James H. Hendricks and Frank Reynolds interview continued.

Jim graduated from high school in May of 1943. He immediately came to Kansas City to volunteer for the Air Force. It was Jim's dream to fly fighters, like the P-51. The Air Force required that their pilots must have perfect vision. This was a problem for Jim because his right eye was not quite 20/20. He failed his eye exam and was turned down from the Air Force. A little disappointed, Jim decided to wait for his number to be called before he joined the military.

His number was finally called in August of 1943. Jim decided to join the Marines. They were looking for a few good men, and he felt qualified. Boot camp was at the San Diego Marine Base in San Diego, California. There, he was trained to be a Radio Operator. He spent nearly a year being trained. He was trained in radio operations. He learned Morse code and excelled in this aspect of his training. Next, he was taught radio and electronics repair. This training took place at a San Diego Vocational Technology School. Jim did not do so well in his repair classes. As he described it, he was an A student in radio operations, but a C student in radio repair. Jim, spent nearly a year at the training schools in San Diego before he was transferred into the 5th Marine Division at Camp Pendleton. The 5th Marine Division was then transferred to the big island of Hawaii to get more training and to get prepared for the landing on Iwo Jima.

On February 19, 1945, Jim Hendricks and the rest of the 5th Marines landed on Iwo Jima. Jim's company was attached to the 2nd Battalion 28th Marines. It was the 2nd Battalion 28th Marines that put the flag up on Mt. Surabachi. This scene is very famous and it has been recreated at the WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C. Jim's Platoon landed on the east side of the island, on Green Beach. They stayed on the beach for a few days before moving to the airfield, where they remained for the rest of the battle. His job was as a radio operator and he had to handle the communications between the 2nd Battalion and the ships at sea. As Jim remembers it, the main thing he had to relay was a request for more ammunition.

The battle on Iwo Jima lasted nearly one month. This was a very difficult battle because the Japanese had a vast tunnel system on the island. Jim referred to them as spider tunnels because they branched out like a spider's web. The Japanese had pillboxes as portals to the tunnel system. Since they were in the tunnels, it was rare for the American soldiers to see the Japanese. Jim did not remember seeing one single Japanese soldier while he was on the island. On the 19th of March, the island was considered secure but the fighting as not over. That night, a group of 100-200 Japanese soldiers that remained in the tunnels and caves attacked the airfield. Their goal was to kill the Air Force fighter pilots.

The 5th Marine Division sacrificed a lot for Iwo Jima. Over 5,300 soldiers died on Iwo Jima. That is around a 25% casualty rate. Three times as many soldiers were injured in the battle. Luckily for Jim Hendricks, he escaped this tremendous battle without a scratch. He did have a few close calls. One of the days that he was on the beach, he was called away for a brief time to help with someone else's radio. While he was away, a mortar nearly killed a Lieutenant that was near him. The Lieutenant was struck with some shrapnel in the head. After the war, the Lieutenant had to get a metal plate in his head to replace the lost bone. The company that Jim was in suffered only 5 casualties during the battle, and his platoon had 0. They were one of the few platoons that could say that.

The Island of Iwo Jima was very important in the war effort, especially for the U.S. Air Force. Iwo Jima was just 600 miles South of Tokyo and it had a very important airfield. This airfield was needed because it was close enough to Japan that fighters could take off from the island and escort the B-29's on their bombing missions of mainland Japan. The airfield could also be used for emergency landings of the B-29's.

Because they suffered such heavy casualties, the 5th Marines returned to Hawaii after the battle on Iwo Jima. They were given some time for rest and rehabilitation. Once this was over, the focus shifted to the preparation for an attack on the Japanese mainland. The dropping of the atomic bombs kept Jim and the 5th Marine Division from having to invade Japan. Jim remembers the day that he heard about the dropping of the atomic bomb. A Sergeant in his company kept a radio and it was on this radio that they heard the news about the bomb. Everyone was excited and relieved. Jim believes that President Truman saved his life and the lives of countless other marines by dropping the atomic bombs on Japan.

In September of 1945, Jim went to Japan for occupation duty. They landed on the Southern island of Kyushu at Sasebo. In Sasebo, Jim worked again with the radio communications company. As he remembered it, he didn't really do much. He did remember meeting several Japanese citizens. To his surprise, they were very friendly and they were not angry with the U.S. soldiers.

After a few months in Sasebo, he was transferred to the city of Kagoshima. On the way to Kagoshima, Jim passed through Nagasaki. Nagasaki was one of the two cities hit with an atomic bomb. The city suffered complete devastation. He remembered seeing a steel building being crushed and crumpled like an aluminum can. In Kagoshima, Jim worked at a radio station for another couple of months. In late February. after several months on occupation duty, he was called back to Sasebo and then boarded a ship headed to San Diego. On April 30, 1946, Jim was relieved from active duty. He then returned to his family in Wichita, Kansas.

Frank Reynolds joined the U.S.N.R. (Navy Reserves) in October of 1943. He also went through boot camp in San Diego. After boot camp, he had radar operations that was held at Port Loma, San Diego. This training lasted around three weeks. He was then transferred to Brown Ship Yard in Houston, Texas. It was there that Destroyer Escort 403 was put into commission. After putting this ship into commission, Frank and the rest of the crew went on a ten day "shake down" cruise off the coast of Bermuda. It was there that they learned to track and attack submarines. The ship then went to Boston to get their Air Search Radar installed. As Frank puts it "they (the Air Search Radar) weren't worth 15 cents." They then went through the Panama Canal and back to San Diego before heading out into the Pacific.

DE 403, the ship that Frank was on, had their first encounter off of the small island of Halamara, which is in the Marshall Islands. For about ten days, they moved back and forth (North-South) about 40-50 miles off of the coast. One morning, Frank's ship moved forward one position, and the ship that took its place got hit with a torpedo. That ship began to sink and many of the men abandoned ship. Unfortunately for them, there were sharks in the water and the sharks began attacking the men. The deck hands tried shooting the sharks with their rifles, but several men were lost.

The second encounter for Frank and the DE 403 was in the Leyte Gulf. Their job was to escort several small aircraft carriers (CVE's). One night, the Japanese launched a simultaneous air and submarine attack. Fortunately for Frank, his ship did not have to go and engage the enemy. A bad typhoon wound up saving the Navy's neck because it stopped the fighting. Unfortunately, the typhoon did not just pass by, it caused a lot of damage to U.S. ships. It broke the welds on the base of the mast on the DE 403. Frank remembers that the ship rolled 50-60 degrees from vertical. Luckily, the ship could roll 70 degrees before it capsized.

The battle at Leyte was the largest Naval surface engagement during World War II. Frank believes that the typhoon really saved the Navy. He really thinks that the Navy would have taken a beating if it were not for the typhoon.

Frank's last engagement was the island of Okinawa. Frank was initially scared to death because he knew that the ship was heading north, but he did not know where they were going. He thought that they were possibly heading to mainland Japan. About 24 hours after they were out at sea, he found out that the destination was Okinawa. This was the first time that Frank and the crew aboard the DE 403 had to deal with kamikazes. One kamikaze hit the destroyer that Frank was aboard. The plane created a hole all the way to the bottom of the ship, from one side to the other.

Once the atomic bomb was dropped, Frank headed back to San Diego. In San Diego, Frank and the rest of the men on DE 403 had to prepare the ship for decommission. In the beginning, Frank had the easy job of selecting a movie that would be shown each night on the fantail of the ship. This continued for several weeks but then he lipped off. He was then placed in the forward bilge and had the duty of chipping off the rusty hull and then adding zinc chromate. He had to keep adding the chromate until he could not see any more rust. At the final inspections, his bilge was the only one that passed the inspection. Eventually, Frank earned enough points to be discharged. The discharge occurred on April 23, 1946. He was discharged at Long Beach, California. He then went to Grants Pass, Oregon, to visit some of his family.

Jim Hendricks had an easy time adjusting to life after the war. He luckily never had to deal with an injury. He was able to attend college on the GI Bill. He attended Kansas State University for four years and he graduated in 1951. That was the same year that he got married. He just recently celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary. He did not really keep in contact with any of the men that he served with.

Looking back on the war, Jim considers himself lucky for many reasons. First, he believes that if he would have made it into the Air Force, he probably would have died. Jim also feels lucky that he was given so much training. After boot camp, some of the marines were almost immediately sent off to fight on some island in the Pacific. Jim was able to spend a year in San Diego training to be a radio operator before he was transferred into the 5th Marines. It was nearly a year and a half from when he joined the Marines to when he landed on Iwo Jima. Finally, Jim feels lucky that the atomic bombs were dropped. He is truly thankful that Harry Truman decided to drop the bombs instead of launching a full-scale invasion of Japan. While on occupation duty, Jim saw some of the fortifications that the Japanese had set up. He thought it would be like Iwo Jima all over again, except on a much larger scale. He is sure that he wouldn't be around today if there were an invasion.