday afternoon to tell them that Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor. Stanley said, "I didn't know who she was."
After high school Stan got sucked into the vacuum of the war. In the Navy he was trained as a member of a "Beach Party." It was not campfires, hot dogs and beer.
Their purpose was to land with assault troops, direct traffic, help take care of the wounded and blow up boats that got stuck on the beach. Stanley's first experience in combat was Iwo Jima. He spent 5&½ days on the beach, and lost close friends.
After that Stanley said, "We were taken off the beach on a landing tank, transferred to a similar boat and back to our ship, the USS Hansford. There we were taken care of and fed a spaghetti dinner. It was raining, and it was the best meal I ever ate."
The USS Hansford carried wounded from Iwo Jima to Saipan. Six weeks later the USS Hansford was at Okinawa experiencing kamikaze attacks, or the "Divine Wind" as the Japanese called them.
Then it was back to the Philippines. August is the anniversary of the war's end. The Atomic Age began, the cold time I grew up in. This October, surviving members of Stanley's "Beach Party" will be having their reunion in Traverse City. Elk Rapids students will be reading these poems and others for the event.
Poet Bard Terry Wooten has been performing and conducting writing workshops in schools for 27 years. He is the creator of Stone Circle. Learn more about him at www.terry-wooten.com.
The Bombs
We were doing amphibious training
everybody thought
was for the invasion of Japan.
Nobody knew where we were going.
Out at sea
we were practicing maneuvers
on how to avoid submarines
and mine fields
with thirty Assault Personnel Transports
which would carry
all those troops.
It takes a lot of coordination
to be in a convoy that big.
We heard some kind of atomic bomb
had been dropped on Hiroshima
on August 6.
None of us
had ever heard of an atomic bomb.
Another one
was dropped on Nagasaki
three days later.
A huge typhoon came up.
Our convoy returned to the Philippines
to avoid the storm.
Then we heard
Japan was going to surrender
on August 15.
Peace
We came in battle formation.
Every aircraft carrier, light cruiser,
"battle wagon", heavy "tin can"
and all the destroyer escorts
that were in the Pacific Ocean
seemed to be there.
We called destroyers "tin cans"
because they bobbled in the water,
and we called the big battleships
"battle wagons".
My ship, the USS Hansford,
was the lead flagship.
A Rear Admiral was aboard,
the commander of occupation forces.
The armada stopped ten miles out
at sea.
Tokyo Bay is huge,
and Yokohama is a port
inside the bay.
The whole harbor had been mined.
We told the Japanese
to do the mine sweeping.
Then we had our mine sweepers
go around.
September 2, 1945
our thirty huge transport ships
carrying thirty thousand occupational troops
all in battle gear with rifles
entered Tokyo Bay.
Nobody else had been there.
All the landing boats were ready
to go in the water,
and our soldiers prepared
to go over the side.
The Japanese kept their word
thank the Lord.
A destroyer went in
and picked up the Japanese delegation.
The Air Corps had flown in a band
of about fifteen men
to greet us at the dock.
They played California Here I Come
over and over again.
American personnel had been on the dock
for two days
before we steamed in.
The Air Corps blackened the sky
with airplanes.
A man we thought was Emperor Hirohito
dressed in a black suit
with a top hat and cane
stood on the back of the destroyer.
He passed right in front of our ship
in Yokohama Harbor
headed out to the Missouri
where the treaty was signed.
I did not see
the Peace Treaty signed.
I saw the events
that led up to it.
— Poems by Terry Wooten
Poet Bard Terry Wooten has been performing and conducting writing workshops in schools for 27 years. He is the creator of Stone Circle. Learn more about him at www.terry-wooten.com.
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