Although the 27th Division units had fought heroically during the gyokusai, General Holland Smith would never forgive it or its disgraced general for slowing his advance through the center of the island. He called it “the worst division I’ve ever seen,” adding that its soldiers were “yellow.” In his report to Admiral Spruance, he dismissed the Japanese attack, asserting that it had amounted to nothing more than “300 enemy supported by two or three tanks.”
The combat correspondents would have disagreed with him. “This is an island of the dead,” wrote one reporter. “The dead are everywhere,” scribbled another. “They are thicker here than at Tarawa.”
• • •
On July 8 the Marines of the 23rd Regiment prepared to move. Their task for the day was to clear out the cliff line that flanked the Kalaberra Pass (Marine Corps historians called it “Karaberra,” but the locals called it Kalaberra) and then to search the caves on the island’s north coast. Rather than giving the Army the satisfaction of securing the island, Smith sent his rested 2nd Marine Division to the front and assigned it and the 4th Division the task of mopping up enemy groups.
Carl Matthews could barely stand, much less walk. While his brain swelled, he faded in and out of consciousness, blacking out for seconds at a time. He continued to perform his duties, but he functioned more like a robot than a human being, hardly aware of what he was doing.
Matthews’s G Company was following a trail that fell off into a valley. He and Lieutenant Leary picked their way down a steep slope. Before reaching the bottom, they stopped in order to give Companies E and F time to negotiate the descent. On a flat rock outcrop, Leary and Matthews filled their lungs with the bracing air and admired the island’s chalk-colored cliffs that plunged into the sea. The two had been through hell together. But now they could see the end.
No one said a word. The lieutenant might have been thinking about what it would be like to be back home in his parents’ big house in the center of Ahoskie, North Carolina. He had been blessed and he knew it. That day when the short round hit might have been his last. He had seen so many men die.
Or perhaps he was thinking about Nightingale. A week after Nightingale was shot, Matthews and Leary walked back to see where he was killed, assuming that a burial detail had removed his body. But Nightingale’s body was still there, baking in the sun. Leary shook with anger. Later that day he reported the body to battalion headquarters. The following morning he planned to visit the site again, but the company was summoned back into battle. Never again would he or Matthews return to the spot where their friend had died.
Ten minutes passed before Leary broke the silence. “Count,” he said, “I don’t think the Japs got much fight left in them.” Matthews responded that that was just the way he liked it. He was tired of war.
When word came to move out, Matthews stood first, leaning into the wind, and then Lieutenant Leary got up, too. Seconds later there was a machine-gun burst from below. Matthews hurled himself to the ground. From a rock above, someone yelled for a corpsman. Matthews shouted back that it was no use; Lieutenant Leary was dead.
Machine-gun fire continued to rake the slopes, and Company G retreated. At the top of the ridge, Matthews wandered around collecting grenades. No one paid attention until he walked in the direction of the cliff. As he neared the drop-off, several Marines called out to him. When it looked as if he were about to step off into the abyss, a buddy dashed out and grabbed him.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked. Matthews responded that he was going to knock out the machine gun that had killed Lieutenant Leary. “You’re crazy,” his friend said. Matthews struggled to free himself, but his friend, who weighed fifty pounds more than he did, held on, dragging him back to safety. Matthews fought like a wild tiger.
The 23rd did not move again until the following morning. That afternoon it arrived at the beaches on the northwest coast, where the sea flaunted its power, crashing against the rocks. When Major Fought’s men saw the blue-green water of a small, semiprotected cove, their first impulse was to stampede into the breaking waves and wash off three weeks of dirt, night soil, blood, and grime. But they restrained themselves. Each of them knew that the cliffs held more snipers, and that together with the amtracs of the 2nd Armored Amphibian Battalion, which would spend the day hammering the rock walls, their job was to clean out the caves. Demolition squads were already busy, using ropes to rappel down the wall and drop charges into likely hiding holes.
When Robert Graf saw the high ridges of Marpi Point, he allowed himself to imagine what it would be like when his unit was finally relieved of duty. He had not seen Jimmy Haskell or Bill Jurcsak, his fellow upstaters, in days, but he knew that if they all made it, they would have one hell of a reunion.
At 4:15 that afternoon, the first American Marines reached Marpi Point and radioed Admiral Kelly Turner. They were fifteen days behind schedule, so Turner wasted no time announcing the good news that at 4:16 on July 9, 1944, Saipan was secured. The next morning General Holland Smith presided over a flag-raising ceremony at his Charan Kanoa headquarters. That night a 4th Marine Division chaplain read from Matthew 5: “Here Jesus says, ’Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.… Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust.’ ”
Neither the chaplain’s words nor the fact that the American flag now waved over Saipan could have meant anything to the Japanese soldiers or the hundreds of civilians who had fled to the cliffs on the island’s north coast. It was here that Robert Graf and countless other American servicemen would witness scenes that would be forever etched into their memories. Graf would later write that “Saipan was filled with horror, but it was during these securing days that we came upon the worst of the nightmares.”
At an interior hilltop that the Americans would call “Suicide Cliff,” Japanese soldiers held grenades to their bellies, or tossed them back and forth, laughing madly, until the grenades exploded, spewing razor-sharp shrapnel in every direction. Others, realizing that their life was “fluttering away like a flower petal,” threw themselves off an 800-foot peak. It was a good death—okuni no tame ni (for the country’s sake)—their spirits returning to the Yasukuni Shrine where even the Emperor would one day pay them homage. From the beach, Graf saw them fall. What he could not see was that some of these people were civilians.
Later, at Banzai Cliff, which loomed 265 feet above the blue-green waters of the sea, Graf watched the horrible spectacle up close. At another time the sight would have been a beautiful one, the stark cliffs where white terns soared through a cloudless blue sky. But on July 10, Japanese and native Chamorro and Carolinian families, told for years about the devil Americans, held hands as if playing a children’s game and dove onto the huge rocks below or into the surging surf. Mothers, grasping their babies, jumped rather than turn themselves over to the Marines. Japanese soldiers shot or prodded at gunpoint those who resisted. Some who were already on the rocks below simply walked out into the crashing waves and were sucked down by the current or bashed against the cliff wall. From a distance, Japanese snipers shot those who appeared reluctant to commit themselves to the sea.
The Americans had anticipated the civilian suicides. They had dropped notices, written by military intelligence translators, explaining how to surrender. “All non-combatants, whether Japanese, Korean or natives,” the notice said, “will come down the Banaderu Road on the NE coast of Saipan toward Tanapag, at 9 o’clock, Friday 7 July. They will come unarmed and carrying white flags held high. If they do this, the American forces will receive them an
d save their lives. Americans do not want to kill non-combatants. 7000 civilians of Saipan are already safe in American hands.” The Marines set up PA systems and, using interpreters, pleaded with the people not to jump. Boats offshore employed civilians to broadcast messages promising kind treatment in the internment camps. In some cases their appeals worked. But still, over the course of the next few days, many hundreds leaped to their deaths.
Bill More was there, too, and like Graf, his longtime buddy, he was powerless to stop what he saw. He watched as a group of people, including children, gathered around a man as if he were a respected leader about to impart a message of wisdom. When the grenade went off, and body parts flew through the air, any hope that the children might be spared was shattered.
As for reporter Robert Sherrod, who had been on Saipan since D-Day, what he saw convinced him to write an article, titled “The Nature of the Enemy,” for the August 7, 1944, issue of Time magazine. “Saipan,” he wrote, “is the first invaded Jap territory populated with more than a handful of civilians. Do the suicides of Saipan mean that the whole Japanese race will choose death before surrender?”
Days later, Seaman First Class James Fahey wrote in his diary, “After supper while we were out patrolling Saipan the fellows passed the time running from one side of the ship to the other, watching the Jap bodies float by.… Some were on their stomachs, others on their backs, they floated along like rubber balls.… They were bloated.” Two days later he returned to his diary: “There must be thousands of Japs in the waters near Saipan. The ships just run over them.” A lieutenant on a minesweeper confessed, “The area is so congested with floating bodies we simply can’t avoid running them down. I remember one woman in khaki trousers and a white polka-dot blouse, with her black hair streaming in the water. I’m afraid every time I see that blouse, I’ll think of that girl.”
When word came that the 23rd Marines were being relieved, Robert Graf was glad to go. Watching babies die was more than he could stomach. Now the question was whether or not he could make the march back to the invasion beaches. Like the others, he was battered and gaunt, and his lower legs were a patchwork of sores and cuts. Some of the guys had lost so much weight that their shoulder blades poked out of their dungaree jackets. But as they neared Charan Kanoa, they rushed the beach like wild horses and flung themselves into the water. Then they sat in the sand and dried off in the hot sun.
A day later their seabags came ashore. Graf stripped out of his rotting clothes and waded back into the sea, where he washed his hair and scrubbed himself as if he were going to Sunday church. Back on land he put on a clean, new uniform, enjoying the feeling of it against his skin. Then he took his old one and tossed it onto a giant pile. Using a camera that one of the guys had stolen off a Japanese corpse, Graf, Haskell, and Jurcsak posed for a photograph. Later that afternoon, they looked on and clapped when a quartermaster unit doused the hill of clothes and bleached-out boots with gasoline and set it on fire. For chow that night, a group of corpsmen caught thirty-two chickens, which the cooks fried. Before turning in, the men learned that they would be invading Tinian in two weeks. Graf joked that it was their “reward for taking Saipan.”
Just two days after the American invasion of Saipan began, Emperor Hirohito told Japanese Prime Minister Tojo, “If we ever lose Saipan, repeated air attacks on Tokyo will follow. No matter what it takes, we have to hold there.” Now, realizing that the heartland of Japan was within reach of the American bombers, the Emperor despaired, “Hell is upon us.”
The American victory on Saipan and Japan’s defeat in the Philippine Sea (in which the United States wrested control of the air and the seas throughout the Pacific) brought about a crisis in Tokyo that even the Emperor could not escape. Members of the imperial family, including Hirohito’s brother, criticized him. Tojo, however, absorbed most of the blame for what he himself had called a “national crisis.” A small cabal of statesmen and naval officers had been trying to undermine Tojo since the defeat in the Solomons in early 1943. Hirohito’s unwavering faith, however, protected the prime minister. With Saipan now in American hands, they saw their chance to force the prime minister out of office. On July 18, 1944 (July 17 in the United States), Tojo and his entire cabinet resigned.
On the same day, Admiral Ernest King, seated in his cramped office on the third floor of the Navy Department building, penned a letter regarding the West Loch disaster in Pearl Harbor, which had occurred just weeks before the invasion of Saipan. He had fought for over a year to convince the Joint Chiefs, the Combined Chiefs, and Admiral Chester Nimitz of the wisdom of invading the Marianas, and the explosions at West Loch had threatened to derail the plan. As it was, the assault on Saipan came off as scheduled. The disaster was kept from the enemy—and the American public—for another sixteen years.
“It is noted,” Admiral King wrote, that “the organization, training, and discipline in the LSTs involved in this disaster leave much to be desired. The lack of proper understanding and compliance with safety precautions when handling ammunition and gasoline … is also noted.” Then, evidently still irritated by the Naval Board of Inquiry’s failure to assess responsibility for the incident and Admiral Nimitz’s magnanimity (on June 29, 1944, Nimitz wrote that the explosion was not the result of “misconduct … or negligence”), King added, “It is perfectly apparent that this disaster was not an ‘Act of God.’ ”
CHAPTER 33
Hot Cargo
The evening of July 17 was cool and nearly windless. By 7:00 p.m., the E. A. Bryan, facing downstream, squatted low in the water. After four days of nonstop loading, she was half full, carrying 4,379 tons of ammunition and explosives: antiaircraft projectiles and igniter charges in the lower portion of her No. 1 hold, and in her No. 2 hold, Torpex-loaded aerial depth bombs and 500-, 1,000-, and 2,000-pound bombs. These general-purpose bombs introduced by the Bureau of Ordnance in late 1943 were loaded with a TNT or an Amatol charge. The 2,000-pounder stretched ninety inches long (with its fin assembly) and was one of the largest bombs that would ever pass through Port Chicago.
The seamen had already loaded the Bryan’s No. 3 hold with over 1,000 tons of the Torpex-loaded aerial depth bombs. The No. 4 hold held another 790 tons. The No. 5 hold contained antiaircraft projectiles and 40-mm cartridges. The schedule called for an approximate load of 8,179 tons, meaning that if all went well, the Bryan would be ready to sail in another three days for Richmond, California, where her deck would be loaded with more cargo. In case of trouble, there was a Coast Guard fireboat tied to the pier with its hoses connected to the depot’s hydrants. Another Coast Guard vessel, the Mia Helo, was patrolling the river, as it always did during loading operations.
The SS Quinault Victory, a brand-new Victory ship, just out of Portland, Oregon, was moored at the outboard side of the pier with her bow into the current. That morning she had her diesel tanks topped off at the Associated Oil Company fueling dock in Martinez, eight miles upriver. For the time being, she was empty and rode high in the water. Lieutenant Commander Glen Ringquist watched as the 6th Division hoisted dunnage aboard, lifted the hatch beams, and rigged the vessel for loading.
Ringquist was a Navy man with thirty-five years of service, who had come to Port Chicago in early June 1944 as the senior of Lieutenant Commander Holman’s two assistant loading officers. He had spent much of his career working with explosives, and for the three and a half years just prior to coming to Port Chicago, he was the cargo and ammunition officer of the USS Lassen. Ringquist was a real stickler. Together he and Holman should have formed a crack team of inspectors.
On the three railroad tracks that separated the ships sat sixteen railroad cars waiting to be unloaded. One of the cars opposite the Bryan’s No. 1 hold was packed with thirty tons of incendiary cluster bombs, or firebombs, from the Hawthorne, Nevada, Navy Ammunition Depot. They were considered “hot cargo,” and extremely dangerous because they came with their fuzes installed. The fuzes were sensitive enough to be ignited by shock waves.
Another carload of incendiary bombs was parked on the approach wing of the pier. Next to it was one containing 1,000-pound armor-piercing bombs filled with TNT. Although TNT was more stable than Torpex, impact, friction, sparks, and shock were known to ignite it. Opposite the Bryan’s No. 2 hold were two cars carrying Torpex-loaded depth bombs. Loads did not get any more volatile than this. Aerial bombs were thin-walled and known to detonate en masse in the event of fire. On the inside and outside tracks across from the Bryan’s No. 4 hold were two cars of general-purpose bombs, what the depot loading document called “Mk4 fragmentation clusters.” Near the middle of the Quinault Victory, on the inside track, sat two cars holding more general-purpose bombs and, near her No. 4 hold, one car of armor-piercing bombs.
Despite the fact that it violated his own safety orders, Kinne allowed the cars to collect on the dock. The practice—like shipping bombs with fuzes—was all about the demands of war. Moving cars on and off the pier could leave a division idle, delaying the loading process for as much as an hour. Just one month before, Kinne had posted his new rules for the widened pier, warning that the “accumulation of explosives,” especially “trains of explosives must be carefully avoided under all conditions.” The captain may have paid lip service to safe handling in his correspondences, but in countless other ways he had made it clear that safety at Port Chicago would be sacrificed for speed. When loading got fast and furious, he was willing to overlook regulations—even his own.
If any group of men could handle the tension, the 3rd Division could. Its head officer considered the 3rd the best, from its junior officers—Lieutenants Raymond “Bob” White and Thomas Blackman—on down to its petty officers, winchmen, and ammunition handlers. The head of the other division on duty, the 6th, did not have the same kind of confidence in his men. It had some good winchmen and petty officers, but its seamen were largely inexperienced Great Lakes graduates and transfers from other divisions.
The Color of War Page 29
