2020 Winter Spring Newsletter

A VETERAN REMEMBERS The 75th anniversary of World War II is September 2, 2020. A war that took the lives of over 405,000 U.S. military personnel. Nick Chamberlain from Paola, was recently interviewed about his WWII memories. He lived in Osawatomie in 1944, when he joined the service and had been a recent graduate of Osawato mie High School. Nick went to the Great Lakes for his basic training for his Navy duties. He had joined at age 17(his mother had to agree since he was not of age yet). He was assigned to the U.S.S. Gen. W. H. Gordon docked in New York.

When he left the Navy, he brought with him a Japa nese rifle he had obtained in the Gilbert Islands, as a souvenir of the war. He carried the rifle home in his duffel bag. While in the service for almost two years he received four medals. He was one of the fortunate ones to survive the war and was of the era which be came known as “The Greatest Generation” Upon returning to Osawatomie he kept the rifle until 2009, when he donated it to the Miami County Muse um to add to their many items from WWII. The rifle is a special and rare gun. It was a Type 99 Arisaka, that was used since 1939 in the Japanese military. The gun had on top of the barrel an engraved chrysanthemum. This was the symbol of the Emperor of Japan, and to their troops was a sign of ownership of the gun by the Emperor. Most Japanese soldiers would remove the symbol, before surrendering their gun, as a sign of respect and reverence for their leader. The gun Nick obtained had not had its flower removed or scraped off, thus it is a rarity. The gun can be seen in the military room at the Miami County Museum.

U.S.S. Gen. W. H. Gordon

The ship’s main assignment was to protect the North Atlantic from submarine activity. Six months after his arrival on the ship, Germany surrendered and the Eu ropean war was over. His next assignment was to go to the Pacific to finish the war with Japan. Soon after his arrival in Hawaii, President Truman made the deci sion to drop the atomic bomb on Japan. Thus, the war ended in the Pacific. The role of his ship changed from being a destroyer to that of an occupation force of the troops of Japan, which still had held parts of the Mar shall and Gilbert Island in the South Pacific. Nick’s Navy career soon ended and his ship was sent to Florida for mustering out of the crew.

Nick proudly displays his war souvenir.

Japan manufactured over 3.5 million Ari saka rifles between 1939 and 1945. Examples of the en graved chrysanthe mum are pictured here.

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