Johnny Dieter served on the USS Montpelier during the American invasion of Saipan, Tinian and Guam. "Before we headed in, we practiced on an island that had been cleared of Japanese," he said. "We lobbed some shells in there, and all of a sudden, they were firing back." After VJ-Day was declared, he served with occupation forces in Japan. "Hiroshima, the destruction was horrible," he recalled. "The Japanese really wanted us to see what we had done. They would load open-backed trucks with victims and follow us around as we toured the devastation."

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