May 27, 2004 4 min read

Ed Miller of Hopwood was young but already a seasoned sailor during the battle of Okinawa, one of the bloodiest campaigns of World War II. The campaign began on April 1, 1945, and ended June 21, 1945, with the Japanese garrison losing 103,000 of its 120,000 men, while the U.S. suffered 48,000 casualties – one fourth listed as dead – according to the History Channel’s Web site. Okinawa was the last great U.S. amphibious campaign of World War II, a combination of U.S. Army and Marine forces landing on the island while Navy support suffered heavy damage in resisting attacks by kamikaze planes, the Web site explained.

Miller, 79, doesn’t talk much about what it was like to be in the battle: “I put it out of my mind.’

But he is now eager to share photographs of the battle he received as a gift from a U.S. Navy photographer assigned to the U.S.S. Nevada where Miller worked as a member of the gun crew on a 14-inch gun located on the battleship’s starboard side.

“I put a 1,400-pound projectile in and four 10-pound bags of powder. The lieutenant would receive word from fire control and we would fire,’ Miller explained his job.

When he was able, Miller helped the young Navy photographer whose name he no longer remembers.

“When I had time off, I gave him a hand out of curiosity, seeing how he took photographs,’ said Miller.

“He was there until after we got hit with the suicide plane,’ Miller pointed to a photo of the Japanese suicide plane that crashed into the Nevada. “I was in the turret here and the plane went down here. There was damage to the starboard side. It rattled my brain for a while.’

Miller was already working in the newsroom of The Morning Herald, doing stock exchange reports and running as a gopher when he was drafted during World War II at age 18. The government let Miller finish his junior year at St. John’s High School before sending him to war in 1943.

Miller was assigned to the Nevada, which served in both the European and Pacific theaters. He joined the ship when it was docked in Norfolk, Va., and was sent to British waters to prepare for D-Day. During the invasion of Normandy, the Nevada was stationed off southern France to provide naval support.

“Like a bunch of dummies, we went out. We had never been in battle,’ remembered Miller. “When they began shooting across the deck, boy, did we run for cover.’

The Nevada was then sent to the Mediterranean, back to southern France and then to Norfolk where Miller received a five-day pass and was allowed to come home for a visit. The battleship then went through the Panama Canal and to Puget Sound for “new rifling of the big guns,’ Miller said, and then to Pearl Harbor where Miller received another pass that allowed him to visit a Uniontown friend named Tom Gerke who was stationed at Red Hill.

The Nevada then received numerous assignments in the Pacific, including Guam, Sai Pan and Iwo Jima before being sent to Mog Mog Island for rest and relaxation before going to Okinawa.

After a Japanese suicide bomber hit the Nevada, the battleship was sent north of Okinawa on patrol. The ship was 350 miles south of Japan when atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Nevada crew found out about the bombings a day after they happened.

When the war ended, Miller said, “I was grateful. Anybody who said he was not scared was not telling the truth. I was scared from Day One.’

The Nevada went back to Pearl Harbor and then San Francisco. Miller was discharged and arrived home Feb. 25, 1946. The next day he ran into his future wife, Molly. The couple, who will be married 51 years on June 13, had two children: Karen, who is deceased, and Earl, who now lives in Fairchance and is married to Darcy. They have two children, Eric and Evan.

Miller earned his high school equivalency diploma at Waynesburg College and went back to work at the Herald-Standard from where he retired as foreman of the pressroom in 1989.

And throughout these years, Miller kept the photos of Okinawa given to him by the Navy photographer as he was leaving the ship. Miller approached the Herald-Standard about printing them at the urging of fellow veterans.

The photos are taking on added significance as the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., will be dedicated this weekend.

“It is absolutely beautiful,’ said Miller, who visited the site last month. “They should have done it a long time ago because so many of us are gone.’