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Local veterans remember Battle of Okinawa

Eating lunch together Saturday at The Wyngate Senior Living Community in Parkersburg are, from left, Earl Lindamood, Fred Fitzer, Roger Lewis and Bill Butcher. (Photo by Paul LaPann)

PARKERSBURG — The four veterans who eat three meals together daily at The Wyngate Senior Living Community have something in common.

They are all connected to Okinawa.

Bill Butcher, 89, Earl Lindamood, 90, and Fred Fitzer, 90, all served on the island of Okinawa during or just after World War II. Butcher was in the U.S. Marine Corps, Lindamood was in the U.S. Navy and Fitzer was in the U.S. Air Force. All enlisted in 1944 after graduating from high school.

Roger Lewis, 74, a U.S. Army veteran, was too young to serve in World War II but his father, James Clifton Lewis, fought in three battles in the Pacific campaign during World War II, including Okinawa. James Lewis passed away in Greensboro, N.C.

All four said they were thankful they returned home safely after serving their country in the armed forces.

Butcher, a 1944 graduate of Parkersburg High School, was a rifleman in the Marine Corps and arrived at the end of the fierce and bloody Battle of Okinawa, which lasted from April to June 1945.

He remembers the noise of the Pacific island battle, the sound of small arms being fired. The Japanese troops were dug into the Okinawa landscape as they fought the Allied forces. Okinawa was the preparation site for an Allied invasion of mainland Japan.

Lindamood, who graduated from PHS in 1944, was a carpenter’s mate third class with the Navy Seabees (Naval construction forces), who built airstrips for the U.S. fighter planes and fuel storage buildings on Okinawa. He was in the invasion of Okinawa.

Lindamood remembers the Pacific being filled with U.S. battleships off Okinawa.

Lewis’ father was a Navy gunner’s mate on a destroyer escort off Okinawa that was shot at by Japanese pilots.

“I was glad we didn’t have to invade Japan,” said Butcher, who retired from the Marine Corps after serving 22 years. “The Japanese were loaded for bear.”

Butcher is certain he would have been part of the invasion forces sent to mainland Japan. After the Battle of Okinawa, Butcher helped to dismantle the Japanese defenses.

After the war, the Japanese civilians smiled at the U.S. occupation forces but fraternization was not allowed, Butcher said.

Lindamood said he was glad the United States dropped the atomic bombs on Japan, ending World War II.

“We would have lost a lot more men” if the U.S. forces had attacked mainland Japan, Lindamood said.

Butcher and Fitzer agreed.

“It would have been a bloody campaign. We would have lost a million men if we had invaded Japan,” Fitzer said. “The atomic bomb saved U.S. military men.”

Fitzer, who served in the Eighth Air Force, was part of the U.S. occupation forces on Okinawa. He arrived on Okinawa in October 1945 during the occupation after the battle.

“Okinawa was torn up,” he said.

Fitzer, a native of Kentucky, developed film from the photographs reconnaissance airplanes took over an area. He remembered living in tents and the rainy weather.

Fitzer played in a baseball league on Okinawa, which took him to ballfields in Tokyo after the war. In Tokyo, he recalled standing with a crowd outside as U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur entered a building.

MacArthur formally accepted the Japanese surrender on Sept.2, 1945.

The Japanese liked MacArthur, said Fitzer.

Fitzer remembered seeing Tokyo buildings leveled by firebombing during the war. He spent a year on Okinawa island.

While with the Second Marine Division, Butcher, a master sergeant, served two tours of duty in Korea and was wounded in China.

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