Sgt. John Edward Bucher ^{1 2}

   FamilySearch ID: G9YS-LB4.

  Noted events in his life were:

1. Military: during World War II.

2. He has conflicting burial information of May 1945 and Stonington: Northumberland Memorial Park, Northumberland, PA. ²

3. Newspaper: The Daily Item, 10 Feb 2002, Sunbury, Northumberland, PA. ^{1 3} (photo) Bob Mertz visited John Bucher's grave on Okinawa in 1945 and brought photos back for the Bucher family.

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." Matthew 5:4

On April 1, 1945, the U.S. Tenth Army under the command of Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr. invaded the Japanese held island of Okinawa. The Japanese defenders did not contest the initial American landings, but fought desperately once U.S. troops moved inland. American forces were closing in on Japan, and Okinawa's fanatical defenders were more than willing to die for their emperor. The island became a slaughterhouse.

The Japanese committed themselves to the idea of death before dishonor. Many chose suicide over surrender. Kamikaze planes by the hundreds hurled themselves at the American fleet, sinking thirty ships and damaging many more. Japanese ground forces burrowed into the earth, forcing U.S. troops to root them out with grenades and flamethrowers. When the battle ended more than three months later, nearly 109,000 Japanese officers and men were dead. The Americans captured the island.

U.S. forces paid a terrible price for their victory. General Buckner was killed by Japanese artillery, one of more than 12,500 Americans killed in action on Okinawa. More than 38,000 U.S. troops were wounded or missing in action. The toll of civilians lost in the intense fighting numbered in the thousands.

Okinawa was a decisive victory in the Pacific theater of operations. The American military believed it would be necessary to invade the Japanese home islands in order to crush enemy resistance once and for all, and they planned to use Okinawa as a base for the massive operation. The dropping of atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945 made an invasion of the home islands unnecessary.

John Bucher, a 25-year-old soldier from Northumberland in the 77th Infantry Division, the so-called "Statue of Liberty Division", was killed in the Okinawa fighting in May 1945 and buried on the island. Bucher, one of eight brothers and sisters from the small Pennsylvania borough, was drafted into the army in 1942. Another brother, George S. Bucher Jr., served with the 97th Infantry Division in Europe during the war.

John Bucher completed his basic training in 1942 and, for the first two years of the war, was assigned to various posts in the United States. Helen Bucher, John's sister, remembers John coming home on three-day passes when his duties brought him close to Pennsylvania. His sister recalls that Bucher sometimes spoke to students at Priestley Elementary School. When it was time to return to duty, Bucher boarded the train at the Front Street station and rejoined his unit.

Helen was 15 when her older brother was killed on Okinawa. According to a newspaper clipping from the era, "The last word received by his parents was written April 28. In that letter which was heavily censored he told of fighting on both sides of him and intense bombardments of the island."

Upon learning of Bucher's death, Bob Mertz, a young man from Point Township serving in the U.S. Navy decided to visit the soldier's grave when he arrived on Okinawa in the fall of 1945. Mertz and Bucher graduated from Northumberland High School. Bucher graduated in 1940 and worked as a brakeman in Baltimore on the Philadelphia Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad before being drafted. Mertz graduated in 1942 and attended Bucknell University prior to entering the service.

While at Bucher's grave on Okinawa, a companion photographed Mertz. The photograph shows Mertz kneeling near a cross with Butcher's name on it. A dog tag is fastened to the cross. In the background, two or three other visitors walk among the rows of crosses and Stars of David marking the resting places of American soldiers. The cemetery is neat and orderly, but devoid of any flowers or decorations. It is a scene of stark and tragic beauty, reflecting the enormous sacrifice made to defeat the Japanese empire.

In 2002, Mertz, now 77, remembers coming home and showing the photograph to members of Bucher's family. The family was hit hard by the loss, according to Helen, but they persevered despite their grief.

Sadly, a quarter of a century later, the Bucher family of Northumberland was touched yet again by the hard hand of war. Harry Luther Bucher, brother of John and Helen, was an army staff sergeant serving his second tour of duty in South Vietnam when, on May 9, 1970, he was killed in what a computer database coldly categorized as a "non-hostile/ground casualty/other accident." A faded article in a family scrapbook described the accident, "Bucher was making repairs to a vehicle when it exploded and he was fatally struck in the head by flying debris." Sergeant Bucher left behind a wife and three children. He was one of four young men from Northumberland to die during the Vietnam War. He died exactly 25 years and two days after his brother John was killed on Okinawa. According to Helen, Harry mentioned John in his last letter home.

Today, Helen Bucher and her brother David are the only surviving siblings of the Bucher family. David lives in a nursing home, and Helen visits him every day. John Bucher's body was brought home from Okinawa and buried in Northumberland Memorial Park near Stonington. The army returned Harry Bucher's remains from South Vietnam. He is buried at Riverview Cemetery in Northumberland.

A family who sacrificed so much for their country might be expected to feel a great deal of sadness, or perhaps even a touch of bitterness, about their losses. Helen Bucher does not see things that way, however. When speaking about her. brothers whose lives were cut short by war, Helen said, "We. remember the good times.' "I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid such a costly sacrifice upon the altar of freedom."
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