CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Okinawa
On May 1, 1945, the 1st Marine Division rushed to the front lines to relieve the Army’s battered 27th Infantry Division. “It’s hell up there, Marine,” an Army soldier warned Eugene Sledge. “Yeah, I know. I was at Peleliu,” Sledge replied.
R. V. BURGIN
We encountered a lot of civilians. Most of them were marching out, single file, from the south going north. Mostly old people and really young. Just kids, babies. Some of them would be wounded. We stopped many times, and our corpsmen would treat their wounded. We’d give the kids candy bars.
I saw a wounded baby. He wasn’t crying, which surprised me, even though he had a big gash on his leg where he’d been hit with shrapnel. He was in his mother’s arms, or at least I guessed it was his mother. The corpsman went over and patched him up.
The Japanese had spread stories about us before we got there. They told the civilians we’d rape the women and murder them all if we landed. I guess some of the civilians even committed suicide when we landed. They’d jump off the cliffs with their babies in their arms. I never saw that, but that’s the stories we heard. But it didn’t take long for word to get around that we weren’t the monsters the Japanese had made us out to be.
HARRY BENDER
The Okinawans speak Japanese and all that, but in their religion they’re more closely related to the Chinese than they are the Japanese. There were so many civilians that were killed, too. The Japanese used the Okinawans as shields. They’d be moving out somewhere, crouched behind civilians. We saw a lot of wounded civilians.
STERLING MACE
The Army guys were heading up toward us. They looked beat. You don’t say much to them because it’s no good.
R. V. BURGIN
The Army’s 27th Division was a National Guard outfit from New York that didn’t have the greatest reputation. When they passed us by, I heard a sergeant tell a PFC to do something, and the PFC said, “Go f—k yourself. I’m not doing it. Do it yourself.”
That type of insubordination showed a lack of discipline on that unit’s behalf. Now, I was a squad leader on Peleliu and a mortar platoon leader on Okinawa, and if one of my guys had ever told me that, he’d need to go see a dentist.
Discipline is tremendously important in a combat situation. If ever you get in combat and your sergeant or lieutenant says hit the deck, you don’t stand there and ask why. You do it! You know for a fact that he’s trying to protect you. Discipline saves lives.
STERLING MACE
We relieved the Army. You throw smoke shells in, then take over their foxholes. They’d been there for two weeks and didn’t move two feet.
From their new lines, the Marines could see the ocean to the west. They knew that the south end of the island lay just ten miles distant, obscured by intimidating ridges.
R. V. BURGIN
Okinawa was narrow, just fifteen miles wide at its widest point. A ridge and a valley, a ridge and a valley, from the north end to the south end of it. Some of the ridges were higher than others, but basically that’s what it was.
WAYBURN HALL
They loaded our mortar platoon on amphibious tractors and ran us down to the front lines. We were put on the far western flank there. Our lines were spread across the island—two Army divisions and one Marine division at the time.
We moved into this cave that we had cleared of Japs. It had been used as an artillery battery. There were living quarters there, so we settled in, thinking it was safe. The fleas there ate us up. About the second day, somebody saw movement. There was a mound with portholes around it which we felt was part of the gun emplacement, never thinking it could be occupied. But someone thought they saw a Jap in there.
We studied the area and realized it might have been the opening to another section of caves. So we called a flamethrower in and he put a flame to it. Must have been a Jap ammunition storage down there, because it all blew up good. That was scary, but we were lucky and got out of the cave unhurt.
On May 2, in an attack reminiscent of World War I, K Company and other units across the American front would attack across open, muddy ground, under artillery fire, and straight into the enemy’s sights.
STERLING MACE
They told us, “Tomorrow morning we’re going to take off at eight o’clock, and you go out over that bridge there and keep going. You’ll come across those rice paddies, which is dried out. Keep going until you reach an embankment.” And that’s all they told us.
After heavy shelling, all three platoons started in unison. So the whole company starts out abreast, one, two, three, right across. First Platoon is on the left, the second one is in the middle, and we’re on the right. We start out and get up over this one little hill, and a Jap machine gun goes ripping right across the ground in front of us. You could see the dirt shaken up. All they hollered was “Don’t stop.” The three guys right in front of me went right through it. Didn’t even get hit. So I followed.
We get to the embankment and got into position. Then we started to take hits.
R. V. BURGIN
We were pinned down. On the other side of the bank was a small valley, and at the other end another ridge. There was a machine gunner there shooting at us, and I knew the general proximity of where he was, but we couldn’t see him. Everyone was just hugging the dirt. We put up with the machine gunner for a while. Whenever we tried to move, we had to throw smoke grenades and people would get hit.
STERLING MACE
We were there just two minutes when the word came, “We gotta pull back out, we’re losing too many people!” First Platoon was taking a beating; the Second Platoon had stopped again.
Someone passed the orders. “Team up with somebody. Get a poncho and carry the guys who are wounded.” Carrying a guy in a poncho with two people—that was tough. While the wounded guy lay in the center, you were dragging his ass through the mud. So you’d have to get two more guys and each would take a corner of the poncho.
Now, we had to make a strategic withdrawal. There was a little dike there with a road on top. If you ran along that, back toward where we came from, you could keep your head low and the Japs wouldn’t see you. So that’s what they told us to do. Keep low, and run one at a time.
Everybody wanted to get out, so nobody listened. “Keep low and run one at a time” became “four at a time.”
R. V. BURGIN
I figured somebody had to do something to spot this guy. So I just stood up and ran out in front of the ridge where the gunner could see me. Facing his direction I walked backwards, slowly. My thinking was, if he fired I would spot it, and we could drop some mortar rounds on him to knock him out. As I walked backwards, sure enough, he opened up on me. I saw the fire pouring from his barrel and knew exactly where he was. It didn’t take me long to run out of his line of fire and jump onto our side of the ridge. When I caught my breath, I noticed he had put two bullet holes in my dungarees, in the same place on both legs, about shin high. But he didn’t hit me.
Anyway, I called back to our mortars and had them fire one round. I made the adjustment and got a direct hit. The machine gunner went flying through the air. I’m positive I killed two of them with that one shell, because a machine gunner always had an assistant. I never did go over there to check, but I’m positive we knocked it out because we never did draw any more fire.
STERLING MACE
We got back, then we licked our wounds and said, “Tomorrow we’ll do it different.” Our first real battle on Okinawa didn’t go so good.
WAYBURN HALL
We set up at night on a ridge with a railway track cutting through it. Half of our platoon was on one side and the other half was on the other side. We always slept two to a foxhole, so half of us got ready to bed down. Random shellfire was going on. My buddy and I were right on the edge of this ridge looking down on this railway track.
Before it got light, we heard yelling. I grabbed my tommy gun. Someone was hollering, “He’s down the railroad track, coming toward us!” All the noise came from behind our lines.
People starting firing. I did, too. I must have fired twelve to fifteen rounds down through that area. Our gunney started hollering, “Knock it off!” So we settled down. When it got lighter, a Marine who had gone down there to check things out came up and told us what had happened. His outfit was behind us, and he said this sniper snuck back there and was sniping on them all night until they chased him up to us.
The lieutenant said, “Hall, take some men down there and check it out.” When we got down there, we found the Jap sniper, sprawled on the railway track with three big bullet holes in his helmet. I moved his helmet out of the way to look at his face and the top of his head stayed in his helmet.
R. V. BURGIN
I fought in three battles—New Britain, Peleliu, and Okinawa—and all three were as different as daylight and dark. New Britain was a jungle. Peleliu was a coral island filled with caves, hotter than hell. Okinawa was cool, open country. But on Okinawa we encountered much more enemy artillery fire than any other island. They had a tremendous amount of artillery on Okinawa. They had artillery pieces on Okinawa from the day we got there until the last day.
JIM ANDERSON
Okinawa was a more organized, predictable fight. We had a defense line set up at night, and in the morning, maybe at seven o’clock, they would shell in front of us, and we would move out in lines and move ahead until we hit some opposition. Then we’d dig in or retreat, but always we came carrying the casualties back.
HARRY BENDER
One of the other real bad things about Okinawa was that you could never get any sleep. There was shelling going off twenty-four hours a day. That’s also when the rains came. Right when we got there. You’d dig a foxhole. About three o’clock in the morning you’d be sitting in five inches of water in your foxhole with shelling going on. It was bad news.
Let me tell ya about what the Japanese did. Their hand grenades had a button that they hit on their helmet and then threw. Well, they’d bury those damn hand grenades, too, with the button sticking up, and make it into a mine. You’d step on it, and then the next guy behind you, that grenade would go off. The rains would wash these hand grenades anywhere. We had this path we were using for a couple days. The rains washed those hand grenades right next to that path. So you never knew for certain where you could step and still be safe from those grenades.
STERLING MACE
The shelling went on about two weeks. When these Japs threw stuff over at you, they didn’t throw little hand grenades. They threw big stuff that whistled over and explodes right up your rear end.
Soon after the Marines’ arrival on the lines, during the night of May 3, the Japanese attempted seaborne landings on both coasts of Okinawa simultaneously. They planned for their forces to link up behind the American lines to isolate and destroy the 1st Marine Division. But on the western beaches, H Company and the 1st Marines were waiting.
WAYBURN HALL
An amtrac picked us up and moved us to a small airstrip on the southern part of the island, maybe two hundred yards from the beach. We set up in a defensive position between the strip and the beach. Night fell. A couple hours later, flares started going up out over the water.
Jap barges were heading down the coast, trying to outflank us with a counter-landing. Our Navy patrol boats began running up and down the coast there, lighting up the area for Navy ships to fire on the enemy barges. The Navy had a turkey shoot with these barges.
While the Navy was firing, their 20mm rounds were coming right at our gun position on the coast. I was down in the gun pit, and I reached up and grabbed the tube of our mortar and brought it down to keep it from getting hit—that’s how close the Navy’s fire was coming—zipping over our heads. A few Jap stragglers came out of the water and into our area, but some people in our platoon took care of them.
They must have killed five hundred Japs that night.
The Marines resumed their offensive, aiming for the enemy’s nerve center at Shuri Castle, a stone fortress on a high hill. Between the Marines and Shuri lay ridge after ridge of Japanese fighting positions. As on Peleliu, the Japanese were on the ridges—and within them.
WAYBURN HALL
The land favored the Japs, who would be dug in on the ridge on both sides waiting for us to come up and get them. You could only get up there with small groups of men, say squad- or platoon-size. We had to use tanks to get small groups up there. The Japs were dug in there and in their caves, and we had to root them out. The fighting was ferocious. The elements favored the enemy, too.
HARRY BENDER
Once, we jumped into a trench, and I came across a Japanese soldier up close. He was right there, running right at me. I hit him with my M1. Shot him. About eight times, I shot him. I know I hit him every goddamn time I shot him, but I guess the momentum must have been so strong, because he just kept coming at me, running forward. Right before he got to me, he dropped.
JIM ANDERSON
To me, the Japanese didn’t seem as die-hard as they’d been on Peleliu, although they still had a firm grasp on the island. They were more patient and set up in foxholes, trenches, and caves.
R. V. BURGIN
For a week, we did the same thing again and again. We’d start across this valley and they’d open up on us. We’d throw smoke grenades and retrieve our men. We had to do that a couple times one morning, and never did make it across the valley. By next morning, it was the same damn thing. So we shelled the hell out of the opposing ridge with our artillery, but that didn’t do any good. A lot of times the Japs would gather behind and below the ridge, where they could hide while our artillery would pass right over them. Then they’d come out to welcome us when we started across the valley. That’s what was happening. Our artillery was arcing over the ridge and exploding too far behind. Only our mortars could drop shells down at a steep angle, on their heads.
So I set three mortars up to fire slightly behind the enemy ridge. I figured the Japs were there in a gully. I registered the first gun to fire down and to the left, the second gun down and to the right, and the third gun in the middle. I fired all the guns at the same time, twenty rounds per gun. We saturated the ridge and slope behind it with mortar fire. When we started to move out the next time, there was no resistance.
You never talked about what you did. You just did it, and went on to the next phase. I never even talked with my lieutenant about it. In 2002 I went and visited him. “Scotty, did I ever tell you how many damn Japs the mortar section killed that morning?”
“Nope,” he said. “I never did know. But I know you got them because we moved out after that and didn’t have any problems.”
“Well I went up there afterward and I counted fifty-three freshly killed Japs,” I told him.
“I’ll be damned,” he said.
As the Marines battled for muddy ridges named Awacha, Dakeshi, and Wana, the rain fell and fell, sometimes for ten days straight. This made a miserable task even worse.
HARRY BENDER
It rained and rained, and just kept on raining. By mid-May, it was difficult to get supplies up to us. They used an amtrac to bring up water and rations. Sometimes when the guys came up with the half-tracks to bring up the chow, we got to hear the radio. They talked about Tokyo Rose, the Jap’s propaganda tool. We loved to listen to her. The music was really great, you know. She’d say things like, “Hey, American GI, wouldn’t you rather be with your honey tonight, having a hamburger and fries and all that good stuff?” And we’d say, “Yeah, we would.” It didn’t do anything to hurt our morale. If anything, it picked it up. We all laughed at Tokyo Rose, that’s about the size of it.
We’d been in this area for about four days, on the top of this hill, and one of our amtracs came to the bottom of the hill and hit a mine. We got the driver out. He was wounded pretty bad. We were right there. I took his .45 off him. Then we unloaded whatever we could from the amtrac. Whatever we could still use.
STERLING MACE
They brought up bread to us. We thought it was seeded rye bread. It wasn’t rye bread—it was goddamn fleas.
WAYBURN HALL
Everything was at a standstill for a while because of the weather. The rain slacked off, and we got some supplies by airdrops. No vehicles could move for a while still, because of all the mud. So we got supplied by air. One morning some guys found some ammo cartons, made a table out of them, and we started playing cards, all sitting in six to eight inches of mud.
Three Corsairs flew over, heading to drop some bombs on a ridge nearby, we guessed. So we knew they were able to get off the ground now. Anyway, this one Corsair released his bomb too soon. It fell down and hit below us, on our ammunition dump. Then he strafed us—our own planes! Cards and people started flying, hitting the mud hole. I guess the pilot realized his mistake, because he pulled up real quick, and the other two planes with him never fired a shot. They must have been embarrassed.
JIM ANDERSON
When we were fighting on New Britain all the way through Peleliu, we never ever had anybody turned in for battle fatigue, that they couldn’t stand the front lines, the firing and so forth. But in Okinawa we did have some people from K Company turn themselves in for battle fatigue. We had one man come up, he was a sergeant. He had been in the service a long time. He wasn’t on the lines roughly a week and he turned himself in as a battle fatigue case. He just couldn’t stand the constant barrage from artillery. We didn’t know if he was faking it or not.
On Peleliu and New Britain we never got any replacements while in the fighting. But on Okinawa after a month or two of fighting we started getting replacements. Some of them were turning themselves in fairly regularly when things got tough, saying they couldn’t stand combat any longer.
Some guys actually did have battle fatigue from all the time on the front line. They deserved to be turned in, deserved to go to the rear for rest. I felt very sorry for them. Everybody has a breaking point, but some people could take more than others.
R. V. BURGIN
Early the morning of May 20, we were dug in on Wana Ridge, and Jim Burke and I were scouting, looking for targets. An artillery shell came in. I told Jim, “Let’s get the hell out of Dodge!” We started running down the ridge. He jumped in one shell hole. I jumped in another. Just as I hit the bottom of the hole, a shell landed right beside the hole. It buried me for a few seconds. I couldn’t see. Couldn’t breathe. I dug my way out with my hands. That was about ten in the morning.
Later on that afternoon, maybe two o’clock, all hell was breaking loose. Our Corsairs were strafing and bombing, artillery was going both directions. It was one hell of a battle. We were out in the open, in the middle of it. Artillery was going on both sides. An artillery blast went off, and a fragment hit me in the back of the neck. Our corpsman patched me up, right on the spot.
Later, I felt a bit light-headed so I headed to the aid station where the doc patched me up. I don’t know how I ever lived, to tell the God’s truth, or how I kept from getting wounded on the way over to the aid station. The battle was raging, and it was machine gun fire and artillery all the way.
I got to the first aid station and sat around ’till dark. Then we left in an ambulance. I held a glucose bottle for a guy who was in really bad shape. I don’t know if he made it or not, but he was still alive when we got him to a field aid station. They didn’t have any cots, just stretchers on the ground. I lay down on a stretcher on the ground. They gave me three to four shots of morphine that night, until I asked them what the hell was going on and they stopped giving me shots.
The next morning they sent me by ambulance to an Army field hospital. As I walked in the front door of the tent, I was given the second bunk on the right. I imagine there were eighty to a hundred Marines in there, wounded. The nurse come and gave me a sponge bath. I’ll never forget it. The dirt and dry skin rolled up on my belly like never before. None of us had changed clothes since landing on the islands.
My stomach was so sore, I couldn’t bear to touch it with a powder puff. Turns out it was a concussion from the previous day’s explosive. In a few days it didn’t hurt as much.
The doc took good care of me, and my neck healed up okay. I stayed in the hospital twenty days before I left and hitched a ride back to my company. I wasn’t wounded enough to go home; I never even thought of it. Sure, I wanted to go home, but I wasn’t really thinking about it. If you did, it would run you nuts. I knew it wasn’t going to happen.