Islands of the Damned

by R. V. Burgin

  * * *

  Our question—Where are the Japs?—finally had an answer.

  Before we landed, most of them had been withdrawn to the southern third of the island, where they waited in caves and tunnels for us to come to them. Their guns were aimed and ready. It was the kind of last-ditch defense they had waged on Peleliu.

  While the Marines were securing central and northern Okinawa, the Army’s divisions started south. The farther south they got, the more opposition they ran into until they were fighting their way ridge to ridge. The Japs had established a defensive line across the island. On April 18, the Army staged a major attack. We sent an artillery regiment to support them. Then in a disastrous clash the Twenty-seventh Division lost twenty-two of its thirty tanks. The tanks and the supporting infantry had become separated, violating the cardinal rule of tank warfare. The attack stalled out and the First Marine Division’s tanks had to be sent in as replacements. Then at the end of April the entire First Marine Division was ordered to replace the Twenty-seventh on the east end of the line. For the first time on Okinawa we were being thrown into battle.

  On May 1 trucks took us south along muddy roads and across swollen streams. The thunder of artillery grew louder. We passed big guns and piles of empty shell casings.

  For us Marines, the Twenty-seventh Division didn’t have that great a reputation to begin with. They were a National Guard outfit from New York. On Saipan the division had failed to move forward during a Marine advance, and Marine General Holland “Howling Mad” Smith raised hell and got its commander replaced.

  We piled out of the trucks in driving rain and started forward single file. Soon we encountered the sorriest bunch of soldiers coming our way I’d ever seen. They were what was left of the 106th Regiment of the Twenty-seventh Infantry Division, and they were exhausted, dead on their feet. In the days before, they’d fought their way to the top of the ridge and been thrown off. The next day they’d fought their way back up and been thrown off again. They were just getting the hell beat out of them when we relieved them.

  As we were passing them, I witnessed an event that told me a lot about the outfit. One of their sergeants ordered a soldier to do something.

  “Fuck you,” the soldier snarled. “Do it yourself. I’m not doing it.”

  I don’t recall what it was the sergeant ordered him to do. But I can sure tell you what would happen to a Marine who said that to his sergeant. He’d find himself toothless and in the brig. He didn’t belong on the front line. There was no discipline whatever in the outfit, so far as I could tell. We thought they were the pits.

  That day we fought our way to the top of that ridge. And we stayed there.

  We got off the road and approached double time across an open field. Jap artillery had us zeroed in, or maybe they were firing at the 106th Regiment, which was still withdrawing. Shells were going off everywhere, and as we got closer, machine-gun and rifle fire joined in. The ground sloped upward, and we spread out to present a scattered target. Soldiers were still streaming by. It was the worst pounding we’d received since the airfield on Peleliu. Corpsmen were busy everywhere.

  Just behind the crest of the ridge I yelled, “Hit the deck and dig in!” Our own guns were tossing shells across the top and, we hoped, into the Jap positions beyond.

  We waited in our foxholes through the night, and the rain started up again, adding mud to all our other miseries. Word was passed along that next morning we’d begin moving southward, pushing the Japs back.

  We awoke to a cold, gray dawn. Some of us tried to heat our coffee over a Sterno can. The rest huddled in their ponchos. At nine a.m. our artillery started firing across the ridge again, and the Japanese answered. But their shells were falling some distance behind us. I got word to start firing the mortars, and all along the line the tempo picked up. The rain also picked up, and Sledge and the other ammo carriers were slipping and sliding around in the mud, trying to get shells to the guns as fast as we could fire them. The Japs were somewhere on the far side of the ridgeline. I moved up front with the riflemen, where I could observe. But it was impossible to get a clear picture of what we were firing at. There were a couple of our snipers with me. Whenever they fired three or four shots, we’d have to move because Jap artillery would pick up on us.

  Beyond our ridge lay a shallow valley, then another ridge. Whenever our men started to move forward, there was one particular Jap machine gun that would open up. Other enemy machine guns were firing that morning, but this one had us pinned down. He’d been waiting for us all night to cross the ridge and start down the other side.

  Since I was head of the mortar section, it was now my job to clear a path so we could get moving again. And that machine gun was in our way.

  Okinawa had these little mounds of dirt, maybe twenty or thirty feet across, scattered all over the southern part of the island, and one of them was right in front of us. It gave our riflemen some cover while they worked their way down the side, but as soon as they started off to the left, crouching down, that machine gun would start firing. Sometimes he’d let them get out a few yards into the open, then fire, like he was playing with them. We’d already had to lay down a screen of smoke grenades and send corpsmen after a couple wounded Marines.

  Our three guns were about twenty-five or thirty yards behind me. I was communicating by phone. I could hear that machine chatter and I could hear the bullets zing by. I knew about where they were coming from, maybe four hundred yards across the valley and somewhere on our right. The valley was flat and open, but the opposite slope was thick with brush. I could not spot him to save my life.

  I did notice one thing. The gunner would fire only after one of our men advanced past a certain point. I figured something had to be blocking his view. Since our men were headed toward the left, and away from him, when they moved out into the open they were looking in the wrong direction to see him. If I could get just past whatever was blocking his view of me, I’d get a clear view of him. I figured he’d likely fire at me just as he’d fired at everyone else that came along. But I’d see his muzzle flash. I’d know where that son of a bitch was.

  The more I thought about it, the more sure I was that I could do it without getting hit, and if I could see him, I was confident we could take him out. I could land a mortar shell wherever I wanted to. That’s one thing I could always do. I developed an eye hunting around the farm, shooting squirrels and, in fur-bearing season after a freeze, possums and coons and foxes. A man came to town on Saturdays and bought the pelts for a dollar or seventy-five cents each, something like that. I don’t even know the first time I fired a gun, but I’ve hunted all my life. I still do.

  But more than that, I think it came from Marine training, from hours of practice on the range and from competition between mortar squads. I could set up a mortar and get on target quicker than anybody.

  I yelled at the section leader to hold his men while I tried something.

  I started down and around the mound, slipping in the mud. Then, just before I got to where I judged I would be walking into the gunner’s field of view, I turned and took a step or two backward, watching the distant ridge. Instantly I saw a flash on the far hillside. Mud spattered at my feet and I felt something whack my trouser legs. But I had seen him! I jumped for cover and grabbed the phone to call in the coordinates. Then I gave the command, “Fire!”

  Now that I knew exactly where he was, I could observe the effect of our fire. The first round hit a few yards off to his left. I called in a correction—a couple degrees left, a few yards farther out—and I gave the fire command again. Seconds ticked by. There was a flash and a geyser of smoke and dirt. I watched that machine gun fly forward and the gunner do a kind of backflip through the air. I was sure we’d got two of them, since every gunner had a helper. We’d put that second shell right in their laps.

  I thought, Boy, that’s good shooting.

  Then I looked down. There were three holes through my dungarees, two between my knee and ank
le on the left, one just below my right knee.

  But I was right. He hadn’t hit me.

  That put an end to it. The next day we went right on across the valley.

  * * *

  Our easy days on Okinawa were at an end. That’s for sure.

  Everybody sobered up now. Even Snafu Shelton turned serious. I would still have my differences with Scotty, even some serious differences. But our lieutenant seemed to mature as we went along. He lost his college kid silliness, and there was no more bragging about what he’d do to the Japs, no more pranks.

  When I thought about it, I counted myself lucky to be serving with these men. We’d solidified into a unit. We worked well together. We had each other’s backs.

  I also counted myself lucky because I hadn’t lost a man yet. Except for Redifer and Leslie Porter, who’d been nicked by that grenade at the pillbox on Ngesebus, my mortar squad hadn’t even had anyone wounded. I felt lucky about myself. I had made six landings—Cape Gloucester, Talasea, Peleliu, Ngesebus, Okinawa, and Takabanare—and so far so good. Not that it couldn’t happen to me. I saw guys around me all the time blown up, shot, cut down by shrapnel. I knew my time might come any minute.

  It’s just that it hadn’t, so far.

  CHAPTER 9

  Flesh Wounds

  Okinawa is a valley and a ridge, a valley and a ridge, all the way to the end of the island.

  When I look at the map now, I see that we couldn’t have been more than ten miles from the southern tip. But the Japs were going to make us fight for every inch of those ten miles. They had set up a defense line about three miles long across the island from the capital at Naha through an ancient fortress called Shuri Castle to Nakagusuku Bay. Their headquarters were in a big tunnel system beneath the castle, and their soldiers had been ordered to defend Shuri with their last drop of blood. North of the Shuri line they had set up their defenses on a series of parallel ridges—Awacha, Dakeshi and finally Wana. For the rest of May and into June we would throw ourselves against these ridges one by one.

  When the rain let up the morning of May 3, we faced the first of those ridges. Scotty met with the company’s commanders and then told me that the coming offensive would need the full support of our mortars. We got the section squared away and, as we fired out in front of them, K Company started across the valley. With that machine-gun nest cleared out, we made good progress. But the Japs stopped us short at the next ridgeline.

  It was on this day, maybe the next, that two of my men were wounded. I was standing no more than ten feet away when the shell hit, and somehow I didn’t get a scratch. But when the smoke and dust settled, both T. L. Hudson and Jim Kornaizl were down. Hudson’s left arm was bloodied between the shoulder and elbow and he was holding it at an odd angle. Kornaizl was in the dirt, jerking from head to toe, his eyes rolled back. Our corpsman rushed over. A fragment had opened up the side of Kornaizl’s skull. We got him out of there fast, then started patching up Hudson, whose arm was hanging uselessly.

  Both would survive. Hudson would become my neighbor back in Texas for a time after the war was over. But I wouldn’t see Kornaizl again for decades, and then I almost wouldn’t recognize him. When I did, he would unlock a flood of memories.

  That night our company got a needed rest. All night long we could hear heavy fire on our left, where the Japs staged a big counterattack. Far to the right, we could see tracers arc out over the bay where the First Marines were firing at Japs who were attempting a surprise landing behind our lines. If they had succeeded they might have rolled up the whole line. But the First caught them when they were still in the water, killing them by the hundreds before they even got to shore. The few stragglers that made it were hunted down the next morning.

  During the night we were warned to watch for enemy paratroopers, but they never appeared. The Jap counterattack failed, and over the next few days we slowly began to fight our way forward again, taking heavy casualties. Our objective was a distant plateau, Dakeshi Ridge, overlooking the Awa River. From this and other ridges, the Japs had been able to fire down on our forces as they moved up along the coast.

  On May 6 it started raining again, and for two days it never let up. Mud gummed up weapons everywhere along the line. Often we were setting up our mortars in a couple inches of water. Each time we fired, they sank deeper into the muck. We shored them up as best we could with boards and stones.

  On May 8 we learned that the war had ended in Europe. Germany’s surrender had come too late for J.D. and for a lot of other good men. But there were no signs the Japs would follow Germany’s lead. For most of us, the end of fighting half a world away meant very little, except that maybe the flow of supplies would pick up and we’d get some help. But the Navy celebrated with a monster barrage that seemed to cut loose every gun on every ship within range of the Japs. If it did any good, you couldn’t prove it by us. We were still catching hell.

  The Sixth Marine Division moved in on our right and we moved farther in from the coast, to an area called the Awacha Pocket. Except for the rain and mud, the deep draws and steep hills reminded me of Peleliu. Once again the Japs had plenty of caves and dugouts to fire from. One position covered several others, and it was almost impossible to dig them out. The roads were impassable and even amtracs could not get through to where we were set up. So they dumped our supplies a couple hundred yards away on the far side of a shallow draw. If we wanted our supplies, we had to go get them.

  The business of hauling ammo, rations and five-gallon water cans across that draw got to be almost more trouble than combat itself. It was all up-and-down work. The mud would build up on your boondockers, layer by layer, so if you weren’t sinking down or sliding back into it you were tripping over yourself. To add to our troubles the Japs had discovered what we were up to and set up a Nambu machine gun at the head of that draw. Every Marine who crossed it drew fire.

  I didn’t see it, but at some point Redifer took it into his head to cover our men as they went across with smoke grenades. It didn’t keep the machine gunner from firing but it spoiled his aim, and Sledge and a number of others got across safely.

  Then Redifer spotted one of our tanks and ran after it. He got it stopped and pretty soon it came rumbling and clanking down into the draw, Redifer walking in front of it guiding it like one of those fellows that waves the planes into the ramp at the airport. He got the tank parked crossways in the draw, and our men resumed moving supplies across, crouching behind the tank as it rumbled back and forth. Redifer was directing all the way.

  While this was going on First Lieutenant George Loveday showed up. Loveday had taken over from Legs, the lieutenant I had several clashes with. I got along a lot better with Loveday, but he wasn’t all that popular with the men. First, he just looked sloppy. His uniform never seemed to fit him right. Everything kind of hung out and dangled. A lot of the time he ran around wearing just his cloth cap, carrying his helmet tucked under his arm. When he got mad, which he did often, he’d rip off his cap and throw it down on the mud or dirt and stomp on it.

  While Redifer was throwing smoke grenades, he had been standing on the side of the draw, out in the open. Loveday thought this made him an easy target, and he just reamed Redifer out, from one end to the other.

  “You stupid son of a bitch,” he yelled. “Don’t you have any goddamn brains?”

  Redifer just stood there in stunned silence. Then he walked off.

  I don’t think Loveday had seen the whole thing. He hadn’t seen the trouble we were having getting supplies. I think what he saw was Redifer exposing himself to enemy fire without taking any precautions. It might have been a dumb way to do it. But he did get the job done.

  None of this meant either man was a bad Marine. Redifer was one of those guys who wasn’t afraid of anything. He didn’t always think first. But he was solid. Loveday had his faults. He had a temper. But hell, we’ve all got our faults. He was a good man, and a good officer. After World War II, he went on for a tour of duty in Korea a
nd then to Vietnam.

  Another major push against Awacha Pocket was set for noon on May 9. The rain slacked off, the ground was drying out and our tanks were on the scene. We resupplied with ammo and registered our mortars.

  Once again there was a big bombardment before we kicked off. Artillery alternated with waves of swooping Avenger dive-bombers and Corsairs firing rockets. We called the rockets “Holy Moses,” because we figured that’s what anyone on the receiving end would say when they saw them coming. I was out front, observing and directing fire. I watched our riflemen and tanks start across the valley, only to be brought up short again by Jap fire. They were using their 90mm mortars, with big shells that made a strange fluttering sound as they came tumbling down. I ordered the mortars to fire phosphorous shells to provide a smoke screen for the attack.

  At the end of the day we had made maybe a few hundred yards. Our battalion was relieved and went into reserve, with orders to back up the Seventh Regiment, who were fighting on our right on Dakeshi Ridge. The Seventh hammered at that ridge all night long and just before dawn we got word that we might be needed after all. We’d picked up some intelligence that the Japs might pull a counterattack. So we pulled up stakes and moved west along the ridge to where the attack was expected. There we found a group from First and Second battalions who had fought through the night hand to hand with the Japs. Here and there, corpsmen were patching up wounded Marines. A few yards beyond their foxholes, dozens of Japs were sprawled out in the mud. We’d missed the fight.

  Minutes later we were ordered to turn around and go back to our old position.

  After the Seventh Marines took Dakeshi Ridge, we moved into what was left of a small village just behind the ridge. Most of the buildings were down. But the low stone walls still stood along the roads, where they provided good cover. They were well made, about three or four feet high with large stones and mortar. I ordered everyone to dig in along the north side of the walls, where we’d be sheltered from fire.