ICC Cricket World Cup 2015

Many of our veterans have now told their stories. And some have even had them recorded for posterity. These three Orange County, California residents decided to record their WWII battle experiences in Your Story Here veterans’ videos. If you have a veteran in the family, don’t wait till it’s too late…

Veterans Video DVD BoxJim was animated throughout the interview. Happy to have been a witness to so much history and somehow able to contain his sorrow at the terrible loss. Soon after Pearl Harbor, Jim’s submarine left to carry the war to the Japanese:

Jim Peirano: Firing back at Pearl Harbor

Jim Peirano fired at Japanese bombers from the deck of his submarine USS Dolphin during the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. He remembered with horror as the Arizona blew up scattering burning oil over the water – burning hundreds. Jim remembered the looks on the faces of the young Japanese pilots as they swooped in to drop their bombs. “They had the scarves and everything. You could see them real well because they were flying so low. It was just like you see in the movies!”

“We did not know anything about fighting a war,” he said. “We knew how to dive and exercise the submarine. But the rest we had to learn as the war progressed.”

Jim left the service highly decorated and with the rank of Lieutenant Commander and later revisited Australia, where he introduced the sport of ten pin bowling to that country. As he told these stories on his veteran’s video, Jim’s eyes shone. He was back in the moment.

Julian Ertz: His Buddy Begged to be Shot

One-time Footballer Julian Ertz, still alive and now 90 and also Laguna Woods, California resident, was anxious to fight in the war in Europe and trained as a pilot and a navigator. In December 1943, Julian and his crew took the “southern” route to England, via Puerto Rico, Trinidad, Natal Brazil then across the Atlantic to Dakar, Marrakech and finally Great Britain. The plane was stocked with candy for war-deprived British children the crew expected to meet.

Jim was at the battles of Midway and Tarawa and he saw service in the Solomon Islands where he helped save a group of 29 missionary nuns and children. He was in the middle of the “Battle of Japan” as he termed it, his submarine sinking many enemy ships. He stressed that American forces would drop leaflets on civilian populations before bombing runs, warning them to evacuate – a fact he said is often overlooked.

Tragedy struck for Julian and his crew when his B-24 J Liberator – named “Bachelors’ Baby” on account of the single status of its crew – crashed on take off in Wales. As he tells in his veteran’s video, the plane was loaded with 50 caliber shells. Julian suffered a broken back, and walks with some difficulty to this day, but still counts himself lucky. He was able to shelter from the exploding bullets behind the plane’s engine, which had become detached. Five of his 10 crew, and a sixth man – an unlucky hitch hiker – were killed. Booster, the mascot dog, was also killed in the crash.

He remembers to this day the cries of Sammy Offutt as he burned alive in the wreckage, begging Julian to end his misery with his pistol. Julian was unable to comply – he did not have the gun to hand. He does not know what he would have done had he had it. Julian returned to the US in a full body cast – later studying law and becoming an attorney.

ICC Cricket World Cup 2015

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

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