1946: The Ashes of Victory
1946: The Ashes of Victory
“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.”
- Charles Dickens
The Imperial Palace, Tokyo, Japan
At last, the shooting had finally stopped.
The corridors and hallways of the emperor’s residence had been defiled with bullet holes, rubble, small fires, and piles of American and Japanese corpses. That was the case for the entirety of Tokyo, which had suffered firebombing and had ultimately become the sight of perhaps the bloodiest urban battle of the entire Pacific War.
Sitting among the stairs after the hard-fought battle, was a young marine named Sgt. Jake Miller. Miller had answered his country’s call after Pearl Harbor, fighting across places in Asia he had never heard of before but had become etched deep into his memory. Thinking about all the guys he knew who never survived to see the end. It was too hard to think about it when you’re having a smoke.
Another marine came up to Miller, ready to relay an order. “Sarge, the lieutenant wants everyone to assemble in the courtyard,” the jarhead said. With a slight sigh, Miller joins the rest of his squad to the bombed-out courtyard and dozens of other men. On a small wooden platform, an old lieutenant patiently waits for everyone to gather around and look on with curiosity.
“Gentlemen, I’ve just received news from General MacArthur. The Japanese army in Tokyo has surrendered unconditionally. All men have been ordered to lay down their arms and stop fighting."
The only thing Jake could hear now where the cheers and yells of his fellow Marines after 5 years of hell coming to an end.
***
Volga Riverbank, Astrakhan, Soviet Union
At last, he made it.
Sergeant Wilhelm Schulberg had finally sat down on the banks of the river that millions of men had fought through the gates of hell to reach, the Volga. The nearby city of Astrakhan was still producing smoke due to stiff Soviet resistance, but it was only a matter of time before the Red Army holdouts would be destroyed. Wilhelm too had thought back to all the years he had spent fighting his way through Russia. The snow, the dead comrades, the marshes, the wheat fields. All those years of Eastern European hell seemed to have finally paid off.
Answering the call from the Führer and the Fatherland, Wilhelm had fought from one end of Europe to the other as part of the mighty Wehrmacht. Baptized by fire in France, he was now leading a squad under his command that had been through the worst combat imaginable. Fighting through European Russia was no easy task, but 5 years of bloodshed had delivered the Germans the impossible victory they craved for so long.
At last, Wilhelm could finally breathe again with assurance as he knew his war was over. He was going home as a conqueror.
***
Both men were thousands of miles apart, on two different continents. They were fighting for two different armies of two different nations. Both men had been baptized by fire until their ultimate victory. The ideologies they fought for have become legitimized in the eyes of the world.
What both men had in common was a burning question present in their minds, looking for an answer that fit: The old world they grew up in was gone. What kind of world will come next after this?
The world that Jake Miller and Wilhelm Schulberg made possible through force-of-arms will be a world of constant struggle—a struggle between 2 systems, 2 continents, and 2 different ways of life.
Between Democracy and Fascism. Between Freedom and Order. Between Colonialism and Liberation. 2 superpowers on 2 continents, locked in a battle for global supremacy.
A clash between two eagles.