It Was So Much Fun

It Was So Much Fun

By Chuck Ausherman

Recently I attended a program entitled “The Best Generation” sponsored by a local social club. Two World War II veterans presented details of their service in the Army Air Corps as it was called in those days.

They both were primarily involved in numerous bombing raids over German held targets. They spoke of how imprecise bombs were dropped in that period of American warfare.When asked if this meant that innocent civilians were victims of these air raids, there was a nervous chuckle. “I guess you would have to say that happened especially when we bombed surrounding countries.”

Further explanation of these missions detailed how difficult it was to be accurate with military equipment available in those days. “We were trying to destroy German military supply lines, like bridges and roads.” Bombs often drifted off their targets and we never really knew who got hit with those things.”

A question and answer session from the audience ended with someone asking, “How would you sum up your experience as members of a bomber squadron?”

The lead speaker, thought for a while, slowly shook his head from side to side and said, “I guess I’d have to just say, it was so much fun. To sum it up, it was so much fun.”

This program is on tour across the Midwest and includes various paraphernalia of maps and war souvenirs.

Fast forward to when I served as interim director of the Ryukyu Islands Church World Service program based in Okinawa. It was a humanitarian relief program which brought in food and supplies for those struggling to recover years after the close of WWII.

I lived in a Japanese style house in a sugar cane field outside the Capitol city of Naha before those islands reverted to Japan.

Okinawa was then and still is a strategic U.S. military base which includes a huge Air Force establishment called Kadena Air Field. Kadena is actually a replica of a typical stateside suburb. Neatly laid out streets with American style homes with manicured lawns and children’s swings and slides in the backyards. Kadena has at least one golf course, movie theatres and such just like any town in the USA. And of course, there is this large air strip and long flight line of mainly B52’s

Since I had Officer’s club privileges, I would often have dinner with the folks who worked at Kadena.

My wife had headed back to Taiwan with our children so they could get back to school there. Hence, I was alone in Naha and often ended up at Kadena where I could catch an American movie after a good American dinner at the club.

Sitting at the bar, I would often get to talk with servicemen stationed on Kadena. We would explain what we were doing in Okinawa in terms of our daily activities.

Typical topics from my day sometimes astounded these airmen for example when I told them how I had gone to the civilian airport in Naha that day to collect frozen sperm flown in from the states to transship to Ryukyan farmers in remote islands to improve their livestock herds.

They in turn told of their daily bombing runs in their B52’s over Vietnam. Get up early in the morning, take off for Nam, drop your load and head back in time for a few drinks and dinner with the family. Days off included heading to the US military beaches or a round of golf at a Kadena course.

When I told these officers, some of whom had lived on Kadena for over two years, that I worked in Naha, they would ask, Where’s Naha?

Okinawa is a small island which one can cover on good highways in less than two hours from one end to the other.

“Where’s Naha?” I would answer incredulously, “Naha is the capitol of Okinawa and all the Ryukyu islands. It’s about 30 minutes from where we are sitting here at Kadena.”

I enjoyed my time with these fellow Americans as we relaxed from our day’s work. I even bought a complete scuba outfit with tanks and all from one of them, which they arranged to ship by US Air force shuttle to Taiwan via one of the Kadena Chaplains. After my stint in Okinawa we were able to use the scuba gear at the US military beach on Taiwan when I returned home there later in the fall.

If this all sounds surreal, it was.

I can even imagine that some of these guys are giving talks to social clubs back in the States in their retirement. I can hear them sum up their service time in Okinawa by saying, “It was so much fun.”