Veterans A salute to our
Taking part in history
Ironton veteran saw major event of Pacific in WWII By Heath Harrison
C
larence Boggs spent three and half years in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II and, during that time, he was a part of some of the most historic parts of that conflict. Boggs, who turns 97 on Jan. 11, lives in Ironton and is a life long resident of Lawrence County. “I was born in Warren, but I’ve lived here since I was one and a half,” he said. He was working at Dayton Malleable when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 and, the following month, he entered the U.S. Marine Corps, where he was a sergeant. Deployed to the Pacific, he took part in the Battle of Saipan in 1944, liberating the Mariana Islands. The battle was considered one of the most decisive in the Pacific, inflicting heavy casualties on the Japanese and leading to the resignation of that nation’s prime minister. It also put Japan in reach of Allied bombers for the first time. The following spring, he was part of the battle of Okinawa, the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific Theater, which set the stage for a planned invasion of Japan by the Allies. Boggs would have been a part of such a mission, however that invasion never came. In August 1945, the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leading to that nation’s unconditional surrender. “Japan was going to be next, but everything ended,” Boggs said of the operation, which would have commenced within 15 days. “There was another outfit designated to be right behind us. They said our casualties would have been 105 percent. We didn’t know that until later, though.” With the war over, Boggs took part in the U.S. occupation of Japan. “We just packed up and went to inhabit,” he said. He was stationed in Nagasaki, where he arrived days after the bomb had dropped and saw the devastation firsthand. “No matter where you stood, you couldn’t see anything but trash on the ground,” he said. “You couldn’t believe what you were looking at.” He recalled a group of Catholic nuns, who lived in a monastery in the hills above the city, where they made chocolate. Their home was seven miles from the bomb’s point of impact. “There was a room there, facing the blast,” he said. “It blew out all the windows. There was glass stuck in the walls like daggers. They were lucky no one was in there at the time or they could have been killed by flying glass. That was exactly seven miles away, so that gives you 14 miles of damage all around.” He remained in the military until April 15, 1946, when he returned to Lawrence County. And he wasted no time in returning to his work here.
Boggs
SEE “BOGGS,” PAGE 2