WEBVTT - Robert E Bush: from high school to hell and back 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:24.476 Bushkin picture of Winter's Day in nineteen forty one. At 0:00:24.516 --> 0:00:28.276 Willapa Valley High School, a pale stone building in the 0:00:28.316 --> 0:00:31.836 little town of Menlo, nestled in the southwestern corner of 0:00:31.956 --> 0:00:36.716 Washington State, Excitement was running high in the classrooms, more 0:00:36.756 --> 0:00:40.196 than the usual amount of chatter. Was a Monday in December, 0:00:40.596 --> 0:00:43.716 December eighth, to be exact, the day after Pearl Harbor, 0:00:44.436 --> 0:00:46.916 there was a lot to talk about. The atmosphere was 0:00:46.956 --> 0:00:50.356 thick with anticipation and fear. As the teachers urged the 0:00:50.396 --> 0:00:54.236 students to settle down, a voice came across the PA system. 0:00:54.436 --> 0:00:57.956 It was the school superintendent. The whole building leaned in 0:00:58.036 --> 0:01:02.596 to hear him speak. It's official. He told them, We're 0:01:02.636 --> 0:01:07.316 going to war. Robert Eugene Bush, a ninth grader with 0:01:07.396 --> 0:01:10.356 a thick shock of dark hair at a somewhat devilish smile, 0:01:10.836 --> 0:01:14.836 listened intently. He was too young to fight, just fifteen 0:01:14.876 --> 0:01:17.356 years old, living at home with his mom and sister. 0:01:17.716 --> 0:01:20.356 But in the months that followed he watched as friend 0:01:20.716 --> 0:01:24.676 after friend left Willipa Valley to serve, and he mourned 0:01:24.716 --> 0:01:26.956 with the rest of the little community when they got 0:01:26.996 --> 0:01:30.316 the news that some of those teenage soldiers would never return. 0:01:31.156 --> 0:01:34.236 So the moment Bob turned seventeen, the age when you 0:01:34.236 --> 0:01:38.796 could enlist with parental permission, he joined the military. He 0:01:38.916 --> 0:01:42.716 and another football player both signed up for the Navy Reserves. 0:01:43.796 --> 0:01:46.916 He would be a medical specialist, a corman. Like so 0:01:46.996 --> 0:01:49.436 many of the characters we'd met in this series, he 0:01:49.476 --> 0:01:52.956 wanted to do something that would save lives, but he 0:01:52.996 --> 0:01:54.996 had no real sense of what it was actually like 0:01:55.236 --> 0:01:58.356 to be a corman in combat. He was a teenager, 0:01:58.676 --> 0:02:02.316 caught up in the patriotic spirit, full of energy. He 0:02:02.396 --> 0:02:05.316 made an impulsive decision that would change the shape of 0:02:05.356 --> 0:02:08.596 his life, and just a handful of months later, Bob 0:02:08.636 --> 0:02:12.756 would make another split second decision, one that would forever 0:02:12.836 --> 0:02:18.236 change someone else's life too, him Malcolm Glawell. This is 0:02:18.316 --> 0:02:22.036 Medal of Honor Stories of Courage. The Medal of Honor 0:02:22.116 --> 0:02:25.836 is the highest military decoration in the United States, awarded 0:02:25.876 --> 0:02:29.476 for gallantry and bravery in combat the risk of life, 0:02:29.596 --> 0:02:33.036 above and beyond the call of duty. Each candidate must 0:02:33.116 --> 0:02:35.236 be approved all the way up the chain of command, 0:02:35.516 --> 0:02:39.076 from the supervisory officer in the field to the White House. 0:02:39.876 --> 0:02:43.756 This show is about those heroes, what they did, what 0:02:43.876 --> 0:02:46.516 it meant and what their stories tell us about the 0:02:46.596 --> 0:02:51.236 nature of courage and sacrifice. Bob Bush would leave that 0:02:51.276 --> 0:02:54.276 little town of Menlo, Washington, and by the age of eighteen, 0:02:54.556 --> 0:02:57.916 he would find himself at the Battle of Okinawa, the 0:02:57.916 --> 0:03:02.716 bloodiest and fiercest battlefield of the Pacific Theater. His story 0:03:03.156 --> 0:03:06.356 is about bravery and heroism, but it's also the story 0:03:06.396 --> 0:03:10.076 of a kid, one of the youngest recipisdiance of the 0:03:10.116 --> 0:03:13.436 Medal of Honor. He wasn't the only kid at that battle, 0:03:13.796 --> 0:03:16.076 and in this episode, I want to think about that, 0:03:16.636 --> 0:03:19.236 what it means to send someone so young after fight, 0:03:19.716 --> 0:03:23.276 How they forged lives for themselves after that service, how 0:03:23.276 --> 0:03:26.876 it shaped them, what they learned. In a way, this 0:03:26.916 --> 0:03:31.876 is a story about inheritance. Herbert Hoover famously said, older 0:03:31.876 --> 0:03:34.836 men declare war, but it is youth that must fight 0:03:34.916 --> 0:03:38.716 and die, And it is youth who must inherit the tribulation, 0:03:39.356 --> 0:03:42.876 the sorrow, and the triumphs that are the aftermath of war. 0:03:43.756 --> 0:03:54.916 How do we reconcile those things. To get a sense 0:03:54.956 --> 0:03:56.916 of why Bob Bush went to war as young as 0:03:56.916 --> 0:03:59.116 he did, you have to know a little bit about 0:03:59.116 --> 0:04:02.796 his family situation. He was brought up by a tough 0:04:02.876 --> 0:04:05.116 and hard working Irish Catholic mom. 0:04:05.796 --> 0:04:08.636 I was raised by my mother, a single parent who 0:04:08.716 --> 0:04:13.036 was a registered nurse, and during the course of my upbringing, 0:04:13.756 --> 0:04:16.076 my sister and I lived in the hospital that she 0:04:16.276 --> 0:04:18.476 ran in a small lumbering town. 0:04:19.476 --> 0:04:22.436 He watched his mother tend to patience and take care 0:04:22.476 --> 0:04:25.796 of her family as best she could. But Bob to 0:04:25.836 --> 0:04:27.636 hear him tell, it was a handful. 0:04:28.156 --> 0:04:31.716 I had an unruly life, you might say, because of 0:04:31.756 --> 0:04:34.556 the lack of a father, but that put a little 0:04:34.596 --> 0:04:35.476 chip on my shoulder. 0:04:36.196 --> 0:04:39.556 He played football for the team at his tiny high school, Willipa, 0:04:39.916 --> 0:04:42.716 only had about twenty five kids per grade. He had 0:04:42.756 --> 0:04:46.916 a girlfriend, an adorable blonde named Wanda spoot Well. Wanda 0:04:46.956 --> 0:04:49.876 had two boyfriends, both vining to go steady with her. 0:04:50.236 --> 0:04:54.196 He kept Bob on his toes. But humming underneath all 0:04:54.236 --> 0:04:57.556 of these small town teenage goings on was the war. 0:04:58.476 --> 0:05:01.436 It was happening thousands of miles away, but it felt 0:05:01.476 --> 0:05:04.836 personal to Bob. He knew all those friends and teammates 0:05:05.076 --> 0:05:06.236 who were going off to fight. 0:05:07.156 --> 0:05:11.036 I lived in the community that had sixty seven young 0:05:11.116 --> 0:05:15.236 man killed in World War Two, and the total population 0:05:15.836 --> 0:05:19.356 was less than ten thousand and always young men. They 0:05:19.356 --> 0:05:22.196 came from my schools. The full back on our football 0:05:22.236 --> 0:05:24.516 team died on the Bataan death Marks. 0:05:25.396 --> 0:05:29.036 As his seventeenth birthday approached, he started thinking about getting 0:05:29.036 --> 0:05:31.516 out there with them. He would have to ask his 0:05:31.556 --> 0:05:35.116 mother's permission to enlist that young but his mom, as 0:05:35.116 --> 0:05:37.276 I mentioned, was a no nonsense lady. 0:05:38.076 --> 0:05:41.276 I was in the third year of high school and 0:05:41.516 --> 0:05:44.236 my mother said, Bobby, you're not the smartest kid in 0:05:44.276 --> 0:05:49.236 the class. And I kind of chuckled, so I said, well, 0:05:49.436 --> 0:05:52.276 maybe I'll go in the service. Her feeling was that 0:05:52.596 --> 0:05:54.596 if I wanted to go, that was fine, and my 0:05:54.956 --> 0:05:58.396 feeling was that we were in a war, so I 0:05:58.436 --> 0:05:59.636 could go out there and I could make it a 0:05:59.636 --> 0:06:00.316 little difference. 0:06:00.996 --> 0:06:04.036 I can imagine his mother staring into the deep set 0:06:04.036 --> 0:06:07.676 eyes of her only son, thinking, maybe this will be 0:06:07.716 --> 0:06:11.676 the thing that gives him responsible ability structure. She must 0:06:11.716 --> 0:06:15.196 have been filled with equal parts hope and terror. Wouldn't 0:06:15.236 --> 0:06:19.356 any parent feel that way. Bob certainly wasn't worried. He 0:06:19.396 --> 0:06:23.796 was a teenage boy. They feel invincible, blindly optimistic. He 0:06:23.876 --> 0:06:26.116 was running on adrenaline and a testosterone. 0:06:26.476 --> 0:06:29.876 I just thinking about this would be an adventure. Of 0:06:29.876 --> 0:06:32.356 course you're looking for fun. Seventeen. 0:06:33.516 --> 0:06:36.276 In the late fall of nineteen forty three, Bob and 0:06:36.316 --> 0:06:39.156 a friend from his football team went to enlist together. 0:06:39.756 --> 0:06:42.116 They both chose the Naval Reserves. 0:06:42.476 --> 0:06:47.636 The Navy was always my service of choice, and also 0:06:47.716 --> 0:06:49.396 I thought, well, if I go on the Navy, I 0:06:49.396 --> 0:06:52.636 can sleep in clean sheets every night. Well it didn't 0:06:52.636 --> 0:06:54.796 work out that way, but that was my plan. And 0:06:54.836 --> 0:06:58.516 then by living in the hospital and having jobs to 0:06:58.556 --> 0:07:02.436 do in hospital, and decided that the Medical Corps might 0:07:02.476 --> 0:07:03.236 be for me. 0:07:04.116 --> 0:07:07.396 His medical training with the Navy Hospital Corps lasted less 0:07:07.436 --> 0:07:09.996 than a year before he was sent to Camp Pendleton 0:07:10.076 --> 0:07:13.196 in California to join a Marine battalion as their corman. 0:07:13.716 --> 0:07:15.716 There he learned to handle weapons. 0:07:16.076 --> 0:07:19.756 When you're talking about rising guns and Thompson submachine guns 0:07:19.756 --> 0:07:23.796 and air cool machine guns and water cool machine guns 0:07:23.836 --> 0:07:27.556 and drowning automatic rifles and him one rifles, I mean, 0:07:27.596 --> 0:07:31.236 these are big stuff for a kid seventeen years old. 0:07:31.996 --> 0:07:34.916 You can still hear it in his voice, the excitement 0:07:34.956 --> 0:07:37.076 of a kid with a bunch of fun new toys. 0:07:37.636 --> 0:07:40.556 But this training also drove home the point that he 0:07:40.596 --> 0:07:44.156 wouldn't just be saving lives. He might be taking them too. 0:07:45.396 --> 0:07:47.756 That became all the more clear a few months after 0:07:47.796 --> 0:07:50.396 his eighteenth birthday, when he got on a ship with 0:07:50.436 --> 0:07:54.956 the rest of his battalion. They were headed to Okinawa, Japan. 0:07:57.756 --> 0:08:01.556 Okinawa is one of the Ryuk Islands, located southwest of 0:08:01.556 --> 0:08:04.916 the Japanese mainland. The Allies saw it as a lynchpin 0:08:04.996 --> 0:08:07.836 to the war in the Pacific, which by nineteen forty 0:08:07.836 --> 0:08:11.836 five had been dragging on for nearly four years. Okinawa 0:08:11.956 --> 0:08:14.436 would give the Allies an air base close enough to 0:08:14.476 --> 0:08:18.316 bomb the Japanese home islands, plus an ideal place to 0:08:18.396 --> 0:08:22.996 station the Allied naval fleet, and possibly even plan and 0:08:23.116 --> 0:08:25.236 invasion of the Japanese homeland. 0:08:25.356 --> 0:08:29.196 Okinawa will provide an offensive base against Formosa, the China coast, 0:08:29.436 --> 0:08:33.796 or Japan itself, only three hundred and sixty five miles away. 0:08:33.956 --> 0:08:36.836 Okinawa hadn't always been a part of the Japanese Empire. 0:08:37.156 --> 0:08:39.636 It was only an ex in the late nineteenth century. 0:08:40.076 --> 0:08:43.436 Many Japanese considered the people of Okinawa to be inferior, 0:08:43.996 --> 0:08:47.596 second class citizens of the Empire. Once the war began, 0:08:47.876 --> 0:08:51.076 the Okinawans had been pressured to prove their worthiness to 0:08:51.116 --> 0:08:54.556 the Japanese cause, so they had been pressed into service. 0:08:55.196 --> 0:08:59.516 Adult men joined the Japanese Army or the local defense Corps. 0:08:59.636 --> 0:09:03.396 Some two thousand high school students were drafted to The 0:09:03.476 --> 0:09:06.356 boys went into the Blood and Iron Student Corps and 0:09:06.396 --> 0:09:09.836 were ready to fight. The girls became nurses members of 0:09:09.836 --> 0:09:14.356 the Himiurikorps. Some were as young as fifteen. In other 0:09:14.396 --> 0:09:17.556 battles of the Pacific, civilians weren't part of the action. 0:09:17.996 --> 0:09:22.076 Gauadalcanal had been a military base, and the civilian population 0:09:22.396 --> 0:09:27.196 on Iwojima had been evacuated before that battle began, But 0:09:27.276 --> 0:09:30.756 in the spring of nineteen forty five, almost five hundred 0:09:30.756 --> 0:09:34.516 thousand civilians were living on Okinawa. They would be in 0:09:34.556 --> 0:09:40.596 the middle of whatever conflict was to come. On April first, 0:09:41.156 --> 0:09:45.516 Easter Sunday. It came that morning. Bob Bush was on 0:09:45.556 --> 0:09:49.156 the first wave of transport boats. Everyone in the American 0:09:49.196 --> 0:09:53.076 fleet knew what this kind of invasion looked like. Normandy 0:09:53.356 --> 0:09:56.876 had happened the previous summer, Ewojima had just been the 0:09:56.916 --> 0:09:59.956 month before. In both cases, the Allies had faced an 0:10:00.036 --> 0:10:03.836 enemy with dug in defenses. The Americans had been mowed 0:10:03.876 --> 0:10:07.396 down just as quickly as they landed for Okinawa. The 0:10:07.436 --> 0:10:13.396 command expected and eighty percent casualty rate at minimum. 0:10:13.716 --> 0:10:17.156 The night before, we were told that the entire first division, 0:10:17.196 --> 0:10:21.036 the first Marine Division, was expendable. That means that we're 0:10:21.076 --> 0:10:25.436 going to lose everybody, and that really didn't make for 0:10:25.476 --> 0:10:26.396 a happy camper. 0:10:27.556 --> 0:10:30.276 As the sun rose on that Easter morning, Bob and 0:10:30.316 --> 0:10:32.876 the rest of his company and marines looked out on 0:10:32.996 --> 0:10:36.076 what would be the largest amphibious assault ever mounted in 0:10:36.116 --> 0:10:40.316 the Pacific. There were fifteen hundred ships and half a 0:10:40.316 --> 0:10:44.956 million men. About sixty thousand would go ashore on that 0:10:44.996 --> 0:10:45.556 first day. 0:10:45.836 --> 0:10:48.076 As far as you could see, there were ships. And 0:10:48.116 --> 0:10:50.716 I gave you a certain amount of confidence when you 0:10:50.716 --> 0:10:55.116 could see this amount of transports and aircraft carriers and 0:10:55.196 --> 0:11:00.156 battleships and unit cruisers and just innumerable amount of them. 0:11:00.236 --> 0:11:01.876 And so we thought, well, there's going to be a 0:11:01.916 --> 0:11:02.556 piece of cake. 0:11:03.596 --> 0:11:06.876 The troop transports skipped across the surf towards the island. 0:11:07.476 --> 0:11:10.476 As land got closer, Bob was filled with dread. 0:11:11.156 --> 0:11:14.196 I noticed that our boat was a boat length in 0:11:14.236 --> 0:11:17.436 front of everybody else, and I told the squad leader 0:11:17.876 --> 0:11:20.116 stand next to me, I said, why don't you tell 0:11:20.196 --> 0:11:22.396 him to slow this thing down. We don't need to 0:11:22.436 --> 0:11:23.476 be the first one there. 0:11:25.596 --> 0:11:28.156 But when the men landed on the island, there was 0:11:28.676 --> 0:11:34.956 weirdly nothing, no barrage of fire, no hailstorm of motor shells. 0:11:35.636 --> 0:11:37.716 There wasn't a shot fire on the beach. 0:11:38.316 --> 0:11:42.396 It was eerily quiet. It seemed so easy, But that 0:11:42.476 --> 0:11:45.356 peaceful landing hit a horrible secret. 0:11:45.916 --> 0:11:49.636 The Japanese had elected to let us on board and 0:11:49.676 --> 0:11:51.276 then nail us after we got there. 0:11:52.156 --> 0:11:55.076 They would wait and let the Allied forces work their 0:11:55.116 --> 0:11:55.876 way inland. 0:11:56.356 --> 0:11:56.596 There. 0:11:56.636 --> 0:12:00.876 The terrain gave the Japanese troops an extraordinary advantage. The 0:12:00.916 --> 0:12:03.196 island was covered in ridge lines, and each one of 0:12:03.236 --> 0:12:07.396 those was poked with concrete tombs, bunkers, and dozens of 0:12:07.476 --> 0:12:11.156 volcanic caves. They could pick the Americans off from the 0:12:11.236 --> 0:12:15.596 high ground. The Japanese soldiers also used the caves as 0:12:15.676 --> 0:12:20.316 foxholes and living spaces. They turned him into hospitals. That's 0:12:20.356 --> 0:12:23.556 where the teenage nurses in the himiurikorps were sent to work. 0:12:24.116 --> 0:12:28.956 So civilians were often indistinguishable from the enemy. Bob learned 0:12:28.996 --> 0:12:32.036 that on his very first day in Okinawa. In fact, 0:12:32.356 --> 0:12:35.476 the first war casualty he saw was a civilian. 0:12:36.156 --> 0:12:40.436 We had a Japanese person run across in front of us, 0:12:40.836 --> 0:12:44.196 and of course we were all trigger happy, and the 0:12:44.636 --> 0:12:50.316 platoon leader ordered him shot, although he wasn't threatening us 0:12:50.356 --> 0:12:52.796 at that point. I checked the guy and he didn't 0:12:52.836 --> 0:12:54.196 have a soldier uniform on. 0:12:54.956 --> 0:12:58.996 The American who killed him was a rifleman named Clyde Petty, who, 0:12:59.036 --> 0:13:03.156 by total coincidence, would also die just hours later. Bob 0:13:03.236 --> 0:13:05.756 saw it happen and tried to save him. 0:13:05.676 --> 0:13:09.556 And I went to Petty's support, and he was and 0:13:09.596 --> 0:13:12.396 I left lunge. I'm out there working on this guy. 0:13:12.956 --> 0:13:15.276 And as soon as I got him that I knew 0:13:15.316 --> 0:13:19.236 I was in trouble. I just scared the hell out 0:13:19.276 --> 0:13:21.036 of me, really, and I looked up and I could 0:13:21.036 --> 0:13:25.836 look into a twenty five caliber Japanese Bold Action rifle. 0:13:26.316 --> 0:13:29.116 I was close enough to see that he was pointing 0:13:29.116 --> 0:13:30.156 that thing right at me. 0:13:31.156 --> 0:13:34.836 Bob was in the crosshairs, but somehow he was still 0:13:34.876 --> 0:13:38.156 able to retreat to safety. He couldn't figure out what 0:13:38.236 --> 0:13:39.956 kept the sniper from shooting at him. 0:13:40.356 --> 0:13:44.836 We found out later that before we got to them, 0:13:45.156 --> 0:13:48.636 a woman came out of that same cave and picked 0:13:48.716 --> 0:13:51.996 up a Japanese soldier that we'd shot and pulled him 0:13:52.036 --> 0:13:55.836 back in and while the woman came out, we didn't 0:13:55.876 --> 0:13:59.756 fire on her because she was giving medical attention to him. 0:14:00.076 --> 0:14:03.076 It seemed like the two sides had some kind of understanding. 0:14:03.556 --> 0:14:06.596 The US soldiers didn't shoot the female medic who emerged 0:14:06.596 --> 0:14:09.636 from the cave, who was most likely of the girls 0:14:09.636 --> 0:14:13.556 from the Himayuri Nursing Corps, and the Japanese snipers didn't 0:14:13.596 --> 0:14:16.876 shoot at Bob For at least a moment on that 0:14:16.956 --> 0:14:20.076 first day of fighting, the teenaged medics on both sides 0:14:20.076 --> 0:14:23.716 of the conflict must have felt safe, maybe still full 0:14:23.796 --> 0:14:27.516 of that youthful exuberance and hope. But that was just 0:14:27.596 --> 0:14:30.956 the first day, and both the Japanese command and the 0:14:30.996 --> 0:14:36.396 Allies had already decided everyone on the island was expendable. 0:14:50.756 --> 0:14:54.036 May nineteen forty five, the Battle of Okinawa had been 0:14:54.036 --> 0:14:57.956 going on for a month. It was proceeding exactly as 0:14:57.956 --> 0:15:02.076 the Japanese had planned, a war of attrition, with casualties 0:15:02.156 --> 0:15:06.196 ticking up on both sides and a resolution desperately out 0:15:06.196 --> 0:15:06.596 of reach. 0:15:07.396 --> 0:15:11.196 Campaign to win Okinawa soon developed into a desperate and 0:15:11.236 --> 0:15:15.836 prolonged struggle. And you were both caves and hidden pill boxes, Honeycomb, 0:15:15.916 --> 0:15:19.556 the island ridges, the Yanks cannot advance until every cave 0:15:19.636 --> 0:15:22.076 is filed and every pill box smashed. 0:15:23.436 --> 0:15:28.636 It was a crushing, demoralizing battle, constant bombardment from artillery 0:15:28.676 --> 0:15:32.476 and mortars, the smell of death everywhere. Thousands of bodies 0:15:32.556 --> 0:15:37.556 American military, Japanese soldiers, local civilians lay where they had fallen. 0:15:38.236 --> 0:15:42.036 You have to be almost walking over them because there's 0:15:42.036 --> 0:15:43.276 so many of them that are dead. 0:15:43.836 --> 0:15:46.396 And the Americans had to grapple with the grim realization 0:15:46.836 --> 0:15:50.916 that Okinawan families and children were being caught in the crossfire. 0:15:51.556 --> 0:15:55.036 Bob remembers how hard it was to differentiate between the 0:15:55.156 --> 0:15:58.316 enemy and the terrified, starving civilians. 0:15:58.716 --> 0:16:00.756 If somebody comes out and hungry, they fed them. If 0:16:00.756 --> 0:16:04.516 they come out and they needed medically, we wouldn't usually 0:16:04.676 --> 0:16:08.676 fire on anybody unless they fired on us first. I mean, 0:16:08.756 --> 0:16:11.356 if they had a weapon that was even pointed vaguely 0:16:11.716 --> 0:16:14.796 toward us, so they got it. But if they weren't firing, 0:16:14.956 --> 0:16:15.636 then we didn't. 0:16:16.356 --> 0:16:19.516 Bob's days were nothing like the wild adventure that he'd 0:16:19.636 --> 0:16:22.596 envision back home in Menlo. It was just a long, 0:16:23.156 --> 0:16:26.956 rainy slog, forcing the men in his company to take 0:16:26.996 --> 0:16:30.676 their malaria medicine, which everyone hated eating beans out of 0:16:30.716 --> 0:16:34.196 a can. But he felt like his marines were watching 0:16:34.196 --> 0:16:37.236 out for him, which of course they were. He might 0:16:37.276 --> 0:16:39.916 have only been eighteen, but he was the first line 0:16:39.956 --> 0:16:41.996 of medical care on the battlefield. 0:16:42.436 --> 0:16:46.316 We knew how expendable we were, and everybody kept their 0:16:46.396 --> 0:16:49.436 cool and they kept fighting, and they just did a 0:16:49.436 --> 0:16:52.316 beautiful job of keeping us protected to. 0:16:53.796 --> 0:16:56.676 Thirty two days into the invasion, on the day that 0:16:56.796 --> 0:17:00.316 changed the course of Bob Bush's life, it became clear 0:17:00.436 --> 0:17:03.196 that really no one was safe. 0:17:04.036 --> 0:17:07.716 The morning of May second, nineteen forty five, it was 0:17:07.756 --> 0:17:12.876 a typical morning of fighting on Okinawa. Our patoon leader, 0:17:13.556 --> 0:17:17.836 Lieutenant James Roach, elected to make the statement that he 0:17:17.876 --> 0:17:20.836 would take a squad of men because our mission that 0:17:20.956 --> 0:17:23.716 day was to take a certain hill by eight thirty 0:17:23.756 --> 0:17:26.916 in the morning. Well, my feeling was he should have 0:17:26.996 --> 0:17:29.836 taken the whole team down or to fight that hill, 0:17:30.076 --> 0:17:34.156 rather than take one squad of nineteen men out on 0:17:34.196 --> 0:17:36.996 a hill and do the things that he did. But 0:17:37.236 --> 0:17:39.836 that was his decision. So that left two thirds of 0:17:39.876 --> 0:17:42.916 our people up on the ridge looking so they could 0:17:42.956 --> 0:17:45.116 see everything that was going on. I was like a theater, 0:17:45.716 --> 0:17:47.636 and we set up our machine guns up on the 0:17:47.716 --> 0:17:50.516 hill and He went down with his nineteen men down 0:17:50.556 --> 0:17:53.716 through the ravine and got to the base of the hill, 0:17:54.036 --> 0:17:55.356 and all hill broke loose. 0:17:56.316 --> 0:17:59.356 The nineteen men, with Jim Roach at the lead, were 0:17:59.396 --> 0:18:04.636 immediately surrounded by Japanese troops. They were massively outnumbered. Bob 0:18:04.716 --> 0:18:06.876 was up in the ridge watching it all happen. 0:18:07.516 --> 0:18:10.836 Where the hell they came from? Nobody. But in the meantime, 0:18:11.276 --> 0:18:15.756 Jim Roach got hit and the platoon sergeant said, well, 0:18:16.156 --> 0:18:18.556 Roach is hit out there. What are you thinking. Well, 0:18:18.796 --> 0:18:22.196 the rules of the road where the Navy coremans are 0:18:22.236 --> 0:18:24.756 that if you're going to threaten your own life to 0:18:24.796 --> 0:18:28.156 go out and get him, you're better off to reserve 0:18:28.276 --> 0:18:31.116 that because you got fifty seven war men to take 0:18:31.156 --> 0:18:34.196 care of. And I never adhered too much to that, 0:18:34.316 --> 0:18:36.796 but that was the rule, that was the teaching. 0:18:37.676 --> 0:18:40.596 Bob had to make a split second decision. Should he 0:18:40.636 --> 0:18:42.756 put his own life in danger to go to Roach 0:18:42.876 --> 0:18:46.196 down in the ravine. He wasn't supposed to risk everything 0:18:46.236 --> 0:18:49.756 for one person, but he was sure Roach was alive, 0:18:50.396 --> 0:18:52.076 maybe not for much longer. 0:18:52.236 --> 0:18:53.996 So I said, I can get out there to him. 0:18:54.196 --> 0:18:56.836 I ran across the field rapidly and I got to 0:18:56.916 --> 0:19:00.676 him in a foxhole in a shell hole. I took 0:19:00.716 --> 0:19:03.916 a can of albumum, which is a blood plasma, because 0:19:03.916 --> 0:19:07.756 his eyes were dilating and he was slipping away. I said, Jim, 0:19:08.036 --> 0:19:10.196 you're in good shape. Can see that. We're going to 0:19:10.236 --> 0:19:11.676 fix you right up, and we're going to get you 0:19:11.716 --> 0:19:13.876 out of here. So I got him going with a IV. 0:19:14.676 --> 0:19:17.956 And then I looked up on the hill and not 0:19:18.556 --> 0:19:21.996 thirty feet away I saw a Japanese head, a superior 0:19:22.076 --> 0:19:23.676 private with a helmet. 0:19:24.796 --> 0:19:27.716 Bob was holding the blood plasma high up with one 0:19:27.716 --> 0:19:30.756 hand so that it would flow into the IV. With 0:19:30.876 --> 0:19:34.996 his other hand, he started grasping for Roach's rifle, all 0:19:35.076 --> 0:19:38.036 the while refusing to let that can of plasma drop. 0:19:38.916 --> 0:19:42.156 I was feeling for his carbing, because I know my 0:19:42.276 --> 0:19:44.916 forty five that's in my shoulder rolls to you. It 0:19:44.956 --> 0:19:48.076 won't work too well when you're trying to get a target. 0:19:48.276 --> 0:19:51.676 The enemy's soldier was taking aim, but Bob grabbed the 0:19:51.756 --> 0:19:54.876 rifle with one hand, raised it and pulled off the 0:19:54.876 --> 0:20:00.196 first shot, still holding the plasma, still tending to Roach. 0:20:00.676 --> 0:20:03.196 And then another head came up. 0:20:03.836 --> 0:20:06.636 Bob swung the gun around and fired again. 0:20:07.396 --> 0:20:10.596 Another head. I don't know what I was thinking. About, 0:20:10.636 --> 0:20:12.836 but I was thinking one thing that if they're going 0:20:12.916 --> 0:20:14.836 to take me, by God, they're going to pay the bill. 0:20:15.996 --> 0:20:20.276 By that time, I had Jim Roach kind of coming around. 0:20:20.356 --> 0:20:23.276 He had a bad shoulder injury, and if we put 0:20:23.356 --> 0:20:26.556 compresses on it, and I did, I got him kind 0:20:26.556 --> 0:20:28.836 of going in a manner that we could get him 0:20:28.836 --> 0:20:29.836 off the battlefield. 0:20:30.876 --> 0:20:34.076 The Marines brought Jim Roach up to safety, but Bob 0:20:34.196 --> 0:20:37.196 was still stuck down in the ravine, and those shots 0:20:37.636 --> 0:20:38.636 had drawn more attention. 0:20:39.396 --> 0:20:42.076 The Japanese looked down and saw me there, and they 0:20:42.076 --> 0:20:44.836 threw hand grenade down. As soon as that came down, 0:20:45.196 --> 0:20:48.396 I threw my arm up like that and it protected 0:20:48.436 --> 0:20:51.036 my left eye, but I lost my right eye, and 0:20:51.036 --> 0:20:52.716 he hit me with three hand grenades. 0:20:55.076 --> 0:20:58.156 Three grenades one would have been enough to kill him, 0:20:58.356 --> 0:21:01.316 but he was unbelievably lucky. Yes, he had shoppnel in 0:21:01.356 --> 0:21:04.036 a lung and an arm. He lost an eye, but 0:21:04.396 --> 0:21:08.756 I probably Bob was alive. In fact, he attempted to 0:21:08.836 --> 0:21:12.116 walk back up the ridge to the battelaid station by himself. 0:21:12.716 --> 0:21:16.396 He refused medical treatment until he was sure that Roach 0:21:16.556 --> 0:21:23.316 had been safely evacuated. Finally Bob collapsed. He saved Jim 0:21:23.396 --> 0:21:25.996 Roach's life. With the plasma in one hand and a 0:21:26.076 --> 0:21:28.636 rifle in the other, he had made a split second 0:21:28.636 --> 0:21:32.476 decision that was remarkable in its bravery. He was eighteen 0:21:32.556 --> 0:21:37.476 years old. Bob Bush's grand teenage adventure hadn't quite turned 0:21:37.476 --> 0:21:40.476 out the way he'd hoped, but war rarely does. 0:21:41.436 --> 0:21:43.476 I said, will you gotta get me patched up? I 0:21:43.516 --> 0:21:46.476 got to get home, and then I was thinking of home. 0:21:47.556 --> 0:21:49.836 He was still a kid. He wanted to go home, 0:21:50.476 --> 0:21:54.276 and now he could. When Bob Bush joined up, he 0:21:54.356 --> 0:21:56.396 thought about war the way he would have thought about 0:21:56.396 --> 0:22:00.436 a football game, two sides, one winner. I can imagine 0:22:00.436 --> 0:22:03.476 that the teenagers serving on the other side envisioned it 0:22:03.556 --> 0:22:07.196 in the same unambiguous way. But the young medics of 0:22:07.236 --> 0:22:10.036 the Himiuri Corps were facing a sa situation that was 0:22:10.076 --> 0:22:13.876 even more dire. Trapped in the caves with little training 0:22:14.196 --> 0:22:17.916 and even fewer medical supplies, unable to keep the Japanese 0:22:17.956 --> 0:22:22.276 soldiers and their fellow okinawan's from dying. In the book 0:22:22.756 --> 0:22:26.316 Japan at War and Earal History by Haruko Taya Cook 0:22:26.676 --> 0:22:30.956 and Theodore Cook, the authors interviewed Miagi kuk Kuko, one 0:22:30.996 --> 0:22:34.196 of the Hymnayuri girls. She was sixteen when the Battle 0:22:34.196 --> 0:22:38.756 of Okinawa began. She remembers it this way quote, Wounded 0:22:38.796 --> 0:22:42.196 soldiers were being carried into the caves in large numbers. 0:22:42.756 --> 0:22:47.116 Some didn't have faces, some didn't have limbs. At first, 0:22:47.156 --> 0:22:50.276 we were so scared that we wept. Soon we stopped 0:22:50.876 --> 0:22:53.996 outside was a rain of bullets from morning tonight. There 0:22:54.036 --> 0:22:59.116 was no time for sobbing or lamentation. Miyagi and Bob 0:22:59.356 --> 0:23:03.516 shared something important, a belief in a cause and a 0:23:03.556 --> 0:23:06.476 hope that they could save lives. They both had that 0:23:06.676 --> 0:23:11.476 optimism of youth save a life in an extraordinary heroic way. 0:23:12.116 --> 0:23:16.076 Then he got to go home. Miyagi wasn't so lucky. 0:23:16.676 --> 0:23:19.516 Her home was the battlefield. She would have to be 0:23:19.636 --> 0:23:26.516 there until the bitter end. The Battle of Okinawa lasted 0:23:26.556 --> 0:23:31.756 a total of eighty two days. Ultimately, the Allies were victorious. 0:23:32.556 --> 0:23:37.316 Many Japanese soldiers who survived the battle committed suicide instead 0:23:37.316 --> 0:23:41.276 of being captured, and civilians did the same thing. They'd 0:23:41.316 --> 0:23:47.236 been convinced that the Americans would treat them barbarically. Miyagi survived. Later, 0:23:47.396 --> 0:23:51.236 she remembered, quote, We'd been taught and firmly believed that 0:23:51.276 --> 0:23:54.876 we Okinawans must never fall into the hands of the enemy. 0:23:55.716 --> 0:23:59.996 I could think of the Americans only as devils and demons. 0:24:00.996 --> 0:24:04.516 The Japanese army gave the Himiyuri girls grenades and told 0:24:04.556 --> 0:24:08.236 them to use them on themselves. Of the roughly two 0:24:08.276 --> 0:24:12.156