Local WWII vet recounts stories
of Okinawa – and his unlikely connection to an enemy soldier, Part I & II

January 11 & 18, 2023

“I want to be the oldest World War II vet in the nation,” said Durl Gibbs of Fort Benton.

Gibbs is a 97-year-old veteran who participated in the Okinawa Campaign, a major land battle of the Pacific Theater as well as the bloodiest conclusion to World War II.

In 1944, Gibbs was a senior in high school when his draft number was inducted; however, the Army allowed him to graduate first.

He was sent to Camp Hood, Texas for basic training, then to Hawaii for jungle combat training, before finally being shipped to Mindoro, a recently liberated island in the Philippines.

“I got in the war just in time. If I was a year off in my school, I never would have been able to join,” Gibbs said. “I went right overseas to join the 96th Infantry division on Okinawa.”

Gibbs became a member of I Company, 3rd Battalion, 381st Regiment of the 96th Infantry Division, of the US 10th Army, known as “The Deadeyes.”

On April 1,1945 - Easter morning - the division landed on the beaches of Okinawa to begin Operation Iceberg. Gibbs remembers the wasteland Okinawa had become from the days of bombing and shelling from the offshore Allied ships.

“That’s the way Okinawa was, there was bombs and shells so much that all the vegetation shattered. And lots of litter all over,” Gibbs said.

Heavy artillery from the enemy and monsoons were the biggest

challenges to Allied soldiers, who were not used to the extreme rain. Gibbs remembers bailing water out of foxholes with his helmet.

The heavy rain led many soldiers to suffer from “jungle rot” or “trench foot,” causing painful ulcers on their feet.

Gibbs remembers when a comrade lifted his foot from the ankle-deep water and steam rose off his boot. The soldier had contracted trench foot and was quickly sent for medical attention.

Foxholes were a soldier’s shelter during conflict and Gibbs recalls many other memories from his time hiding within a foxhole every night.

Another comrade - Charlie from Oklahoma - detonated a grenade within a foxhole with Gibbs pressed against him, shoulder to shoulder.

Four of the serrated cast iron shell shrapnel blasted into Charlie’s helmet. Two were stopped by the helmet lining, but two passed through and into Charlie’s head.

Miraculously, Gibbs survived the blast, but Charlie was immediately taken to the rear for medical attention. Gibbs never found out what happened to Charlie.

During the fight for Big Apple Hill, Gibbs served as “radio man” for his regiment, staying beside Squad Leader Sergeant Frank Dowell to relay information and messages from the other squads.

A quiet night within a foxhole with his sergeant would change Gibbs’ life forever.

A Japanese soldier found their foxhole while Gibbs was trying to catch some shut-eye and Dowell was quick to fight.

“I hadn’t gone to sleep yet, then I got stepped on and heard grunting. A Jap soldier had crawled into the foxhole and he died,” Gibbs said. “The next morning, I saw that he had a [Nambu] pistol and I wanted that as a souvenir. We were always looking for souvenirs. I took the pistol off of him and I noticed in the pocket of his uniform he had a wallet. It was in a protective cover like a heavy cloth, and the wallet was in it. I don’t know why, I slipped that wallet from his vest pocket and put it in my pocket. And we moved on, moved out.”
The Battle of Okinawa was won by the Allies on June 22, 1945. Securing Okinawa and the Ryukyu Islands was critical for the inevitable plans of invading Japan. The 96th Infantry returned to Mindoro to rebuild their strength and prepare for the invasion.
“We were slated to hit Japan when the war ended,” Gibbs said. “All the equipment was loaded and we were gonna load the next morning on the ship to hit Japan and the war ended. The war ended and we had to unload everything.” Victory over Japan (V-J Day) was officially announced Sept. 2, 1945. However, Gibbs would not be done with Okinawa.
Gibbs reenlisted for a year on a furlough deal. He returned home for a month before he was to report to Fort Lewis, Washington, only to be sent back to Okinawa with the military government as a member of the Health Department.

“I spent one year fighting and one year trying to heal the effects of war. Gave me a good view of both sides,” Gibbs said. “They were no longer Japs, they were now Japanese to me.”

Gibbs was discharged in the fall of 1946 and soon met his wife, Lucille Hofer, in Blackfoot, Idaho.

The couple met in a soda shop and then in a skating rink after Gibbs returned home on furlough and were engaged in 1948. He was a matured, war-hardened 23-year-old, while she was a “spunky” 17-year-old when they were engaged.

“I felt bad that she was a senior in high school and had a ring on her finger,” Gibbs said.

The couple married on June 1, 1949, just a few days after Hofer’s high school graduation. They soon had three children, Lee, Wesley, and ClaraJean.

“The wallet (from the Japanese soldier) was loaded with pictures of children. I compared the pictures to my children as they were growing up and it made me wonder what happened to the soldier’s kids,” Gibbs said.

The Gibbs children enjoyed playing with their father’s uniform and other military treasures stored in a footlocker, but they never touched the wallet as per their father’s orders. The wallet was to be handled with immense care and not to be played with – although one of the children slipped the Japanese yen bill from the wallet to add to their own collection.

For 65 years, Gibbs always wondered about the owner of the wallet.

The wallet was a well-worn brown leather preserved in a heavy cloth or a piece from a military blanket and held a dozen photographs of young men, some in uniform and others in civilian clothing. Japanese writing (kanji) was on the back of every picture.

The most intriguing piece within the wallet was a sealed envelope with kanji on the front painted perfectly; It looked like a machine wrote it. It was also marked with a “hanko” – a personal stamp with red ink used instead of a written signature.

The envelope contained something that the Gibbs children were forbidden to open.

​

Begin: Part II

​

April 1, 1945, the Allies invaded Okinawa.

Sixty-six years later, World War II veteran Durl Gibbs was able to return the wallet he took from a dead Japanese soldier to its rightful home in northern Japan.

His son, Wes Gibbs, wrote a book sharing the full story. “A Soldier’s Journey,” tells how they traveled halfway across the world to bring closure for his father and for other families who lost their loved ones to the war.

Wes has always been interested in visiting Okinawa to see where his father fought, but a plan didn’t start taking shape until

the father and son pair found a 96th Infantry website and other articles about soldiers returning to the old battlefields, sharing how meaningful it was to return many years later.

“I longed to see Dad have this kind of experience, and wanted to share it with him,” Wes wrote in his book.

Andre Giles, Wes’ employer in Fort Benton, helped the Gibbs family with their journey by providing two round-trip tickets to Okinawa. Durl’s other children, Lee and ClaraJean, were unavailable for the trip and Durl’s wife, Lucille, had passed away many years prior.

“When I told Dad of the tickets and my desire to make the arrangements to return to Okinawa with him, his first response was ‘Good! Maybe I can get that wallet back to the soldier’s family’,” Wes wrote.

​

RETURN TO OKINAWA

The father and son traveled to Okinawa on Jan. 13, 2011.

They met up with Chris Majewski and Mark Waycaster at the airport upon landing. The pair are ex-marines who serve as civilian contractors with the U.S. government.

They also serve as guides for returning soldiers and visiting American government officials.

The pair also connected with Alex Kishaba, the chairman of the Ryukyu American Historical Research Society, to assist in finding the family of the wallet’s deceased owner.

The wallet held a dozen photographs of young men, some in uniform and others in civilian clothing. Japanese writing (kanji) was on the back of every picture.

The most intriguing piece within the wallet was a sealed envelope with kanji on the front painted so perfectly, it looked like a machine wrote it. It was also marked with a “hanko” – a personal stamp with red ink used instead of a written signature.

One of the many pictures was discovered to have an address in Okinawa written on the back.

Kishaba sent the picture with the address for further research and joined the pair of ex-marines in escorting Durl and Wes to sites on the island that they knew were involved with the battle, such as the Cave of Virgins.

Wes goes into more detail in his book about the mistreatment of Okinawa citizens during the war and the forced drafting of Okinawan men, women, and children.

During the Pacific theater - especially in Okinawa - the Japanese used the naturally carved tunnel and cave systems as bases, retreats, camps and even hospitals.

The Cave of Virgins memorializes the hundreds of teenage Okinawan schoolgirls that were given medical training and forced into service as nurses for the Japanese military.

“The cave walls were still blackened by the explosions and fire of American soldiers clearing the cave. It is a depressing descent into the shadows of this tragic setting,” Wes wrote.

Kishaba recounted his mother’s story of being one of these Okinawan women forced into service and hiding in the caves with the Japanese soldiers. She only survived due to running into an American soldier as she went to retrieve water.

“No matter how rough it got for us in uniform, it was 10 times rougher for the civilians,” Durl said.

Durl had always felt sympathy for the citizens of Okinawa during his service. Returning 66 years later and facing the tunnels and visiting the battle sites, especially seeing the blackened walls of The Cave of Virgins, allowed Durl to finally face the memories he had buried from his time in the war.

Durl recalled memories that Wes had never heard before: an orphan boy crying beside the corpse of his mother, an abandoned horse Gibbs released from a locked corral surrounded by heavy enemy fire.

The father and son pair traveled to the many battle sites and took pictures. With war photos provided by the Signal Corps, they were able to recreate the pictures.

The most profound was a Tomari Lion.

The origin of the stone lion is unknown, but during the invasion of Okinawa, it served as a cover for American soldiers from heavy enemy fire.

The lion still stands, riddled with bullet holes. Today, the Tomari Lion is one of the best-known symbols of survival in Okinawa.

The slopes of Okinawa that were destroyed by artillery bombs and shells were now overgrown and luscious.

“I couldn’t believe it was the same place,” Durl said.

​

MAKING CONNECTIONS

Durl Gibbs’ story quickly gained media attention across Japan. “The fact that a former U.S. soldier cared enough to make a trip to Okinawa to return family photographs was also of great interest,” the book states.
Durl also gained mass attention with his white Stetson cowboy hat. He became an immediate hit with locals who recognized him on the streets as the American cowboy in Okinawa. Throughout Okinawa and mainland Japan, people asked to have their picture taken with Durl. He gifted cowboy hat pins with each new connection.

Kishaba had scheduled a press conference with local news media to interview the pair and distribute pictures of the wallet in hopes offinding the owner’s family.

The picture with the Okinawa address was returned to the soldier’s daughter and other family members.

The 55-year-old daughter met Durl and Wes on their last day in Okinawa, grateful for the photograph as her father did not talk much about his time in the service. The soldier was a prisoner of war during the Battle of Okinawa, but escaped death. He passed away 15 years before Durl’s return to Okinawa.

Also on their final day was the revelation of the wallet owner’s identity: Sergeant Seijiro Hojo.

However, no one had come forward to claim relations to the deceased sergeant.

The Gibbs family returned home on Jan. 22, 2011, but not before they made the decision to be the ones to personally return the wallet to Hojo’s family.

“Somewhere in our transit home over the next 24 hours, he turned to me and said, ‘I want to be the one to give them the wallet. Wes, let’s go to Japan,” the book states.

Wes, along with his siblings Lee and ClaraJean, immediately began to make the arrangements for Durl to return to Japan again.

At the same time, Kishaba was determined to find and connect the members of the Hojo family.

​

REUNITING

On Feb. 8, 2011, Kishaba successfully discovered Noriko Kuichi, the only daughter of the deceased sergeant who was only 2 years old when her father was proclaimed missing in action in 1945. She lived in Iwate Prefecture in northern Japan.

The Gibbs family was ecstatic, however, all positive feelings turned into worry when the 9.0 magnitude Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami struck Iwate and Miyagi Prefectures on March 9, 2011.

With tidal waves as high as six to 10 meters (nine to 32 feet) high, the Iwate Prefecture had lost all contact with the outside world and no one knew the fate of Kuichi.

Kishaba acted as an informant for the Gibbs family during the crisis. On March 18, 2011, NHK, a Japanese broadcasting company as large as PBS, traveled to the States to further learn the story of Durl Gibbs and his mission to return the deceased Japanese soldier’s wallet.

Gibbs was 85 during filming, which Wes found amusing to see his elderly father back in his work clothes, saddling horses, and checking on calves.

Kuichi was safe and alive, and although her house was heavily damaged, she was still willing to meet the Gibbs family.

“The evidences of divine help that seem to have assisted Dad and me with many details of our Okinawa trip, seemed to be helping us again,” Wes states in his book.

On May 27, 2011 the Gibbs family landed in Tokyo and took a bullet train for three hours to reach Morioka, the capital city of Iwate Prefecture.

Accompanied by the familiar faces of Kishaba and Robert Avery - a photojournalist documenting the Gibbs’ story - as well as film crews from NHK and other broadcasting corporations, the group walked up the gravel pathway to Kuichi’s small, humble home.

“We were met by a very warm, smiling older woman who waved at us, beckoning us to her home, and holding up her hands to greet us,” Wes said in his book.

It was Noriko Kuichi, the daughter of Sergeant Seijiro Hojo. “‘You’ve returned my father home’, is what she said,” Wes said. Kuichi took her time as she pulled out each individual picture from her father’s wallet. One photo was of Hojo’s younger brother, who was killed in the Pacific in 1944.
She opened the sealed envelope with the pretty kanji writing and the red hanko. Inside were stands of short black hair and a fingernail.

It was not for identification purposes as the Gibbs family had initially thought; It is part of a Japanese spiritual practice that involves the burial to include, at minimum, part of the deceased body.

With the hair and fingernail returned to their rightful place, the spirit of Sergeant Seijiro Hojo could finally be laid to rest. The envelope was placed in Hojo’s tomb.

Finally, after 66 years, Gibbs returned the wallet and Kuichi was reunited with her father.

“We were both farm boys that put on a uniform to fight for our respective countries,” Durl said.

The Gibbs children believed the two men could have been great friends under different circumstances.

The journey to return a worn, leather wallet was long and tedious, but finally successful.

The Gibbs family made many friends and memories during this once-in-a-lifetime experience; an experience Durl Gibbs will never forget.

​

​