WWII veteran remembers war 70 years later
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NORTH JACKSON — This year marks 70 years since the end of World War II. One West Tennessee man was there when the Japanese surrendered at the end of the war. “The rifle seems a lot heavier than it used to,” Carl Jones laughed as he held a rifle he brought back from the war in 1945. Jones said it does not seem like it’s been 70 years since he fought in Japan. He said it was never a question in his mind whether he would serve his country. “I could hardly wait to get out of school so I could join the Marine Corps, because that’s what I’d always wanted to do,” he said. Although Jones was not quite old enough yet, he said on the day Japanese soldiers bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941, where his brother was stationed, he knew he wanted to fight in the war. That day marked the United States’ entry into World War II. “I was anxious to fight the Japanese since they bombed my brother,” he said. Thankfully, his brother was not harmed during the attack. After training, Jones’ unit went straight to the Pacific. “We stopped at Russell Island, and the next stop was Solomon Islands, a little island called Green Island, where they let me off,” Jones said. Not long after that, he fought in the battle of Okinawa, which lasted from April to June of 1945, followed by the U.S. dropping atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “After Okinawa, after we dropped the big bomb, the Japanese decided they’d had enough,” he said. Jones was there on the day the Japanese boarded the U.S.S. Missouri to surrender, marking the end of the war. Jones said he vividly remembers that day. “The surrender crew flew into a little island off Okinawa called Ie Shima. Everybody was happy, naturally — exuberant and celebrating,” he said. Jones said he was happy to come home and start living life. He became a businessman and started a family. “I’ve got a daughter and a son, and a son-in-law and a daughter-in-law, and six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren,” he said. Besides working and being a family man, he picked up a hobby for traveling. He said after being all over the world, one of his favorite places is Pearl Harbor. “We dropped a wreath in the water like you’re supposed to do, and I enjoyed that,” he said. “That was quite touching. It really was, because oil still leaks from those sunken ships.” He said while there he remembered what made him want to fight in the first place.
