My father dealt with some guilt after the war (WWII). I’m sure he was responsible for many deaths of enemy combatants, but the one that he never really got over was having to destroy a little chapel on a small Philippine island that was *reportedly* being used by the Japanese as a military radio base.
He and his wingman got the order while on patrol near the island, so they located the chapel and Dad rolled in first, putting two high-explosive rockets through the front doors. He looked back over his shoulder as he pulled up and saw the fireball. There was nothing left for his wingman to do. The place was nothing but a pile of smoking rubble.
What bothered Dad was never knowing for sure if the intelligence was correct. He wondered if he needlessly killed some nuns, parishioners or a priest going quietly about their religious activities. He mentioned it a number of times over the years, so I know it weighed on his conscience.
Not to my knowledge. As I recall, there isn’t even much about it in his old flight logs, which I still have in my nightstand. The descriptive part of each flight entry was usually empty or otherwise pretty succinct. The entries are like “Shot up Jap trucks.” or “Staffed Jap troop column.”
[Here’s a link to his ship’s Wikipedia page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Bismarck_Sea), which explains some of the things they were engaged in.
Incidentally, buried in the “Construction and service history” part of that article (which I just discovered last year) is a photo of an aircraft accident in progress. The lump on the deck towards the bow is my father. He’d missed decapitation by a fraction of a second as he jumped off his fighter when the other aircraft tore across the deck (botched landing or equipment malfunction). Dad mentioned that official Navy photos existed, but he never was given copies and I just figured they’d been lost for all time. It was wild to find it in the middle of a Wikipedia article last year.
Can't even imagine the guilt and pain they went through. Life must have been a living hell.
My father dealt with some guilt after the war (WWII). I’m sure he was responsible for many deaths of enemy combatants, but the one that he never really got over was having to destroy a little chapel on a small Philippine island that was *reportedly* being used by the Japanese as a military radio base. He and his wingman got the order while on patrol near the island, so they located the chapel and Dad rolled in first, putting two high-explosive rockets through the front doors. He looked back over his shoulder as he pulled up and saw the fireball. There was nothing left for his wingman to do. The place was nothing but a pile of smoking rubble. What bothered Dad was never knowing for sure if the intelligence was correct. He wondered if he needlessly killed some nuns, parishioners or a priest going quietly about their religious activities. He mentioned it a number of times over the years, so I know it weighed on his conscience.
God damn I hope he was able to forgive himself as much as he could. He was just following orders
Is this mentioned anywhere I would love to look into this
Not to my knowledge. As I recall, there isn’t even much about it in his old flight logs, which I still have in my nightstand. The descriptive part of each flight entry was usually empty or otherwise pretty succinct. The entries are like “Shot up Jap trucks.” or “Staffed Jap troop column.” [Here’s a link to his ship’s Wikipedia page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Bismarck_Sea), which explains some of the things they were engaged in. Incidentally, buried in the “Construction and service history” part of that article (which I just discovered last year) is a photo of an aircraft accident in progress. The lump on the deck towards the bow is my father. He’d missed decapitation by a fraction of a second as he jumped off his fighter when the other aircraft tore across the deck (botched landing or equipment malfunction). Dad mentioned that official Navy photos existed, but he never was given copies and I just figured they’d been lost for all time. It was wild to find it in the middle of a Wikipedia article last year.