BY GINNY PRIVITAR
The battle for Okinawa would prove to be the last and the biggest of the Pacific Island battles in World War II. The campaign ran from April 1 to June 22, 1945 and the U.S. Tenth Army poured 287,000 troops into the battle. At stake were air bases vital to the planned invasion of Japan.
Phillip Bendish was 19 years old, a member of Company C, 519 Military Police Combat Battalion, 10th Army, when he landed on the beaches of Okinawa in May 1945. He could hear artillery, but there was no resistance.
The fight for this island would be different.
In earlier engagements, the Japanese had met the US troops on the beaches. Here, on Okinawa, knowing they were losing the war, the Japanese were dug into defensive positions all over the island.
“When we hit the middle of Okinawa the Marines went north. The Marines got stuck up there," Bendish recalled from his home in Bald Eagle Commons here in West Milford. "They went so fast they got trapped. We — the Army — went south. Other troops had captured prisoners and handed them over to us and continued to the front lines.”
As the regular army fought its way inland, the military police were tasked with guarding large numbers of prisoners, along with setting up and securing air bases and other responsibilities. Often they found themselves on the front lines.
One night that May, Bendish found himself with three other buddies guarding Japanese prisoners and Okinawan civilians who were under suspicion. They were in a defensive position on a little knoll which was higher by about five or six feet from the level ground.
“There were four of us guarding a quickly built stockade made out of wood posts with a cyclone fence. Inside were the prisoners,” Bendish said. “Each one of us took a turn staying awake at night, while the other three took a nap. It got pretty dark and at night you couldn’t see what was going on 20 feet away. It was very black there and we were close to the front lines. When my turn came, I remember sitting on the ground and looking out into the dark wilderness and hoping the Japanese didn’t notice (us). You didn’t know where the enemy was.”
It was eerily quiet that night, unlike the previous day when they were under heavy artillery fire. It was so quiet, Bendish said, it caught your attention. As Bendish took his turn on guard duty, all his senses were alert for the enemy. By the end of his shift, lines of poetry describing the night came to him and he wrote them down the next day (see box).
"Now I know how famous poets can create poems when inspired," he added.
A prayer never hurts
“We ended up in the front lines quite a bit of the time,” Bendish recalled. “You wouldn’t believe the artillery shells that came in; the Japanese relied on their artillery."My sergeant and I used to discuss religion in ’44, during training period. He was probably an agnostic. We talked about religion for a year. He said there is no God. In ‘45 we were in same foxhole together (on the second or third day after landing on Okinawa). It was raining, lightning and thunder and Japanese artillery falling all over the place. You say (to yourself) 'there’s no way in the world you’re going to get out of this.' And at that moment I started saying a prayer — the Our Father. The sergeant’s on the other side of the foxhole. Rain, thunder - you couldn’t ask for a more scary atmosphere. All of sudden he looks up at me and — I’ll never forget this — and with all this going on, he slowly raised his head up, and said, 'Phil, say one for me.' He figured he was going to die too.” Phil Bendish then and now
Bendish, now 90, was born in Hell’s Kitchen in New York City and spent the first 15 years of his life living with his family on Amsterdam Ave. between 59th and 60th St. He attended Power Memorial High School for two years and then the family moved to Flushing, Queens, where he graduated from Flushing High School in 1943.
After leaving the service in 1945, he sent the school his poem and it was published in the school paper. It was also published in a book of poetry.
Bendish attended Adelphi College in Garden City, Long Island and graduated in 1950 with a business degree. He became an accountant and worked for several large corporations, including ITT and St. Regis Paper Company.
Bendish married his late wife, Phyllis, on Sept. 27, 1952 and they had three children: Denise, Nancy and Paul, who all live nearby.
But Bendish does have one regret - he has never been in touch with his Okinawa buddies since his time in 1945.
“(It's) One of the great regrets of my life," he said. "I didn’t think so much of the poem or myself. And I never contacted them and told them I put their names in it.”
These days, Bendish enjoys watching baseball, football and especially hockey. He also loves a good game of chess and is a member in good standing of the West Milford Elks.
“I’m lucky to be around," he said.
And we are grateful for his service and for sharing his story and his poem
Editor's Note: Victory over Japan Day or V-J Day is the day on which Japan surrendered in World War II, in effect ending the war. V-J Day refers to both the initial announcement of Japan's surrender, which was made the afternoon of Aug. 15, 1945, in Japan, and, because of time zone differences, Aug. 14, in the United States, as well as to Sept. 2, 1945, when the signing of the surrender document occurred, officially ending World War II.