The Pacific

by Hugh Ambrose

  Mike and his classmates spent many hours mastering the fundamentals of carrier landings on a remote section of runway. A pilot could not come in too fast, nor too slow, or too high or too low. His plane also had to be in the proper "attitude" in the air, with its nose up and hook down, in order to make a perfect three- point (one for each wheel) landing. In a few hours of flying time, the ensigns simulated as many landings as they could: circle the deck, get the slash (or "cut"), crash, power up and away. Then they met back in their classrooms with the LSO, who reviewed each of their techniques in detail.

  None of their practice took place on a carrier. The navy, as the ensigns likely found out through scuttlebutt, was running short on those. Saratoga had been torpedoed in January and had sailed to Bremerton, Washington, for repairs. To keep the enemy guessing about whether the Sara had survived, her status had not been made public. Instead, the newspapers carried stories of Admiral Halsey using Enterprise to strike Japanese strongholds in the Marshall Islands, in the central Pacific. "Pearl Harbor Avenged" read one headline, but about then the British fortress on Singapore fell.25 The enemy now controlled half of the Pacific Ocean. In the bull sessions held at the officers' club, the ensigns would have discussed the futures of the three remaining fleet carriers in the Pacific--Yorktown, Lexington, and Enterprise--and Hornet, due to be commissioned in early April. Each pilot already had been assigned to serve on one of them. Ensign Micheel knew he would be joining USS Enterprise. As a dive-bomber pilot, Mike likely wondered just how many big carriers the enemy had, exactly, since he had to go sink them.

  PRIVATES SIDNEY PHILLIPS, W. O. BROWN, AND JOHN TATUM, WHOM THEY HAD taken to calling "Deacon" because of his penchant for quoting scripture, departed Parris Island wearing the emblems of the United States Marine Corps: an eagle, globe, and fouled anchor. While few of their cohorts had failed to make the grade, each of them came away with a few firm beliefs. The USMC was the world's best combat unit. The marines were the first to fight. Their mission, amphibious assault, was the most difficult feat of arms. Once marines seized the beachhead, the army "doggies" would come in and hold it. These beliefs had been burned into them while they had learned to perform the manual of arms with precision, slapping their rifles so hard the sound carried a hundred yards. Being one small part of this great team gave Sidney a feeling of strength and comfort unlike anything he had ever experienced.

  After arriving by train at New River, North Carolina, one afternoon in mid-February, they formed into ranks on a great muddy field. Ahead of them stood a large tent, its open flaps revealing bright lights and busy activity. One by one, each man was called forward. Inside, NCOs (noncommissioned officers, such as corporals and sergeants) met and interviewed him. Sid walked through the mud, answered the NCOs' questions, and was assigned to How Company, 2nd Battalion, First Marines (H/2/1). So was W.O. The Deacon received the same assignment. What luck, they thought. After a time Sidney realized everyone in their group had been assigned to the 2nd Battalion, First Marines.

  The three friends stuck together and were assigned the same hut. The next morning they found three inches of snow on the ground and no orders to follow. For the next few days they just had to keep the stove in their hut hot. More men arrived, as did the USMC's newest uniform, the dungarees. The two-piece uniform of heavy woven fabric, intended for use in the field and in combat, was the first piece of equipment issued that had been designed for the new war instead of the last Great War. Sidney preferred it to his khaki uniform because it had large pockets and a stencil of the corps' emblem on the breast. The helmet he wore was the same kind his father had worn in France.

  Instruction began on February 18, when the NCOs introduced them to some of the weapons used by their company: the .30-caliber Browning Machine Gun and the 81mm mortar. These and the other heavy weapons of How Company, they were told, would support the assault by the riflemen of the other companies of their battalion (Easy, Fox, and George). The 81mm mortar captured the attention of Sid and Deacon. Big guns had always fascinated them and they made sure their NCO knew it. W.O. was happy enough to stay with them. Other men disparaged the 81mm as "the stovepipe" and tried to get assigned something else. The self- selection worked. After a few weeks, the NCOs assigned the three friends to the same mortar squad, #4 gun, of the 81mm mortar platoon. All six members of #4 gun squad were Southerners except for Carl Ransom from Vermont. Ransom, hearing the others naming themselves the Rebel Squad, quickly asserted that he had grown up in the southern bedroom of a house on the south side of the street.

  Although they occasionally had an afternoon of instruction on something else, the #4 squad quickly became focused on their weapon. Sid repeated sections of its manual over and over, chanting it like a rhyme. The 81mm mortar was "a smooth bore, muzzle loading, hand fed, high angle type of fire . . ." Corporal Benson, who commanded #4 gun, had them begin mastering the precise movements for assembling and firing the weapons by repetition. At Benson's command, one man set down the base plate, another the bipod, and a third the tube. The job of clamping the three parts together naturally fell to Deacon. A bit taller and a bit older, John Tatum took it all more seriously than Sidney and W.O. Corporal Benson took the mortar sights from the case and attached and adjusted them.

  The endless repetition and chanting quickly led to competition between the gun squads. Deacon wanted to be the fastest. He studied The Marine's Handbook, the red book issued to all privates. By early March Deacon became acting corporal even before he had earned his stripe as a private first class. Sid and W.O. had no wish for promotion. They enjoyed the rivalry, though, and #4 squad assembled their mortar in the respectable time of fifty-five seconds. Corporal Benson never praised them.

  Like most NCOs, Benson regarded them as too soft to be good marines. When the new men complained about the cold, they were told to wait until summer, when the chiggers and mosquitoes returned. Any new marines who rejoiced at receiving steel bunks on March 9 were told they were babies who had it too easy. Benson had lived in a tent on some island called Culebra for months, and that, he assured them, had been much worse. Sometimes, when his squad beat the squads of the mortar platoon, Benson might be inspired to tell them a few sea stories of a marine's life in Puerto Rico or Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The First Marines had spent much of the past three years in the Caribbean, working out the techniques of amphibious landings. They had been in the boonies so long they had taken to calling themselves "the Raggedy-Assed Marines." Benson had learned to curse in Spanish, and when he started in, it brought a slow, mischievous smile to Sid's face. Deacon might be horrified, but Sidney Phillips loved a good laugh.

  THE GREAT INFLUX OF NEW MARINES WAS LEADING TO PROMOTIONS FOR THE old hands. A few weeks earlier, Manila John had made sergeant.26 His company not only received new marines, but also a number of experienced men who had asked to be transferred. John's regiment, the Seventh, was considered good duty because by early March it was clear the Seventh would lead the attack against the enemy. It had the highest percentage of experienced marines and it was receiving all the new equipment first. As they prepared for the first amphibious assault--which, for all the talk, the USMC had never once performed against a hostile foe--the men in John's machinegun section were realizing they had an unusual sergeant. It wasn't his sea stories about life as a soldier, or even his insistence that he was going to "land on Dewey Boulevard and liberate Manila."27 All sergeants had sea stories and some of those wanted to liberate Shanghai. Sergeant Basilone, with his prizefighter's physique and dark complexion, made a big impression, but his relaxed manner said he was just one of the guys.

  Most NCOs liked to make their men hop. Manila John regarded his men, new or old, as part of the fraternity.28 He did not struggle to enforce discipline. John set the standard.29 He loved being a marine and he expected the others to feel the same. He expected them to obey his orders because that's what marines did. He expected them to train hard during the week and then go into Wilmington or Jacksonville with their buddies and dr
ink beer. That's what he did. Manila's best friend was another sergeant named J. P. Morgan. Morgan, known for being difficult, had a tattoo like John, only his was on the base of his thumb. When he had had it inked years previously, the tattoo had symbolized his Native American heritage. When anyone looked at it in 1941, though, they saw a swastika, the symbol of Hitler's Nazi Party.30 The identification did little to improve J.P.'s demeanor.

  John and J.P. each commanded one section of .30-caliber machine guns in Dog Company. At the moment, Manila spent most days instructing the men of his company, and to a certain extent the men of his battalion, on the operation of the Browning .30-caliber water-cooled machine gun. The machine gun's reputation of immense power drew lots of enthusiastic young men. They did not get lectures from their sergeant; they got hands-on demonstrations. The grace and ease with which he handled the weapon belied the short, choppy sentences he used to describe it.31 Despite popular perceptions, the machine gun was not like a hose that sprayed out an endless stream. Holding the trigger down would burn out the barrel. Replacing a barrel took time. Spraying it all around might work for an enemy at close range, but it would prevent the gunner from dominating parts of the battlefield in the way it was designed to do.

  Dominating the field meant preventing the enemy from ever getting close. Fire short bursts, John would have cautioned. That kept the gun cool. To make those bursts effective, don't free-hand the aim. Use the traverse and elevation mechanism (T&E). Slight turns of these dials made minute adjustments to the aim, which produced significant changes at two hundred yards. Good gunners did not aim for individuals. They created kill zones way out there on the battlefield. They killed the enemy in big groups or forced them to keep their heads down long enough to allow marines to attack them. A good gunner also knew his machine intimately. It began with being able to break the gun into its main components, or fieldstrip it, to clean them. Like any machine, however, the machine gun could be tuned. The rate of fire could be adjusted and, like all sergeants in all machine-gun sections, John had his guns set to his preferred cyclical rate, the one that he felt balanced the needs of endurance and killing power.

  Manila John's battalion also spent a lot of March in remote areas of the base, living in their pup tents. The CO of 1/7, Major Lewis Puller, pushed them hard. Unlike some other officers, the major went with them on their six a.m. hikes, matching them step for step. He liked to have them work on their field problems near where the artillery units fired their 75mm and 105mm cannons.32

  The word on Major Puller was that he had proven his mettle in the guerrilla wars in South America. Puller's nickname, "Chesty," came not because he had a muscular chest, but a misshapen one. Nothing about the major's physique reminded anyone of the marines on the recruiting posters. His direct and aggressive manner, however, shone through. Old hands in 1/7 liked to tell the story of the afternoon Major Puller had marched his battalion off to the boondocks. A loudmouth from another outfit had heckled them about the camouflage they wore. As his companies marched past, Puller had spied Private Murphy in Charlie Company. "Old Man," Puller had asked Murphy, "are you going to let him say those things about your company?" Murphy had stepped out of formation, punched the heckler in the kisser, and stepped back into formation. No one missed a step.33 The new men had been around just long enough not to believe everything they heard, but they also knew the story epitomized the Marine Corps spirit being imbued in them.

  IN THE PAST FEW WEEKS, SHOFNER HAD FOUND PILES OF SILVER COINS LEFT abandoned. Marines who had swiped them while helping to load the Philippine treasury on barges had realized that money had no value. Three hundred silver dollars, once a princely sum, was now regarded as deadweight. His marines expected their future to resemble the unmerciful pounding that was destroying their comrades on Bataan. The abandoned money, while remarkable, made more sense to Shifty than the radio broadcasts he heard. A radio station in San Francisco regularly broadcast General MacArthur's communiques, which had been issued from the tunnels beneath the Fourth Marines.

  In his pronouncements to the American people, MacArthur had described a different war, a war that he was winning. His headquarters had reported that "Lt. General Masaharu Homma, Commander- in-Chief of the Japanese forces in the Philippines, committed hara- kiri." General Homma had been disgraced by his defeats to MacArthur. "An interesting and ironic detail of the story," the communique had continued, "is that the suicide and funeral rites occurred in the suite at the Manila Hotel occupied by General MacArthur prior to the invasion in Manila."34 Three nights after issuing this empty bluster, MacArthur and his key staff had boarded torpedo boats and fled to Australia.

  The departure of General Douglas MacArthur had signified defeat, a defeat rapidly approaching in the last week of March. The enemy's heavy artillery began to swing away from Bataan and toward Corregidor, while their heavy bombers resumed their deliveries. U.S. forces on the Rock denied the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) the use of Manila Harbor and therefore resistance had to be eliminated as quickly as possible.

  The destruction placed great demands on all of them. A flight of bombers started fires in the houses around Shofner's barracks on March 24. He organized some firefighters. As they fought the flames, a giant explosion rocked the area. A bomb had hit a store of forty thousand 75mm shells. The shells began exploding, sending shrapnel flying. Shofner and his men prevented the blaze from spreading, then pulled a wounded man away from the conflagration. The next night he led a party to save a radio station from the flames. Two nights later, incendiary bombs ignited buildings next to Middleside Barracks and it looked like a whole line of buildings would go up in flames until Captain Shofner led the team to contain it. It seemed to him that some of the enemy's phosphorus shells had delayed-action fuses; they seemed intended to kill any would-be rescuers. The next night he had to put out a fire in his supply of .50-caliber ammunition, an exceedingly dangerous effort. Without that ammo they could not stop an invasion. On the way back to cover, Shofner heard cries for help. A cave had collapsed. He found a few men and a doctor to help him. They rescued two wounded men and pulled out two corpses. His superior officers told him later they were writing letters of commendation for his actions.

  Even as the bombing built toward a crescendo on Corregidor, Shofner learned the truth about Bataan. For weeks, Americans and Filipinos from all service branches had been coming over from the embattled peninsula. These men arrived in need of food and clothing as well as weapons. Some of them had no military training. They had been divided up among all the military units on the island anyway. The Fourth Marines, like the other units, were attempting to train them. Some of what these refugees said he already knew, but much of the story emerged bit by bit, over time.

  From the outset, the U.S. and Philippine army forces on Bataan had lacked food and medicine, and had quickly run short on ammunition, artillery support and air cover, and everything else. Worse, this disaster should never have happened. Bataan was supposed to have been prepared for exactly this type of defensive stand. For decades the United States had recognized that in the event of a war with Japan, its forces on Luzon would have to retreat to the Bataan Peninsula and await reinforcements. General Douglas MacArthur had decided in the late 1930s, however, to abandon this plan. The Philippine army, which he had created, and the U.S. Army, which he now commanded, would beat the emperor's troops at the beachhead. His decision meant that Bataan had not been prepared with caches of supplies or by military engineers to a significant degree.

  MacArthur's performance had not improved following the news of Pearl Harbor. Many hours after the war began, the enemy's airplanes had found the army's fleet of brand-new "Flying Fortresses" on the ground, parked wingtip to wingtip. The few planes not destroyed had had to flee. Once the Imperial Japanese Army entered the game, it had put MacArthur's armies to rout. Americans and Filipinos had fought to the extent of their training, equipment, and experience. Bravery alone could not stop an experienced and fully equipped foe. When MacArthur had
at last issued the order to fall back to Bataan, it had been too late. While combat units fell back in good order, tons of supplies and equipment had had to be abandoned. Tens of thousands of American and Filipino soldiers and sailors, along with an assortment of national guardsmen, airmen, marines, nurses, and coastguardsmen, had held off the Japanese army these past few months while eating the monkeys out of the trees. MacArthur had visited Bataan only once.

  The more Austin Shofner learned about Douglas MacArthur, the more it produced within him and so many others a deep and abiding anger. Some debated who was responsible for what, but not him. Captain Shofner insisted that the field marshal, hired to protect the Philippines, alone was responsible for this debacle. Many others agreed. They hung a nickname on him: "Dugout Doug."

  On April 6, the word went around that Bataan would fall at any moment. Shofner was trying to get some of the new men squared away in a barracks when a shell struck the far end of the building. The concussion split the door he was leaning against, sending him reeling and knocking out a man next to him. Recovering, Shofner went to the blast site. The grisly scene shocked him. Five men had been killed and twenty-five had been wounded. He and others loaded the wounded into a truck and Shofner drove it through the artillery barrage to the hospital. The empire had endless amounts of shells to fire. Later, one wounded army corpsman screamed, "Let me die! Let me die!" as Shofner put him on a stretcher. In the hours that followed, he had more and more close calls. The concussions gave him and his men blackouts. They spent much of their time in their caves and tunnels, where the throbbing and shaking earth tortured them.