The PT Boat Forum
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ť Forum Category: PT Boats of WWII
http://www.ptboatforum.com/cgi-bin/MB2/netboard.cgi?cid=101&fct=showf

ť Forum Name: PT Boats - General
http://www.ptboatforum.com/cgi-bin/MB2/netboard.cgi?fct=gotoforum&cid=101&fid=102

ť Topic: PT-341 {Warning Graphic Picture}
http://www.ptboatforum.com/cgi-bin/MB2/netboardr.cgi?cid=101&fid=102&tid=2728

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AWM_072837.jpg[/url]

Posted By: PPF | Posted on: Aug 3, 2012 - 11:22am
Total Posts: | Joined: Unregistered

Horrors of War

Posted By: PPF | Posted on: Aug 3, 2012 - 11:24am
Total Posts: | Joined: Unregistered

war is cruel and not pretty

Posted By: PPF | Posted on: Aug 3, 2012 - 11:25am
Total Posts: | Joined: Unregistered

As gruesome as those things were, they were fairly standard stuff for WWII.

My Grandmother worked in the Post Office downtown in the federal building just after the war. One of her felllow employees was a veteran who kept a "petrified" finger of a Japanese to stir his coffee with, which horrifed the women in the office.

Grandma said "the fellow was kind of odd, anyway."

Posted By: Drew Cook | Posted on: Aug 4, 2012 - 7:20am
Total Posts: 1306 | Joined: Oct 19, 2006 - 10:44am

Read Flyboys. Amazing what people will do to survive.
Dave

David Waples

Posted By: David Waples | Posted on: Aug 4, 2012 - 7:42am
Total Posts: 1679 | Joined: Jan 2, 2007 - 9:55pm

Also read "Unbroken", it is amazing how much someone can endure. Another reason they were called the Greatest Generation. And we now complain went the power goes off for a few hours.

Alan Curtis

Posted By: Alan Curtis | Posted on: Aug 4, 2012 - 12:39pm
Total Posts: | Joined: Unregistered

I'm finishing reading a fascinating book on Midway -- "The Battle Of Midway," by Craig L. Symonds -- and just read something that infuriated me, even 70 years after the fact. Its not PT boat-related, but...

During the battle, the IJN picked up three American survivors of the Navy torpedo-plane and dive-bomber attacks, and...well, here are the quotes:

"...none of the American planes made it back to the Enterprise, presumably because they subsequently ran out of gas. The crew of one of them -- Ensign Frank W.O'Flaherty and his backseat gunner, Aviation Machinist's Mate First Class Bruno Gaido -- ditched in the water and were subsequently taken prisoner by the Japanese destroyer Makigumo...After the Japanese interrogated the two Americans, they tied weights to their ankles and dropped them over the side."

"...Watanabe's crew (on the destroyer Arashi) had plucked one of the pilots from Lem Massey's Torpedo 3 from the water. It was Ensign Wesley Frank Osmus, a 24-year-old product of the AVCAD program from Illinois. Osmus had apparently failed to retrieve the life raft from his Devastator, for the Japanese found him, weak and dehydrated, swimming all alone in the middle of the Pacific ocean. Hauled aboard the Arashi, the Japanese interrogated him aggressively, threatening him with a sword...Once they completed the interrogation, the Japanese carried Osmus to the stern to throw him back over the side. Realizing their intent, Osmus grabbed on to the ship's stern railing, and to break his grip the Japanese smashed his head with a fire axe. Osmus' body tumbled into the ship's wake."

My point? Even with our outrage at the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, I doubt we would have ever gotten around to such things as skulls as decorative bric-a-brac, or severed fingers as coffee-stirrers, without the knowledge and experience of the Imperial Japanese military's long and brutal tradition of this type of treatment of our military personnel.

Posted By: Drew Cook | Posted on: Aug 12, 2012 - 4:45pm
Total Posts: 1306 | Joined: Oct 19, 2006 - 10:44am

War by its very nature is dehumanizing. . .

Will

Posted By: Will Day | Posted on: Aug 12, 2012 - 4:58pm
Total Posts: 1955 | Joined: Oct 8, 2006 - 4:19pm

It wasn't all sleek boats and curling bow waves and fearless sailors riding the bull nose - It was all too often bloody, close-in killing. Combat in the truest sense of the word.

Will

Posted By: Will Day | Posted on: Aug 12, 2012 - 5:03pm
Total Posts: 1955 | Joined: Oct 8, 2006 - 4:19pm

We seem to forget the brutality of the Pacific War, as we are all too often occupied by the color or weapons set up on a particular boat. We build these wonderful boats for people to see, or for the shear pleasure of having them in our collections. We are caught up in the power of the engines, or the daily menu of the boats cooks, not thinking about the close in fire-fight that might blow off a head, or a limb, blind a sailor, or terrible fire from an explosion that would burn to death a boat mate. These are just a few of the brutal parts of a war, not many wish to talk about. The Japanese set the tone of the type of fighting we would need to do in order to win this bloody war. Thank the Lord we were the victors, but at such a terrible cost of Life.........................

Posted By: Frank J Andruss Sr | Posted on: Aug 12, 2012 - 5:18pm
Total Posts: 3497 | Joined: Oct 9, 2006 - 6:09am