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Watertown, S.D
"Marine's book translates Japanese soldier's WWII diary he picked up during battle
Dick Meadows found Japanese soldier's diary on Saipan in 1944. He couldn't read it, but he kept it."
BY REBECCA KHEEL / STAFF WRITER
Published: July 7, 2014 Updated: July 8, 2014 3:20 p.m.Dick Meadows was scouring the beach on the island of Saipan the morning of June 16, 1944.
He and his fellow U.S. Marines had spent the night before battling hundreds of Japanese soldiers. By morning, Japanese bodies covered the beach. Amid the deceased, Meadows found a Japanese soldier's diary. He couldn't read it, but he kept it.
"You have to understand, we were a bunch of 19- to 25-year-olds; we were souvenir crazy," Meadows said. "I had no idea what it said. As I became more and more mature, I thought, why am I holding on to this thing?"
Now, the diary has been translated and juxtaposed with Meadows' recollections of World War II in a new book, "The Taking of Saipan," from a local publisher. Meadows, 90, now lives in Orange and often shares his war experiences with local churches, high schools and other groups.
Meadows was born in Watertown, S.D., in 1924. Both of his brothers enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1941 and 1942. When they left, they told him to keep out of the war and stay home to take care of their mother.
But Meadows yearned to be a Marine. He recalled an Army recruiter coming to his high school. The recruiter wanted Meadows to join the Army, but he insisted on being a Marine.
There was just one problem: So many people wanted to be a Marine, enlistment had closed. Meadows cried about it to his mother, who, as it turned out, had gone to high school with the town's Marine recruiter. His mother talked with the recruiter, and he thought Meadows might be able to join if they backdated his paperwork to before the closing date. It worked, and Meadows was sent to training in Minneapolis in December 1942.
"I saw an old movie," Meadows said of why the Marines appealed to him. "I thought, 'Boy, that's great.' When I look at it now, I think, 'How horrible.'"
It was while in the Marines that Meadows started exchanging letters with the woman who would become his wife, Winnie. Meadows' brother and Winnie's sister were dating and thought the two would make a good match. The relationship almost died before they met, after Meadows sent her a photo of himself at base camp - he was laying in a cot smoking a cigar wearing nothing but boxers.
"I thought I was going to tear that picture up," Winnie Meadows recalled.
As a Marine, Meadows fought in four battles: Tarawa, Tinian, Okinawa and Saipan.
Controlling Saipan was considered integral to the Allies winning the war, said Doug Westfall, a local historian whose Paragon Agency published "The Taking of Saipan."
"Saipan was everything," Westfall said.
Meadows and his division landed on Saipan on June 15 and immediately skirmished with the Japanese. Sometime overnight, he recalled hearing a bugle followed by a rush of 300 to 500 Japanese soldiers. It was what American forces called a banzai attack, when wave after wave of Japanese soldiers attacked.
During the battle, Meadows ran back and forth from the shore where ammunition and other supplies had been dumped.
"Artillery shells could have dropped anywhere. Thank God they didn't drop where I was," he said. "I don't think I fired a shot. I was too busy carrying ammunition up to the gunners."
The next morning he would get the diary of Genkichi Ichikawa. Finally being able to see it translated 70 years later, Meadows said he now realizes that Ichikawa was a typical man in his 20s like he was.
"He talks about lying in his cot and looking at the moon, and he talks about his son, and he was very homesick," Meadows said. "He seems like he was a pretty nice person."
A few years ago, Meadows returned the diary to the Japanese consulate in Los Angeles. The consulate was able to locate Ichikawa's cousin, who is now in possession of the diary.
One passage that stood out to Meadows and Westfall was about Ichikawa missing his son's birthday.
"Although trying not to think nor write about it today, one year ago was the birth of my son," he wrote. "This poor father cannot celebrate his birthday. Supposedly he would be lonely. I am celebrating far away from home at the battlefield, wondering if he can speak a few words or is walking. It fills my heart. I hope he will have a happy year, and I wish they will be quite well. I will work hard and hope he will grow to welcome me with a smiling face."
Contact the writer: 714-704-3771 or rkheel@ocregister.com
Reprinted from the Orange County Register 2014
Westfall, Douglas and Ryozo Kimihira, The Taking of Saipan: Memoirs of Cpl. Richard Meadows & Cpl. Genkichi Ichikawa
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