Posted by Doc Dave on Sunday, April 01, 2007 at 08:00:53 :
Joe's recent post recognizing Steve Blais, the soldier getting ready to go to the middle east, reminded me of a recent letter I wrote to the editor of our local paper about the recent death of a friend and client of mine, Leroy Bowman.
As background, not too many WW2 servicemen survived over 3 1/2 years as a POW in Japan.
Leroy was taken prisoner on Guam one week after Pearl Harbor. As the prisoners were being led away to go aboard the Japanese ships, the wives and girlfriends were watching by the side of the road. One of his buddies was married to a Guamanian girl. She had a little American flag that she waved to boost the men’s moral. One of the Japanese guards saw this, walked over to her, and with one stroke beheaded her in front of everyone. I am sure there was more, but he rarely talked about his experiences.
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Subject: letter to editor- about a former POW "hero"
It is with sadness that I read the obituary of Leroy Bowman in the March 14th edition of the Enterprise. Leroy lived in Chaptico with his wife Elise, who survives him.
To some, the obituary may have been simply one of many others of an older persons passing. However, Leroy was truly representative of “the greatest generation” in ways few ever knew about.
During WW2, he was a prisoner of war for over three and a half years in Japan. There was a very high rate of death for the allied prisoners who were captured by the Japanese, but somehow he survived. He witnessed horrors that stretched the limits of what a person could absorb.
In the summer of 1945, as the American and other allied forces neared Japan, he and the other prisoners were told by their captors that all of them were going to be executed as soon as American forces landed on Japanese soil. The Japanese army was getting ready for an “Armageddon-like” battle with the allies, and all soldiers including the guards were to be deployed to fight the allies for every inch of Japanese soil. Untold deaths, both American and Japanese, would have ensued if we had tried to take the Japanese main islands by conventional warfare means, based on the historical record with the Japanese defense of their outer islands like Iwo Jima.
President Harry Truman has received some criticism, especially from revisionist historians, over his decision to drop the atomic bombs in an effort to end the Japanese desire to continue to fight, and force peace.
I would ask, are the young people today being taught that the American prisoners in Japan were slated for execution, or that the resulting conventional battle would have resulted in more deaths than the atomic bombs produced, as terrible as they were? Sadly, I doubt it.
It is somewhat ironic that Leroy and the other American prisoners in Japan owed their lives to the decision by President Truman to use the bomb, as the rapid capitulation by the Japanese government prevented their deaths at the hands of the prison guards.
We all owe a tremendous debt to all our veterans, especially to those who were POW’s. The extent of their sacrifices should be taught to all who graduate from our schools.
David G. Langford
Hollywood, MD
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