A friend of mine, who has over 100,000 air miles traveling the world, is a WWII history buff who has visited numerous historical sites in Europe and the Pacific. He got a digital camera for his most recent adventures and sent me a few. I will try to set them up on a website with brief narratives. Here are a few of them.

Below is the entrance of a Jap cave at base of Mount Surabachi. Notice the large saki bottles.

http://www.geocities.com/jimdeecken/doug5.txt

Below is after digging in caves on Peleliu. My friend in on the right in the yellow shirt.

http://www.geocities.com/jimdeecken/doug1.txt

Below is Japanese bone recovery team in Peleliu about to perform Buddhist cremation ceremony in the Peleliu ceremony (they are not allowed to take the bones back to Japan).

http://www.geocities.com/jimdeecken/doug2.txt

http://www.geocities.com/jimdeecken/doug4.txt

Below is Iwo Jima on landing beaches overlooking Mount Suribachi.

http://www.geocities.com/jimdeecken/doug3.txt

A few more pics from that same trip. He had to get some kind of special security clearance to visit Roi Namur.

Below is Roi Namur near Kwajalein Marshall Islands. He spent two and a half days wandering this island with a guy whose uncle died here during the battle along with the 3,000 Japs who fought to the death.

http://www.geocities.com/doug_meny/doug7.txt

Below is a Roi Namur beach off limits due to war material on reef from invasion during WWII

http://www.geocities.com/doug_meny/doug6.txt

Below is live ammunition on Peleliu landing beaches, still there all over the place at low tide after 59 years, and in the jungles also.

http://www.geocities.com/doug_meny/doug8.txt

Below is the entrance to Jap General Kurabayshi's cave. It is a rat hole entrance, very small, but opens up into very long cave passageways.

http://www.geocities.com/doug_meny/doug9.txt

Those are some cool pics. I think it would be interesting to see some of the old battle sites of WW 2. I often wanted to visit Guadacanal. The Solomon Islands are quite fascinating even without the battle sites.

Criminal, I emailed him today regarding his South Pacific trips and got the following info.

He is actually going to Okinawa via San Francisco in the next couple of weeks.

His uncle was on Ie Shima, an island off Okinawa, during war, and the uncle is in poor health so he will take lots of pictures for him.

He has never gone to Guadacanal yet, although on it is on his top do list. Much civil strife there recently, and malaria is present.

Here is a general summary of his Pacific trips.

Iwo Jima (3 times)
Saipan
Tinian
Guam (3 times)
Peleliu (3 times)
Philippines (Bataan, Corregidor)

Tarawa (Betio island, formerly part of Gilbert Islands now called Kiribati Islands in post war period)

Marshall Islands, including Majuro, Wotje, Kwajalein (2 times), Roi Namur (2 times)

and of course Hawaii numerous times

Next year, he is going back to Iwo for 60th and also Saipan, Peleliu again.

He is also going to D-Day anniversary in early June at Portsmouth/Southampton harbors (not to the Normandy beaches which will be a mess with crowds and traffic gridlock according to people he knows) which were the embarkation ports and where he has relatives living.

awesome pics... i bet that was a great trip. interesting hearing about that Buddhist cremation ceremony... i never knew the bones couldn't be shipped back to Japan.


(btw, let's call 'em Japanese, not Japs :))

My dad was in the South Pacific during WW2,so I found this interesting.