The dust bowl and a hard farm life and the great depression and then the war started, December 7, 1941, with a day of infamy. The war started for Dad (James Henry Hays) when he was just 18, a boy by today’s standards, in April of 1943 when he was sent to infantry training. Young men had no choice “we can fight them over there or fight them here”. “There” was the better option, trading military deaths to save civilian deaths, son’s, brothers, and fathers sacrificing to keep their families safe.
Sent to the 127th Infantry, 32nd Red Arrow Brigade in the Pacific Campaign, for the next 2+ years he fought his way across New Guinea, Leyte, and Luzon, often in hand to hand combat, and eventually found himself with the occupation forces after Japan formally surrendered September 2, 1945, among the first American Troops to occupy Japan.
After 2 years of combat and a day off consisting of humping ammo crates and other supplies, or sitting in the infirmary sick with malaria or jungle rot on your feet preventing you from walking, or recovering from a war wound so you can get back into the fight, having a Sunday off must have been a real treat. It also afforded one time to put thoughts to pen and paper and write home to your mother, which Dad did. Oh Mother Dear it begins…
3% of the worlds population, some 85 million people, were dead from direct military action and also by disease and starvation. The global war which lasted from 1939 to 1945 was over for most but some risk remained for many, including those occupying a defeated country, evidenced by the “if and when I get home” line in Dad’s poem from Japan he wrote to his mother. But the poem also spoke to the fact the worse was over and things could get back to “normal”, if there is such a thing.
I imagine the poem stayed cherished in my Grandmothers possession, hope for the future that her boy would come home, which eventually came to be. I’m sure it passed back to Dad after her death, to sit in an old box in the attic with other old photo’s, letters, and mementos; many awards and decorations from his service, as he lived his life.
The box passed to me at some point after first Dad then Mom died, un-inventoried until my retirement where my initial look revealed a highly faded piece of history, luckily found just before fading into oblivion, now 75 years old. The 2 pages were folded alone in an envelope so I’m guessing it was sent all by itself.
After all the suffering and death and hard times it conveyed a lot of information in a short little poem. But mostly it conveyed hope for the future, to be home with family for a Sunday afternoon dinner and dessert cake or pie made by Mom. Heartfelt sentiments from a soldier to his mother in hard times and a fitting tribute to mothers this mothers day.
Oh Mother Dear
I think of you every day, Even though you’re many miles away, And someday before long, I’ll get back where I belong.
If and when I do get home, I’ll settle down and never roam, Be patient, Oh mother Dear, For I hope to be back within a year.
Don’t be worried or filled with fright, For I’m protected even at night. Our number is small, but we post a guard, It isn’t easy Mom, it’s very hard.
It’s hell to work all day, and night too, But in a way you don’t get so blue, We get Saturday and Sunday to rest, It gives us time to think of you, the best.
I’ll never forget the cake and pie too, That can be made by only you. The Sunday dinners I’ll never forget, No one can best them, on that I’d bet.
I hate the thought of being away from you, But someone has this job to do. Being part of the occupation force isn’t fun, But I think it best in the long run.
We just won a war & don’t want another, I’d rather be with you, my mother. It’s for certain we couldn’t loose, So you know the side I would choose.