I was born less than one month after the Armistice that ended World War I, and I grew up on the horror stories of the War on the Western Front — especially the tales of bloody trench fighting. I had developed a strong conviction that all the maimed and dead, the Americans, the Germans, the Belgians, the French and the British, had suffered or died to no purpose. I had come to the conclusion that Woodrow Wilson was right when he declared before the War that there were no such things as a good war or a bad peace.
In my four years at Northwestern University, from 1936 to 1940, I fell under the influence of several eloquent professors who had fought in World War I, and they furnished me with the intellectual rationale for my anti- war feelings. In my upperclass years, as editorial chairman of the Daily Northwestern, class president and speaker chosen by and for that class, I exhorted my fellow students to keep out of the approaching war and to persuade their parents to vote only for the political candidates who were committed to neutrality.
In the spring of 1939, I administered the Oxford Oath (‘‘ I shall not fight in Europe’’) to a crowd of thousands of students at a Peace Rally assembled at the meadow of Northwestern’s Deering Library. During my senior year, I organized a group of 50 college newspaper editors in an editorial alliance pledged to wield their typewriters to keep this nation out of war. My picture, along with those of like- minded editors of the campus newspapers at Harvard, Princeton, and the University of Texas, appeared in the October 7, 1939, issue of Time Magazine. The story included a paragraph- long account of my leadership in the cause of peace.
It may be in order here to reproduce one of several scores of editorials I wrote for the Daily Northwestern in November, 1939 about the War. This is a rather typical diatribe against American involvement in the then on- going battles in Europe;
‘‘ Logic and common sense are one thing; war hysteria is another. Yesterday a parade of 200,000 war veterans marched down Fifth Avenue, an avenue that many of them haven’t seen since 1918 when they came back from fighting ‘‘ Huns’’ in France, mosquitoes at Camp Dix, or submarines on the Great Lakes. The enthusiasm which these uniformed, now- graying soldiers stirred in the onlooking crowd must have been pleasing to those nations who are depending on U. S. aid in this war. It must have sounded sweet to the ‘boys’ who now remain organized for the sole purpose of pulling political strings and obtaining pension grants. To pacifists it was an indication that we haven’t learned any lessons in the past twenty years and that we are ready once again to send men overseas to defend their homes, wives and children back in Spokane. ’’
By the time the Selective Service Act was passed in 1940, I had graduated from college and was working in New York City. Despite my strong anti- war feelings, I was not such a confirmed pacifist that I refused to register. Because my favorite Uncle Max was chairman of the local draft board in Dayton, Ohio, I figured I ought to register in my home town. Uncle Max was my insurance against being drafted, or so I thought.
My number was among the first picked in the draft, and I received instructions to report for my physical examination. Not to worry. I phoned Uncle Max, who surely wouldn’t let his beloved nephew be dragged into the Army. Wrong. He was full of congratulations, even offering that a one – year hitch would be good for me. He warned me not to be late for my physical.
I did have another ace, however. My eyesight was 20/ 400, far below minimum army requirements. I was, again, so sure the Army would not accept me that I told my New York roommate not to pack my things . . . I’d be back in a few days. At my physical exam the Army doctor asked me to read the top line of the eye chart. When I claimed, half in jest, that I couldn’t even see the chart, he laughed, patted me on the back and assured me that the Army could always find some job for a near- blind draftee. After all it was only for twelve months. Trying a different tack, I unleashed on the doctor my outrage over the Army’s carefree willingness to relax its high standards for service. But he was already examining the next recruit, and I was soon off to Camp Shelby, Mississippi, to join the Ohio 37th National Guard Division training there, accompanied by my dear childhood friend, Carl Ablon, who was not drafted but volunteered because he wanted to share this experience with me.
On the troop train going to Camp Shelby I violated one of the cardinal rules of army life and volunteered to type out rosters for the top sergeant in charge of the draftees. That ‘‘ rash’’ act had important consequences for my whole army career.
When we arrived at Camp Shelby I was immediately assigned to Division Headquarters to help type pay vouchers. After many tests and interviews, I was assigned to the Finance Department and then transferred to G2, Division Intelligence. Thanks to my secretarial skills, I was in such great demand that I never underwent basic military training. For me, no hikes, no calisthenics, no weapons or firing on the range. I was the prototypical paper soldier.
I quickly rose through the ranks to staff sergeant in six months, and began making plans to return to civilian life when my year of service was over. Then, in August 1941, Congress voted to extend the Selective Service Act for another six months. Though the bill barely passed in the House of Representatives, it hardly mattered. Before the extension expired came the raid on Pearl Harbor, and on December 8, 1941, my 23rd birthday, the U. S. was at war with Japan. Two months later the 37th Ohio Division boarded the S. S. President Coolidge bound for the Fiji Islands.
Suva, Fiji, wasn’t bad duty. For six months, my work consisted of paying the troops and typing intelligence reports. Then my G2 Colonel suggested I attend the Jungle Warfare Officers’ Candidate School run by Guadalcanal veterans. He promised that if I passed the 90 day OCS, he’d pull me back to Division Headquarters where I would serve out the war as an officer in the rear echelons of the Division. Sounded like another clever move, so I memorized the eye chart, passed the OCS entrance examinations, and then underwent three frightful months of infantry training. I ranked near the bottom of the 150 man class in weaponry, agility, close order drill and foxhole digging. It didn’t matter. It was common knowledge among the instructors that I’d be returning to a desk assignment, so they must have figured: ‘‘ What the hell . . . let’s graduate this infantry misfit. He’ll wind up as a paper soldier anyway. ’’
On Graduation Day the newly commissioned second lieutenants assembled in the mess hall to learn their next assignments. The Commandant came to my name: ‘‘ Frankel, assigned to Company F, 148th Infantry Regiment. ’’ I dashed up to the Commandant and told him of his error. ‘‘ No mistake, Frankel. You were requested by Division Headquarters but there is a terrible shortage of platoon leaders, and we’ve decided anyone who graduates from this course will go into the infantry. ’’ I knew damn well why there was such a shortage and wanted no part of it. ‘‘ Sir, may I resign my commission? ’’ ‘‘ You forget it or I’ll have you courtmartialed. ’’
So that is how this anti- war activist, a near- blind, bumbling draftee, became a second lieutenant leading an army platoon in the war against Japan in the South Pacific. And subsequently a first lieutenant, company executive officer, captain, personnel officer and adjutant, and finally at war’s end, a major . . . promotions awarded mainly after a battle in which the officer whom I was to replace had been killed or wounded!
The following pieces came more from my observation of what went on around me than from my direct participation. Even so, I must confess my observation point was often too damned close to the action. The events in which I was a participant, I admit, I did not volunteer for and could not avoid. But once I decided there was no way out, I did try to perform so that I could maintain my self- respect.
In the course of my three and one- half years in the South Pacific I was officially credited by the Army with having participated in five separate battles. These ranged in time from about a month on New Georgia in the Solomon Islands to a campaign in the Philippines which went on, with some regrouping intermissions, for over six months. No one soldier, including me, literally fought every day and night. All of us were shuttled in and out of direct combat, and we had plenty of time to review what had gone on yesterday and to speculate apprehensively on what was going to happen tomorrow.
During those actual fire fights when real bullets and real shells and real bombs seemed to have my name on them, I had difficulty comprehending exactly what was happening to me. I could have been acting a bit part in a Hollywood war movie. Reality only intervened when the fireworks stopped and I had time to reflect. Soldiers in front of me and behind me and to the right and left had been hit and I had once again been spared. At war’s end, I had my share of medals, but not one was a Purple Heart.
I should also add at this point an apology for some of the pejorative words which will crop up in some of my battlefield descriptions. Many of the words used to describe the Japanese may seem callous, bigoted and disrespectful. The reader should remember that most of these pieces were written immediately or shortly after the events they describe. I would not have been there if there had not been a war on and the Japanese had not been the enemy. My feelings were bound to surface.
Remember during combat the only good Japanese was a dead Japanese.
I could have edited out all the mean- spirited comments, the ethnic slurs, the references to ‘‘ slant eyes’’ and the like, but the result would have been a distortion of what was then the reality. These pieces are about a war, and wars are not easily prettified. So, I have let stand what I wrote. I trust that you, the reader, will accept what follows without being offended. I assure you that today when I find my seat companion on the Scarsdale commuter train to Grand Central is a Japanese businessman, I bear him no ill- will.
Frisco to Fiji