This will be a fairly long post, but I found a treasure trove of info on my Grandfather's service and life in WWII. He was drafted in 1943 at the age of 36 He was a typesetter for the Galveston News newspaper. He completed basic infantry training and was assigned to the E Co. 2nd Battalion 147 Infantry Regiment (parent unit was 37 Infantry Division) and saw service on Iwo Jima as an Infantryman. He returned home in July 1945 due to his mother being gravely ill and he was the only caretaker. In his letters he constantly mentions sending money orders home and how much he misses my grandmother. Sadly he passed away in 1957 when my dad was only 8, but after reading his letters I would have loved to spent some time with him. Here are some interesting things I have found so far, with much more stuff to go through:

Draft Notice



Infantryman



Crossing the Equator




Reading Material








Souvenirs from Iwo Jima





Parts from Japanese planes/tanks



Japanese Field Manual for some weapon




Here's a sample of the amount of letters he wrote to my grandmother (the pictures don't so justice, easily around 300 letters here)



Although dated from 1956, I can only assume this was a duplicate to replace the lost original, or due to being discharged early he didn't receive it at the same time as everyone else. I also find it interesting that many land battles of the Pacific fell under the Air Offensive Japan Campaign



CIB Orders. This is a 15 page packet with every man in the regiment awarded the CIB for combat against the enemy. His name is 8 or 9 pages in under E Company



That's all for now. Interesting stuff for sure. His parent division was a NG Division made up of men from Ohio. however his Regiment was detached and saw service on Guadalcanal, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. On Iwo they landed after the island was "secure" and set about rooting out the holdouts from Japanese defenders. His letters don't speak of combat, except for one bit of "excitement" as he called it. I have seen bits of letters cut out by the censors too. Still tons of stuff to look at.

That's a treasure trove! What a cool collection to have from your grandfather.

Lol at the "Honorary Aryan" on the Japanese figure's collar.

That was awesome. Thanks for sharing.

On a related note, I just found out that I will become the recipient of what remains of my grandfather's WWII uniform, medals and service ribbons. That is literally the only thing that I actually want to inherit. I'm lucky enough to have been just old enough to have heard those first hand stories from him about the "dirty, nasty Japs".

In my professional career, I've made about 7 business trips to Japan. Japan is great but, I'll never forget what they are capable of which is quite a bit.