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thedrifter
12-19-07, 07:36 AM
WWII veterans use bats, not guns

Steve Kornacki

The Tampa Tribune

December 19, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG


They were teenagers and young men when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec.7, 1941. Some were already in the service; others enlisted or were drafted into the military as the world exploded in war.

Now they are about to do something they couldn't have imagined back then.

They are returning to the Hawaiian island of Oahu to play a team of Japanese World War II veterans. The olive branch will be a softball bat.

"I never dreamed that someday I would be playing ball against the Japanese," says Tom Panebianco, 80, of Redington Shores.

He shakes his head while sitting on a picnic table next to the North Shore Park field, where he and other members of the Kids & Kubs over-75 softball team play.

"This time we will take bats and balls instead of guns and ammunition," says John Gist, 85, of St. Petersburg.

"It's time to forgive and forget," says Andy Devine, 82, of Seminole.

Devine, Gist and Panebianco are among eight World War II South Pacific veterans on a team of 15 Kids & Kubs practicing for today's game at Hans L'Orange Field just west of Honolulu in Waipahu. It's being billed as the Super Senior Baseball Match.

The event is the brainchild of Sho Ishida, an independent Japanese TV director in New York. He had filmed a documentary on the Kids & Kubs several years ago.

"They want to make a movie and magazine story out of our game," said Winchell Smith, 88, a St. Petersburg Army veteran and president of the team.

The Japanese team, 19 war veterans recruited from across the country, has been practicing since Nov.15 in Takamatsu City, a sister city of St. Petersburg.

On the U.S. side, the decades have softened some of the feelings about the soldiers' once-reviled enemy.

"I've forgotten about 60-some years ago and have no ill feelings," Smith says. "Our guys did as many bad things as the Japanese did."

Not everyone feels the same, though. One Kids & Kubs member, a war veteran, won't be making the trip.

"He told me his best friend was beheaded by the Japanese," Smith said.

The teams plan a visit to the USS Arizona Memorial, the sunken battleship that is the final resting place for many of its 1,177 crew members. It's about 12miles from the ball field.

"I've been there before and cried when I saw the oil" still bubbling up to the surface, Devine said. "I thought of all the young fellas dying for nothing."

Devine was a promising minor-league catcher before entering the Navy after the 1942 baseball season. He was with the Jersey City, N.J., Giants, the top farm club of the New York Giants, and once got to warm up Hall of Fame pitcher Carl Hubbell. He played against Negro League legends Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige.

"The war ruined a lot of careers," said Devine, who spent 30years in the Navy and is also a veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars.

Six decades later, an influx of Japanese players — New York Yankees left fielder Hideki Matsui, Tampa Bay Devil Rays infielder Akinori Iwamura, Boston Red Sox pitcher Daisuke "Dice-K" Matsuzaka — dots American rosters.

"They killed a lot of us, and now they are in Major League Baseball," said Larry Willows, 81, a Navy torpedo man on an aircraft carrier in the South Pacific. "Times change, and you change a lot, too.

"I remember when we picked up a Japanese pilot in the water and the Marines had to drag him off the ship and take him away. He was so scared. And I was at Pearl Harbor years after the bombing when they were still getting bodies out. It was awful."

Panebianco, a Navy seaman and fireman, said, "War is not as glorious as it's made out to be in movies. I remember the Japanese kamikaze planes crashing into our ships and losing my shipmates."

Devine said, "Your friends got killed next to you. If you said you were not scared, you were full of it."

Their eyes grow distant as they speak. Some grow angry as they shake out the memories that have been packed away. They see the Japanese as enemies again for a few seconds. Then they notice and quickly cut it off, admonishing themselves. Forgiving is much easier than forgetting.

Ellie