Dudleys Diary

he was an officer and is proud of the fact that he never lost a man in his unit during the time they spent on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. His unit was not a combat unit, the Marines were handling that task, he was in charge of a radar site. They were instructed to go to the top of a mountain and install and run a radar unit. He said when they arrived on the islands there was heavy fighting going on around them as the Marines were mopping up the remaining Japanese army. Last year, Dudleys stepfather and mother sold their house and moved into a condo as a means of downsizing and cutting down on their expenses and responsibilities. They sold a lot of stuff in an estate sale and one night Dudleys son and daughter came home after being over at their house. Dudley was sitting in his recliner watching t.v. and Frank came in carrying a .30 caliber ammo box saying look at this cool ammo box that Papa Howard gave me. I looked at it and said that's cool and commented that Dudley had a .50 caliber ammo box that he kept his gun cleaning supplies in. Frank said I bet you don't have one of these, and proceeded to open the box and pick up and object and toss it to Dudley. It was a model 97 Japanese fragmentation grenade which Dudley caught and exclaimed what the HE&$!!! Dudley looked at it and saw "pin" was in place and all of the parts appeared to be intact. Dudley stated that no doubt it had been defused and Frank said he asked Papa Howard and he said he could not remember and honestly did not know. It had been sitting up in that ammo box in his attic for over fifty years in the Texas heat. Dudley took the grenade and placed it carefully up in his wife's built in china cabinet where it has been sitting ever since. If any one knows anything about these things let Dudley know what he should do with it. I hate to get rid of it because it is such a cool relic from WWII but then again, I don't want this seventy one year old grenade to go off unexpectedly.