Edward Bale was born in Dallas, Texas in 1920. He was the only child. His father was in the automobile tire business. It was a good business because tires did not last long in those days. He was also in the automobile battery business. During the Depression he worked in the furniture and lumber business. He worked in real estate and worked as long as he could. Bale's mother was a well known Dallas volunteer social worker. Bale went to Texas A&M University and afterward joined the Marines and stayed in for 30 years. Afterward, he moved back to Dallas and worked as a Vice President for a Bank. Life in the Depression was difficult to describe because there was nothing to compare it to. The family was middle class, not wealthy but not poor. His parent's marriage was good and solid. Bale had that background. Bale went into the Marine Corps for a full career. His work at A&M started in the fall of 1937. He received his commission about the time the war started. He selected the Marine Corps because of his background in Texas. He actually knew little of the Corps but knew he did not want to go into the Army. The ROTC [Annotator's Note: Reserve Officer Training Corps] of Texas A&M had turned him off so he went into the Marine Corps. His commission was in the reserve with active duty. He heard of the attack on Pearl Harbor when he was at his parent's home in Dallas. He was already in the Marine Corps Reserve and knew he would be called up soon. He had no idea he would stay in the Marine Corp on active duty as long as he did. At the end of World War 2, he was on Okinawa getting ready for the invasion of Japan. He put his letter in to be released from active duty after the end of the war. His commanding officer questioned his decision and Bale decided to stay in. He went into Japan as a result. To Bale, the attack on Pearl Harbor was not exactly a surprise. He anticipated being in a war very shortly at that time. Something had to give and there would be an attack or incident of some kind. The attack could have been in the Philippines or somewhere else but not Pearl Harbor.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Edward Bale was sent to Philadelphia to the Marine Corps basic officer's course and then to New River Training Center in what later became Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. The Marine Corps officer training was not in a specific field like the counterpart officer training for the Army. The training was tough, quite good, and as thorough it could be. Bale disliked some aspects, but he prefers not to talk about those aspects. That is the way life goes. He was assigned to a Defense Battalion. Defense Battalions were designed to garrison outposts like Wake Island or Midway and defend the islands with 155mm guns to reach out ten to 12 miles and fend off enemy naval assaults. Bale decided to request training in a tank platoon at Fort Knox. He returned from Fort Knox and put in for transfer to the west coast in a tank platoon. He was a senior first lieutenant. He was assigned to the 51st Composite Defense Battalion. He was a white officer in command of black troops. He had asked for that assignment. There were three out of 167 candidate officers who had requested comparable duty. He had no problem working with blacks because of his background. He went to Company C of the 1st Corps Medium Tank Battalion [Annotator's Note: 1st Corps Tank Battalion (medium)]. It was the only battalion with medium tanks. It had four companies of medium tanks. A company could be sent to work with a division's light tank battalion. The tank training included tactics and gunnery at Camp Pendleton. There was no such thing as combined arms training during that time. Going into combat, troops had to learn in 15 minutes how they had to operate. They had radios in the tanks, but they did not communicate with the infantry. As a result, Bale would climb out the turret of his tank and talk to infantrymen to communicate with them.

Edward Bale operated the M4 Medium Tank [Annotator's Note: also known as the Sherman] during World War 2 except when he was in the Defense Battalion. During that time, Bale operated an M3 Light Tank [Annotator's Note: also known as the Stuart]. World War 2 was won with the tanks that the United States operated. They were as good as tanks got during that time. Until he retired in 1969, Bale felt the World War 2 tanks were more effective for the military because of their lower cost and simplicity. The complexity of the postwar equipment made the cost go up. The M4 tanks were superior to the Japanese tanks. The enemy tanks were not decent. They were simple in design and easy to operate, but the combat capability was reduced. The American tanks were superior to the Japanese tanks in the Gilberts, Marianas, and Marshall Islands. They were easy to destroy. On Okinawa, there was American equipment capable of lifting Japanese tanks, but on Saipan, there was not comparable equipment. The armament on the M4 consisted of a 75mm gun which was acceptable. It was what was needed to penetrate the armor on any Japanese vehicle. It was a good bunker buster, but on Tarawa, the shell would ricochet off the sand unless the round was fired into the opening of the bunker. That was coordinated with infantry or an engineer such that a satchel charge was thrown into the bunker and followed up with a flame thrower. There were five crewmen in a Sherman. After Bale's tank was damaged, he took over another one [Annotator's Note: during the Battle of Tarawa]. There were 14 tanks in his company [Annotator's Note: Company C, 1st Corps Tank Battalion (medium)].

Edward Bale and his Marine Corps Medium Tank Company [Annotator's Note: Company C, 1st Corps Tank Battalion (medium)] carried the same tanks [Annotator's Note: M4 Sherman medium tanks] they had trained with while in the United States with them when they shipped out. They arrived in New Caledonia and remained there for three months doing maintenance work. There was no area to train with the tanks. The basic industry on the island was agriculture so it limited the training area. The government did not want their roads torn up by the heavy M4 tanks. Next, the company took a trip to New Zealand but never unloaded. They travelled on the LSD-1 Ashland [Annotator's Note: USS Ashland (LSD-1]. There was a determination made that the Ashland could not make it from New Zealand to the training exercises that were planned to occur prior to the Marine landings on Tarawa. As a result, the Ashland sailed back for New Caledonia with Bale and his tanks. The company did eventually participate in training exercises in the New Hebrides Islands. The rehearsal exercises must have gone fine. Bale's tank company merely landed and sat on the beach because of an adjacent large coconut farm. The tanks were landed in LCMs [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Mechanized]. The tanks were reloaded and returned to the Ashland. The LSD took 21 LCM-3s into her well deck. The tanks were preloaded in the LCMs and the well deck was flooded so that the landing craft floated out. Before leaving New Caledonia, Bale noticed where the Allied bombing focus was, and it became obvious that Tarawa was the invasion site. The information became available to the troops during the rehearsal exercises prior to the actual invasion.

Edward Bale and his Marine Corps Medium Tank Company were told that the enemy resistance on the island of Tarawa would be obliterated by naval gunfire prior to their landing. [Annotator's Note: At this time, Bale was a tank platoon commander in Company C, 1st Corps Tank Battalion (medium) which was attached to the 2nd Marine Divison for the invasion of Tarawa.] The invasion would be a cakewalk as a result. The Marines did not anticipate a long campaign to capture the island. They felt they would be back aboard their ship by the end of the departure day. It did not work out that way. The capability of naval gunfire was grossly overestimated. No one had ever before conducted an amphibious invasion over a reef and through a lagoon that way. The strength of the Japanese positions was underestimated. Many of those positions had to be taken out by Marines after they had landed. Errors were made on the depth of the water inside the reef. It was deeper between the reef and the beach compared to where the landing craft beached. The M4 [Annotator's Note: M4 Sherman medium tank] could safely ford 40 inches of water. It was that deep on the reef but got deeper as the tanks proceeded toward the beach. Tanks were lost as a result. Bale landed on the right flank on Red Beach 1. Only two of the tanks managed to get ashore at that location. The water was the primary reason for the tanks drowning out. There was no waterproofing of the tanks at Tarawa. Later landings would have improvements in that regard. When Bale reached the beach, he saw wounded and dead Marines huddled up against the seawall. There were disabled LVTs [Annotator's Note: Landing Vehicle, Tracked, also known as amtracks or alligators]. Bale got into the action with the two tanks and he was joined by a lieutenant who was eventually killed. A runner that Bale sent out to contact the lieutenant was also killed. The original plan for the tanks to progress through the seawall involved an engineering detachment blowing a hole through the coconut wall. The problem was that the wall was about four feet high and behind it was a width of sand about 20 or 30 feet wide pushed up against the wall. If the wall was blown, the sand still had to be contended with behind it. The engineer detachment never showed up. They were likely all casualties. Bale had a reconnaissance section that preceded them into the beach. They had floats they would use to mark the safe path. Many of those people were lost. Bale's tank was named Cecilia. That was the tank commander's baby daughter's name. The tank commander was a young Hispanic who was killed on Saipan. An opening in the seawall was eventually found. It was used by the Japanese at low tide for vehicle access to the beach. Aerial photographs had shown that opening. Enemy forces engaged Bale's force after 75 or 80 yards of the beach. A Japanese tank fired on Bale's tank. The 37mm round entered the Sherman through the tank barrel and ricocheted inside the tank. The tank gunner was fearful and Bale had to calm him. The Sherman could no longer fire its main gun because of the internal gouging of the barrel. Cecilia was used for machine gun support after that. It had two .30 caliber and one .50 caliber machine guns. China Gal became Bale's next tank. It had crossed the island on the first day but pulled back at nightfall. A perimeter was established 30 or 40 yards off the beach. Bale joined up with the perimeter the next day.

Edward Bale spent the first night on Tarawa sleeping next to a disabled LVT [Annotator's Note: Landing Vehicle, Tracked, also known as the amtrack or alligator] on the beach. He rested there until a Japanese mortar round struck the vehicle. He left that position and found an unoccupied hole and rested there until daybreak. Additional Marines were landed on Green Beach during the early hours of the morning. The Japanese were thoroughly disorganized in their response to the invasion. Had they been better coordinated, they could have driven the Marines off the beach. The Japanese had mortars and more troops than the invading Marines. The American airstrikes and the naval bombardment had caused confusion in the ranks of the enemy. The Americans had no coordination training between infantry and armor. The troops had to learn fast in combat. The same was true for the Army in North Africa. The armor and infantry initially was trained to operate independently. Bale was working with Major Mike Ryan [Annotator's Note: Major Michael Patrick Ryan was awarded the Navy Cross for his actions during the battle of Tarawa] at the time.

Edward Bale did not see any particular danger to his tanks in the second and third day of combat on Tarawa except for magnetic mines the Japanese would slap on the sides of the American armor. That was the only danger. The defenses for the enemy were oriented toward the sea and the invasion forces had reached the areas behind them. The Japanese would swarm out of their fortifications and attack the Americans. This had also been the case on Guadalcanal and Tulagi. The Marines had no doubt in their minds that they had progressed beyond the main defense lines for the enemy on Tarawa. The anti-tank defenses were not planned beyond the beaches because of the enemy intent to stop the Americans before they had managed to set a beachhead perimeter. The heavy weapons that the Japanese had on the beach were brought there from Singapore. Many of those weapons are still there. Other than the one operational Japanese tank that Bale personally saw, all other enemy tanks had been disabled before his tanks reached them. Two enemy tanks had been encountered on Red Beach 3 by other Marine forces. The tank crewmen had problems with their radios before the landing and communication was hampered during the assault as a result. The radios were designed for aircraft. The tanks came from the Army without radios. The Marines turned to the Navy for a solution and received aircraft radios as a result. The radios had multiple coils with each having a different frequency. There were 40 or 50 coils. The radios did not work well because they were not design to be surrounded by heavy metal. They were a mess. Communication between tanks was non-existent. Most of the time on Tarawa, Bale was in the tank named China Gal. Supplies of food, ammunition, and water came to Bale's group through the platoon sergeant of the 1st platoon. He landed with an infantry battalion and had enough initiative to set up a supply system using the incoming supplies. The sergeant went through what was coming in to selectively sort out what Bale's men would need. Additionally, when Bale's group loaded up before the invasion, he added substantial ammunition to each tank's ammunition storage area. The tanks used more belted machine gun ammunition than anything else. The .30 caliber ammunition was readily available from the infantry. They fired into enemy emplacements based on support requests from the infantry so the ammunition to aid the effort was easy to obtain from the infantry. The tank's main 75mm gun ammunition also was not hard to find since the primary assault gun used by the artillery was the 75mm pack howitzer. Although the round for the pack howitzer was slightly different in length, it would function in the tank's main gun. Fuel was not a problem because the island was small and most of the time the engine was just idling. There was no need to refuel prior to the island being secured. The first night on the beach was the point when Bale thought he might not survive. While resting on the beach, he felt if the Japanese came over the seawall, the Marines would be dead.

Edward Bale saw most of his company's [Annotator's Note: Company C, 1st Corps Tank Battalion (medium)] casualties at Tarawa were from headquarters and maintenance people wading ashore late the first day of the assault. He has been criticized for being openly critical of the battalion commander who was eager to get ashore. The landing crafts for that group hit the reef and had to wade ashore. A lot of Bale's maintenance men were lost in the water. The commander would suffer a wound in the backside. He never should have tried to wade ashore at that time because there was nothing he could offer to improve the situation at that time. Bale may have done the same thing if he had faced the same circumstances. Major Ryan's [Annotator's Note: Major Michael Patrick Ryan was awarded the Navy Cross for his actions on Tarawa] contribution to the battle of Tarawa was in saving Marine lives. Many more would have been lost in combat without Mike Ryan being there. One of the saddest times for Bale was talking to Ryan on the telephone when he had Alzheimer's. He did not remember Bale. The last time Bale was physically with Ryan was at a conference. They spent a substantial time together after the conference, but the last phone call was sad. At Tarawa, there was a Captain Crane [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling] who was later killed on Saipan. Between Ryan and Crane the assault was organized and moved forward. Battalion commander John Schotel [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling] decided not to land as planned because his troops were having problems getting off the beach. Schotel opted to loiter offshore to pick a more opportune time to land and instead to send follow up assault waves forward to shore. Schotel urged Bale in his LCM [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Mechanized] to get ashore as fast as he could. Schotel was badly criticized for his decision not to land. Bale thought he might have made the same decision as he did. It was more important to get troops ashore than for him to land but he was criticized for being the battalion commander who did not land as planned. Schotel was transferred out of the division [Annotator's Note: the 2nd Marine Division] and assigned to the 3rd Marine Division and was killed on Guam. There is a hair line of difference between a hero and a dog that everybody kicks.

Edward Bale heard of a Japanese soldier throwing a magnetic mine on a tank inland of Red 3 beach. He did not learn the details. No Japanese got close enough to Bale's tank to attach a mine to it. Once the battle of Tarawa ended, his unit was shipped to the big island of Hawaii. They were billeted at Parker's Ranch [Annotator's Note: Parker Ranch was a cattle ranch used by the Marines for maneuvers after the battle of Tarawa]. In Hawaii, Bale and the Marine Corps determined that changes needed to be made based on lessons learned at Tarawa and earlier. Those changes were made. The 2nd Marine Division tanks trained in coordination with the infantry regiments. There was some liberty offered to the Marines while in Hawaii, but Bale spent much of his time in the hospital. He was involved in a jeep accident where his legs were burned by battery acid. The driver of the jeep fell asleep and failed to properly make a curve. Bale was hurt in December 1943 and spent several months in the hospital. The accident happened about a week before Christmas. Bale was out of the hospital by April. The first coordinated training between tank and infantry was very effective and paid off on Saipan and Tinian. It was not as effective as the training done after Saipan-Tinian operations because more was learned there. There was communication with the infantry at Saipan and Tinian, unlike Tarawa. At that point, there was no close air support training. Some of the improvements in training after Tarawa were the long stacks for intake and exhaust on the tanks [Annotator's Note: these allowed the sealed tank engine to operate in deeper water without the engine drowning]. Some early waterproofing on the M4 Sherman tank was accomplished with the final work done aboard ship. Better and earlier intelligence was obtained prior to the island assaults. A sand table of the Saipan landing may have been available for others, but the tank battalion did not have one. Bale only saw one such table while at the divisional headquarters.

Edward Bale witnessed the pre-landing bombardment of Saipan. The Navy had learned from previous experiences. The accuracy of the fire was greater at Saipan. The island of Saipan was much larger in size than Tarawa. Targets were inland and consisted of artillery and mortar positions plus enemy reserve forces. There were towns on the island which could have been fortified but were destroyed by naval gunfire and air assault. It was a different situation from past invasions. In the Marianas, there was a capitalization of prior experience to improve the Marines' situation. Prior to landing on Saipan, Bale's tank outfit was reconstituted. Only one of his 14 tanks was lost in the water. That tank was still there when Bale revisited Saipan. On Tarawa, Bale's original tank, Cecilia, was still there when he revisited that island. For the first few days ashore, there was considerable confusion. The first day was spent with 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines. The first night was spent in a Japanese bunker with the regimental commander of the 8th Marines and his operational officer. After dark on the second night, there was an urgent need for reinforcement of the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines at the base of the first ridge. Bale was ordered to go up and help the battalion. He took his two headquarters tanks and one platoon and headed down the road with a swamp on one side of the road and Japanese on the other. He used his black out lights to move forward. Bale did not see the urgency of the action, but there could have been a Japanese counterattack. Although he experienced a counterattack later, it was not during that night. The worse counterattack that Bale saw was the one that hit the 6th Marines on the second night. The enemy came over the ridgeline near the left flank of the 2nd Marine Division. The Japanese almost reached the Division CP [Annotator's Note: command post]. Bale could see the gunfire although he could not tell who was involved. Details are hard to recollect after decades. Saipan was not more suitable for tank operation compared to Tarawa because there were mountains hindering transit. Bale reached the summit of the mountain and proceeded to the other side. Bale did not encounter Japanese armor on Saipan although other companies of the 2nd Tank Battalion did. Bale reached Marpi Point during the battle. He saw Japanese civilians jumping off cliffs with their children in their arms. The same thing happened on Tinian a month later. At the time, he was ambivalent toward it. He was hardened by the war. After the war, the Point would become a CIA operative training area.

Edward Bale and his tanks loaded into LCMs [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Mechanized] and then into an LSD [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Dock] ship in preparation for the assault on Tinian. Bale landed the second day because of limitations with the narrow landing beaches. The 4th Marine Division landed on D-Day and the 2nd Marine Division landed the following day. Tinian had more flat land so it was a different operation. It was a cakewalk until the end. At that point, resistance grew much stronger. The tanks kept up with the relatively fast pace of the infantry until the assault up the last ridge when resistance stiffened. Bale stayed on Tinian for about three months. There was a great deal of mopping up to do on Tinian. The tanks ran a lot of sweeps during the battle. After Tinian, Bale returned to Saipan where he rejoined the 2nd Tank Battalion. Combat operations were not influenced by the civilians on either Saipan or Tinian. There was a different situation on Okinawa. That was because Okinawa was part of the Japanese homeland. Okinawa was more developed than the two other preceding battles. Bale and the Marines were indifferent toward civilian deaths and casualties. There was a female corpse that was used on Saipan as a landmark to give directions. Bale was 24 years old at the time. The event at Tinian and Saipan that stands out the most for Bale occurred at the top of Mount Tapotchau. There was a fortified Japanese position that was under attack by the Marines all day. The enemy position could not be taken. Bale went to his battalion commander and said he would get a couple of flamethrower tanks to see if they could burn the enemy out of their position. A night attack ensued and by daylight there was no more enemy resistance. That stuck out as a particular memory of the combat at Saipan and Tinian. The day after Mount Tapotchau, an enemy paymaster safe was discovered and blown. The Marines shared stacks of yen and when they reached Japan, the yen was still good. Cleaning out the safe resulted in Bale having so much Japanese currency that he gave some of it away. When he was transferred to Division Provost Marshall duty as the head of Military Police in Japan, he asked a Japanese police chief if the money was still good. He was assured that it was still valuable. Unfortunately, it could not be exchanged for MPC, Military Payment Certificate, which would have been of value in United States currency. MPC could be exchanged for yen but not vice versa. The flamethrower attack at night burned out the Japanese defenders on that Saipan ridge. The same Marine forces were involved in the assault of both Tinian and Saipan. After the battle, Bale helped build camps on Tinian. He ran foot patrols and searched for Japanese stragglers. Bale built a camp for the tank company. The company later walked off and left the camp behind. They returned to Saipan and trained for the attack on Okinawa. The foot patrols on Tinian discovered and captured some Japanese troops. Although the enemy preferred suicide to capture, after capture they would give up military information. Because of their creed to accept suicide over capture, the enemy had never been instructed how to deal with capture. As a result, they were never taught not to give up their own tactical details under interrogation.

Edward Bale went to Okinawa at the beginning of the assault as part of a deception force that did not land. The 2nd Marine Division was in reserve and was to do a feint landing on the opposite coast. After floating around for two or three weeks, the 2nd Division returned to Saipan. It was decided that another reinforced regiment was needed in the battle of Okinawa. The 8th Marines were designated as that regiment, and since Bale had previously worked with the 8th, his tank company was sent in conjunction with them. Landings were made on three small islands to the northwest of Okinawa. There turned out to be no resistance on any of the islands. The islands were needed to install radar to provide alert for any incoming Japanese air attacks. Bale and the 8th were then sent to land near Naha for a final push into southern Okinawa. [Annotator's Note: Naha is a city on the western coast of Okinawa.] The 8th relieved the 7th Marine regiment of the 1st Marine Division. Although much has been made of the efforts of the 8th Marines, when Bale discussed the situation with the tank commander he was to relieve, he could see how beat up and tired the 7th was. There was a depression in the troops of the 7th because of the length of their combat without relief. The infantry relieved the 7th at night and then Bale's group came in the next day. When the relatively fresh 8th Marines came in, they did in two days what the 7th Marine Regiment had not been able to do in a month. In the course of events, the 10th Army Commander, General Buckner [Annotator's Note: Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr.], was killed in Bale's CP. It did not have to happen. The 8th Marines CO [Annotator's Note: commanding officer] had a large pair of Japanese Navy binoculars made of shiny brass mounted on top of the ridge. Bale felt the binoculars would draw fire but did not address that to the officer. Buckner went to that spot and he was killed. He was the only person killed. To Bale, seeing Buckner killed was not any different than the other Marines who fell. Stillwell [Annotator's Note: General Joseph W. Stilwell] took over after Buckner, but Bale had no interaction with him. Buckner never should have gotten near those binoculars. It made Bale angry because the loss of that general never should have happened. Bale knew of the kamikaze attacks offshore. He was on a ship when some of the attacks occurred. He was a couple thousand yards from an LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] that was struck by a kamikaze. The LST had an engineering company of the 2nd Engineering Battalion [Annotator's Note: 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion] onboard. The ship that carried Bale's unit [Annotator's Note: 2nd Tank Battalion, 2nd Marine Division] could have been hit. In and out of combat for several years, Bale learned to keep his emotions in check. He learned to expect the unexpected. The battle of Okinawa ended for Bale when he reached the southern end of the island and resistance was overcome. He did not find the Japanese as fanatical on Okinawa as those he encountered on Saipan. At Saipan, the Japanese made a last desperate banzai attack. On Okinawa, the Japanese dug in and tried to kill as many Americans as they could. The last attack on Saipan by the Japanese was a mass banzai attack which overran an artillery unit. The enemy troops were inebriated on that attack, as they were during many of the attacks in the Pacific. Bale's tank company was ahead of the infantry prior to that banzai attack. As a result, the attack came between his tanks and the infantry. Bale's unit killed one Japanese soldier that night.

Edward Bale witnessed attacks by Japanese troops who were inebriated. He learned to like the Japanese after the war during his experiences with them as the Provost Marshall of Nagasaki, Japan. Bale felt the Japanese soldiers and marines were good, hard, tough troops. They had leadership problems in many cases. Enemy troops were not as well equipped as the American troops. Often, the Japanese supply lines were cut off by the Americans thus causing them problems. The Japanese Navy was reduced at first and then essentially eliminated. The Americans had major carrier air support and naval gunfire support. That made a difference for the troops. Spending time in Japan and talking to Japanese officers, Bale saw that the majority of them had been in China. Those officers had been returned to the home islands. Bale liked the Japanese. He has had good experience dealing with the Japanese military.

Edward Bale began training for the invasion of Japan after the end of the combat on Okinawa. He knew what to expect of the Japanese defenders. He looked forward to the invasion of Japan. He knew he was going to Japan because he did not have enough points to rotate back to the United States. Bale knew landings on Japan would be tough. By that time, Bale felt the invasion of Japan was like any other operation. He had not been warned that the Japanese civilian population would be fighting in the battle. He was not sure that the civilians would have fought in the final battles. The civilians, however, did follow the Emperor's orders. When the Emperor ordered the surrender, the civilians followed his orders. When Bale landed in Nagasaki after the surrender, the women and children were not to be seen for the first three or four days. The Japanese authorities were very cooperative with the Americans. His troops were ordered to stay away from the Japanese military while they demobilized. Bale was on Saipan when word came of the atomic bombs being dropped on Japan. He learned of the bombs over the radio. There was no indication of the type of weapon the atomic bomb was except that on Saipan on the north side of the airfield there were pits dug with lifts in them. The area was heavily cordoned off. The day the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Bale was supposed to fly to Tinian for gunnery practice on a range. He was tank operational officer at the time. There was no aircraft allowed to operate within several hundred miles of Tinian. After the war ended, Bale continued as the operational officer of the 2nd Tank Battalion. They unloaded in a Japanese shipyard near Nagasaki harbor. His commander sent for him and notified him that the two of them were told to go to town and report to the Chief of Staff there. The Chief of Staff was the same regimental commander he had worked with at Saipan and Tinian. The division commander was Major General John Walker whom Bale had known while he trained on Saipan. Bale was a captain at the time that he was transferred from the tank battalion to division headquarters where he would be CO [Annotator's Note: commanding officer] of the MP [Annotator's Note: military police] Company and Provost Marshall of the division. The announcement stunned Bale. Bale thought he was unqualified, but was told he was. He accepted that and went on to his new assignment. The first lieutenant who reported to him was out of his element as a CO of the MP Company. He served in that capacity for three months and then rotated back to the United States. Bale toured the destruction of Nagasaki to determine the extent of coverage required of his one MP Company. It was too much for his one company. Some of the responsibility was transferred to the 6th Marine Regiment. The damage in Nagasaki was extensive, but the major damage to the city was due to fire. The city police chief talked to Bale and revealed that the bomb exploded over a relatively flat section of the city which was in the middle of a series of hills. The hills helped defect damage to surrounding populated areas on the opposite side. Nevertheless, the bomb took out a lot of shipbuilding and repair facilities. Most of the government buildings were left intact because they were on the opposite side of the hills. Bale dealt with more problems with Koreans than Japanese in the area of Nagasaki. The former were treated like second class citizens by the Japanese. The area around Nagasaki had a considerable population of Koreans. After the defeat of the Japanese, the Koreans attempted to improve their position in the social structure. They insisted to the Americans that the Koreans were the American allies. They made the point of their oppression by the Japanese prior to the surrender of Japan. A Japanese interpreter that Bale had was of mixed ancestry. That individual did not fit in either society because neither accepted him. The interpreter had an adverse attitude toward the Japanese. The Japanese knew it. He had to be watched very closely. Bale could see that the interpreter was not being fair to the Japanese.

After three months in Japan, Edward Bale had the necessary points to rotate back to the United States. He left Nagasaki and went to Sasebo, Japan and was transferred to the 5th Marine Division. He took over Headquarters Company of the 5th at that point. He brought it back to Camp Pendleton. He had decided in Japan to stay in the Marine Corps. Only he and one other Marine captain remained in the Corps. He and that other officer swept out the headquarters of the 5th Marine Division and locked the door. At the start of the Korean War, Bale was on recruiting duty in Dallas. He had responsibility for all recruiting in northeast and west Texas. He next went to Quantico for school, and then was transferred to San Diego for four months recruiting duty before he went to Korea as CO [Annotator's Note: commanding officer] of the 1st Tank Battalion. Action was heavy for the battalion before he arrived. Bale had a good friend in command of the 1st Armored Amphibian Battalion. It consisted of LVTs [Annotator's Note: Landing Vehicle, Tracked] armed with turrets and 75 mm howitzers. That friend got into a conflict with his commanding officer and was fired. Bale was flown in by helicopter to take over the amphibious battalion. It was horrible to relieve a good friend who had been fired. The wives of the two men were close, too. Bale was in Korea from March 1954 to early December 1954. He brought the 1st Amphibian Battalion back to the United States in March or April 1955. Bale became a Marine Amphibious Operations instructor at Fort Knox, Kentucky for over three years. Between Korea and Vietnam, Bale served as the Marine barracks CO on Guam. That was from July 1964 to August 1966. He was in Headquarters Marine Corps for three years prior to that. While on Guam, the Americans were aware of the two isolated Japanese soldiers who had not surrendered. The holdouts operated in different parts of the islands. They would be observed at thrash dumps scavenging for food. Bale spent two days in a helicopter with a Japanese translator trying to get the holdouts to come out. The last Japanese holdout came out in 1973.

Edward Bale was G4 of the 1st Marine Division and then Chief of Staff of that Division during the Vietnam War. As the Chief of Staff, Bale ran the Division for the General. He was fortunate to work for two generals who were just opposite of each other. One officer was extremely tough and the other was kind and gentle. Both were effective officers. Bale learned of the United States' political climate through Armed Forces radio and Stars and Stripes newspapers. Papers from the United States and war correspondents in Vietnam also informed them. The new troops arriving in Vietnam also revealed the public attitude back in the States. As a professional military career man, it is always evident what the attitude of the public is in the country. Bale had little contact with General Westmoreland [Annotator's Note: General William Westmoreland commanded all United States forces in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968]. Bale never thought highly of Westmoreland. As a student at the Naval War College, Westmoreland had the 82nd Airborne Division and was invited to address the War College students on the concepts of airborne operations. Instead of talking about that, Westmoreland talked of his duties as Division commander. Bale had been assigned to have lunch with the speaker that day. In having lunch with Westmoreland, he formed his opinion of him. Bale never thought Westmoreland knew what the war in Vietnam was all about. Bale had the opposite opinion of Westmoreland's successor in Vietnam. General Creighton Abrams [Annotator's Note: General Creighton Abrams commanded all United States forces in Vietnam from 1968 to 1972] was a close personal friend of Bale. Bale's favorable attitude was developed when Abrams had the Tactics Department at the school at Fort Knox in 1946. As a Marine Corps student there, Bale admired Abrams then. That admiration never ceased. Abrams was a tremendous instructor who had fine people working with him. He was a neighbor of Bale. Abrams was a great guy and the top tank commander in World War 2. There was always a conflict between Westmoreland and the 1st Amphibious Marine Corps commander in Vietnam. Upon being ordered to Da Nang to meet with Westmoreland on joint Army and Marine Corps operations, Bale saw that the Marines would not cooperate with the strategy that Westmoreland had lain out. The Marines insisted on fighting their type of war against the enemy. There was always bad blood between the Marines and Westmoreland. They had little faith in Westmoreland's concept of running a multi-divisional campaign in the northern portion of South Vietnam similar to one that could be planned for the plains of Europe. The Marines did not agree with that strategy. In 1969, Bale retired from the Marine Corps as a full colonel.

Edward Bale became a Vice President of a Dallas banking firm following his retirement from the Marine Corps. The banking firm became part of a much larger firm after subsequent mergers. In looking back, Bale served and fought in World War 2 because he had an interest in military service since his days in high school. During that conflict, men were either drafted or they enlisted into the service. It was a different scenario than Korea and Vietnam. World War 2 was an all out war where the whole country went to war, not just a portion of it. It is difficult to pick a most memorable point of World War 2 for Bale. Perhaps Tarawa stands out the most in Bale's memory because it was his first combat. It had extreme intensity with a major loss of people and equipment. Likewise, it is difficult to pick out just one occasion as the most memorable experience in the Marine Corps. It could be when he met his wife or when he made colonel or even when he appeared before Congressional Committees. The day he retired would be a memorable point. There were different assignments and circumstances. World War 2 made Bale grow up. It matured him quickly. Today, his service is something he can look back on and see as some sacrifice. Personal satisfaction is most of what he feels. In today's world, World War 2 means nothing to the average person. It means about as much as the Civil War meant to Bale as a child. It is important to have museums like The National WWII Museum and to teach future generations about that war because of the extent and scope of World War 2. The fact that many commonplace things found in society today can be traced back to the war. It was the start of the high tech world. The TV and electronic industry including radar sprung from World War 2. There were many medical advances as a result of the war. As the war becomes more distant in time, it will fade into the background and become similar to the French and Indian War. Bale would hate to see that happen. The United States has become what it is since World War 2. The country was different during Bale's childhood. Not all the changes have been for the better. It is important that we build on the developments of the war. The war needs to be looked at in the future as weapons technologies change and become even more destructive. If we went into a war today like World War 2, we would probably have major destruction in this country. It is too bad that Japan or Germany did not have the capability to inflict major damage on some coastal city in the United States so that Americans could see the implications of that kind of warfare. We are no longer protected by distance as we were before. We live in a progressively dangerous world.