by Hugh Ambrose
Reviewing the reports and photographs taken on the last sortie, the senior staff decided their mission had been accomplished. On the evening of May 1, Task Force 58 broke off contact and steamed back to the Marshall Islands. The wolves could stand down.
A FEW DAYS BEFORE SID PHILLIPS AND THE REST OF THE 2/1 DEPARTED CAPE Gloucester, they knew they were headed for the Russell Islands near Guadalcanal. The Canal had grown into a large U.S. base. Hope of returning to Melbourne had been dashed. The news helped provoke a fair amount of angry mutters--what Sid called "gum beating" because it served no purpose--as the working parties loaded the ships. The 2/1 boarded President Adams on April 24 and sailed the next day. The stifling heat made it hard to breathe down in the holds where the bunks were. The ship's gallery served big pork chops that night and cold ice cream the next, making it easier to enjoy the trip. Two sub chasers and two destroyers guarded the ten transports hauling the 1st Division off the green inferno and depositing them on what scuttlebutt called Buvuvu Island, which turned out to be incorrect. The 1st Division extracted itself from MacArthur's control and rejoined the U.S. Navy on April 28, 1944, when it landed on Pavuvu in the Russell Islands.
The disembarkation began at nine a.m. They found themselves on a small island covered mostly by a coconut plantation. The only camp in sight belonged to the 15th Field Depot Battalion. The marines had to build their own. The idea of being required to build one's own rest camp angered everyone. Working parties fell out to erect tents in long rows. They discovered they first had to clean up piles of rotting coconuts. The long first day ended on a bright spot. The new ten- in-one rations were issued. Created to sustain ten men for one meal or vice versa, they had been tasted by the marines and judged to be an improvement in field chow. The hard work continued for days, though, as the men began hauling crushed coral. Colonel Lewis "Chesty" Puller, who had taken command of the First Regiment back on Cape Gloucester, decreed that they could not use the jeeps to haul coral. Staggering along with helmets full of coral, Sid and W.O. "felt like Chinese coolies." They spread the coral along the footpaths and at the bottom of their tents in an effort to reduce the amount of time spent walking in the mud. The engineers strung lights in the tents, beginning with those of the officers and NCOs first.
When the 15th Field Depot unit moved over to Banika on May 4, the marines rushed to grab any of the boxes, tables, or construction materials they left behind. The veterans knew that every little bit of comfort helped. Most nights, one or more of the regiments and often the division HQ showed a film. The projectors tended to break down, though. The entertainment on the evening of May 9 received everyone's full attention. A drawing was held to determine who in the 2/1 would get rotated stateside. In the mortar platoon about thirty pieces of paper were put into a helmet. Half of them had a number on them. The colonel announced that if a man drew a piece with a number, he went home; if he drew two pieces of paper, he forfeited his chance. Every marine "felt very carefully before they withdrew a piece." Both Sid and W.O. won, as did Lieutenant Benson. Their friend Deacon, now a sergeant, did not, nor did any other member of the #4 gun. Deacon noticed the colonel gave tickets home to a number of marines considered "mentally and physically unfit," as well as those with "domestic trouble."
Colonel Puller's tent happened to stand near the regimental mess hall and just a few feet from the series of washing tubs that Private First Class Sidney Phillips kept full of hot water for the men to wash and rinse their mess kits. In the afternoon before chow, Puller would come out of his tent and see Sid at work, lighting the fires under the "GI cans." He asked Sid how he had come to be on mess duty and laughed heartily when he heard the story. The colonel's stature, at "maybe five six," surprised Sid, since Chesty Puller was a legend of the corps."The thing that impressed me most about him was how genuinely friendly he was." With a stubby pipe clamped in his mouth, he'd say hello to anyone. He asked Sid about his family, his hometown, and his plans. "When I told him I wanted to go to medical school, I remember he said that wouldn't be easy, but there was no reason why I couldn't make it if that was what I really wanted." Sid felt very lucky to have the chance to speak with such "a great American," as he stoked the fires so the water boiled to the point that "it was hazardous to approach the GI cans at chow time. I couldn't be reprimanded for doing too good a job."
Colonel Puller held his first inspection of his regiment's camp on May 20. He expected his marines to have themselves squared away and he took his time making sure they were. His men learned what to expect.107 On May 21, the battalions began receiving their share of the fourteen hundred replacements that had arrived. Puller put the First on a training schedule. Reveille blew at five thirty a.m., followed by physical drill, and then chow. The work for the working parties looked endless to everyone but Sid and W.O. On May 23, they turned in their gear. All the guys who were going home had been assigned to a "casual company."
EARLY MAY HAD PASSED IN ALMOST A PACIFIC IDYLL FOR BOMBING SQUADRON Two. Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshalls had become an important base, which meant lots of Seabees had come to build the base, which meant there was an officers' club serving cold beer. The wolves liked to have parties. A few of the more intrepid pilots went to see the bunkers where the Japanese had fought the 4th Marine Division.
One night in mid- May a few thousand members of the ship's crew crowded into the hangar deck to watch a movie. A deck full of folding chairs in the darkened expanse made a great theater. When the opening cartoon ended, "a loud hissing noise" erupted from the back of the room. "A cry of 'It's a bomb' started a human tidal wave action rolling from the rear toward the front."108 The wave of panic crashed through the wooden chairs until the lights came on. The sight of bodies sprawled all over his hangar incensed Admiral Clark. Mindless fear had no place aboard a warship. Some thirty men had to be sent to sick bay. One seaman was fished out of the bay. When at last things got squared away, the film began again.
Two days later, the body of a Hornet seaman was found floating in the harbor. The story quickly came out that another seaman, one who had been pulled from the water during the melee at the movie, had reported seeing someone else in the water. No muster had been held and no search had been launched at that time. The chairs had been reset and the movie shown. While a court of inquiry was convened to investigate the death, Hornet set sail for Majuro to rendezvous with the rest of the fleet. Scuttlebutt about the movie riot and the next mission flowed through the Bombing Two ready room. The court of inquiry came back with a bland statement about an accident. Admiral Clark directed it to convene again and this time to "assign blame."109 At Majuro the carrier began to take on fuel and supplies for another sortie. On May 30 the commander of the carrier fleet, Admiral Mitscher, relieved Captain Miles Browning of command. Captain W. D. Sample reported aboard Admiral Clark's flagship at ten thirty-eight a.m.
Stories about the irascible Miles Browning all had to be told. A few instances of poor seamanship and many examples of petty cruelty while aboard Hornet contrasted sharply with the prevailing opinion within the navy: Browning's brilliant mind had created the victory at Midway--a victory so massive, it had changed the course of the Pacific War. The word was Mitscher had sent Browning to command the naval air station at Leavenworth, Kansas. In other words, his career had just ended. On the topic of how such a hero could be dismissed so quickly and completely, everyone had an opinion. Stories of Browning's excessive drinking and even a case of adultery also wafted through.110 Lieutenant Micheel stayed out of it. He did not, however, regret the loss of a captain who had shortened his pilots' flight deck and who often failed to provide them twenty- five knots of headwind during the launch. Mike measured his life expectancy in those few extra feet of deck and knots of wind.
The new captain, Sample, made a good first impression on his air group. Two days after he arrived, representatives of the Marine Corps came on board to brief the carrier's air group officers on Operation Forager, the invasion of the Mariana Islands. To stop this amphibious ass
ault, Japan would send her carrier fleet. Aircraft carriers had not clashed since October 1942, when they had traded punches in the waters around Guadalcanal.
OUT IN THE FIELDS OF CAMP PENDLETON, THE TRAINING OF BASILONE'S MARINES shifted again. The individual's proficiency with his weapons and the squad's integration gave way in early June. The training cycle focused more on the battalion-level field problems.111 These included the use of heavy mortars, 37mms, and half-tracks carrying 75mm howitzers. The next step, to a regimental-size exercise, came soon after. Units from artillery, engineers, motor transports, MPs, and others had been attached to the Twenty-seventh. The reinforced regiment became designated a regimental combat team (RCT). Topside intended each of the three RCTs of the 5th Division to have everything it needed to sustain itself in combat.
After a day's work in the field, Gunny Basilone went out with his girlfriend, Lena, whenever she could get away. Sometimes he and his friends stopped by her mess hall to say hello and beg for some good chow. He made sure his weekend liberties coincided with hers, and they'd go into Los Angeles and stay at the Biltmore Hotel. To Lena it felt like "we were never alone," because everyone tagged along.112 Other women often pestered her with "How in the world did you get him?"
"I don't know, you kids chased after him. That's why you didn't succeed. Play hard to get," Lena said with a laugh. Her sense of fun fit in well with Johnny and his friends. Dancing, drinking, seeing shows, and carrying on, it all got packed into a forty-eight-hour pass. After one of those fun weekends in early June, Johnny came to Lena's room. As she finished packing her bag, she mentioned that she was going on leave to Oregon to visit relatives. "Let's get married and go to Oregon together," he suggested.113
"Okay," Lena replied. Noting his offhand manner, she paid it little attention. They caught a train from L.A. to Oceanside. At the bus depot, waiting for their ride to camp, Johnny asked Lena if she was going to tell everyone the news. "I thought you were kidding," she said.
"No, I meant it," he said.114 So had she.
FROM THE RELATIVE SAFETY OF HIS KITCHEN MESS DUTY, SID WATCHED THE FIRST Marines begin a training regime. Reveille sounded at five thirty a.m. in the dingy tent camp on Pavuvu and the men went through physical drill before chow. How Company's Lieutenant McGrath decided to exceed Colonel Puller's expectations and hold an inspection of some type (clothing, tents, or equipment) most every day. Deacon and the guys who were staying for another battle uttered dark threats about McGrath as they slaved over details like putting the new cloth camouflage covers on their helmets. They used their ponchos to haul away the piles of stinking coconuts and dug more trenches to drain the rainwater away from their tents. Free time came late in the afternoon.
Somehow, Sid knew he would never escape this "monstrous mud hole." After two years in the boonies, though, he and the other "old timers had become experts at making and hiding jungle juice." Accumulating or stealing enough canned fruit to make the liquor proved tricky but not insurmountable. With Deacon distracted by his duties as a sergeant in the 60mm mortar section, Sid's #4 gun squad had a party "whenever a new batch was ready." Boredom also drove him to the hut of his friend Bob Leckie. The marine gunner known as Lucky had a collection of books he called the Pacific Library of Congress. Lucky would loan Sidney books, but he was a stickler on them being returned. Late in May a ship came in bringing more replacements. It departed on June 1 with W. O. Brown aboard. He and the others in the first half of the rotation had shipped out for stateside duty. The sight of it did not convince Sid he was "ever really going to leave Pavuvu." His ticket home still felt like a dream from which he would be rudely awakened.
EUGENE SLEDGE HAD CHAFED UNDER THE LONG DELAY, WANTING TO GET INTO a good outfit and "see some of the Pacific." Other marines from the replacement depot in Noumea had gotten assignments, some to the 1st Division, and he was jealous, although he had read in the newspapers about U.S. forces being sent to China, and that appealed to him, too. Occasionally a USO show passed through to relieve the tedium and he saw the likes of "Eddie the Banjo King" before at last getting the word. He embarked on USS General R. I. Howze, which sailed north from Noumea and arrived at the small dock of Pavuvu on Thursday, June 1. Eugene Sledge was assigned to the mortar section of King Company, 3rd Battalion, Fifth Marines (K/3/5) of the storied 1st Marine Division. Gene knew the Marine Corps had, up until 1940, always operated as regiments, not divisions. He knew the Fifth Marines were one of the oldest and most decorated regiments in the corps. Joining such an elite force thrilled Private First Class Sledge.
As he walked through the rows and columns of eight-man tents looking for King Company's street, he saw tired men in ragged dungarees. The tents and other equipment looked careworn. The camp at Pavuvu made what he had left in Noumea look good.
He found his way to King Company's platoon mortar leader, a Lieutenant Ellington, who hailed from Birmingham and had attended Marion Military before OCS. "Son," his lieutenant said, "you will find that most of your time overseas will be just like it is here." Eugene assumed the lieutenant meant that most of his life would be boring, but that was only partially correct. It also could be translated as "get used to living in the boonies, kid." The lieutenant turned him over to Johnnie Marmet, the sergeant of the mortar platoon. Sergeant Marmet assigned him to one of his 60mm mortar squads. Corporal R. V. Burgin ran #2 gun. Everybody called the corporal Burgin or Burgie, because lots of guys were known by their last names and also because R.V. stood for Romus Valton. Tall and thin like a bullwhip, R. V. Burgin delivered his short, chopped sentences in a spare Texas accent. The lack of inflection conveyed a no-nonsense attitude. Sledge would have begun by calling him Corporal Burgin.
Burgin and the others in King Company had a yellow hue to their skin and purple blotches where the corpsman had rubbed medicine on their infected flesh. Burgin's toes had begun to rot on Gloucester and he had lost two toenails.115 The first impression startled Gene, although some good news came in the form of Private First Class Merriell "Snafu" Shelton. Snafu, #2 gun's gunner, hailed from Hammond, Louisiana. Southerners (not Yankees) led his squad, Gene noted happily. A walk through the chow line revealed to Eugene that the food quality had also diminished on the short trip from Noumea. Most of the contents had been dehydrated--powdered eggs, powdered potatoes. Men in the line considered Spam, the "pre-cooked meat product," a welcome relief from heated C rations. At some point Sledge made the mistake of complaining. The smoldering anger just under the surface of R. V. Burgin's demeanor cut loose in a hail of cusswords. He had spent four months on Cape Gloucester and it made Pavuvu look good. Gene and the other fresh-faced boys accustomed to clean white sheets, he advised, had better keep their mouths shut.
The Southerners of #2 gun soon found out about the new guy's background and education. They started razzing him about being "a college boy." Burgin had grown up on a farm without running water and electricity. Snafu had dropped out in the seventh grade and gone to work.116 Unlike them, Eugene had led a sheltered and privileged life. " The only damn job you ever had at home," Burgin surmised matter-of-factly, "was feeding the dog." Sledge took it on the chin as he was supposed to do. He and the other new men also took over the grunt work of hauling away coconuts and carrying in crushed coral.
Two days passed before Eugene had a chance to go find Sid. Finding his best friend amid the entire 1st Marine Division and its attached units took some doing, but he ran into someone who knew Sid.
THE DAY AFTER W.O. LEFT, SID WAS SITTING ON HIS COT"WHEN I NOTICED SOMEONE coming down the company street looking in each tent. I recognized 'Ugin' about three tents away and ran into the company street and screamed 'Ugin' as loud as I could. He ran, and I ran, and we hugged each other and pounded on each other and rolled around wrestling on the ground shouting and screaming. A large crowd gathered thinking we were fighting, and I introduced him around and then we got back to pounding on each other."
AFTER THE BIG WELCOME, EUGENE DISCOVERED THAT SID WAS "JUST LIKE HE always was." However mi
raculous their meeting on Pavuvu might be, their connection meant even more. After a long day of drill and drudgery, Eugene would go find Sid stoking the fires under his cauldrons well past the point of necessity. They talked about guns, they talked about their dismay at Mobile becoming such a "wild place," and they talked about the war. The veteran told his buddy about Cape Gloucester, where the enemy was on the run. Sid confirmed Ugin's understanding of the life of a United States Marine. Nine-tenths of his time would be spent just as it was at this moment. "The newspapers lead people to believe that a man is under fire all the time," Gene learned, "when he is probably sitting on his bunk reading a funny paper . . . I am just as safe now as if I were home."
Sledge wrote his parents what he learned from Sid. He wanted them to know they bore the hardship in war, because marines "only worried when they were in actual danger, while the parents of marines worried all the time." He described his life as "living in a good tent, eating good food, taking a shower every day, and working." Gene left out the ongoing efforts to kill the legions of rats. The camp on Pavuvu provided him with plenty of hard candy, so in a letter written by the light of a "beer bottle smudge pot," he asked his mother to send him chocolate, Fig Newtons, and more magazines. He also made sure to tell his parents about one of his conversations with Sid in which they had talked about some of their other friends. When he had mentioned that their friend Billy had remained in the V-12 program, Eugene said Sid had concluded, "That boy is yellow." The judgment had shocked him, since no one who knew Sid expected him to say something that harsh about a friend. Eugene, of course, had a reason for telling his parents of it.