WWII Veteran Talks About War Ending But Not Struggle

On V-J day, recalling a struggle that didn’t end
APP.com
Jerry Carino
August 13, 2015

The Greatest Generation is known for poise in the face of crisis, but for decades World War II vets said little about their combat experiences. Now many of those who remain are speaking out. Sona’s voice is not alone.

Charles Sona, a 90-year-old Howell resident who served in the Pacific

during World War II, holds his hat with his SeaBees insignia on it.

(Photo: Peter Ackerman/Staff Photographer)

HOWELL – This weekend marks the 70th anniversary of the allied forces’ victory over Japan, but Charles Sona won’t be celebrating.

The World War II veteran and longtime Howell resident will reflect on what was lost, not what was won.

“The waste of all the men that died over there,” he said. “If I had my way, wars would be fought by the politicians that declare it. Not by sending our young guys to get slaughtered.”

Now 90, Sona almost was one of those guys. He fought in the Pacific theater in 1943 and 1944 before getting “blown up” during the Battle of Hollandia in New Guinea. He was on patrol as a “Seabee,” a member of the Navy’s construction battalions.

“I woke up in the mud; a guy was looking down at me and I couldn’t hear him,” Sona recalled. “Apparently I was blown up by something . . . I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t hear for a while. I still have terrible ringing in my ears.”

He rarely has told his story over the years -- “I still find it very hard to talk about,” he said, adding that he witnessed atrocities committed by the Japanese -- but he wants people to understand how unglamorous war is.

“If you smelled cordite (gunpowder) all the time, and vomit and the stink of the bodies rotting . . . I think it would change a lot of peoples’ attitude about war,” he said. “They think it’s so nice. It isn’t. It’s ugly, filthy.”
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