My dad's uncle fought for the USA in the Pacific. At one point during the war, he was close to a Japanese bomb when it exploded. He survived. The interesting part of this story is that some scrap metal from the bomb had a stamp that said "Framingham, Massachusetts". He was from Northampton, MA, and he'd almost been kill by scrap metal made at a factory less than 100 miles from his home.

https://goo.gl/maps/npoRDeSFHKcXVKjQ6

Bonus story: My dad's uncle was scheduled to get out of the Army on December 8, 1941. He was on a ship from Pearl Harbor to San Francisco. When his ship got the news that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, his shipped turned right around. He was in the infantry, and he spent the next 3+ years fighting in the Pacific, including storming 4 beaches (e.g. just like storming the beaches of Normandy in the first scene of Saving Private Ryan). His battalion had 250% turnover during the war, and by the end of the conflict, he and 1 other guy were the only original soldiers left.

Bonus bonus story: He told me about a time when the Japanese were shelling US soldiers from the top of a hill with an artillery piece. The artillery was hiding behind some pretty thick trees, and was hard to target, so the US decided to have soldiers run up the hill in a direct attack. I guess it's smarter to charge artillery that's shooting at you if you have no place to hide? Anyway, it was a trap. As most of the soldiers got close to the top of the hill, the Japanese fled. It turned out the Japanese had stuffed the hill with explosives, and they blew that hill up big time. My dad's uncle was towards the rear of the charge, and he got knocked out from the shockwave of the explosion. When he awake, he was buried up to his waist in dirt and surrounded by the body parts of his fellow soldiers. Holy crap :P

> His battalion had 250% turnover during the war,

Ye gods. That reminds of Felix, a character from the book Armor, by John Steakley.

> It turned out the Japanese had stuffed the hill with explosives

Well, there you go. Nothing is new under the sun. Beneath Hill 60 [0] is a movie about the Allies doing the same thing to the Germans in WWI. The explosion was heard in London, about 250km away. It killed around 10,000 Germans [1], but according to the movie had very little effect on the eventual outcome.

I thought it must have been pretty unique event. Apparently not.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beneath_Hill_60 [1] https://www.military-history.org/articles/world-war-i-hill-6...

Thank you for the stories! I study in Worcester, MA but haven't lived there for very long so I'm not too aware of the local history. I'll have some fun looking into this.

From a US perspective when it comes to Japan, the definition of WWII is typically “Pearl Habor” since Japan was not at war with the US until that point. From your first link in the first paragraph it says “ In 1940 Japan invaded French Indochina... This move prompted the United States to embargo all oil exports”. The Pearl Harbor attack was in 1941 and at least partially caused by the US cutting off oil to Japan.