Atomic Bomb Dropped on Japan August 1945

by
Fred McCaleb

I was on Saipan with the 428th Army Ordinance Tire Repair Company for a time
during the last months of 1944 and in 1945 until WWII ended. The following are
some of my recollections concerning the trip to Saipan, a description of the
devastation seen on Saipan, etc.
We boarded the Dutch motorship SS Japara in Honolulus, Oahu, Hawaii for the trip
to Saipan. It was a grey ship and took a left front position in a seven ship
convoy. The convoy was escorted by three destroyer escorts that were running
about twice the speed of the troopships. The escorts were checking for
submarines to the right, left and in front of us as we proceeded. We were given
practice abandon ship lessons ever so often. That way one would never know if a
practice or the real thing. The convoy was halted at Eniwetock Atoll for about
ten days until conditions got better in the waters toward Saipan. At Eniwetok
we saw the remains of some Japanese ships that had been bombed and were still
sticking partly out of the water. At Eniwetok most of us slept on the top deck
on our blankets with life jackets as the pillow. Here the stars seemed to rock
in unison with the rocking ship. One fellow on our ship got deathly sick while
there and had to be taken away to a hospital. I hope he lived. The sun beamed
down very hot in the daytime. Finally we left. Our ship had a short wave radio
that was hooked to the loudspeaker system and that tuned to Tokyo Rose. She
would play American swing music and tell the married soldiers that their wives
were right now out with a 4F. That didn't bother me since I was unmarried at
the time. But then she said that there was a 7 ship convoy proceeding toward
Saipan that wouldn't make it. That sort of shook things up. The destroyer
escorts increased their activity. We started changing direction every few
minutes, and the ships in the convoy closed in next to each other when night
came. We came through without any ship getting torpedoed and arrived safely in
Saipan. We heard by the grapevine that the Japara was sunk on the next trip.
Whether that was true I will never know.
On arriving on Saipan we were treated to a good meal by Japanese prisoners of
war as KPs. I found one could speak English and that he was from Utah,U.S.A.
Saipan had been almost totally wiped out. There were a few house foundations
and a bronze statue to the man that had introduced sugar growing to Saipan.
These were in what had been the city of Garapan. The statue had many bullet
scars. In the city of Charan Kanoa there was left the twisted steel framework
of a sugar refinery. Everything else was gone. The U.S. bombers and naval
ships, the marines and infantry had done their job. An estimated 15,000
Japanese soldiers had been pushed to one end of the island where there was
nothing left but a cliff and ended their life by jumping into the Pacific
ocean. A few Japanese and natives had surrendered, and they were in a
concentration camp surrounded by barb wire and with no bathing facilities.

After being on Saipan a week or two, I and three other members of the 428th
company were sent to Guam to help the Navy Seabees set up a tire repair shop.
The B-24 bombers were bombing Iwo Jima at that time. Our tent was at the end of
a naval pursuit plane field. The planes came over about 20 feet above our tent
while we were trying to sleep at night. While we were on Guam we saw the
marines and infantry leave in troopships to take Iwo Jima. About two weeks
later we saw a big white ship with a red cross on its side come back with the
wounded and the dying. They were the lucky ones. The rest had been killed. We
also had a bombing scare while on Guam. In the bombing scare we turned all
lights out, shut down the shop, and waited for the Japanese to attack. It
turned out to be one of our own bombers that had been to Iwo Jima and his IFF
wasn't working. The airports were all shut down and he had to land on the
beach. One Seabee operating a bulldozer was killed while we were on Guam. We
got a weapons carrier and toured the island while there. Some of the places we
went were dangerous spots. My best elementary school friend, Marvin Johnson,
was killed while helping take Guam. on the airplane trip to Guam the plane was
overloaded when it left Tinian and took a mile or two to get off the ground,
and when about halfway over near the Japanese island of Rota one engine quit.
The wing immediately slanted down and I thought to myself,"This is the last of
me." Fortunately the pilot got the engine going again, and all was well.
On arriving back on Saipan to our tire repair company a month later, the
landscape had completely changed. Where two cities had been were now row on row
of warehouses. Super roads, filled with thousands of army vehicles, had been
built. There were floating piers for ship landings built with 8 foot hollow
cubes of steel. The B-29 field had been constructed in record time. A mountain
had been removed, and the end of the runway was a 200 feet drop into the
Pacific ocean. Our tire shop occupied four of the wirehouses. An underground
telephone system had been installed. I was told the Japanese dead were pushed
into the same ditch as the cables. The signs of the horrors of war were gone.
While on Saipan I visited the cliff on the Pacific ocean where thousands of
Japanese soldiers had jumped into the water when our marines and infantry
pushed them to that end of the island. I visited the marine, infantry, and
Japanese cemeteries. There were ten or fifteen thousand dead soldiers in each.
I was told there were only rounded markers in the Japanese cemetery. War had
been devastating and without mercy for the participants. The Japanese, by
bombimg Pear Harbor, had started something they couldn't handle. One of my tent
mate's hobbies was he was going back into the forest and collecting gold teeth
fillings from Japanese skeletons. He also supplied us with bananas. I didn't
take up his gold teeth collecting hobby, but ate the bananas.
When the B-29 field was finished on Saipan, one hundred and fifty B-29's left
for Japan about every third day. There was also a B-29 field on Tinian, and 150
planes left there at the same time interval. The trips were staggered so that
Japan got an almost continual bombing. Before leaving each plane loaded up with
seven tons of bombs and 5000 gallons of aviation gasoline. There was a fuel
pipeline from the piers to the B-29 field. There was always an oil tanker ship
parked at the pier. When it left, another took its place. Our shop was near the
piers. Japanese prisoners driving military trucks loaded with bombs passed by
every few minutes. They were being forced to help finish off their homeland.
On the side of the hill where we had our living qu arters was an outdoor movie.
Here I saw many of the Hollywood movies that were produced in that era. While
on Guam I saw an outdoor movie about the Pacific war. The B-17s were returning
from a raid in the movie and at the same time planes were returning from a raid
on Iwo Jima. There were bombers on the screen and bombers overhead at the same
time. I thought that was unusual. Several of the B-29 crew members came to the
movie on Saipan where I attended. They used to tell us how much of Tokyo had
been bombed and burned during the last raids. The B-29 crews lost hardly any of
the planes in combat, but operational difficulties claimed about five percent.
The trip to Japan was 18 hours long. It was boring, and fuel was very low when
they arrived back. Every plane that didn't make it back was replaced by another
one that flew in from Hawaii. The field always had its quota of planes. The navy
had flying boats to pick up downed crews.
About the first of August 1945 a soldier from Tinian visited his friend in our
company. Tinian was across the strait about 6 miles from where we were on
Saipan. He said, "Boy, they have a big bomb over on Tinian they are going to
drop on Japan." I thought it must be a TNT bomb about twenty feet long. About
a week after his visit the first atomic bomb in history was dropped. Hiroshima,
Japan was gone. About three days later another was dropped on Nagasaki and
another city was gone. After that the Japanese started talking peace. The
Emperor made a speech telling the troops to surrender. His speech was
rebroadcast every day and night from the military radio station on Saipan. The
war was over. Nearly everyone on the island celebrated by firing off what
ammunition they had. I instantly realized the danger of all this. I put on my
helmet and walked up and down the center aisle of the prefab barracks we had by
this time. Three bullets fell through the roof of the barracks. I never knew if
anyone got killed celebrating victory. Anyhow I had been shook up.
Before the atomic bomb was dropped, we had been given instructions on the
upcoming invasion of Japan. Every technical man was going to have to go as a
soldier. Winter clothing was discussed. There was an estimate that at least
600,000 soldiers would be killed. At least that many Japs would also be killed.
Truman's decision to drop the bomb had saved more lives than than the many that
were lost in the bombed out cities.
By my being on Saipan in August,1945 I had been near one of the big events of
all time. I think Truman made the right decision. I reached home Christmas day
1945 after leaving Saipan one month earlier. It took 17 days on a troopship to
reach the west coast, about 4 or 5 days to cross the southern U.S. and a few
days in army centers. When we reached the west coast, one soldier that had been
with MCArthur in retaking the Phillipines, put his hand up and said, "I have
returned." What a joy to be a civilian. Quite a few thousand didn't come back.
by Fred McCaleb