Happy Birthday, Son. It’s V-E Day!

“LOST MUSKET DIARY” Friday May 8, 2015

Cloudy 47°F/8°C

Buongiorno,

  

Birthday Boy at 8

My son Mike is celebrating his birthday today. The baby of our family turns 42. He’s way too young to remember what his grandfather was doing on this date back in 1945. In fact, my son never got to meet his grandfather. Charlie Botula died in 1965. But, I can’t help but think about both of them when this date rolls around every year. Mike’s generation would be hard-pressed to even remember what May 8^th signifies. But, I’m old enough, so I’ll take a moment to pass it along. It was the day that half of a world war officially ended. It’s “V-E Day” for Victory in Europe. The Allies had won and World War 2 in Europe was over.

  The day that Germany surrendered, my dad’s ship-the LST 920 was in the Pacific, crossing the International Date Line en route from Pearl Harbor to the island of Eniwetok, which would become famous later on as the site of one of the early atomic bomb tests. At that time, it was one of the islands that the Allies were using in their giant game of Hop Scotch on the way to Japan. But, Charlie had seen his fair measure of the War in Europe, surviving a U boat attack off the coast of England and shuttling personnel and supplies from England to France right after the Normandy invasion. That was 1944. He was in the Pacific by 1945 and took part in the invasion of Okinawa. Instead of U-boats, it was Kamikazes. And, in June of 1945 as the Allies were preparing for an

Getting Close

invasion of the Japanese home islands, it looked to my dad that their war would drag for another couple of years. He and thousands of other were just praying that they’d survive the war. They didn’t know that brighter minds than theirs were working on a little surprise in the shape of a mushroom cloud for the enemy.

  At the time all this was going on, my parents were expecting an addition to the family. Mary was expecting some time in the Fall of 1945. In their correspondence back and forth from Jamestown, New York to “Somewhere in the Pacific,” they had discussed potential names for the baby and had disagreed over the name for a new baby boy. Mom wanted to name the new addition after his dad and call him Charles. But, dad wanted a different name. He had a war-time superstition that if his new son had the same name, it would mean that he would not survive the war. Mom prevailed. My brother’s name is Charles and dad lived to tell the tale.

Happy Birthday, Michael!

  Now, my birthday boy, Mike has a keen interest in history. I like to think he takes after his old man in this regard. So it might be of interest to him to hear that he came into this world on a very notable date, V-E Day. Buon Compleanno, Michael!

 Ciao,

MikeBo

©Mike Botula 2015