Meeting a War Hero

As a seventeen year old high school student my knowledge of World War II is basically through movies and what I was taught about WWII in my history class. I grew up watching Tora, Tora, Tora and Pearl Harbor. I also grew up watching Black Sheep Squadron which follows the exploits of Pappy Boyington and his group of misfits fighting in the Pacific with Corsairs during WWII. My Grandfather was in WWII but he never talked about it with me and he died when I was five so I would not have remembered it anyways. After talking with my Father and his brothers and sisters my grandfather never talked about the war with them either. I have always sort of idolized my grandfather. I never knew him but I think that we would have gotten along well. In my room I have a couple of artifacts of his. I have a sword that I knew nothing about. His flag that was given to my grandmother. Finally, I have his dog tags. I don't wear them often but I like having them. For September 11th my school decided to line the football field with posters made by the students honoring people who have served the United States and this is where the story begins. I made my poster honoring my grandfather. It is really nothing special but seeing hundreds sof these posters lining the field was incredibly powerful. I filled the poster with pictures of my grandfather which made me dig through all of the old pictures on the computer. I found a picture of my grandfather's old ship. He worked in the diesel room on the USS Frament. My father saw me looking through these photos and decided to look into the ship. Through the magic of Google he found a woman named Debbie Dalgo Fowler Raley. She hooked him up with a man named Charles Gottshall who knew my grandfather during the war. He sent my father a picture of my grandfather and him standing over a group of Japanese prisoners. My grandfather is on the left and Mr. Gottshall in on the right. My grandfather (John Nowicki) looks scared. I am seventeen and all that fills my mind is cars and girls and he was only nineteen then and he was trying to stay alive. The weird thing about this picture is that on the back it says "missing in action" but that is a whole other story. My father and Charles Gottshall talked on the phone and that seemed to be the end of it. However, on that phone call my father figured something else out. The sword that I have in my room was actually taken from an abandoned Japanese ship that my grandfather and Charles raided. I always thought that the sword was a gift that my grandfather got from training Philipinno soldiers how to fight but that obviously wasn't the case. A couple of months passed and my father and I decided that we should go meet Mr. Gottshall. It's one thing to talk to a person on the phone but this seemed important enough to drive halfway across the country to meet him face to face. So, on a cold March morning we loaded up my Camaro and headed for Pennsylvania. It was an uneventful drive and even though it was nice to be back on the road we both just wanted to get there. We pulled into Pennsylvania late and went to bed. The next day we did nothing until we went to go meet Charles Gottshall and his wife Loa at their house. It was well kept and when we met them he was wearing a shirt that said "I would rather push a Ford than Drive a Chevy." I could not help but smile. My grandfather had gone into the auto industry as well and it was a bit funny to find out that these two men who lived in entirely different places and were pushed together through a world shattering event ended up in the same industry. Charles had made up a packet of things that we could take home. The coolest thing in there was a copy of a newspaper that was printed on board the Frament. There was also a lot of cool pictures of the ship and the crew. We talked with them for a while about the war and their lives. My father remembered the "missing in action" on the back of the picture and asked Charles about it. Nobody saw what was coming next. I am just paraphrasing what he said but it went something like this. A crew got off of the Frament and got onto a smaller boat to pick up a gentleman named Commander Smith before heading into China. They were in the Yellow Sea then they headed up the Yangtze river to take the surrender of Shanghai. Then a Japanese boat with about ten troops came up on them with rifles pointed at their ship and ordered them to dock. A Japanese Commander came out and after a lot of yelling they were told to simply go back to their ship. They got back to the Yellow Sea and then a storm hit. They had to travel South to avoid water coming over the bow. They had actually found a cove to hide in but a wave came and their boat was beached. A farmer came and told them that the Japanese were still in charge of the towns around there. The farmer was nice enough to hold them up in his barn and in the morning he fed them rotten eggs and rice. A guide came to lead them to safety and they traveled through Amoy,Nanpin,Yington ,and Hangehow on their way to Shanghai. The city of Yington was were the party was. They had ended up in Nationalist China and that's where the picture with the captured Japanese was taken. They had found out that the Chinese were fighting each other and it was the Communists against the Nationalists. The man in the light suit on the left was a spy and he was shot shortly after the picture was taken. They then either walked or took boats to Shanghai. In Shanghai they met up with the SOCKO troops (Americans who fought for the Chinese). They were put up in a nice hotel and were given 50 gold units which is about a hundred dollars in American money. They were in Shanghai about a month and a half and they had very little to do but sightsee. They would go down to the docks to watch the ladies sell stuff like pigs and vegetables. He said that their favorite thing to do was watch the locals play cards and yell at each other. My Father and I were both stunned and then Charles showed us two Japanese rifles that he had picked up when my grandfather obtained the sword. Charles said that even though my grandfather and him were not in the same squad that he liked him and he was a quiet guy. We thanked him and Loa for the hospitality and left. It is weird to think of somebody like my grandfather as nineteen. I did not know him well but I had infinitely more respect for him. I also had an incredible amount of respect for Charles. These men fought so my father and I could live the lives that we lead. Charles said that all that he wanted to do was explain to young people about what his generation did. I now know why this is the greatest generation and they always will be. This year Pearl Harbor was nothing more than a brief news clip on the news, if that. It is hard for my generation to understand what these brave men and women went through and I don't think that we ever truly will. For the bottom of my heart I would just like to say a thank you to Charles and everybody else who helped fight in that war. I wrote this at this kitchen table looking across the street at the American Flag that hangs in my neighbors yard. Thanks Charles, for making that possible. Oh, and in closing, you should try driving a Chevy, it isn't all that bad.