Remembering the Battle of Midway

From the moment the Japanese flew back to their carriers from Pearl Harbor, my father was no longer that fresh faced boy from the Missouri Ozarks

Seventy-three years ago the United States Navy dealt a strategic blow to the Japanese plan to dominate the South Pacific and my father, Conrad R. Frieze, was there.

My father and his brother Richard had been at Kaneohe Bay on December 7th, 1941 and together fought back against the Japanese attack from he waist hatch of a PBY w: the ith a 50 caliber machine gun.  Uncle Dick even shot down a Japanese zero.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was not only a blow to the United States military with losses of ships and airplanes and some 2,000 soldiers and sailors, but it was a blow psychologically.  Years later my father wrote that he never felt the same again.  He'd gone from being a 19 year old sailor stationed in paradise, scheduled to take an entrance exam for Annapolis. Midway was booster shot to his psychology and that of the United States.

From the moment the Japanese flew back to their carriers from Pearl Harbor, my father was no longer that fresh faced boy from the Missouri Ozarks and by June of 1942 he was a fighting man and the gunner on a PBY.  The PBY was not a fast or glamorous airplane, but it was the workhorse of the Navy and much loved by him.  PBYs were instrumental in locating the Japanese fleet on their way to Midway and by the end of the battle, the one my father was on flew circles around a Japanese lifeboat, my father's 50 cal trained on the officers therein, until a rescue could be exacted by the Navy.

When my father's plane returned to base a messenger sought out my father with the cap device from a Japanese lietenant and with it was the message  "Tell the gunner thank you for not killing us." That and a sword, which came from where I know not and disappeared by my father's death, were among his momentos of the war.

In 1967 Walter Lord published his book Incredible Victory: the Battle of Midway.  My father, now working at the Boeing Company as an aeronautical engineer and an executive, read the book in the early 1970s and saw a picture of the Japanese officers he hadn't killed.  Through his connections at Boeing and the National Archives he was able to track down the men in the boat.  All were still living and the lieutenant was now Retired Rear Admirable Mandai. 

By this time my father had been traveling all over the world, including to Japan, on a regular basis selling first the 727 on through the 747 and saw an opportunity to create publicity for Boeing and to meet the men he didn't kill.  With help from Boeing a meeting and photo op in Tokyo was arranged (one of the men, for whom the war had not ended, refused to attend) and my father got to meet them and present the cap device to Admiral Mandai.  The tall stately man refused to take it back, declaring that it was my father's war trophy.

After that my father and step mother became friends with Admiral Mandai and his wife.  They did the tourist bit around Tokyo with them and the Mandais made visits to Seattle where my father got to be tour guide. 

I don't think as my father watched the Japanese planes disappear on December 7th, 1941 that my father could have ever imagined that one day he would be friends with a Japanese officer or that he still contained enough humanity to save his life.  I am glad for both.

 

Incredible Victory, Incredible Journey

Today is the 70^th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of Midway that lasted from June 4^th to 6^th, 1942.  Coming less than six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor it was important not only strategically, but psychologically.

Forewarned of the Japanese plan of attack, PBY Navy airplanes were used to scout the open sea for the Japanese Navy. During the early hours of 4 June 1942 four PBY 5As torpedoed the Japanese oiler Maru.  Among the four aircraft carriers sunk that day was the Hiryu and aboard was an ensign named Mandai. Ordered to abandon ship Mandai ended up in the water just in time before the Hiryu was scuttled by the Makigumo.  He swam for his life, made it to a life boat. 

Overhead a PBY circled the life boat; its gunner trained his machine gun on the boat until the survivors were picked up by the American ship USS Ballard.  When the PBY returned to base the gunner, my father, Conrad R. Frieze, received a package that turned out to be the cap device of Ensign Mandai and a note thanking “the young gunner” for not shooting him.  It was a noble gesture that impressed my twenty year old father.

The war ended three years later.  My father completed his education at Oregon State, became an aeronautical engineer and went to work for the Boeing Company.  The purchase of Walter Lord’s Incredible Victory, the Battle of Midway in the 1970s brought my father to an incredible discovery.  My father recognized Ensign Mandai in a picture in Lord’s book.  Now he had a name. 

Because my father’s job now took him all over the world, including to Japan, he was able to track down Ensign Mandai who was by then Retired Admiral Mandai.  With the very willing help of the Boeing Company a meeting with the life boat survivors was arranged in Tokyo during one of my father’s visits there.  It became a media event.  One of the survivors refused to attend the meeting, but the tall even by American standards Admiral Mandai was among those in attendance and when my father offered to return the cap device Mandai had sent to him all those years before he declined to take it, saying that it was my father’s war trophy.

Time and experience seeing the world had cooled the anger and hatred that the attack on Pearl Harbor had flamed in my father on December 7^th when he and his brother Dick had fought back at Kaneohe NAS. Admiral Mandai and my father became friends, trading visits with their wives in Japan and Seattle.  It was heartening to have this proof that we are all just people.