'A tough life, but a good one': 99-year-old Rockford WWII veteran was wounded at Okinawa 81 years ago Monday

Eighty-one years ago, an 18-year-old Stan Primmer was knocked out and blown out of his clothes after a Japanese kamikaze pilot dropped a bomb and slammed the plane into the U.S. Navy veteran's ship off the island of Okinawa.

He woke up on the island in a medical tent filled with dead and maimed soldiers. A Japanese plane shot at the medical tents at one point during his hospitalization.

Primmer, after recovering from shrapnel wounds, was placed on burial detail on the island, which he called an "experience."

Like many World War II veterans, Primmer certainly experienced the horrors of war, but he said multiple times during an interview earlier this month at his longtime Rockford home that he "never seen nothing" and "had it easy" compared to the U.S. troops who battled a fierce Japanese enemy on land.

"I didn't go through nothing like they did," Primmer said. "No, I did not."

Primmer, who turns 100 Sept. 1, joined the Navy in 1944 after his junior year of high school. He served as a gunner on the Landing Ship Tank-534.

On the morning of June 22, 1945, sailors had unloaded troops and weapons when an enemy plane was seen approaching the bay filled with ships. Primmer started firing at the Japanese plane, which then dropped a bomb and slammed into his ship.

He said he felt "kind of numb" with Japanese fighter planes swirling above.

"You're so scared, and you get used to it," Primmer said.

He said sailors removed the pilot from the plane, cut off pieces of his skin and distributed them among the sailors.

"They saved a piece for me, but I don't know where it went," Primmer said. "Well, we did some dumb things. The thing of it is, it was showing that we got him."

The strike killed three of his shipmates and wounded 35 others, including Primmer, who was blown out of his shoes and clothes.

"It took my clothes off except half of my skivvies," he said.

He said he woke up in the tent with someone telling him how lucky he was.

"It was full of dead people," Primmer said of the tent. "People don't know what it's about. And I wish these goddamn politicians would learn something about it."

Primmer said he was "bruised damn bad" and sustained shrapnel wounds to his neck and mouth.

Doctors discovered internal damage from shrapnel years later when he was treated for prostate cancer, according to his daughter, Jody Cornwall. She said his cancer returned, but it's slowly progressing and affects him little.

After leaving the field hospital, he was put to work while his ship was raised from the shallow bay after the kamikaze attack and repaired for the expected invasion of Japan. One of his jobs was burial detail.

"You'd think that you couldn't do it," he said. "I couldn't do it now, but something makes you do it."

Primmer said he put American soldiers in sacks, and a vehicle would come along and pick them up. They would gather dead Japanese troops as well. Primmer said one of his fellow soldiers would collect gold teeth from dead Japanese soldiers.

After Okinawa, Primmer and other sailors were preparing to invade Japan, but the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki led to Japan's surrender in August 1945.

"We knew there was a big bomb, but that was about all we knew," Primmer said.

On his way back to the states, a ship took him and other sailors to Japan and showed them the devastation where one of the bombs was dropped and where Primmer's ship was supposed to land for the invasion.

He said he was glad he never had to invade Japan. The invasion likely would have led to massive casualties on both sides.

"If we would have had to land, I (maybe) wouldn't be talking to you," Primmer said.

He left the military in 1947, and 60 years later, was awarded a Purple Heart medal from then-U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers for his injuries off Okinawa.

Primmer and three other Rockford-area veterans were presented with "honor blankets" in 2024.

After the war, Primmer returned to his family's Rockford home, built in 1898, and helped his father on the farm. He said he also picked up a small job here and there for 90 cents an hour.

He spent less than a year at Washington State College, now Washington State University, with goals of becoming a veterinarian.

He said soldiers coming back from World War II flooded colleges and universities, and he did not receive much money from the GI Bill. So, he said higher education wasn't worth it to him, and he returned to the Rockford farm.

"I just thought I should help feed the people," Primmer said.

He got married and had six children. His wife, Bev, died in 2022 after about 67 years of marriage. One of their children has also died.

He's in fairly good shape for nearing the century mark. Cornwall said her father's hearing is poor and he gets dizzy, both of which she attributes to the war.

Primmer said his day-to-day consists of doing chores, walking, reading and napping. He said "nothing on TV is worth watching." One of his sons lives with him, and Cornwall visits him most days.

Primmer attributes his fair health to God.

"The Lord's been with me," he said. "I pray every night. I mean, yes, I swear and stuff, but I pray and talk to him every night because he's the one that brought me home."

He said he did his duty during the war and is proud to be a veteran.

"It's been a tough life, but it's been a good one," Primmer said.

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This story was originally published June 21, 2026 at 7:06 PM.