Marines were both thrilled and relieved to see the island obscured by billowing clouds of smoke and dust and a fog of burned powder. “Blow ’em into kingdom come!” they yelled. With every bomb that fell, there would be fewer Japs shooting at them. It was a false sense of security that correspondent Robert Sherrod had seen before. On Tarawa he saw firsthand how Japanese defenders survived the merciless pounding. Now, aboard the Rocky Mount, he wrote in his notebook, “I fear all this smoke and noise does not mean many Japs killed.”
Graf watched as an antiaircraft battery fired at the American planes overhead. “Look,” someone yelled. “One of ours got it; it’s spinning down. Look, look, there’s a chute opening up. He’s dropping into the ocean. They’ll save him.” If the men got a sense of comfort from the belief that the downed airman would be saved, that feeling quickly disappeared when they witnessed Japanese gunners score direct hits on other American planes. As they burst into pieces, Graf fought off a creeping sense of dread. Regardless of America’s superior firepower, men were sure to die.
At 7:53 a.m., Admiral Turner postponed the landing from 8:30 a.m. to 8:40 a.m. to allow the armored amphibians and the amtracs more time to assemble at the line of departure. At 8:00 a.m., the battleships—California and Tennessee—and the cruisers—Birmingham and Indianapolis—moved in closer to shell the beaches, while the first assault waves of the 4th and 2nd Divisions waited 4,000 yards offshore. Minutes later, twenty-four armored amphibians, or LCI(G)s, made a beeline for the beach, firing as they moved forward. Ten minutes later, at 8:12 a.m., sailors brought down the signal flags from the yardarms. The intolerable waiting was over. The assault was on.
As the wave commander pointed his flag toward the beach, and the coxswain revved the engines of the amtrac that Robert Graf was aboard, the PA system from a nearby destroyer blared, “God bless you all.” Although Graf believed that a man’s faith was a private issue, he now prayed fervently. “Bless Mom and Dad. Bless my sisters. And please bless Gunny Townsley and my buddy Dick Crerar.” As he mumbled his prayers, hoping that he would live to see another sunset, the big naval guns continued firing. The amtrac, belching a blue fog of diesel exhaust, floated with hardly a foot of freeboard. The huge muzzle blasts seemed to pick it up and plop it down into the water, nearly sinking it. With each roar Graf clenched his fists.
Suddenly giant geysers erupted among the amtracs. If at any point Graf believed that the days-long barrage had beaten Saipan’s defenders into submission, he now knew differently. The Japanese were firing back with high-angle artillery shells. “Sweet Jesus,” someone muttered. Everyone knew how lightly armored the amtracs were. If hit by a big navy gun or a high-angle anti-boat gun, there would be nothing left of them.
Graf looked around at his fellow Marines immersed in their private worlds, some of them experiencing what would be their last minutes on earth. They had shared everything together: sat side by side in the head, chased the same women, joked about their vivid sex dreams, and taunted each other about being the first to grab his pecker after lights-out. But now they refused to share their terror. Some fidgeted, while others closed their eyes and tried to doze.
Seconds later a blast rocked the amtrac. Peering over the gunwales, Graf saw that one had been hit. The shell shattered it, hurling bits of flesh and chunks of steel through the sky. Graf felt the burning taste of bile in the back of his throat, and he thought he might retch. Lieutenant Roth barked at him to get down, and he ducked back in, but not before glancing at the water one last time. Miraculously some of the men were still alive and floating with the aid of their life jackets. What Graf did not see was that most of them were hit and killed by onrushing amtracs.
As the amtracs ground over the reef, the Japanese bombarded them with artillery and mortar fire, automatic weapons, and anti-boat guns. In the hours between the time that the UDTs had done their reconnaissance work and the D-Day invasion, the Japanese had placed mortar and artillery registration flags on the reef and in the lagoon. These markers allowed the enemy defenders to find their range more quickly than American planners ever imagined they would. A Marine aviator observer radioed the Rocky Mount, “This is not like the Marshalls. Not at all.”
When the amtracs headed into the lagoon, just 600 yards offshore, the big American Navy ships, fearing the possibility of short rounds, ceased firing. That was when the Marine Corsairs and Navy Hellcats strafed the beach and torpedo bombers fired their five-inch rockets. Graf heard the wuff-wuff-wuff of enemy flak. As the planes moved inland, amphibious tanks rushed in while their gunners, squatting behind snub-nosed 75-mm howitzers, peered out the open turrets at an island wreathed in smoke. Aboard Graf’s amtrac, when the Marine manning the mounted machine gun sprayed the beach, everyone knew that the landing would come soon. Graf slipped some photos into the pocket of his dungaree jacket. He straightened the shoulder straps of his pack and buckled his cartridge belt. Then he heard Lieutenant Roth’s voice: “Unlock your pieces. Good luck, keep low, and get off the beach as fast as you can. They’re zeroing in on it.”
Next came the impact of the island and the sound of the amtrac’s treads grinding into the sand. When it hit a tank-trap ditch and stopped, bullets clanged off the steel hull. The plan had been for the amtracs to transport the men to the O-1 (the first day’s objective) high ground some 1,500 yards inland, but most of them were stopped 100 to 200 yards in from the waterline.
Light machine-gun bullets clanged off the amtrac’s steel hull, and shells burst, shaking the ground. Men were zigzagging across the beach. A Nambu machine gun chattered from the trees, spewing hot casings. Graf knew he had to run, but he could not move. His mind was numb with shock, his pack heavy, and his legs and arms felt as if they had been weighted down with lead. Then, as the terror and adrenaline surged into his limbs, he sprang forward. Sprinting across the beach, he dove headlong into a cluster of tree stumps.
Less than a hundred feet down from Graf, Carl Matthews’s amtrac lumbered onto the beach. Mortar shells scattered shrapnel across the sand. Lieutenant Leary shouted, “Get out and move fast.” Matthews took a deep breath. Nightingale clutched his BAR. Seconds later they were over the side and in the deep sand. Lieutenant Leary followed. The time was 8:43 a.m. A combat photographer began shooting pictures. One of those, a shot of Leary standing in front of the amtrac while Matthews and Nightingale knelt in front of him—would become famous, the first wave of Marines hitting the shores of Saipan. In Texas, it would make the Waco newspaper, among others, and Carl Matthews would become the toast of Hubbard.
At 8:44, Lieutenant Leary, Nightingale, Freeby, and Matthews scrambled up a little rise, through a grove of soft-needled ironwoods, and into a clearing with a few scattered coconut trees. Behind them, corpses floated on the crests of blue-green waves. Others lay limp on the beach like forgotten dolls. When a shell crashed through the branches and landed twenty feet to their left, Matthews and Nightingale pressed their bodies into the sand. It was a fruitless reaction that, had the shell landed closer, never would have saved either man. Yet Matthews hugged the earth. When the dust subsided, he dared to raise his head and noticed that three men from his company’s supply unit lay dead. Matthews had not even had the time to whisper a prayer when a shot rang out. He buried his head again and waited. Sand collected at the edges of his mouth. He licked at it and tried to spit. Then someone yelled, “Witte. They got him. Head shot. He’s dead.” Matthews knew it was a sniper’s bullet. Seconds later someone spattered the trees ahead with his M1, and the sniper came tumbling out with a thud as if he were a stuntman in a movie.
Leary pulled out a small green notebook and entered the name, serial number, and location of Witte, and then he was on his feet, crossing a firing trench, and calling for his men to follow. Hard as it was, the men left Witte where he lay. They had been trained never to mourn the death of a friend. Japanese snipers relished the clean head shots they got when a guy went running to the side of a fallen buddy. Eventually another Marine would come upon Witte, slip off his dogtag
, and lay it on his chest. Later, someone from a graves registration crew would find the body and attend to it before the land crabs and the flies found it.
Graf was still lying among the trees. The sun was so intense he could barely breathe. It felt as if the whole world had been reduced to heat and smoke. Glancing back, he saw that amtracs were delivering more assault troops and the second wave of machine gunners, bazooka men, and flamethrower and 60-mm mortar squads, weighted down with bipods, tubes, and awkward base plates. One man, carrying his seventy-pound flamethrower like a great cross, sank to his knees. Another listed as he struggled with a heavy demolition satchel. Off to the side, Graf heard two machine guns open up. Artillery rounds pounded the beach, too. From the explosions he could see that the Japanese had found the range. Despite the intensity of the barrage, by just a few minutes after 9:00 a.m., seven hundred amtracs had landed more than eight thousand Marines.
Still trying to locate the machine gunner, Graf looked left and saw Roth run. When the lieutenant heard the whistle of a mortar shell, he threw his body into the sand. Seconds later he was sprinting again, the weight of his pack knocking against his back. Graf chucked his gas mask—“as useless as tits on a boar,” somebody had told him—rose to his feet, and dashed in the direction of Roth. Hurling himself into a shell hole, he nearly ended up in the lieutenant’s lap. Shortly after, other platoon members slid in, too. After they had caught their breath, Roth directed their attention to some high ground ahead—Mount Fina Sisu, he told them, their Day 1 objective. Then, with a nod, he barked, “Now!” and jumped out of the hole. His men followed behind, winding and cutting as he did. No one wanted to be separated from the lieutenant. Anyone who had trained with him, or spent any time with him, knew that there was no better man to follow into battle than Roth. When a machine gun opened fire, ripping tree limbs over his head, Graf reluctantly abandoned the group and dove into a gully. There he lay listening to the frantic, high-pitched zing of dozens of .50-caliber bullets. Next came an artillery shell, close enough that he could feel the ground tremble. Then another one, closer yet, which nearly blew out his eardrums. He knew what was happening; enemy gunners were walking the artillery toward him. Soon he would be splattered through the trees.
Drawing in a deep breath, he rushed out of the gully. Twenty feet later he threw himself onto the ground and scrambled for cover. For the first time he noticed it: the sand was murderously hot. He did this two or three more times—running and diving and then running again. He was desperate for air now, breathing in short, irregular gasps, barely getting enough oxygen to keep from passing out. His head spun and it seemed that every muscle in his body was on fire. Grabbing his canteen, he loosened the top and poured water into his mouth, almost choking. Now he knew for certain what he had felt when he rolled out of the amtrac: his pack was too damn heavy. If he was going to stay alive, he needed to get rid of it. He took his bayonet sheath and put it onto his cartridge belt. Then he tucked his poncho under his belt, too. Later it would shelter him from the afternoon downpours. Ripping open his ration boxes, he stuffed what he could into his dungaree pockets and tossed his pack into the brush. By the time he regained his strength, he had no idea how much time had passed. Nor did he know where he was. For the moment, though, no one was trying to kill him.
Surrounded now by cutover jungle and a creepy silence, he felt utterly alone, as he had when swimming through the fiery waters of West Loch. He tried to keep the panic from rising in his throat. Then he saw movement to his left. He held still, trying to make out the shapes. When he recognized Sergeant Max Klein of Company E, he nearly bounded toward him out of relief.
He and Klein decided to keep moving east. When they came upon a large swamp, Klein guessed they were at the edge of Lake Susupe. Figuring they would be better off in the swamp than in the trees, they began to wade. Soon the water rose to Graf’s waist. Vines and weeds wrapped around his knees and legs, and the mud bottom sucked at his boots. He knew that if a Jap spotted him, he would pick him off as easily as a kid shooting metal ducks at a carnival.
Eventually Graf and Klein stumbled onto solid ground, their knees folding beneath them with exhaustion. They ripped the vines from their legs, checked their barrels for mud, spread out in a line, and continued east in the direction of a grove of flame trees whose delicate flowers glimmered in the sun. To his right, Graf saw more Marines. One of them nodded in his direction, as if to say, I see you. The man moved warily. In front of him Graf heard something in the bushes. The other Marine heard it, too, and lifted his M1 to his shoulder. A mortar round burst between them, sending shell fragments humming and growling through the air. Instinctively Graf threw himself to the ground. When the coral dust cleared, he jumped to his feet and saw that the Marines to his right were dead. Somehow the splintering fragments of steel had missed him.
Racing ahead before another round hit, Graf found himself in the midst of a small group of Marines from Company G. Then he heard a familiar voice—“If that don’t beat all!”—and who should be standing in front of him but Bill More. For a moment, Graf was speechless. In the middle of a war, he had run into his old buddy.
“Bunch of dead Marines ahead,” More said. “The Japs gave us a good going-over.” While More radioed E Company to let them know that Graf and Klein were okay, Graf learned from another Marine that the 2nd Battalion had taken a direct hit from a mortar shell. Bottles of blood plasma littered the ground. Perhaps the Navy corpsmen had arrived in time to save lives.
The afternoon’s only positive development was the appearance of the medium tanks. Among those that made it ashore, many were unusable; some were disabled when salt water drowned out their electrical systems. Others were unable to negotiate the difficult terrain. But the few that made it to the 2nd Battalion’s zone of combat instantly changed the tide of the battle. They fired on machine-gun nests and enemy strongpoints, clearing out a narrow alley of advance. Nevertheless, few Marines made it as far as the O-1 objective. To shore up their lines, the 23rd Marines’ battalion commanders withdrew their forward troops to a position a full 800 yards west of Mount Fina Sisu. The men who had made it to the O-1 line were glad to pull back. Without the support of the rest of the regiment, they would have been sitting ducks.
With twilight approaching, sand crabs as big as mess tins skittered across the ground, and Graf decided that he would wait until morning to find Lieutenant Roth. Later he would learn that it was a decision that likely saved his life.
After executing a fake landing that worked as a deception, tying down a regiment of Japanese soldiers, Frank “Chick” Borta and the 1st Battalion, 29th Marines, prepared to land at Green Beach 2, at the tail end of the Charan Kanoa airstrip, at close to 3:00 p.m. on D-Day. Pillars of smoke rose above the island, obscuring the interior hills.
The 29th had been told that the beach was secure, but when the lead amtracs approached shore, Japanese artillery guns opened up. The first shells were ranging shots, but soon the Japanese had the beach zeroed in. Borta looked at Sergeant Rachitsky for some sign of distress. What he realized was that it was on account of men like Rachitsky that Marine riflemen had such a fearsome reputation. The sergeant was all business. After tucking his mosquito headnet under his helmet—he claimed it worked as a concussion barrier—he tied down his canvas leggings and checked the pocket of his dungaree jacket for the extra spoon he had taken off the LST. Borta did the same and then dug his hand into a pocket of his dungarees to make sure he had remembered the safety pins. Rachitsky insisted that they were an essential part of a Marine’s combat gear. When a guy’s pants frayed and tore, he could always pin them together. Borta felt them under his fingers and then—wham!—an artillery shell hit, wiping out the nearest amtrac and killing everyone aboard. Years later Borta would say that if fear had a taste, so did hate. It burned in the back of his throat like cheap whiskey.
Borta whispered a Hail Mary. Aboard the LST, he had sung hymns with the Baptists, Presbyterians, and the Lutherans, but now he took comfo
rt in the prayer he had grown up with: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.” By the time he reached the word “hour,” he was clutching his M1 so tightly that his fingers looked as if the blood had disappeared from them. The M1 felt good in his hands.
Now the treads of the amtrac dug deep into the beach. When it stopped, Rachitsky shouted, “Let’s go, men! Let’s get the hell out of this coffin.” Shell fragments slapped at the hull. Borta jumped to his feet. All he could think about was getting off the amtrac before a shell blast blew it to smithereens. The Marine ahead of him was teetering on the gunwales, ready to roll out, when he fell back, almost knocking Borta over. Borta reached to help him. Then he noticed blood trickling out of the side of his mouth and saw the hole. A hot piece of metal had gone through his helmet. He reached with his fingers under the man’s chin, feeling for a pulse. Seconds later Borta tumbled over the wall of the amtrac and into the scorching sand. Damaged and burned-out amtracs, discarded field packs, maimed trees, and mangled bodies served as reminders of the Japanese strategy to pulverize the invasion force.
Up and down the beach, members of all-black Marine depot and ammunition companies worked among the falling shells and the hammering of Nambu machine guns. They had already set up ammo, water, gasoline, and ration dumps, and were preparing to unload phenomenal amounts of cargo—6,000 tons per day, the equivalent of one jam-packed Liberty ship every twenty-four hours. At Red Beach 2, north of where Borta had come in, a black work crew had taken enough casualties that the 2nd Marines had to call in a backup group. A platoon of black Marines from the 18th Depot Company, attached to the 3rd Battalion, 23rd Marines, fared no better. Landing at Blue Beach 1, two and a half hours after the first assault wave, it was hit by a mortar shell that injured four men. While the wounded Marines were being evacuated, the rest of the platoon moved inland to escape the barrage. Later the commander of the 23rd Marines, Colonel Louis Jones, sent up a squad of black depot company men to replace riflemen who had either been killed or wounded. In the heat of battle, no one bothered to acknowledge the significance of Colonel Jones’s order, but it was the first time since World War I that black troops were called upon to face enemy soldiers. Although they had not been trained as infantrymen, Jones desperately needed bodies to patch the holes in his front lines. White Marines were stunned to find Negroes at the front carrying rifles. Many did not even know that black troops were being used to unload supplies. The general consensus, though, was that if they could fight and would not run like cowards, no one cared what color they were. Later Colonel Jones would commend the 18th Depot Company for its hard work and heroism.
The Color of War Page 19
