Navy vet recalls Pacific campaign

[thedrifter]

Navy vet recalls Pacific campaign
By Edward Marshall / Journal Staff Writer
POSTED: August 24, 2009

Editor's note: The Journal's annual Unsung Heroes feature, which runs each Monday from Memorial Day to Veteran's Day, profiles U.S. veterans who served in wars and conflicts from World War II to the present.

CHARLES TOWN - From the Mariana Islands to the shores of Okinawa, 90-year-old Charles Town veteran Bernard Askin had a front-row seat for many of the crucial landings made by U.S. troops during the long march to the doorsteps of Japan in World War II's Pacific theater.

"I saw the action, and we were in the action," said Askin, a retired lieutenant, junior grade, Navy communications officer.

Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Askin, who will turn 91 in September, was a promising high school athlete as a young man, earning an athletic scholarship to attend Elon University in North Carolina.

With plans to pursue a coaching career, Askin joined the U.S. Navy Reserve in order to complete his college education.

"I didn't want to be in the Army in the ... dirt, so I joined the Navy Reserves," he said.

By the time he graduated college in 1943, however, the United States was heavily invested in the war raging overseas. Upon graduating, Askin was sent to Northwestern University in Chicago, where he earned his commission as an ensign in the Navy. From there, he was sent to Harvard University for 90 days, where he learned everything from breaking coded enemy messages to ship-to-shore communications.

Askin was then sent to the Philadelphia where he received orders to travel to Pearl Harbor.

There he would be assigned to a new Navy communications team.

"It was something new in the Navy then," Askin said. "They had 12 teams. They had just originated it."

Askin was assigned to Control Team No. 1, where six men - four radiomen and two signalmen - were placed under his command. From then on, Askin and his crew would take part in the march across the Pacific that saw allied troops capture numerous islands from the Japanese. Askin and his men had no easy task. Askin himself was in charge of ship-to-shore communications in numerous landings in the Pacific.

"I kept hopping from island to island on landings," he said. "We had to send all our messages, break code, report all the fatalities and everything that had to do with the war itself."

The first operation Askin took part in was the assault on the Mariana Islands, which included the islands of Saipan, Tinian and Guam. Askin and his men were assigned to the attack Guam with U.S. Marines, who were to take the beachhead codenamed "blue beach."

"We had to conquer that to get the islands, so they could have an airbase," Askin said. "The troops couldn't go in until we gave them the signal to send them in. I saw all the bombarding and everything, and when it finally lifted, we'd hoist the flags."

After securing the three islands, Askin's next assignment was to help liberate the Philippines. There he took part in landings at Subic Bay, Leyte and the Lingayen Gulf, fulfilling Gen. Douglas MacArthur's vow to return to the occupied island. During the landings, Askin and his fellow communications officers were anchored just offshore on a small sub chaser equipped with nothing but radios and other communications equipment.

From their small ship before each landing, Askin and his men would witness the awesome firepower of the U.S. fleet amassed behind them. Massive battleships bombarded the islands with an onslaught of artillery shells, while U.S. fighter planes strafed enemy positions in hopes of softening up Japanese defenses before troops attempted to storm the beaches.

"We had a ringside seat 100 yards offshore and we had to see all that. My boys were kids. They hadn't even graduated high school," Askin said. "The troops would come in on the small ships and make the landing."

The landings at Leyte would also see what was arguably the largest naval battle during World War II and one of the largest ship-to-ship battles in naval military history - the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

"After we took Leyte is when the United States Navy destroyed the Japanese Navy," Askin said. "We were in the area because we were getting ready to make a landing, but we couldn't move."

During the fight, the Japanese mustered what remained of its once formidable fleet to attack Allied forces head-on. It would prove to a tactical error. U.S. forces dealt a crippling blow, damaging and sinking most of the enemy ships.

The Japanese Imperial Navy would never again set sail with such a force for the remainder of the war, according to historical accounts.

After U.S. forces successfully liberated the Philippines, there was no time to rest for Askin and his men. They were again sent into action, this time during two landings on the island of Okinawa.

"The closer we got in operations in going to Tokyo, we saw more aircraft coming in - suicide bombers," Askin said. "We were on a line up ahead so we could sort of protect and give word back behind us what was coming. They came in droves. ..."

While U.S. forces would deal the Japanese defeat after defeat on the march to Japan, they also paid a heavy toll in casualties and wounded men. Askin, whose job included keeping casualty figures, would often see the bodies of the injured and dead as they were loaded onto transport ships.

"I'd see many of these kids come in and you could see their heart where they'd been shot and their hearts (were) wide open," Askin said.

Those who died in combat on the open seas would never have a chance to return home, unlike other soldiers. Each morning, Askin said, the day's dead would be buried at sea, their bodies gently pushed over the sides of ships into the deep below.

"It got to me. Believe me it got to me. A lot of people couldn't stomach it, but I was realistic and I didn't let it bother me. I saw so damn much of it," he said.

Askin's own mortality would worry him at times. It didn't help that he was never much of a swimmer. As a child, he nearly drowned when jumping into a swimming pool. Some nights, he said he would sit in the cool breeze on deck against an ammunition case, looking out upon the endless ocean surrounding him.

"I used to think about the poem I read in school, 'The Ancient Mariner.' I didn't know the whole poem, but I knew part of it and I used to sit out there and get that cool breeze and I used to recite it," he said. "Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink."

There wasn't much time to dwell on the unknown, however. After Okinawa was taken, Askin and his men were sent back to Subic Bay. where they learned they would receive some rest at Pearl Harbor. They would need it. With Tokyo ever closer in Allied sights, the inevitable - an invasion of the Japanese mainland - would likely come soon, they thought.

As fate would have it, while Askin and his men were awaiting transport back to Pearl Harbor, U.S. troops stationed on Subic Bay received word of the Japanese surrender following the devastation wreaked by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The war was over.

"When Japan surrendered and the war ended, they went crazy, the American troops on the island. They were shooting their own guns and you had to be careful or they might shoot you too," Askin said.

After the war, Askin remained in the Navy a short while longer before deciding to retire from the service. He later moved to Charles Town in 1961, where he has lived ever since.

"Like I say, I saw a lot of the war. I had a ringside seat," he said. "When I came back, my mind was clear. I didn't have any trouble, but I saw a lot of boys (die), a lot of action and a lot of breakdowns."

- Staff writer Edward Marshall can be reached at (304) 263-8931, ext. 182, or emarshall@journal-news.net

Ellie