Memorial Day Musings: Remembering Those Who Gave So Much
Keep the stories of the brave servicemen and women alive for a new generation.
In my journey to become a polymath, (which I’ll likely never achieve) I’ve found myself deeply fascinated with military history.
Maybe that’s just what males do when they approach middle age? Whether that’s true or not doesn’t matter because I love the topic. Like many Americans, I have grandparents and other family members who served in World War Two. I knew a few stories about my grandfathers’ experiences during the war but not much. They weren’t interested in sharing all of the details and I don’t blame them. The Greatest Generation fought the greatest war known to history and moved on with their lives.
Documentaries and books became my best resource for learning more about military history. I think I watched every documentary on the History Channel in the late and early 2000s. These shows were a great jumping off point to learn more about a specific theater, battle, operation or event.
When I entered college, I took history classes to fulfill most of my elective courses. The World War Two in Europe course I took my second-to-last semester in school was easily the best course I took in college. I would take voracious notes during class. I always had questions for the professor. I took advantage of office hours just so I could talk with the professor more about World War Two history.
At one point in the semester, the professor asked me why I wasn’t a history major. He told me that my research papers and test scores were on the level of the program history majors. I told him that I didn’t want to make a career out of my hobby. He got a good laugh from that and understood.
I was finishing college when the World War One (Great War) centennial started. Coincidentally, Dan Carlin’s spectacular Hardcore History podcast did a six-part series on World War One entitled Blueprint for Armageddon. I listened to each episode at least twice and started reading the source material. From here, I dug into Peter Hart’s books, specifically his stellar comprehensive overview aptly titled The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War. I was amazed by just how little I knew about this conflict. It was as if American history completely overlooked the war. The United States joined in 1917 and it wasn’t really our war to begin with. Regardless, I found studying World War One to be fascinating because it set the stage for the next war.
To further understand World War One and its aftermath, I read Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World. Margaret MacMillan did a superb job breaking down the drama and details of The Treaty of Versailles, along with the key players involved. The information I gleaned from this book helped me contextualize why World War Two happened. This is an endless debate that I won’t go into here, but in short, the economic reparations enacted on Germany helped to create an atmosphere where fascist and militaristic governments could grow and thrive.
From here, I read less about the politics of war and more about the actual servicemembers. I had gone full circle from starting with what my grandparents did in the war, to what led to the war and then back to learning about the people who actually served. In my opinion, this is where all of the best books exist. So many of the political and strategic books are great but they can be overly academic to the point of boredom.
That’s why books like Band of Brothers and Masters of the Air are so popular. They do a fantastic job of humanizing the conflict. They allow the reader to get a glimpse into what it must have been like to serve in World War Two.
My personal favorite World War Two book is Four Came Home by Carrol V. Glines. The book tells the story of the two lost crews from Jimmy Doolittle’s Tokyo Raid from April 1942. I have a deeper connection to this book because my great uncle, Chase Nielsen, was one of the eight captured men who survived the war. If you don’t know anything about the Doolittle Raid then I encourage you to learn more.
Essentially, it was a morale-boosting operation that President Roosevelt wanted after the crushing blow the Japanese dealt the US at Pearl Harbor. All of the airmen volunteered for a special operation in early 1942 without knowing exactly what they’d be doing or where they’d be going. The raid involved 16 B-25 Mitchell medium bombers that took off from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet. Each crew knew that they were embarking on a one-way mission that would hopefully take them to free China and back to the US.
Things didn’t go as planned and most of the crews ditched their planes due to fuel shortages after bombing their targets. Chase Nielsen was the navigator of plane #6 The Green Hornet. His plane ditched in the China Sea, where two of the five crew members drowned. After syncing with the remaining two crew members, Nielsen and his comrades tried to evade Japanese patrols but were ultimately discovered. All of the captured crew members were subjected to torture, a sham trial and three were executed by the Japanese as war criminals, ever though they were POWs with Geneva Convention protections. One of the crew members, John Meder, died while in captivity due to malnutrition.
Eventually, the remaining four prisoners were found and freed by a daring OSS mission. Nielsen returned to China after the war to testify against his captors in a highly-publicized war trial. I remember hearing some of his stories when I was a kid. His experiences obviously struck me in a profound way that never left me. I think this is why I’m so fascinated in history and World War Two history.
I feel that it’s important to keep the stories of the brave servicemen and women alive for a new generation. I don’t want to repeat the lessons of the past. The conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza are enough to drive home the fact that war is hell. We should avoid war at all cost. Learning from those who gave so much is a reminder of where this all ends.
Let’s all do our part to remember those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms. Thank you to all of the veterans and active duty service members who serve our country today. I appreciate what they do and the sacrifices they make.