by Jon Stafford
Noemfoor was to be Rodgers’ last battle against surface forces. He spent the rest of the war commanding destroyer screens for the fast carrier task forces as they advanced and contributed to the destruction of the Empire of Japan.
In 1947, when the details of the victory were made public by the release of Japanese records, the outcry from the hundreds of districts representing the crews was such that Congress voted the command a Presidential Unit Citation. As a result, on October 14 of that year, Captain Theodore R. Rodgers, Jr., was voted the very unusual Thanks of Congress. A week later he was named rear admiral, the youngest in the US Navy.
Joseph Wiley Stories
Two Sergeants
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, . . .
It was the season of light, it was the season of darkness,
It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,
We had everything before us, we had nothing before us . . .
–Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
In their first great offensive against the Germans in World War II, American forces landed on the west coast of North Africa in November of 1942. In the following months, they advanced hundreds of miles to the east without opposition toward Tunisia, where the Germans had retreated before British forces that had chased them west all the way from Egypt. In their first taste of battle, the Americans were decisively beaten by German armored units that mauled them badly at the Battle of Kasserine Pass, driving them back eighty miles.
West of the Kasserine Pass, February 22, 1943
It was 0400. What men there were lined up. They were a dirty and beaten lot, these men of the 26th Infantry Regiment of the hallowed First Division.
“Anyone see Sergeant Renko or his squad?” Captain Miner asked.
The men shook their heads.
“What about Lieutenant Mosely?”
“I saw him get it,” a private volunteered. “Half-track.”
“Lieutenant Christopher or Sergeant Tallemy and any of his squad?”
“Sir, I saw Christopher at that bridge over that wadi about ten miles back. It was near that river that was supposed to be dry,” a private piped up.
Another man recalled him too. “Was that him? I saw him there. I think he may have been wounded. Sir, it was all a blur. I didn’t know that shells could land like that and not kill every one of us. I had to get outta there.”
Several others thought they might have seen the lieutenant but were not sure.
“That artillery was on us, sir,” a dirty-faced and dejected private added.
“Those half-tracks, sir. I don’t know how those bullets missed me. I just ran. My buddy got it and I just ran and didn’t even look back,” a corporal stated, with a miserable look on his face.
“I want volunteers to go back out and look for Christopher,” the captain said.
No one responded.
“I know you’re down,” he said earnestly. “But he might be out there, wounded but still alive.”
There was another long pause. Then, eighteen-year-old Private Joseph “Chip” Wiley stepped forward. “I’ll give it a throw, sir.”
“Good. I need two more men.”
The men were uneasy. Many knew Christopher well and liked him. But they had just had their first taste of defeat, and it was a new and terrible feeling to them. It was humbling that Americans could be beaten. Some hated themselves for not volunteering, but none would step forward.
Wiley collected a few rations and replenished his ammo. He took a grenade offered by guilty comrades, and then stopped to fill his canteen from one of the few supply trucks that had escaped the debacle. By himself for a minute, he wondered: Why’d I volunteer? That was real stupid. I guess I can’t go back on it.
He had been scouting well behind enemy lines with two other men when the panzers broke through behind them. They had come back much farther than the others. He had a small wound too, which should have let him out of duty altogether, although he knew many others had wounds as well. True, he had been caught up in the panic, but so had everyone else.
The answer was plain enough. I’m ashamed that fear took such a holda me that I panicked, and I’m angry at being beaten when I believed that crap they taught us that we would never lose.
Then fear gripped him again, the fear that had made him panic and run. He sat down on some ammunition boxes. It was a sensation deep in the pit of his stomach, the same sensation he had had as a boy knowing that his father was about to beat him. That was the last time he had been afraid. He had stood partially to prove to himself that he was no longer afraid.
But he was afraid, terribly afraid, more than ever. Deep down, fear grabbed at him, and he felt physically sick. It was the same fear that had overtaken him in the disastrous retreat, a sudden, terrifying, and consuming fear of death at the hands of the German armored units that had ripped the Americans to shreds and seemed to have no weaknesses.
Wiley thought he would be a coward again, that he would again run in the face of the pitiless machines that had come so close to running him over. He sat for a long time in the cool desert dark, knowing that he should go but not wanting to.
Without any reason to stand, he stood. He didn’t know what made him stand at that particular moment. Perhaps it was duty, or stubbornness, or stupidity. He might just as well have never stood again in the rest of his life. But he did anyway and began walking, oblivious to those around him, not hearing those guilty few who wished him good luck as he walked past.
He had been looking out into the blackness. Perhaps he recognized that if he got up he could be alone. He had always looked forward to being alone. There was something in being in the open, or by himself in the woods, that always comforted him. Watching his breath in front of him in the predawn cold, he felt a slight exhilaration as he blithely walked away from his lines.
The battle sounds so continuous in the previous few days were now silent. As Wiley proceeded southeast, the sun began to show itself, and he saw the area of the retreat unfold in front of him as though giants had turned lights upon the Earth.
“I promised myself I’d never come back here,” he whispered to himself. “So, here I am! Why did I volunteer? That was stupid.”
But he continued on.
The Grand Dorsal appeared some twenty miles off to the east, the line of peaks that the Army had passed through a week before, completely unaware of the enemy forces waiting to pounce on them from behind the Eastern Dorsal. The men had last seen Christopher somewhere in the area in between the American lines and the First Dorsal. But Wiley had not seen the bridge they mentioned and had only a vague idea where to look.
Into these vast badlands the private ventured alone, armed with his rifle and enough food for three days. He had been scouting for the company ever since they came to Africa, and soon he fell back into the rhythm of being a scout. But this time, he decided that he couldn’t be as careful as he usually was.
“It’ll take too long,” he told himself. “If Christopher’s out there, wounded, he might die if I take eight hours instead of four to reach him. I gotta take the chance
of someone shooting me.”
Then, with a small amount of bravado, he added: “I’m not afraid a somebody shooting me. That’s what bein’ a scout is. Part of volunteerin’ is to maybe get yourself kilt.”
His stomach felt somewhat better now. He walked boldly, but warily, ahead in the open.
Other than the peaks in the Dorsals and a lone peak of perhaps a few hundred feet before him, the entire area appeared as flat as a tabletop. However, Wiley knew from traversing it that there were thousands of depressions, mere dips, or beds of streamlets, some with water in them from the recent rains but most dry. Knowing the near impossibility of finding anything in many square miles of such ground, he walked slowly toward the peak in front of him, listening for every sound.
It took almost three hours to reach that peak in front of him. The sun was almost directly overhead by the time he got there. He sat behind a large rock and ate and drank—warm, stale water and a tasteless K-ration—before spending another thirty minutes climbing to get a good vantage point.
Once he reached the top, Wiley sat, took out his binoculars, and attempted to scan every foot of the vastness around him. Minutes passed by as he searched for a glint off a weapon, anything that would give away a man’s presence. The only real landmarks were Highway 17, which traversed the area left to right paralleling the peak he was on, and the Hatab River further off. The Army had used the highway in their advance toward the pass and then taken it in their chaotic retreat toward Thala, where they had made their stand and finally halted the panzers with a massive artillery barrage.
Most of an hour passed in this process. He was about to give up when he saw something off to his right in the direction of the pass.
“Explosion!”
He turned the glasses to the right, east.
“Grenade . . . I think.” He looked carefully through the glasses as the cloud of debris came back to earth, but he was too far away to see much. “That’s most of a mile, maybe more. I’ll have ta get closer.”
A glance to his right told Wiley that the peak he was on ran in the direction of the sighting. Quickly, he was up and jogging. Carefully watching his footing on the loose rock, he went as fast as he could, sometimes sliding, sometimes almost falling, his gear smacking him disrespectfully.
He maintained his elevation and aimed toward a particularly prominent point in front of him. When he reached it, he stopped and looked through the glasses. “I think it was over that way, not sure. Naw, I can’t see nothin’ from this little plateau.”
Then he began hearing occasional gunfire. He turned the glasses a good bit to the right. “There it is. Can’t see much. Still too far.”
He got up and started running again. Once, the cold air carried the sounds of the firing to him so clearly that he thought he had gotten too close and stopped in his tracks.
DAT . . . DAT–DAT–DAT . . . DAT.
Thompson submachine gun, Wiley thought. No gun sounds like it. That’d have ta be a sergeant or officer because they’s the only ones who carry it. He couldn’t remember if Christopher carried a Thompson or a Williams carbine.
Finally, he got close enough. It was an area many hundreds of yards across, scrub ground with occasional cacti and low lying bushes. At first he saw nothing. He sat and got out the binoculars. Then the gun fired, and he looked right at it.
DAT . . . DAT . . . DAT.
He’s gone off semiautomatic ta single shot with the Thompson. Must be low on ammo. There he is, must be four or five hundred yards off in a depression. Looks like one of our guys, he thought, not really sure.
The gun fired again.
I can’t see who he shootin’ at. In a few more moments he heard other weapons firing. Can’t see where they’re comin’ from. I’ll have ta get closer.
Wiley stood and ran along the edge of the escarpment, toward a closer high point about five hundred yards off and maybe two hundred yards from the firing.
In several minutes, listening to the mixed gunfire below, he came to the high point. For the first time, he could see well. He brought up the glasses for the third time.
That’s a G.I. for sure, he thought, but it’s not Christopher. Guy’s gone to his pistol, a Browning .45. I’d know that sound anywheres. Thompson’s probably outta bullets.
The Browning’s distinct sound echoed: BUNK, BUNK . . . BUNK.
The wind shifted. Now Wiley couldn’t hear the firing very clearly, but the G.I. continued shooting, running from one side of the low point to the other. Wiley searched in his glasses for the soldier’s targets.
I thought so. A band of A-rabs, probably six of ’em, no . . . seven. Maybe some of the same guys that chased me. I’ll fix those shits!
Quickly, Wiley twisted his rifle from his shoulder. The eight-pound M-1 Garand fit perfectly in his hands. He hiked up the rear sight to the notch that said “200.” He picked out an Arab who was some yards behind his comrades.
He sat motionless. Even a degree off, the bullet would miss or perhaps barely wound the Arab. He squeezed the trigger.
There was a loud crack, and the man fell over. Wiley got out his field glasses again and looked at the other Arabs.
Wind’s in my favor, he thought. They don’t know I’m up here.
The G.I. continued to fire: BUNK . . . BUNK.
I’ll shoot ’em all, Wiley thought, aiming again.
He picked out another man, squeezed off another round, and again the figure slumped. He picked out a third Arab. Just as he fired, the man moved.
The round, in the air for less than half a second, barely wounded the Arab. He began to yell to his comrades. Unaware of the direction the bullets came from, the man moved clearly into view. Wiley was on target this time.
CRACK. The man spun around and fell.
With that, the remaining Arabs bolted. Wiley saw no reason to give away his position by firing any more. He watched them scurry off in their woolen robes.
He waited a few minutes, until they were out of sight, and then stood up. He fired in the air, waved, and yelled at the American in the trench: “Over here. Hey!”
He fired again, and the soldier looked his way.
“Come on, come on!” he yelled.
The G.I. saw him and waved.
“Come on! Get outta there. Come on!”
But the man didn’t move. He only shook his head.
Then Wiley had a thought: Maybe Christopher’s down there, wounded. I gotta go down there. Jeez, I sure hope those creeps don’t come back or there’ll be more of us trapped.
Cautiously, but hurriedly, he ran down the incline and then toward the depression, his gear hitting him again. Once he stumbled awkwardly on the lip of a depression and almost fell. In not quite five minutes, he and the man he had observed stood face-to-face.
The other soldier was a bulky barrel-chested man, a staff sergeant about forty years of age, maybe six feet tall, perhaps 180 pounds. Wiley noticed he was helmetless and balding, with no coat despite the cold temperatures.
“Lad, glad to see you.”
“Sergeant.”
The two men shook hands. Wiley could te
ll from the uniform that the man was a Ranger.
“How many men you got with you?”
“Just me, sergeant.”
“Oh. Well, that’ll have to do. I need to get my captain out of here.”
Wiley noticed a man in a bloody uniform lying in the depression about fifteen feet away. He took a couple of steps closer, then stopped. The man was obviously dead.
That sure ain’t Christopher, Wiley thought.
“Lad, he was my captain,” the big man said in reverence. “I got him straight from the States, green as they come.”
Wiley was puzzled. What was he supposed to do now?
The sergeant continued. “He made a good officer. You should have seen him back at Kasserine shouting orders in such a calm way. We made a good stand there with a rag-tag group of men.” He shook his head and smiled. “A good stand. We commandeered a half-track with a seventy-five on it and set up behind a huge boulder and held ’em up an hour or so till one of those new Panther tanks came up and blew us out of the way.”
“Sarge, I’m lookin’ for my lieutenant, Christopher. You seen him?”
“No, lad,” the big man said, turning toward the dead man.
“Sarge, we gotta get outta here before those guys come back. And I need ta go on and look for my lieutenant.”
“Okay, lad” the big man said calmly, “but I’m not gonna leave him here so they can desecrate him. You know, they even steal your socks.”
The two walked over to the captain. Wiley looked at the dead man. He was a good-looking man in his early twenties, tall and lanky. He had taken a serious wound in his side, as evidenced by the big stain that had come through his jacket. The American flag patch on one shoulder was further evidence of a Ranger. The sergeant slouched down next to his officer, shaking his head.
