“Perhaps,” said Frank, “but the Marines never leave a man behind.” After thirteen years of crushing Depression, Frank had had enough of being left behind.
The enlistment officer asked him when he could get his affairs in order to ship out.
“What’s the last possible date I have?” Frank asked.
“August 31,” the recruiter replied.
“I’ll take that day.”
Frank spent that final month enjoying the life he had: working, going to Knickerbocker’s, helping his mother. On the day he packed his duffel bag, he left quietly and went down to the bus station by himself. When he arrived he found himself waiting on a bench with fifteen other Marine recruits. A photographer from the Flint Journal snapped a picture of them and captioned it “READY!” The look on Frank’s face in the photograph was anything but READY! and apparently this wasn’t noticed by the copy editor, who let the ironic caption go through and be printed on the page the next day. By that time, Frank was on a train, on his way to basic training outside San Diego, California.
The delay in enlisting not only had bought Frank a few extra months of peace, it caused him to miss the first large Marine amphibious landing in the war—on the island of Guadalcanal. Over 7,000 Marines and soldiers would be killed, along with 29 ships sunk and an amazing 615 planes lost. Frank would not arrive in the South Pacific until the end of the Guadalcanal campaign, and thus he avoided one of the worst massacres of the war. But there would be plenty of other opportunities to die in the next three years.
“Private Moore,” the sergeant whispered. “Cap’n wants ya.”
It was sometime around 11:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve, 1943. Frank Moore wasn’t sure if it was Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, and he didn’t care much for this thing called the International Date Line that meant he was always a day ahead of his life, the life he left back home. Instead of trying to do the math, he just decided to keep himself on “Flint time.” Easier. Friendlier.
He and a thousand other Marines had bunked down early on this night on the transport ship as it headed toward the battle on New Britain, an island that was part of Papua New Guinea, a few hundred miles off the coast of Australia. There wasn’t much Christmas celebrating going on, though there were, no doubt, many, many prayers being said. Because at 0700 hours they would be loaded into amphibious assault vehicles and lowered into the Pacific Ocean just a mile off the coast of Cape Gloucester, New Britain. But for now, Captain Moyer wanted to see Frank.
“I hear you can type,” Moyer said to the young private.
“Yes, sir, sorta,” replied Frank, not quite understanding what typing had to do with killing Japanese or Christmas.
“I want you to stay behind here on the ship,” Moyer said. “I need someone who can type up the casualty reports.”
“But sir…”
“Listen, this is important. We need to be accurate and we need to be accountable. If not to HQ, at least to the families of these men.”
This was, Frank realized, a free Get-Out-of-Dying card being offered to him. Stay behind on the boat. Don’t die in the wave of bullets and mortars that will spray across the chests and the necks and the heads of his friends and fellow Marines. Live for another day. But there were no guarantees of living in the days or weeks ahead.
He had figured out in the previous months of fighting on New Guinea that the South Pacific theater was a slaughterhouse. He wondered: If he had joined the Army instead of the Marines, would he be somewhere in the Mediterranean right now? He figured there was no way that Italians and Germans were fighting tooth-and-nail like these Japanese. Sure, the enemy in Europe wanted to win, but not at the expense of everyone in their unit dying. After all, what’s the point of winning if you’re all dead? He would like to ask a Japanese soldier that question, but never really got the chance as none of them were into being captured, or worse, surrendering.
The offer from Captain Moyer seemed mighty tempting, but Frank knew that staying behind on the ship was only delaying the inevitable. If your time is up, you might as well go on Christ’s birthday.
“Captain, I’d rather stay with my battalion. If it’s OK with you, sir, let me stay with my buddies.”
Moyer had been impressed with Private Moore and how he had volunteered to help the chaplain during Mass, serving as his “altar boy.” Though Moyer was Episcopalian, he often attended the close-enough-to-count Catholic services and observed how reverently Moore treated the whole ceremony, even if it was being said on the stump of a fallen coconut tree. He thought he’d give Moore a chance to live another day, but the kid wasn’t biting.
“OK,” he told the private, “you’re dismissed. Get some sleep.”
“Thank you, sir.” Frank returned to his bunk and for the first time in a long time had no problem falling asleep.
At 0500 hours the booming sounds of the artillery guns from the nearby American destroyers made Frank stop and wonder if he had made a mistake turning the captain down. Someone mentioned that Moyer and a reconnaissance party had slipped down into the bay two hours earlier with the intent of landing before the invasion, under cover of darkness, in order to find out just what the First Marine Division was about to face.
Tucked tightly into his amphibious lander with thirty or so other Marines, Frank said one final prayer before the door came down and deposited everyone into the slosh of chest-high saltwater. They were nothing more than the fish in the Japanese shooting barrel. The first thing Frank noticed was that it was nearly impossible to walk, that it was impossible to fire his gun, and although he was a human target for Japanese snipers in need of some early-morning target practice, Frank’s focus was on some very short-term goals: one foot forward, now the other foot. Keep gun above head so it doesn’t get wet. Now one more foot forward. This seemed like it took an hour or more (it took less than five minutes), and Frank kept wondering how it was that he was still alive. Dumbroski, a sergeant who had been the big, tough bully of the unit until this moment, was frozen in place, weeping. Keep moving. Leg. Foot. Rifle. Dry.
And then suddenly he was on the beach. A beach of black volcanic sand. Red blood on black sand made for an odd mixture; both caught the light of the morning sun and glistened with more life than they deserved. The brush of the jungle was just a few yards away and appeared to offer the best chance for cover from the incoming shells being fired from a cliff about a mile away. Within a couple hours most of the Marines had landed and the casualties were not as great as anticipated. The Japanese had decided not to fight this battle on the beach, perhaps because the Marines had set off enough smoke bombs so that the enemy had difficulty seeing the invading Americans.
Frank’s battalion moved out on the left flank to head toward higher ground, while other battalions pushed straight through the jungle. Frank and his men were again surprised at the absence of Japanese gunfire or resistance. Within the hour, moving fast, they began to climb Hill 250. It seemed too easy.
They were right.
For some reason they had found a magical crack in their own front lines and, without realizing it, slipped right through it with no one noticing. They were now in Japanese territory, a good thousand yards ahead of what everyone believed were the front lines of the United States Marine Corps.
Their map indicated it might be Hill 250. It is generally believed that during a battle, it is better to be on top of the hill than at the bottom. You don’t need to be a West Point graduate to understand that. So Frank and the others began to make their way up the hill. The Japanese at the top of the hill didn’t want any company that day, so they lobbed everything they had on the lost battalion. Then, out of nowhere, a monsoon rain erupted, making it impossible to see more than a few yards ahead. That gave the Marines the cover and the advantage they needed, and they quickly made their way up Hill 250. With grenades, 37mm machine guns, and sheer force of will, they took the hill. The Japanese on top of the hill had no way of knowing that this was just a small unit of Marines; they assumed that they were
facing an invading horde of hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans. So they retreated down the other side, where the larger force of their Japanese army lay in wait.
As the Marines secured the ridge, the rain stopped. This first victory felt good—not exactly flag-planting good (they had barely advanced onto the three-hundred-mile-long island) but good enough—and there were remarkably no casualties.
It was then they heard the sound of airplanes. This was a welcome sound, as it was the sweet hum of a Wright Cyclone engine on a B-25, the sound that said, Here we are, boys! The Cavalry to the rescue! The grunts on the ground had cleared the hill—now it was time for the flyboys to swoop in and take out the valley!
But as Frank squinted at the planes backlit against the now-punishing tropical sun, he saw a plume of smoke coming out of one of them. The plane had been hit. How could that be? They were coming from behind, coming from American-held territory—who would have shot at an American plane from back there?
In fact, it was Americans back on the beachhead who had actually fired on the American planes, thinking (wrongly) that they were Japanese bombers. The American planes, in turn, thought that the Japanese had hit them (two of the B-25s went down in flames), and so when they looked down on Hill 250 and saw the “Japanese” whom they thought fired on them, well, it was payback time.
But, of course, these were not Japanese on Hill 250; these were the men of my dad’s unit.
Swooping in at almost treetop level, the B-25s strafed Hill 250 with their bullets. Frank and the men had no time to signal that they were on the same side. There was nowhere to run for cover. They threw themselves down and prayed for the best. Frank could see the tracer rounds coming from the planes straight at them. He accepted that this was the end of his life, and he closed his eyes as that life, with all of its scenes of joy and poverty and family, sped by him in an instant. He knew that the next instant would be his last.
When Frank opened his eyes, his life was not over. But the scene in front of him was one he had never wanted to see. Lying beside him was one of his friends. His face was gone. Frank looked up and over the body to see a dozen or so of the men in his unit lying there, riddled with bullets, many crying out for help, some alive, some perhaps dead, their uniforms beginning to stain broadly with the blood that was oozing out of the numerous wounds. In all, fourteen Marines were hit and one was dead. Only Frank was alive and untouched. For a moment he was convinced that he must be dead, too, as it was simply not possible to survive that many bullets fired from so low, bullets that not only penetrated the bodies of his comrades but also chewed up the volcanic rock all around him. How could this be? Why was he untouched? And why in God’s name did this good Marine next to him die at the hands of other Americans?
Frank had little memory of what happened next. Apparently the Marines on the front lines behind him had witnessed the whole stunning incident. They reached Frank and the others as Frank was trying to administer first aid to his buddies. Medics and stretchers were called in, and after the wounded were attended to, Frank was brought back down to the staging point near the shore.
“I’m OK,” Frank said after a few hours of rest. “I’m ready to go back.”
“It’ll be night soon,” a corporal told him. “I think it’s OK if you stay here with us.”
He thought perhaps someone would want to talk to him, to file a report or something. But there was a war, a real war, going on, and after he asked one lieutenant why this tragic mistake had happened, he was told this happens in war all the time. “You just have to move on and win.” After that, Frank never asked about it again.
The following day, he got word that Captain Moyer and the five men with him had all been killed on their recon mission. He could see that this was the way it was going to be. Death, then more death. Soon another captain from the front line appeared with two privates who had “cracked” under duress.
“These guys are my wiremen,” he told the officer in charge. “They’re no good to me now. Trade me these for one of your guys.”
The lieutenant looked at Frank.
“This guy’s a machine gunner. I’ll trade you him.”
“Don’t need a gunner, need a wireman. Someone who can carry spools of radio wire, run fast, and duck.”
“This guy knows how to duck. Believe me.”
“A wireman?” Frank asked. “Carry and run the radio wire from the front lines back to the command post?”
“Yup.”
“No more firing a gun?”
“Nope. You can’t fire a gun and carry wire at the same time. But they will fire at you. They go after the radio guys first so we can’t talk to HQ. You take this job, you better have some guts and know some fancy dance moves to dodge those Japs.”
Guts? Dance moves? Why didn’t he say that in the first place?
“I was a wireman for the rest of the war,” my dad said as he finished his story. “I would never carry a machine gun again. I would be shot at over and over, but I couldn’t shoot back because I had to carry the spool of wire. It was kind of a crazy decision.”
I thanked him for telling me all this, but I was thirteen and, by the end of it, I was fidgeting around and checking the clock. I wanted to go outside and hang with the guys. My dad noticed none of that, as his mind was still back in 1943.
“Every Christmas I think about that day. I got to live, somehow… lucky, I guess… ,” he said, his voice trailing off.
“Dad, um, can I go, now? Maybe you can tell me another war story later?”
It would be years before I heard one again.
A Holy Thursday
“DON’T JUST STAND THERE, the niggers are comin’!”
Walter was twelve, and he was only trying to be helpful.
“Whaddaya mean?” I asked while standing in his driveway with my baseball glove and a bat, hoping to get a game going before sundown.
“The niggers in Detroit are rioting! My dad says they’re on their way here right now! We’re headin’ up north!”
And sure enough they were. They were wasting no time hurriedly jamming their station wagon full of food and supplies and shotguns. Walter’s mother, Dorothy, was shouting orders to her six boys about what to load and what to leave behind. I stood there in awe of the precisionlike nature of this operation. It was as if they had run this drill many times before. A few doors down, I noticed another family doing the same thing. I started to get scared.
“Walter, I don’t understand. Why are you guys doing this? Are you going to come back?”
“Don’t know. Just gotta git. Dad says the niggers from Detroit are on their way here and will be here any minute!”
On their way to where? Here? They’re coming to Hill Street?
“Walter, I think Detroit’s a long way away from here.”
“Nope, no, no, it’s not! Dad says they could be here just like that!” Walter snapped his fingers, as if by doing so he could magically make a Negro appear to prove his point to me. “They’re going to get together with the niggers in Flint and then come ’n’ kill us all!”
Although I had never heard anything this fantastical before, I was not unfamiliar with the attitudes in the town of Davison when it came to the issue of the Colored People. Black people—niggers, as many wistfully called them—were simply not welcomed. There was not, to my knowledge, a single black person living among the 5,900 people who inhabited the city of Davison. Considering we were just outside Flint, a city with fifty thousand black people, this was not an accident. Through the years, realtors knew what to do if there were any inquiries from Negroes looking to move out of Flint and into Davison. And the unwritten, though not always unspoken, agreement among the city residents was to never sell your house to a black family. This kept things nice and orderly and white for decades.
This attitude did not exist a century before. In the 1850s and 1860s, Davison was a stop on the Underground Railroad, a series of secret destinations that stretched from the Ohio River Valley north through In
diana and Ohio and into Michigan, all the way to the Canadian border, where escaping black slaves would find their freedom. There were over two hundred secret stops along the Railroad in the state of Michigan. Members of the new Republican Party in Michigan worked extensively on the Underground Railroad, assisting the runaway slaves, giving them safe passage, and hiding them in their homes.
But bounty hunters from the South were allowed by federal law to come into states like Michigan and legally kidnap any slaves they found and bring them back home to their masters. This was one of the many compromises the North had made over the years to keep the slave states happy and in the Union. Thus, a slave was not free by simply escaping to a free state; he or she had to make it all the way to Canada.
So it was with some risk that hundreds of Michiganders set about to protect the victims of this cruel and barbaric system. One such person owned the home on the corner of Main and Third streets in Davison, a mere fifty-nine miles to the Canadian border. It was said in later years that the family in this house had a hiding space in their cellar and that the townspeople kept this secret from the marauding bounty hunters. (This house would eventually become my grandparents’ home.)
It became a sense of pride in Davison that the village was participating in something important, something historic. Many of the boys in the area would soon be off to the Civil War, and when slavery ended, the people of Davison were proud of the small role they played in making this happen.
Such was not the mood on a sweltering August day in the summer of 1924 when twenty thousand people gathered at the Rosemore racetrack in Davison to attend a rally of the Benevolent Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Looking at the photos from that day, with thousands of citizens in white robes, one wonders how hot they must have been, especially with those pointed hoods! Many, though, did not wear the hoods, as there really was no reason to hide their identities because it seemed that everyone and their third cousin was a member of this fine organization dedicated to terrorizing and lynching black people.
Here Comes Trouble Page 12
