War Stories II: Heroism in the Pacific

by Oliver North

  SERGEANT CYRIL “OBIE” O’BRIEN, USMC

  2nd and 4th Marine Divisions

  Guam, Mariana Islands

  21 July 1944

  While we were on the ships headed for Guam, Tokyo Rose announced on the radio, “Boys, we’ve got some surprises for you on the beach on Guam.”

  We all wondered, “How did she know we’re going to Guam?”

  Most of the Marines had been already in combat. More than half were already veterans of Bougainville.

  The night we arrived off Guam I remember looking over the rail in the pitch darkness, two o’clock in the morning, as they started shelling. I remember thinking, “I’m gonna be in there tomorrow morning!”

  In the morning I landed with the third assault wave. Those of us in the assault waves had one advantage. The later waves came in by Higgins boats. We came in on Amtracs. They took you right up and put you on the beach.

  Nobody knows war like the guy on the front line, nobody. I was a correspondent on Guam. I don’t think even the people back in battalion HQ had the same exposure as the men on the front line.

  It’s funny how the Japanese knew who was in charge. A Marine NCO came up to me and said, “Leave your pack in the shell hole, nobody’s gonna steal it.” So I left the pack there as he told me and he went and gave some orders to some other Marines.

  Next thing I know, boom, right through the head. The Japs had observed us on the beach, guessed correctly that he was in charge, and a sniper killed him.

  One time four or five little Japanese women came out of a cave. So the Marines went up and got them and brought them to safety. We had to cross a stream, and these Marines picked these little women up in their arms so they wouldn’t have to walk through the water. They carried them over, probably thinking of their mother, their sisters, their daughters. Isn’t that something?

  I had a photographer with me, Herb Ball, and during a lull he said, “Obie, we’re gonna have to cut each other’s hair.” And I said okay. So he cut my hair and did a good job. Then I cut his hair. He looked in the mirror, laughed, and said, “Now I don’t care if get killed.”

  Most of the time all I had was a pistol, a .45, and of course, my typewriter. I figured it was the Marines’ job to shoot the enemy and it was my job to write about it.

  I’ll never forget the first day. I had this Hermes portable typewriter on my lap and I’m typing away and all of a sudden mortars start to come in. I got mad—not that I almost got killed, but because they were interfering with my writing!

  I’m writing, and I think I’m Ernest Hemingway!

  I wrote that story back in the field, took it back to division, and Ray Henry got it back to the States in about a week. It went to AP, UPI, and the like. Everybody picked it up because we were the only ones on the spot doing the story.

  We celebrated Christmas of ’44 on Guam. Right afterwards, Bill Ross grabbed me and said, “Obie, you better go get ready and pack.” I asked, “What for?”

  He said, “You’re leaving for the States in the morning.”

  But I didn’t get to go home; instead, they sent me to Washington. When I got there, Colonel Bill McAhill said, “O’Brien, the reason we brought you here is that we’re going to attack Japan around next Christmas (1945). I want you to volunteer to cover it.”

  So I said I would. But when I got home for a few days, my mother said, “Oh, you’re safe, the war’s over for you!”

  I didn’t tell her I was going back to Japan!

  Thankfully, I didn’t have to because Harry Truman had the courage to drop the bombs that ended the war. The planes that did it came from the airfields we had captured in the Marianas.

  4TH MARINE DIVISION

  TINIAN, MARIANA ISLANDS

  28 JULY 1944

  On 24 July, while the battle for Guam was still being fought, the 4th Marine Division assaulted Tinian. Since so many of the Navy’s heavy guns were engaged in supporting operations on Guam 110 miles to the south, the Marines on Tinian relied on the continuous fire from more than 200 artillery pieces lined up on the south coast of Saipan. Using napalm for the first time in direct support of the infantry, Marine and Navy pilots flying from Saipan’s captured airfield flew nonstop missions against 10,000 Japanese defenders.

  It took seven days to secure Tinian, at a cost of 385 Marine casualties. Guam, much larger and with a significant civilian population, took two weeks and cost 1,500 American deaths. On 10 August, Guam was declared secure. But even then, it wasn’t: The last Japanese defender on Guam didn’t give himself up until 1972.

  Within a matter of days, the smaller airfields on all three islands were in operation as advance air bases, and Seabees were working to build the much larger air bases required for the B-29 “Superfortress” bombers that would soon start wreaking havoc on Japan’s Home Islands. Guam’s Apra Harbor and Magicienne Bay on Saipan were converted to fleet anchorages, fuel depots, and repair facilities for use by the combatants and support ships Nimitz would need to support the invasion of the Philippines and the Home Islands.

  Prime Minister Tojo, seeing the inevitable, resigned on 18 September. By November, the B-29s that had precipitated the landings were launching raids over Tokyo and other Japanese cities from air bases in the Marianas. In August 1945, the two planes carrying the atomic bombs that ended the war—perhaps saving over a million lives—launched from blood-soaked Tinian. The sacrifices of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who had captured the islands had not been in vain.

  U.S. NAVY 5TH FLEET

  MARIANA ISLANDS

  10 AUGUST 1944

  Seizing Saipan, Guam, and Tinian was costly for the Americans. The U.S. tallied some 27,000 Marines, sailors, and soldiers as casualties. Nearly 5,000 were killed in action or died of wounds. The rest were wounded or MIA and presumed dead. The battles for control of all three islands lasted sixty days. But when it was over, America owned them and their incredibly valuable airfields. They immediately began converting existing 4,700-foot and 5,000-foot airfields into 8,500-foot runways needed for the B-29s.

  It was a strategic victory in other ways. America had severed the main flow of Japanese raw materials, reinforcements, and matériel from the Home Islands bound for the south.

  The U.S. was now in a position to move on the Palau Islands, the Philippines, or even northwest toward Iwo Jima or the cost of China.

  In August 1944, the entire Mariana Islands chain was back in American hands. Later in the war, Nimitz would move his headquarters from Hawaii to Guam. Three months later, the first B-29s would take off from the Marianas to bomb the Japanese mainland. The bombers hit Honshu, striking Japan for the first time since the Doolittle raid in 1942.

  Losing the Marianas’ “absolute defense zone” was devastating for the Japanese. Once Nimitz seized these islands, American B-29s could hit the Home Islands of Japan. The war leaders in Tokyo were forced to begin serious preparations for handling casualties, evacuating cities, and the possibility of an American invasion.

  Tojo, who had been Japanese premier and war minister, resigned three days after the landing at Saipan, even as the Battle of the Philippines Sea was ongoing. One of the members of the Japanese royal family is said to have lamented, “Hell is upon us, with the loss of Saipan.” Tojo, before he was executed for war crimes, said that he felt in his heart that Japan could never win after losing Saipan.

  American military leaders began to prepare for the conclusion of the war. For Admiral Nimitz, the prospect of leading even his massive forces into the homeland of Japan was daunting, not only because of the casualties that America would have to expect, but after witnessing how even Japanese civilians seemed bound by the Bushido code and might commit mass suicide, he could see the possible destruction of an entire civilization.

  Nimitz was convinced that the plans for a proposed Allied invasion in 1945 or 1946 meant that the Americans would not be fighting the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy when they came ashore in Japan, but would have to battle every civilian
old enough to walk and to throw a rock or carry a club.

  The cultural brainwashing of the Japanese Bushido code meant tens of millions—perhaps most of the population—would have died. Nimitz had no doubts that many others would have been caught in the crossfire and bombing raids, while millions of others would die in suicide attacks against the American and Allied forces.

  Later, after Roosevelt’s death, Harry Truman was forced to consider Nimitz’s concerns. His Joint Chiefs of Staff had told him to expect 60,000 to 80,000 American casualties at the first landing in Kaishu. They also forecast more than a million Japanese fatalities, including the entire garrison of 600,000, and 500,000 Japanese civilians. Once the Americans pushed onto other Japanese Home Islands they estimated that millions more would die.

  Those staggering numbers became part of Truman’s equation in deciding to use the atomic bombs to hasten the end of the war.

  CHAPTER 13

  FORGOTTEN PELELIU

  (SEPTEMBER 1944)

  HQ U.S. PACIFIC COMMAND

  PEARL HARBOR, HAWAII

  26 JULY 1944

  While the bloody battles for Saipan, Tinian, and Guam were still being fought, the bitter debate over Pacific strategy between MacArthur and Nimitz boiled up once again. MacArthur, having nearly completed operations in New Guinea, had effectively isolated Rabaul. Truk, the only other major Japanese naval and air base east of the Philippines, had been rendered useless by regular air raids and submarine attacks against Japanese vessels entering and leaving the anchorage.

  With the Marianas all but secured, MacArthur once again insisted that it was time to make the invasion of the Philippines the main attack in the Pacific—and demanded that he be given the necessary fleet, air, and ground forces to make his “I shall return” promise a reality. Nimitz, in equally strong terms, asserted that continuing his central Pacific “island-hopping” strategy was the most effective way to beat the Japanese. Long an advocate of using his fast carriers, battleship heavy surface action groups, and amphibious forces for rapid leaps across broad expanses of open ocean, Nimitz once more advocated an assault on Formosa.

  In Washington, Admiral King, General Marshall, and the Joint Chiefs tried, as they had in the past, to mediate a compromise between Nimitz and MacArthur. When their efforts failed, they threw the matter to the president. FDR, seeking a fourth term in office, and seeing political advantage in meeting with his two famous commanders, told them to join him for a conference of war in Hawaii. The two men did as ordered, and aboard the USS Baltimore in Pearl Harbor—during the only meetings the three wartime leaders would ever have—they hammered out a strategy for defeating Japan.

  After listening to Nimitz and MacArthur, FDR decided that the Philippines were to be the next major offensive. Then, if the Japanese didn’t surrender unconditionally, the Home Islands would be invaded. MacArthur was assigned to be the principal commander for the task. Nimitz would support him with carriers, battleships, cruisers, submarines, and troops, and would protect MacArthur’s right flank by ensuring that the Japanese could not counter-attack from the Palau Islands 600 miles to the east.

  MacArthur’s first objective was Mindanao, then Leyte, and finally Luzon and the liberation of Manila. As soon as possible, new B-29 Superfortresses would start reducing Japanese factories, shipyards, military facilities, and cities to rubble. About the only issue left undecided was who would command the invasion of the Japanese Home Islands when it came time.

  Immediately after the Hawaii conference, MacArthur and Nimitz went to work completing detailed plans for their respective missions. For Nimitz, disappointment at being directed to support the main attack through the Philippines was tempered by the assignment to secure the Palau Islands. That task meant that the 1st Marine Division—which had been “loaned” to MacArthur for operations in New Guinea and New Britain—would be returned to his control.

  By 10 August, with “mopping-up” operations underway in the Marianas, Pacific Fleet planners were able to brief Nimitz on their proposal to “secure” the Palau Islands in plenty of time to release assets—particularly carriers, battleships, and cruisers—to support General MacArthur’s three invasions in the Philippines.

  Little was known about the Palau Islands—because they had been ceded to Japan after World War I. The American command believed that the only islands that needed to be taken were Ngulu, Ulithi, and Peleliu. The first two, smaller, and, according to U.S. intelligence, less defended, were to be assaulted by the 81st Infantry Division. The battle-hardened 1st Marine Division veterans of Guadalcanal, New Guinea, and New Britain were assigned to take Peleliu.

  Just six miles long, two miles wide, and shaped like a lobster claw, Peleliu featured jungle-covered coral ridges and steep draws that revealed little. Numerous reconnaissance photographs were taken by PBYs, long-range land-based aircraft, and planes launched by the carriers—some by George H. W. Bush, the future president of the United States. Yet, despite all the photo missions, radio intercepts, and debriefings from the coast-watching native islanders, there was very little “hard intelligence” about Japanese strength or preparations on Peleliu.

  Bombing missions had cratered the island’s only major airfield, and ever since the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot” the Japanese had abandoned their Palau fleet anchorages. From a desk in Pearl Harbor, it appeared that Peleliu was vulnerable to a good, heavy pre-assault bombardment followed by a quick attack by the 1st Marine Division—now resting and refitting on Pavuvu in the Russell Islands. By 1 September, the division, commanded by Major General William H. Rupertus, was expected to be back to its full complement of 19,000 Marines and ready for D-Day on 15 September 1944.

  By the time the troops began to embark aboard their amphibious ships during the first week of September, what the Americans didn’t know about Peleliu was far greater than what they did. Those who planned the operation, called “Stalemate,” knew that the island had no rivers or streams. They didn’t know, however, that there was no fresh water whatsoever.

  U.S. pilots, naval gunfire officers, and Marine intelligence officers knew that early in the war some 3,000 Japanese troops and 500 press-ganged Korean laborers had improved the fleet anchorage and had built an airfield. The Americans didn’t know that the Japanese had constructed hundreds of sophisticated, interconnected caves and tunnels and mutually supporting, hardened fighting positions on the island.

  The Marines going ashore knew from past experience that when pressed, Japanese officers would often order their men to conduct suicidal banzai attacks, hastening the defenders’ inevitable collapse. But no one knew that Colonel Kunio Nakagawa, commanding the 10,000 tough Japanese troops on Peleliu, had ordered them to stay hidden in their tunnels and caves and “Make the American Marines come to you—and when they do, kill them.” There would be no banzai attacks on Peleliu.

  HQ 1ST MARINE DIVISION, AFLOAT

  PELELIU, PALAU ISLANDS

  1130 15 SEPTEMBER 1944

  It was still early on D-Day, but from his vantage point aboard the amphibious command ship General Rupertus could already tell things were not going according to plan. Four days ago, while making the 2,100-mile voyage from Pavuvu to Peleliu, he had told his regimental commanders that he expected this part of Operation Stalemate to be “tough but quick,” and that it would all be over in “two or three days.” Given the three days of continuous pounding by carrier aircraft and the battleships’ eighteen-inch guns and the cruisers’ eight-inch volleys, there was good reason for optimism.

  But now, just three hours after H-Hour, more than twenty-five of his LVTs and landing craft, having taken direct hits from Japanese guns hidden in the coral cliffs, were wrecked or burning between the barrier reef and the shore. Another sixty had been damaged en route to or from the beach and were now useless. His communicators were receiving frantic radio calls from shattered units trapped on the narrow shelf between the water and the jungle, taking heavy casualties. It was obvious that Peleliu was going to be anything but a
“quick” battle.

  Just prior to the assault waves crossing the line of departure and heading to the beach, Rupertus and his staff had watched the final moments of the pre-assault bombardment. All the lessons learned at Tarawa and since were being applied here. Just before the first wave hit the beach, rocket-firing LCIs and Hellcats sprayed the beaches with 40 mm and machine gun rounds. Rear Admiral Jesse Oldendorf, commanding the bombardment force, had gone so far as to claim, “There are no more targets. I have destroyed everything.”

  But he was wrong. The shells, bombs, and rockets had not hit many of the targets at all. Or if they had, they had bounced right off the reinforced concrete and coral. Admiral Oldendorf ’s gunners had missed most of the hidden tunnels and caves—mainly because they couldn’t be seen.

  Further, the naval shelling of the relatively small island wasn’t quite as devastating as it appeared. The number of rounds fired at the island before the assault had been governed by two factors: known targets ashore on Peleliu, and the requirement to have Oldendorf ’s battleships and cruisers provide the same kind of assault preparation for MacArthur’s troops going ashore in the Philippines.

  Since there were few known targets visible on Peleliu, Oldendorf ’s gunnery officers made the assumption that whatever needed to be hit had been. Therefore, they reasoned, firing more rounds both wasted ammunition that would be needed for the Philippines and created more wear and tear on the barrels and breeches. Either condition—a shortage of ammunition in the magazines or worn barrels on the guns—could delay MacArthur’s invasion plans. And given all the attention “Dugout Doug” was getting from Washington and the press, nobody wanted to be responsible for delaying his return to the Philippines.