The Pacific

by Hugh Ambrose

  In the New Year the 1st Division began to train its men in "street fighting," which encouraged the enlisted men to guess about the location of their next assignment. Formosa, mainland China, and Japan itself were mentioned.423 Gene's mother always wanted to know about what was going on in her son's life. She asked questions. She wondered how his experience compared with his brother's war in Europe. "Ed's outfit," Gene replied, "certainly is good to get so many commendations. I hear we got the Prez citation for Peleliu. I don't know if it's true or not."ah When Mrs. Sledge began to wonder about his next assignment, he wrote: "Don't try and figure out the things the higher-ups do--I long ago learned its useless figuring. Realize we are in God's hands, and he will unite us all at Georgia Cottage before long."

  AUSTIN SHOFNER RETURNED TO PAVUVU AFTER A BITTER BATTLE WITH THE U.S. Army on Luzon. He did not arrive to find a new battalion awaiting his command. The one bright spot for him was that he had "found both a friend and an inspiring leader in General Pedro del Valle," CO of the 1st Division. Del Valle had problems because "the departure of the experienced men was not well timed with the arrival of the new men."424 Since some of his senior officers were not eligible for stateside duty, the general had begun sending them to Australia for a long furlough. It made the training schedule difficult to keep. It was a problem with which Shofner was familiar and he did his best to help his new CO.

  A SERIES OF BUSES AND TRAINS TOOK SID PHILLIPS AND HIS SEABAG BACK TO NEW River, North Carolina. He arrived on a cold January day in his dress greens and was given a ride to his barracks. The base he had known as New River had become a sprawling complex of buildings now called Camp Lejeune. He threw his bag on a cot. The others there said hello and someone asked, "What state are you from?"

  "Alabama," he replied in a loud voice. A big guy asked, "What city?"

  "Mobile."

  "Me, too," said the big guy, and just like that Sid had a new cobber. Marion Sims, nicknamed "Bunk," had seen action at Saipan and Tinian. They had time to get to know one another because the V-12 program had not officially started its semester. "We were told the Marine Corps was experimenting with the idea of putting combat veterans into the V-12 program because so many V-12 students had been intentionally flunking out of the program so they could get into a combat unit." Before they attended classes, though, the two hundred or so marines in Sid's class first had to endure several weeks of harsh discipline. Sid found it to be "every bit as bad as Parris Island." The program stripped them of their ranks and also demanded they remain single until they completed it, at which point they would be commissioned as second lieutenants. A number of men disliked the loss in pay suffered from being busted in rank and the attendant abuse. They were allowed to return to their former ranks and stations. Sid "took it gladly" because he "had had enough of the mud and troopships and C rations."

  THE 1ST BATTALION OF THE TWENTY-SEVENTH MARINES BOARDED USS HANSFORD and shipped out on January 27. The battalion's commanding officer, Colonel Butler, waited two days before announcing their destination on the ship's public address system.425 He confirmed what some of John Basilone's men had heard already: they were sailing for an island called Iwo Jima. The 5th Marine Division and the 4th Marine Division were going to invade an island closer to Japan than any marine had yet been. Detailed briefings would follow.

  All the briefings involved maps. Maps of the Pacific showed Iwo Jima in relation to the airfields on Saipan, from which the air corps' B-29s flew to bomb Japan. Other maps focused solely on the target island, or showed the different sectors into which "Iwo" had been divided. Each navy ship would bombard one sector. A lot of ships meant the sectors were small. Big, 3-D maps made of plaster indicated heights and features. For the next few weeks, the marines spent a part of every day in front of at least one map or aerial photo, being briefed by some officer. Each man was told why Iwo Jima had to be taken in some detail. Each man came to know the terrain and the location of the enemy's emplacements. The men of 1st Battalion were told why the Battle of Iwo Jima would last three days, five at the outside.426

  That the Japanese would fight fanatically until death was a given. U.S. intelligence estimated that the Imperial High Command had committed some fourteen thousand troops to hold it.ai The island's complement of forces was also suspected of including a number of prostitutes.427 To soften up this force, the army's bombers had begun dropping bombs on it every day for three months. Even a cursory look at the aerial photos showed that the buildings that had once dotted the island had disappeared. The navy ships would begin shelling the island three days in advance of the landing. Counting all of the reinforcing units (including the 3rd Marine Division), the "expeditionary force" topped 111,000 men in 500 ships. In less than forty- five minutes, 482 amtracs and an array of other amphibious craft would deliver 9,000 marines from the 5th Division and the 4th Division on Iwo's shore.

  John Basilone had never cared much for lectures. Iwo Jima, like Guadalcanal, had an airfield that the Japanese held and the United States needed. The marines had to go ashore and seize it. The strategic logic probably made little impression on John. Certainly he understood the basics. Taking the airfield would make it easier for the B-29s to ignite the paper and wood structures in Tokyo. The bigger the fire, the sooner they all went home.

  Briefings concerning his battalion's specific mission captured more of John's interest. The 1st and 2nd Battalions would land in the center of the long invasion beach. Futatsu Rock, the lone rock feature jutting out of the water just off the vast length of beach, divided their landing. John's 1st Battalion would land on the right side of Futatsu at Red Beach Two; Baker Company on the left. The colonel placed Able Company in reserve. John's C/1/27 added to B/1/27 meant about five hundred marines crossing Red Beach Two at H hour. In concert with the companies of 2nd Battalion, they would seize the southern end of the airfield, known as Motoyama Number One, about six hundred yards inland. An advance of another fifteen hundred yards would bring them to the opposite shore. Once on the far side they would swing right and head north and work with the 4th Division to seize the wider part of the island.

  At a minimum, the marines were told, they must establish a solid beachhead by day's end because the Japanese were going to mount an all- out banzai attack either the first evening or early the next morning.428 The enemy only had enough fortifications to house four of his nine infantry battalions. The remaining five battalions and their tanks were, according to the intelligence officers, going to charge the marine lines.429 Once this banzai charge had been destroyed, the advance was expected to roll forward quickly.

  Charlie Company's first challenge, as photographs of Red Beach Two showed, were the steep gradients in the sand created by the ocean's waves. To assist the scaling of these so-called terraces, the first wave of 1st Battalion would bring scaling ladders. Once across the several terraces on the wide beach, though, Charlie Company would encounter a relatively flat area all the way across the island, intersected by Motoyama's runways and taxiways. Bomb craters were everywhere.

  After studying the terrain, the intelligence section rolled clear overlays over the maps. The overlays marked the Japanese pillboxes and bunkers in red. There was a lot of red. Enough enemy positions of various sizes had been marked in red to cause a man's gut to wrench, or even make it seem pointless trying to memorize where they all were.430 Officers explained that the navy's preinvasion bombardment would last three days. On D-day, the battleship New York would handle Charlie Company's landing sector. Once they got off the beach and onto the airfield, they would be in the zone of the heavy cruiser Salt Lake City. The end of the airfield also marked the start of the zone of the battleship Arkansas. The massive batteries on these ships would fire a "rolling barrage," meaning they would not cease firing at H hour, but would continue to fire at targets about four hundred yards ahead of the first wave of marines. If the barrage got too far ahead of John and his men, the stream of explosions would roll backward and hit some areas again. For direct fire support, the 75
mm cannons of eight armored amtracs would accompany the two assault companies of the 1/27.

  The Japanese had planned for the amtracs, the intelligence officers had to explain. The enemy had buried steel rails in the surf, so some of the LVTs would likely be disabled.431 Along with the undersea obstacles, the first troop wave would encounter antitank mines and drums of burning gasoline, as well as "close quarter attack units," or targeted banzai charges.432 To counteract the flames, the first waves would wipe "flash cream" on their faces.

  The officers planned each platoon's route across Iwo Jima. The fifty-seven men of Basilone's machine-gun platoon were divided up to support the rifle assault squads.433

  Charlie Company's gunnery sergeant would land in the third infantry wave, which would arrive eight minutes after the armored amtracs.434 Thirty minutes after the first wave, the tanks of Company A of the 5th Tank Battalion would land on Red Beach Two. After explaining the details of C/1/27's assault on Iwo Jima, officers gave instructions on handling POWs, identifying enemy aircraft, and combat first aid. Since the Japanese often yelled "Corpsman!" in order to shoot them, 1st Battalion was told to yell "Tallulah!" if they needed medical attention. Most of the marines would have recognized that the code word with all the ls was the first name of a popular actress, Ms. Tallulah Bankhead.435 Single-dose dispensers of morphine, called a syrette, were also distributed. In between lectures, the seasoned NCOs insisted on the daily cleaning of weapons; not to relieve boredom, but because the salty air corrupted metal at an alarming rate.436

  The convoy arrived at Saipan on February 11, where the 3rd Division waited to join the 5th and the 4th divisions. Basilone's Charlie Company disembarked Hansfordand stepped aboard LST 929.437 It was one of the three LSTs carrying the 1/27's assault waves and their amtracs.438 The marines would have considered the discomfort they experienced aboard their "Large Slow Target" as the quintessential experience of being a marine; the swabbies, however, told them these particular ships had just come from launching the army's invasion of Luzon.439 Around them, five hundred ships took their places. The Fifth Amphibious Corps, created for this mission, had been joined.

  As always, a few days of inexplicable boredom had to pass. Another full-scale landing exercise on a nearby island had to follow. Basilone ended up spending a lot of time on a ship in Saipan's harbor. On clear days the gleaming silver bodies of giant four-engine B-29 bombers took off from Saipan and Guam and flew north, over his head. John's LST lifted anchor on February 15 and steamed north. The trip to Iwo Jima would last four days.

  THE NEWS BROKE ON JANUARY 31 AND IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS BECAME A SENSATION that eventually reached Lieutenant Colonel Austin Shofner on Pavuvu. A unit of General MacArthur's Rangers had gone deep into enemy territory to rescue the Allied prisoners held at a POW camp called Cabanatuan. The story of the daring rescue and of MacArthur's meeting with "ninety friends of Bataan and Corregidor" on February 1 made for newspaper and radio stories powerful enough to stir the heart. Here was redemption--not just for MacArthur, but for America. Shofner did not know what role, if any, his memo had played.aj He had done what he could. If the world thought the rescue of 531 POWs sounded like a lot, though, to Shifty it must have sounded like the extreme hunger and thirst and punishment inflicted at Cabanatuan had slowly and painfully destroyed a thousand men he had known. Austin was, though, a man who said his prayers and this was a moment to give thanks and praise. The long horrible nightmare was over.

  On February 1, he took up his position as the provost marshal again. Later that month, he received a Purple Heart "for injuries received as a result of enemy action at Palau."

  EUGENE'S PARENTS HAD COMPLAINED THAT HE DID NOT WRITE AS OFTEN AS HE once had. This had been true in late 1944, but by February 1945 he wrote them more frequently. He usually had something to thank his parents for, like his dad signing him up as a member of the National Rifle Association. Censorship was still strict enough, though, to narrow the range of topics. Complaining about the heat on Pavuvu, which he found to be worse than the heat of Alabama, failed to fill a page. "Jay P. de Leau of Los Angeles is one of my very best friends. We were together on the late campaign, and I might say he is the nearest thing to Sid I've met." Speaking of Sid, Eugene had just received a letter from his friend, who had described all the ways Eugene's parents had been kind to him. Eugene thanked his parents and, in case they had not heard, passed on the news that said Sid "got the first step toward V-12. I hope he isn't headed for an unavoidable mishap like that which befell me. I wrote him today and congratulated him."

  Among the many magazines Sledge's mother sent him in February he found a month-old copy of Life. It featured a story on the Battle of Peleliu written and illustrated by a USMC combat artist who had landed on D-day, Tom Lea. Lea offered a vivid and unforgiving look at the brutality. The carrier planes had wiped out "visible targets" three days before the marines arrived, so "the 12,000 Japs on Peleliu" had moved into their bunkers and waited, as Lea observed, "with plugs in their ears and hatred in their hearts."440 In a large portrait he entitled "The Last Step," Lea caught a marine in the final seconds of his life, at the moment when he realized he could not move because the last explosion had torn away large parts of his flesh, muscle, and bone. The artist had seen that man in that moment and knew "he never saw a Jap, never fired a shot." Lea quoted Colonel Herman Hanneken, who like Colonel Chesty Puller had fought in many wars in his thirty-one years of duty: "This is the bitterest, fiercest conflict I've ever seen."

  At one point in the narrative, the author asked, "How much can a human being endure?" Eugene sent the clipping of Lea's article home to be saved. The question posed by the author was one he was struggling to answer himself.

  THE NINETEENTH OF FEBRUARY DAWNED CLEAR AND WARM, TOO BREEZY TO BE hot. John Basilone and his men went through their routine and their amtrac dropped off the tongue of the LST about ten thousand yards from shore. The panorama of violence and power stormed above them, around them, ahead of them, magnificently. They churned slowly to four thousand yards from shore. The island's volcano rose gradually on the left. The shelling stopped at eight a.m. A wave of bombers made a run on the island, followed quickly by dozens and dozens of carrier planes, which swarmed over Iwo Jima for twenty minutes. At eight twenty-five, the planes disappeared and the navy's ship bombardment resumed. Five minutes later, the first wave of amtracs uncoiled from its circle, moved into line abreast, and crossed the line of departure. The second wave followed. Then the third caught John's attention. Then his own wave straightened out and motored toward shore about three hundred yards behind the wave in front.

  The amtracs churned through the line of battlewagons, close enough to feel a heat flash each time a salvo crashed forth, the guns firing faster and faster in the final minutes until it stopped just before nine a.m. The carrier planes made another pass, sweeping up from the south past the volcano at 150 knots, flying low and strafing the ground, putting on a show. An amber parachute flare burst over the beach. The first wave had landed. John's amtrac was a few hundred yards from shore, Futatsu Rock just off to his left.

  His LVT crawled out of the water at 0912. Coming down the back ramp, he would have noticed that most of the LVT (A)s, the first wave, were milling around near the water's edge; they were supposed to have gone inland to engage targets with their 75mm guns. Empty amtracs were grinding back toward the ships. John felt his feet sinking into the black sand. Carrying his carbine, he slogged to the foot of the black dune, its crest fifteen to twenty feet above his head. There were no ladders in sight. It took both hands digging and both legs pumping furiously to gain the top of the height, as the loose black sand offered little purchase. A fair number of men lay at or near the crest.441 As his head popped over the edge, he looked across an open swath of beach to another, smaller terrace of black sand. Some marines had crossed to the next terrace; some were making their way between enemy mortar explosions, but about 70 percent had not. The expanse of black beach offered no cover from the enemy mortar s
hells.

  They were also confused. Baker Company had landed on Charlie's beach. Officers and NCOs of both companies were shouting and struggling mightily to get their platoons organized while huge navy shells shrieked overhead. Japanese mortars exploded on the open ground. There were wounded men. On the next terrace above him, he would have just discerned the impatient staccato of machine guns firing.

  As gunnery sergeant of Charlie Company, John's job was to make sure his men got organized properly into squads and fire teams at their rendezvous area. The riflemen needed supporting arms. Machine gunners needed ammo carriers. They all expected to fight next to men they knew and trusted. John needed to help get the fire teams organized and moving forward. He would have tried.

  The intensity of the enemy mortars exploding on Red Beach Two dramatically increased at nine thirty-five a.m.442 Every marine started digging a hole. With every handful of ash scooped out, another slid back in. There was no other cover. The noise made it impossible to hear a shout from a few feet away. The officers of Charlie Company, like John, could see that a crisis had come.443 John shouted, "Come on, you guys, we gotta get these guns off the beach!"444 He stood up, signaled the men near him to "follow me" and started his legs churning forward.445 A few marines followed. Picking his way through the men lying in the black sand, he crossed to the next terrace. Another stretch of open black sand lay ahead. The marines there were ducking under enemy machine-gun fire. John could tell he had joined the men of the first wave because they wore a heavy white cream on their faces to prevent being burned by gasoline fires. The flash cream gave them a ghoulish appearance. The fury of mortars made yelling at the men pointless. John got up and ran across the terrace to the next lip. A machine-gun team lay there.