World War II: The Autobiography

by Jon E. Lewis

  I hit the deck again just inside the defilade. On the sand immediately in front of me was a dead snake about eighteen inches long. It was colorful, somewhat like American species I had kept as pets when a boy. It was the only snake I saw on Peleliu.

  Momentarily I was out of the heavy fire hitting on the beach. A strong smell of chemicals and exploding shells filled the air. Patches of coral and sand around me were yellowed from the powder from shell blasts. A large white post about four feet high stood at the edge of the defilade. Japanese writing was painted on the side facing the beach. To me, it appeared as though a chicken with muddy feet had walked up and down the post. I felt a sense of pride that this was enemy territory and that we were capturing it for our country to help win the war.

  One of our NCOs signaled us to move to our right, out of the shallow defilade. I was glad, because the Japanese probably would pour mortar fire into it to prevent it being used for shelter. At the moment, however, the gunners seemed to be concentrating on the beach and the incoming waves of Marines.

  I ran over to where one of our veterans stood looking to our front and flopped down at his feet. “You’d better get down,” I yelled as bullets snapped and cracked all around.

  “Them slugs are high, they’re hittin’ in the leaves, Sledgehammer,” he said nonchalantly without looking at me.

  “Leaves, hell! Where are the trees?” I yelled back at him.

  Startled, he looked right and left. Down the beach, barely visible, was a shattered palm. Nothing near us stood over knee high. He hit the deck.

  “I must be crackin’ up, Sledgehammer. Them slugs sound just like they did in the jungle at Gloucester, and I figured they were hittin’ leaves,” he said with chagrin.

  “Somebody gimme a cigarette,” I yelled to my squad mates nearby.

  Snafu was jubilant. “I toldja you’d start smokin’, didn’t I, Sledgehammer?”

  ONE MAN’S WAR: A MARINE WRITES HOME, 25 SEPTEMBER 1944

  Lieutenant Richard Kennard, 5th Regiment, 1st Marine Division

  On the island of Peleliu

  Dear Mother and Dad:

  This is D-Day plus ten and my first opportunity to write and say that I am alive and well. You want the details, so here goes: On D-Day this island was blasted by the most terrific amount of naval gunfire and air bombardment that was ever given to any piece of enemy territory. It was a wonderful show as seen from the landing boat I was in a thousand yards offshore. The island is surrounded by a wide coral reef, over which the LTVs (amphibian tractors) transported us after we changed into them from the transport ship’s Higgins boats.

  I landed with the battalion executive officer at H plus 120, a half hour late. So many amphibs were knocked out on their first run into the beach that succeeding waves were late coming in. I saw no dead Japs on the beach – only dead and wounded Marines. The Nips had taken off to their caves and pillboxes in this island fortress. The smoke of battle was so thick I could hardly see ahead of me. I spent the morning and afternoon of that first day with the company commander of an assault company advancing south down the island. While in a mangrove swamp I received a radio message from my colonel to move across the island and get into position to register the artillery on a certain spot. This meant leaving the unit to which I was attached. Our team struggled along and suddenly got pinned down by sniper fire. We were exhausted, and as I felt that I had myself and FO team out in front of the lines of the adjacent attacking battalion, I decided to move back to where we first hit the beach. We got there at 6:00 pm and fell into a large crater utterly exhausted. All night long there was firing of small arms, and the beach was under constant shell-fire from the enemy’s mortars. The Japs kept themselves and their weapons hidden in the coral caves in the hills, where no kind of gunfire can get them out. How I lived through that night is beyond me, when so many men were hit by shrapnel from the mortars.

  D-Day plus one I got out of the crater where we had spent the night and started to go back to my unit when my radio man was hit by flying shrapnel. He was evacuated. The infantry had been forced back during the night, so I tried to get up the beach in the other direction to our CP. It took me two hours to go four hundred yards, the enemy mortar barrage up and down the beach was so terrific. I was always able to seek a deep trench in the sand, and fortunately no shells landed on us, though many were killed and wounded not more than ten feet away from where I was lying. At the battery position, which I finally reached at noon, we took off our packs and rested. I took my men down to the beach two hundred yards away from the battery to see my CO, and while there, the Japs laid down a heavy mortar barrage on H Battery. Two guns were knocked out, many boys wounded and killed (I can’t mention figures). The 105 ammo blew up and everything was destroyed there. My pack burned up completely, with the New Testament Marilyn gave me and all the pictures of her that I was carrying.

  Because G Battery lost two of its guns when the DUKWs sank on the way into the beach, it combined with the two remaining guns left from H Battery. D + 2 and D + 3 I spent in the southern part of the island with the men not needed on the guns as a reserve for the infantry outfit. We set up beach defenses and killed quite a few Japs who tried to counterattack our line at night.

  On D + 4 I went to an OP with a new FO team up in the coral hills. There for two days and nights it was a perfect hell. The temperature was 134 degrees, no shade at all, and the Nips were continually shelling us on the top of the ridge I was on, or shooting their machine guns. I was under sniper fire continually, and let me tell you, it is an awful feeling to have those bullets whiz past your head. I still don’t understand how I could have gone through all this without being hit, when I was deliberately shot at so often. Many boys near me were hit by sniper fire or shrapnel from the Jap mortars, which could never be located. During the night I had to observe and direct fire three different times, and once while doing so, a Jap sneaked up the ridge and was about to crawl into our CP. I woke up two men near me and we opened up on him. He sure looked good stone dead the next morning. I hate to think what would have happened had that Jap had a chance to throw some grenades in on us. Of course, I never slept while on OP, for it was too dangerous. After two days of hell on “Suicide Ridge” or “Bloody Nose”, as the hills here are called, I came down to the southern part of the island and had a good night’s sleep and a day of rest.

  Then I was sent up to the hills again with another FO team four days ago. I forgot to say that while leaving the OP where I had spent two days, a Jap sniper shot one of my men in the knee. While carrying him out on the stretcher and almost to safety, he fired again. The bullets went right through my legs and hit one of my other men in the ankle. I got them into a medical jeep safely and sent them off to the beach. All casualties are evacuated to the hospital ships off shore.

  Today I came down from the awful coral hills after three days and dangerous nights up there as the FO. There were more wounded and killed when the Japs shelled the ridge this morning. None of us were hit this time, thank God. I have my fingers crossed every minute up there in the front lines, and pray each night that I won’t get hit. For the present, I have been relieved by another officer and FO team. In a few days, I suppose, they’ll send me up there again, but I hope most of the mopping-up process will be over with by then. I’m lucky to be alive and uninjured now, after going through what I have tried to describe to you. We have the airport and all south of the hills. It just seems impossible to get the Japs out of those coral caves, though, and I don’t know how the problem is going to be solved . . .

  War is terrible, just awful, awful. You have no idea how it hurts to see American boys all shot up, wounded, suffering from pain and exhaustion, and those that fall down, never to move again. After this is all over, I shall cherish and respect more than anything else all that which is sweet, tender, and gentle. This has been the toughest fight in Marine Corps history. We have won an excellent, important airfield, and I am proud that I have been able to do my part in taking the objective
. The war on this island isn’t over yet, however, so I still have my fingers crossed and keep very alert and careful. I am doing my best for you all at home who count upon my safe return, someday soon, I hope. You may take excerpts from this letter, Dad, but I don’t want anything printed publicly at all.

  Much love to you all

  (Your son and Lynn’s sweetheart)

  Dick

  MARINES STORM A PILLBOX, NGESEBUS, 28 SEPTEMBER 1944

  Eugene B. Sledge, 1st Marine Division, USMC

  Ngesebus is a small island off Peleliu.

  After we moved farther inland, we received orders to set up the mortars on the inland side of a Japanese pillbox and prepare to fire on the enemy to our company’s front. We asked Company K’s gunnery sergeant, Gy. Sgt. W.R. Saunders, if he knew of any enemy troops in the bunker. It appeared undamaged. He said some of the men had thrown grenades through the ventilators, and he was sure there were no live enemy inside.

  Snafu and I began to set up our mortar about five feet from the bunker. Number One mortar was about five yards to our left. Cpl. R.V. Burgin was getting the sound-powered phone hooked up to receive fire orders from Sgt. Johnny Marmet, who was observing.

  I heard something behind me in the pillbox. Japanese were talking in low, excited voices. Metal rattled against an iron grating. I grabbed my carbine and yelled, “Burgin, there’re Nips in that pillbox.”

  All the men readied their weapons as Burgin came over to have a look, kidding me with, “Shucks, Sledgehammer, you’re crackin’ up.” He looked into the ventilator port directly behind me. It was rather small, approximately six inches by eight inches, and covered with iron bars about a half inch apart. What he saw brought forth a stream of curses in his best Texas style against all Nippon. He stuck his carbine muzzle through the bars, fired two quick shots, and yelled, “I got ’em right in the face.”

  The Japanese inside the pillbox began jabbering loudly. Burgin was gritting his teeth and calling the enemy SOBs while he fired more shots through the opening.

  Every man in the mortar section was ready for trouble as soon as Burgin fired the first shot. It came in the form of a grenade tossed out of the end entrance to my left. It looked as big as a football to me. I yelled “Grenade!” and dove behind the sand breastwork protecting the entrance at the end of the pillbox. The sand bank was about four feet high and L-shaped to protect the entrance from fire from the front and flanks. The grenade exploded, but no one was hit.

  The Japanese tossed out several more grenades without causing us injury, because we were hugging the deck. Most of the men crawled around to the front of the pillbox and crouched close to it between the firing ports, so the enemy inside couldn’t fire at them. John Redifer and Vincent Santos jumped on top. Things got quiet.

  I was nearest the door, and Burgin yelled to me, “Look in and see what’s in there, Sledgehammer.”

  Being trained to take orders without question, I raised my head above the sand bank and peered into the door of the bunker. It nearly cost me my life. Not more than six feet from me crouched a Japanese machine gunner. His eyes were black dots in a tan, impassive face topped with the familiar mushroom helmet. The muzzle of his light machine gun stared at me like a gigantic third eye.

  Fortunately for me, I reacted first. Not having time to get my carbine into firing position, I jerked my head down so fast my helmet almost flew off. A split second later he fired a burst of six or eight rounds. The bullets tore a furrow through the bank just above my head and showered sand on me. My ears rang from the muzzle blast and my heart seemed to be in my throat choking me. I knew damned well I had to be dead! He just couldn’t have missed me at that range.

  A million thoughts raced through my terrified mind: of how my folks had nearly lost their youngest, of what a stupid thing I had done to look directly into a pillbox full of Japanese without even having my carbine at the ready, and of just how much I hated the enemy anyway. Many a Marine veteran had already lost his life on Peleliu for making less of a mistake than I had just made.

  Burgin yelled and asked if I were all right. A hoarse squawk was all the answer I could muster, but his voice brought me to my senses. I crawled around to the front, then up on top of the bunker before the enemy machine gunner could have another try at me.

  Redifer yelled, “They’ve got an automatic weapon in there.” Snafu disagreed, and a spirited argument ensued. Redifer pointed out that there surely was an automatic weapon in there and that I should know, because it came close to blowing off my head. But Snafu was adamant. Like much of what I experienced in combat, this exchange was unreal. Here we were: twelve Marines with a bull by the tail in the form of a well-built concrete pillbox containing an unknown number of Japanese with no friendly troops near us and Snafu and Redifer – veterans – in a violent argument.

  Burgin shouted, “Knock it off,” and they shut up.

  Redifer and I lay prone on top of the bunker, just above the door. We knew we had to get the Japanese while they were bottled up, or they would come out at us with knives and bayonets, a thought none of us relished. Redifer and I were close enough to the door to place grenades down the opening and move back before they exploded. But the Japanese invariably tossed them back at us before the explosion. I had an irrepressible urge to do just that. Brief as our face-to-face meeting had been, I had quickly developed a feeling of strong personal hate for that machine gunner who had nearly blasted my head off my shoulders. My terror subsided into a cold, homicidal rage and a vengeful desire to get even.

  Redifer and I gingerly peeped down over the door. The machine gunner wasn’t visible, but we looked at three long Arisaka rifle barrels with bayonets fixed. Those bayonets seemed ten feet long to me. Their owners were jabbering excitedly, apparently planning to rush out. Redifer acted quickly. He held his carbine by the barrel and used the butt to knock down the rifles. The Japanese jerked their weapons back into the bunker with much chattering.

  Behind us, Santos yelled that he had located a ventilator pipe without a cover. He began dropping grenades into it. Each one exploded in the pillbox beneath us with a muffled bam. When he had used all of his, Redifer and I handed him our grenades while we kept watch at the door.

  After Santos had dropped in several, we stood up and began to discuss with Burgin and the others the possibility that anyone could still be alive inside. (We didn’t know at the time that the inside was subdivided by concrete baffles for extra protection.) We got our answer when two grenades were tossed out. Luckily for the men with Burgin, the grenades were thrown out the back. Santos and I shouted a warning and hit the deck on the sand on top of the pillbox, but Redifer merely raised his arm over his face. He took several fragments in the forearm but wasn’t wounded seriously.

  Burgin yelled, “Let’s get the hell outa here and get a tank to help us knock this damn thing out.” He ordered us to pull back to some craters about forty yards from the pillbox. We sent a runner to the beach to bring up a flamethrower and an amtrac armed with a 75mm gun.

  As we jumped into the crater, three Japanese soldiers ran out of the pillbox door past the sand bank and headed for a thicket. Each carried his bayoneted rifle in his right hand and held up his pants with his left hand. This action so amazed me that I stared in disbelief and didn’t fire my carbine. I wasn’t afraid, as I had been under shell fire, just filled with wild excitement. My buddies were more effective than I and cut down the enemy with a hail of bullets. They congratulated each other while I chided myself for being more curious about strange Japanese customs than with being combat effective.

  The amtrac rattling toward us by this time was certainly a welcome sight. As it pulled into position, several more Japanese raced from the pillbox in a tight group. Some held their bayoneted rifles in both hands, but some of them carried their rifles in one hand and held up their pants with the other. I had overcome my initial surprise and joined the others and the amtrac machine gun in firing away at them. They tumbled onto the hot coral in a forlorn tangle
of bare legs, falling rifles, and rolling helmets. We felt no pity for them but exulted over their fate. We had been shot at and shelled too much and had lost too many friends to have compassion for the enemy when we had him cornered.

  The amtrac took up a position on a line even with us. Its commander, a sergeant, consulted Burgin. Then the turret gunner fired three armor-piercing 75mm shells at the side of the pillbox. Each time our ears rang with the familiar wham–bam as the report of the gun was followed quickly by the explosion of the shell on a target at close range. The third shell tore a hole entirely through the pillbox. Fragments kicked up dust around our abandoned packs and mortars on the other side. On the side nearest us, the hole was about four feet in diameter. Burgin yelled to the tankers to cease firing lest our equipment be damaged.

  Someone remarked that if fragments hadn’t killed those inside, the concussion surely had. But even before the dust settled, I saw a Japanese soldier appear at the blasted opening. He was grim determination personified as he drew back his arm to throw a grenade at us.

  My carbine was already up. When he appeared, I lined up my sights on his chest and began squeezing off shots. As the first bullet hit him, his face contorted in agony. His knees buckled. The grenade slipped from his grasp. All the men near me, including the amtrac machine gunner, had seen him and began firing. The soldier collapsed in the fusilade, and the grenade went off at his feet.

  Even in the midst of these fast-moving events, I looked down at my carbine with sober reflection. I had just killed a man at close range. That I had seen clearly the pain on his face when my bullets hit him came as a jolt. It suddenly made the war a very personal affair. The expression on that man’s face filled me with shame and then disgust for the war and all the misery it was causing.