The following excerpts are reprinted with permission from Marvin Lederman's Should I Cry or Smile, You Tell Me. Marvin's story begins in 1944, shortly after he turned 18, at Bremerton Naval Station in Seattle, Washington as he waited for his war assignment...We were told to watch the bulletin board to find out where we would be assigned. After about two weeks, I saw my name. The list was alphabetical, and my name was at the very top of the sheet that started with "LE." I spotted my assignment, and then I looked at the sheet that ended with "LA" to see what ship I would have gotten if my name were maybe "Lafferty." It would have been the U.S.S. Hull DD 350. And because my name was Lederman instead of Lafferty, I am alive today. The Destroyer U.S.S. Hull 350 capsized in a typhoon on December 18, 1944 in the South Pacific. It went down with the loss of all hands except for sixty-two survivors.
My assignment was a destroyer, the U.S.S. Wilson DD 408. I was so happy to find out that my ship was a man-of-war and not a cargo ship. I wanted to be where the action was. Little did I know what was coming!
The first time that I saw it, I was thrilled. Painted with camouflage colors to help confuse the enemy, it looked sleek and fast and had big guns fore and aft (bow and stern) and was bristling with all kinds of guns: forty millimeters, twenty millimeters, four huge five inch thirty eights, and it had depth charges and torpedoes. I later learned that those big guns could be used for surface-to-surface sea battles, and they could also be used to knock down enemy fighter planes as well as shelling the shore during the invasion of all of the islands we invaded in the Pacific Ocean. I knew that my life was going to become very adventurous and exciting. That kind of ship was built for action.
I knew that everyone back home would look at me as though I was on the "first team" and was doing the most for our country because I was aboard a destroyer. At my young age, this was very important to me...
Finally, we were moved out of the barracks and onboard the U.S.S. Wilson, where they were putting in new equipment, new radar and radios, gun replacements, and new sonar to track down submarines.
We were assigned to a compartment where we slept with forty other men. The bunk beds were stacked three high, and my bunk was on the bottom, which turned out to be the worst of all. First of all, the fresh air came in at the top level, and second of all, the men whose foot lockers were under my bunk were always asking me to get out of my bunk, so they could get to their foot locker.
There were about fifty new sailors that came onboard with me, all fresh out of boot camp. They called us "boots." We called them "old salts." The old salts got the best bunks. Everyone living aboard the U.S.S. Wilson was working to get it ready to be seaworthy.
There were 350 men on the Wilson. The oldest was the captain, Captain McKinsley. He looked to be about 45 to 50 years old. The rest of the crew was between 18 and 30 years old. They were from all walks of life. From everywhere- the good, the bad, and the ugly. We new sailors were so young that we called a guy who was 24 years old, "Pops." He seemed like an older man to us young guys.
Now it came time to take the Wilson out for tests or what they called a shakedown cruise...
My job for General Quarters (the highest condition of alert onboard ship) was on the Number One Gun, a five-inch thirty-eight used for surface battles, shelling the shores, and for firing at Japanese fighter planes.
The shakedown cruises lasted for a month, and then we got orders to head for the open seas to test our guns. It was exciting for me to see our gun and the other guns fire for the first time. For the next three weeks, we made corrections. One day the order came that we were to practice shooting at a target that was being pulled by a pilot driven airplane. Now we would get to see how good or bad we were. We did this for days on end until we received orders to sail for San Francisco. We all knew this was it. From there we would be going overseas...
We stayed in San Francisco for about one week, taking on supplies. I got one more Liberty, and then we received orders to head out to the Pacific Ocean en route to Hawaii. We left about three in the afternoon. As we backed away from the dock, two guys jumped off of the bow and ran away. They had already seen action and wanted no more.
When we passed under the Golden Gate Bridge, I was awed by its size and beauty. We left with two other destroyers, the U.S.S. Langley and the U.S.S. Hull.
I took a long hard look at the bridge and the shoreline and wondered if I would ever see America again. I was excited, sad, lonesome, and a little frightened all at the same time.
As soon as we got to the open seas, I got seasick again. We had more gun practice, and for the seven days it took to get to Hawaii, I had K.P. duty almost every day and was peeling potatoes most of the time. All the while I was sicker than hell and spent most of the time hanging over the rail throwing up along with the rest of the boots fresh out of boot camp...
As we pulled into Pearl Harbor we saw all the battleships and cruisers that were partly sunken. This vivid scene made me realize that we could be hurt and hurt bad. I knew there were still bodies trapped in those twisted and burned ships, their guns pointing skyward. Even at my young age, I knew it wasn't going to be a one-sided war...
The day finally came when we got orders to leave Pearl Harbor and proceed to the Philipines. We were to escort a convoy of thirty ships with four other destroyers. We were off to the war in the Pacific. I knew this was it; we were bound to see action.
On the third day out, we made sonar contact with a Japanese sub. It was at night, and we used the sonar to locate the sub and zero in on it. We and three other destroyers took a position of about one half mile on all sides of the sub and started to close in, dropping our depth charges. It was the first action I was in, and it was for real. We knew the sub was there, and the sub knew that we were there. I was at my battle station on Gun One, and I was so frightened that I vomited in a bucket. No one in the crew said anything about it. Perhaps some of the new guys felt like doing the same thing.
We continued to drop depth charges until we saw debris rise to the surface. We could see this by the moonlight. Everyone started to cheer. It was our first kill...
For the rest of the run to the Philippines, it was quiet and smooth, and I wasn't seasick anymore. Thank God! I was getting my sea legs and felt like an old salt (someone who has sea experience).
As we pulled into Leytte Gulf with our convoy, I saw hundreds and hundreds of ships anchored in the bay. Leytte Gulf had been invaded a few months earlier, and it was pretty quiet. It was about 8:00 p.m. and dusk, and all of a sudden General Quarters (GQ) sounded: "Everyone to their battle stations." Like a choreographed stage show, everyone swung into action, running up and down ladders, swinging through hatchways, no talking, no pushing, just as smooth as could be; everyone moved to his battle station. I went to gun Number One, got my lifejacket and steel helmet on, and waited for orders over the headset. Then it came. "All guns action port, air target, stand by, stand by, commence firing, commence firing!"
"Boom. Boom. Boom." All the big guns firing, but not the smaller guns yet; the planes were not close enought for the forty millimeters or twenty millimeters. Our ship was not a target of the Japanese planes that night; they were after troop ships and cargo ships. But of course, all ships in the harbor opened up on the six Zeros. Two were shot down, and, after dropping their bombs, the remaining four broke off and flew away very low to the water. It was impossible to tell which ship hit the two planes that went down. No one could take credit for the kills...
We stayed in Leytte Gulf for a number of days, waiting for new orders. Even though the gulf of Leytte was secure, other islands of the Philippines were still occupied by the Japanese. Every single day and night we had air raids. The Japs kept the pressure on us. Every night just about 2:00 a.m., a single Jap plane would approach the area. We named him "Midnight Charlie." He never tried to attack, but only wanted to keep us from sleeping and keep us off-balance and fatigued. We were at our battle stations most of the night. But all other raids were bent on destruction and death, and we began to see the first of the kamikazes. With each raid some of the kamikazes dived at our ships. Many were shot down, but a few in every raid would hit their mark. We were so lucky not to be one of the unlucky ones.
Our next assignment was to escort a convoy of troop ships and cargo ships, along with several other destroyers, to an island in the Philippines called Mindanao. There was fighting going on at that island, and our invading force was in need of supplies. The mission, or run as we called it, was to take about a day and a half each way. We had to pass between several islands in the Philippines, all of which were occupied by the Japanese. They had airfields on all sides of us. About seven hours after leaving port, we came under the first attack. We were in an area called Suribachi Straights. We renamed it Suicide Straights because of all the kamikaze attacks directed at us. For three days we were under constant attack day and night. Ships were getting hit on all sides of us: troop ships, cargo ships, and other destroyers. The kamikazes were like a swarm of bees all trying to kill themselves and us. It was horrible – they seemed to have no fear at all.
One sight that I'll never forget was when a kamikaze hit an ammunition ship, and I saw it all happen. There was this horrific thunderous sound and this huge cloud of smoke. Our ship shook as if it was cold and shaking to keep warm. When the smoke settled, which took some time, nothing was left except some small pieces of debris. The explosion even took down some smaller craft around it, such as a couple of torpedo boats that I saw near the ammunition ship before the explosion. We didn't stop to look for survivors; our captain knew no one could live through such a catastrophe as that.
On March 26, 1945 Marvin's destroyer joined the strike force assigned to invade Okinawa.
At about 3:00 a.m. we shot down three Japanese planes. Nothing much happened the rest of the morning, but at daylight we spotted several Japanese men floating in the water not too far off our ship. There were eight of them, four in one group, three in the other, and one by himself. We pulled alongside the first group and threw lines to them, so we could take them aboard. But they wouldn't grab on. They were all airmen, pilots and crew members of bombers; most of them had the leather flying helmets and leather jackets with fur collars.
One man who seemed to be the senior officer was giving them some kind of orders. It was as if he was telling them to be brave, hold fast, and stay calm. He had a mustache and a short beard. We kept throwing them lines. One of the lines landed on a shoulder of one man, and he pushed it off with his chin. He must have been holding something in his hands under the water, otherwise he would have used his hands.
After doing this for about five minutes with no results, the captain shouted down from the bridge, this time using a megaphone, not the P.A. system, "If they don't want to be our prisoners, they're still our enemies." By then orders had been given to the landing party crew (specially trained men to go into enemy territory) to break out small arms (pistols and rifles). The captain then shouted, "Open fire!" The men in the water seemed to know what was about to happen because all the while before the shooting started, their senior officer was talking to them, bolstering their courage. Also, they could have been saying goodbye to one another.
When the shooting started, one of the young men held up his hands and was shouting something in Japanese. I know he was trying to give up, but it was too late. One of our guys named Realman shot him in the eye with a forty-five automatic pistol. He put his hand over his eye, and his head went into the water. The water turned pink.
The shooting continued for about thirty seconds before the captian gave the "cease fire" order. The same thing took place with the second group. They didn't take the lines we threw to them, and so their fate was the same.
The single Japanese airmen floating by himself was about fifteen yards from our ship. We also threw him a line with a life preserver attached to it. I think the guy that threw it was Realman, the same guy that shot the young Jap in the eye. This time the life preserver made a ringer right around the Jap's head – lucky for him or he probably would have been killed too.
When we pulled him in, we saw that he had a big gash on his head, probably from the plane crash or when he bailed out. Anyway, he was practically unconscious and in a daze, otherwise he would have probably, like the others, refused the line with the life preserver attached. When we got him next to the ship, we put a rope ladder over the side for him to climb up, but he just looked at it, and we realized that he was too weak and dazed to know what was happening. Two men went into the water and helped hoist him up. When we got him onboard, we took him below the decks where his wounds were attended by the doctor and Kawalski, the pharmacist mate. Kawalski took care of most of us guys that got sick. He seemed to know more than the doctor. He was very caring...
I don't know why, but for some reason I was chosen to stand guard duty with the prisoner. We didn't have a Brig (jail), so with a short chain we manacled him to a raling below decks; one on the ankle and one on his wrist. They gave me a Colt 45 pistol, which I strapped to my waist, and I knew how to use it. We were trained in boot camp.
Some of the guys on our ship wanted to lynch the prisoner, so I was given instructions not to let anyone near him or talk to him. When we brought him food (the same food we ate) he wouldn't eat it, so the cooks prepared him white rice. He could eat the rice and seemed to enjoy it. I stood guard over him for four hours on and four hours off. We kept him onboard for about five days until we received orders to transfer him to a larger ship called a "Tender," where they had qualified personnel to interrogate him. During my time with him, I could see that he knew that he had no chance of escape. Even if he did, where would he go unarmed? If he tried to jump overboard, he'd certainly drown, being as weak and injured as he was.
As time went by, we gained more trust for one another. He spoke no English, and I spoke no Japanese, but we could use hand gestures and paper and pencil. We would smile at each other when we would run into difficulty trying to understand each other.
Some of the things we learned about each other were our ages; he was 22, and I was 19. He was from Kyoto; how did I know this? Here's how! I would point to him and say, "Tokyo, Tokyo," three or four times; he then caught on and said "Kyoto." I had never heard of Kyoto, but when he pointed at me, I said "Colorado, USA." He amazed me when he took the pad and pencil and drew the map of the United States perfectly and then put the square shape of Colorado where it is positioned on the map of the U.S. Then he drew a cowboy on a horse in the middle of Colorado, and pointed to me. Right then and there I knew he was a hundred times more intelligent than I was and highly educated.
We became friendlier and friendlier. We learned each other's name by using the same method of pointed to one's self and repeating over and over again "Marvin, Marvin" until he caught on and said his name, "Ariama, Ariama." I later had him write his name and address for me, and I still have all the little sketches he made. When they took him off the ship to be interrogated, we shook hands, and he was gone.
I was a little worried because I knew that many of our men could be cruel. Now that I think about it, maybe the Executive Officer chose me to be one of the guards because he recognized that I had compassion and was not fanatical.
After arriving in Kerama Retto, Marvin met up with one of his boyhood buddies from the west side of Denver, Marvin Perlman. They discussed their fighting experiences...I told him all that had happened. I think hearing it from someone he knew so well made an impact. Then I explained how fanatical the Japanese kamikaze pilots were and confessed that I didn't think I'd ever make it home. He wanted to reassure me and said, "Don't worry – the war is going to be over soon." I replied, "You don't know what the Japs are like, and when we get closer to Tokyo, it's going to get worse." Then he said, "Believe me – something big is about to happen."
"What?" I asked.
"I'm just telling you – something's coming."
I said, "You're nuts. I'm telling you, these Japs are tough. I don't think it will end soon."
A few days later I was copying code while on duty in the radio shack when a plain language message came over in plain English. As the Morris Code was converted into English in my ears, and as I typed it out to the paper in my typewriter, tears came to my eyes. The message read: President Roosevelt is dead. Everyone loved him, and I really cried.
Later when we were back at Okinawa, I had a dream that someone woke me up from my sleep and said, "Hey, Lederman, the war is over." I knew it had to be a dream.
The next morning when I was in the chow line, someone said very casually, "What state are you going to when we get back?"
I answered, "Who knows when we will get back!"
He said, "Well, we should be going home soon now that the war is over."
I looked at him and said, "You've got to be kidding."
He answered, "You mean you don't know the war is over?"
"No, I didn't know. I thought it was a dream last night when someone came to my bunk and told me the war was over. You mean it's the truth – it's really over?" And he confirmed it.
What a wonderful feeling I had at that moment. I'll never forget it. I made it! I'm going to see my family again. My life can go on – I have a future.
Some of the guys were talking about why the Japanese surrendered. The words "atomic bomb" were being discussed. "What's an atomic bomb?" I asked. No one was quite sure, but they thought it was one great big bomb. I couldn't understand how one bomb could make them surrender. It was beyond my imagination. Now I knew why my buddy Marvin Perlman said something big was going to happen.
After the war was over and I met up with Marvin (Polo) Perlman in Denver, he confirmed what I had suspected. He told me that before he was transferred to Kerama Retto from Guam, he and other technicians knew about a devastating bomb that was about to be dropped on Japan.
It is a little known fact that at the invasion of Okinawa the U.S. suffered 49,159 casualties. Compare those numbers with the 42,000 casualties suffered in the first 30 days of the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1945, and you can see that Okinawa was no minor campaign...
The U.S.S. Wilson and two other destroyers were ordered to proceed to an island called Chi Chi Jima, an island still in enemy hands. It had never been invaded and was bypassed by our invasion forces. We were to go to Chi Chi Jima to take the formal surrender of that island.
When we arrived, all hands were at our battle stations, just in case the Japanese were uninformed of the peace or if they were committed to not giving up. We sailed into the harbor unopposed as we signaled them with our blinker signal lights. This was done by using Morse Code, which is an international code. They signaled us back, acknowledging our messages.
A few hours later a small boat carrying about six Japanese officers arrived alongside our ship. We lowered a rope ladder to take them aboard. The waters were very rough that day because the port was not protected by sea walls. The boat they were in was bobbing up and down with great heaves and drops, and this made it hard for them to grab the rope ladder. Suddenly the senior officer fell into the water, and his boat smacked his head hard up against our ship. I thought it would kill him, but he didn't make a sound as his men helped him out of the water.
I felt sorry for him. He was coming on board to give us the official surrender, and I knew that he wanted to look good and show pride as he was the representative of his country. But there was ringing wet, and blood was flowing down the side of his face. He looked as bad as he could look... As expected, some of the men were laughing, but the captain put an end to that by telling the men to come to attention.
As part of their surrender agreement, all of their [the Japanese] small arms guns were taken from them, loaded on boats and dumped into the sea. Thousands and thousands of them. The Captain gave each of our crew a rifle that we could take home with us. I still have mine.
