My great uncle Martin Robinson was a 17 year old landing craft driver during Torch and then slightly older at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He said the kamikaze attacks at Okinawa were the worst part of the war. His GQ station was a.30 cal machine gun and they pretty much stayed at GQ for a week. Said a few times he could see the face of the Japanese pilot. He wore hearing aids and Said he lost his hearing at Okinawa from the incessant naval bombardment by ships like the Texas. I suspect hammering on that .30 might have had something to do with it.

When the war ended he had enough points to go home but volunteered to stay and let some of the men who had families but not enough points go home. He said that happened a lot. For his kindness, he got to be part of a recon team that surveyed what was left of Hiroshima a few weeks after the bomb dropped. All before he turned 21.

XUSCR said:

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My great uncle Martin Robinson was a 17 year old landing craft driver during Torch and then slightly older at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He said the kamikaze attacks at Okinawa were the worst part of the war. His GQ station was a.30 cal machine gun and they pretty much stayed at GQ for a week. Said a few times he could see the face of the Japanese pilot. He wore hearing aids and Said he lost his hearing at Okinawa from the incessant naval bombardment by ships like the Texas. I suspect hammering on that .30 might have had something to do with it.

When the war ended he had enough points to go home but volunteered to stay and let some of the men who had families but not enough points go home. He said that happened a lot. For his kindness, he got to be part of a recon team that surveyed what was left of Hiroshima a few weeks after the bomb dropped. All before he turned 21.

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Thank you for the post. Your great uncle's heroics are yet another example defining the Great Generation.

XUSCR said:

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My great uncle Martin Robinson was a 17 year old landing craft driver during Torch and then slightly older at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He said the kamikaze attacks at Okinawa were the worst part of the war. His GQ station was a.30 cal machine gun and they pretty much stayed at GQ for a week. Said a few times he could see the face of the Japanese pilot. He wore hearing aids and Said he lost his hearing at Okinawa from the incessant naval bombardment by ships like the Texas. I suspect hammering on that .30 might have had something to do with it.

When the war ended he had enough points to go home but volunteered to stay and let some of the men who had families but not enough points go home. He said that happened a lot. For his kindness, he got to be part of a recon team that surveyed what was left of Hiroshima a few weeks after the bomb dropped. All before he turned 21.

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Thanks for sharing your uncle's story. All before 21 - very humbling to think about what those people had accomplished when they were still just kids.

XUSCR said:

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My great uncle Martin Robinson was a 17 year old landing craft driver during Torch and then slightly older at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He said the kamikaze attacks at Okinawa were the worst part of the war. His GQ station was a.30 cal machine gun and they pretty much stayed at GQ for a week. Said a few times he could see the face of the Japanese pilot. He wore hearing aids and Said he lost his hearing at Okinawa from the incessant naval bombardment by ships like the Texas. I suspect hammering on that .30 might have had something to do with it.

When the war ended he had enough points to go home but volunteered to stay and let some of the men who had families but not enough points go home. He said that happened a lot. For his kindness, he got to be part of a recon team that surveyed what was left of Hiroshima a few weeks after the bomb dropped. All before he turned 21.

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What a profoundly simple statement to define a generation. Wow. Absolutely incredible.

Wildman15 said:

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XUSCR said:

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My great uncle Martin Robinson was a 17 year old landing craft driver during Torch and then slightly older at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He said the kamikaze attacks at Okinawa were the worst part of the war. His GQ station was a.30 cal machine gun and they pretty much stayed at GQ for a week. Said a few times he could see the face of the Japanese pilot. He wore hearing aids and Said he lost his hearing at Okinawa from the incessant naval bombardment by ships like the Texas. I suspect hammering on that .30 might have had something to do with it.

When the war ended he had enough points to go home but volunteered to stay and let some of the men who had families but not enough points go home. He said that happened a lot. For his kindness, he got to be part of a recon team that surveyed what was left of Hiroshima a few weeks after the bomb dropped. All before he turned 21.

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What a profoundly simple statement to define a generation. Wow. Absolutely incredible.

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I forgot to mention that although I knew him for 50 years, he never mentioned any of this to me or my dad, who is a Navy veteran, until one day when we were at my uncle's house and my father in law (also a Navy veteran) happened to be there and they were sharing their Navy stories. Talking about boot camp and then being in Norfolk (my uncle in 1942 and my dad and FiL in the late 50s and early 60s and suddenly my uncle started talking and we all sat there just wide-eyed and slack-jawed. I couldn't believe he never shared the stories. Luckily, my young junior high aged son (his great great nephew) was there and got to hear it all. My son is now in the FTAB and headed down an Air Force path. I suspect his uncle's story had some influence.

Last note for those of you from Houston. He grew up in Houston. He retired from HISD after 40 years And moved to PA where his wife was from. My great grandmother's shotgun shack house where he and my grandmother lived was at 1818 Polk, now where the George R Brown Convention Center is located. He was a delivery boy in Houston and as part of his job he had to memorize the street grid. He came back from PA to visit a year or two before he died and my mom and dad drove him around Houston, which had changed quite a bit since he moved away. He was in his 80s and still had the grid memorized.

Different breed of cat!