The Pacific

by Hugh Ambrose

  The regimental commander did not order the 1/1 to try the footbridge again. Instead, Shofner was allowed to lead his men sideways, into the army's zone of action, then south, in order to flank the high ground that had stopped him. It meant a lot of hiking through the mud, which began to suck the soles of their boots off. The weeks of living in watery holes had loosened the binding and it became another problem.559 During the forced march fifty men from the 1/1 dropped out of ranks from exhaustion.560 Shofner lost contact with regimental HQ and with some of his companies. Resupply that day, as reported by the regimental HQ, "was almost non-existent."

  Having flanked the high ground, the 1/1 moved westward at dawn, then turned north to attack the enemy positions around Iwa from the rear. Shofner spread his companies out in a long skirmish line and they advanced northward, passing another marine unit moving in the opposite direction. They found some abandoned machine-gun nests and captured some prisoners. His men caught a few soldiers in the act of changing into civilian clothes, much to everyone's alarm. With very little gunfire the 1/1 had cleaned out its zone by two p.m., including the ridge overlooking the footbridge. Soon thereafter Shofner got the word that his battalion had earned a rest.

  ALTHOUGH KING COMPANY FOUND ITSELF IN "CORPS RESERVE" AND THUS WELL behind the front line, few comforts awaited them. The rain abated on June 5 but it had prevented the division's rear echelon from following them south at the same speed. New clothes and hot showers were not readily available, although chow and ammo were. R. V. Burgin walked into the company bivouac just as Sledge, Snafu, and the others began to dry out. Burgin had recovered from the wound on his neck and had hitched a ride back to King. Sledge and the others tried to tell him how he had missed all the rain and the mud and the lack of supplies. Burgin "only smiled" at such talk. He had endured Cape Gloucester.

  On June 9, the 3/5 hiked south in a column to keep close to the advancing front line. King sent out some patrols. What they found were not enemy, but Okinawans seeking safety. After a few weeks of not seeing a single Okinawan, the marines received a thousand a day on the eleventh and twelfth.561 When a few days without one battle casualty passed, it began to feel like the Battle of Okinawa was coming to a close. King received forty- nine enlisted replacements and one officer, a lieutenant; whereas this number of new men once would have amounted to one platoon, it now effectively doubled the size of the entire company.562 Fresh from boot camp in the States, these men were attached to units in reserve in order to give them at least some time--hours or days--to get some instruction. Sergeant Hank Boyes quietly informed the new lieutenant that he would not be a platoon leader. An experienced private first class would continue to lead Third Platoon. His decision was "no reflection on the officer," as Hank saw it, "but we could not disrupt our continuity of command at such a critical point." Along with the replacements came mail, with a few letters for Eugene.

  He had time to reply."That was about the worst 12 days I've ever seen," Gene began, his candor perhaps unavoidable, although he could also report good news. He had heard that "Nimitz says this campaign is nearly over." The thought that "it won't be too long" before he was on his way home encouraged him to admit "we were under almost constant mortar and artillery fire, and it rained so hard you couldn't hardly see at times." In a follow-up that he began writing on June 14, Gene declared, "I'm sick of this foreign duty. I want to be a civilian again. But I hope it won't be long before I am once more." He thanked his father for including in one of the envelopes the paper target he had used during a recent round of rifle practice on the shooting range. It reminded Eugene of their shared love of guns and the sport of hunting. He showed it to his friends, who were suitably impressed and declared that Dr. Sledge "must be a crack shot."

  ON JUNE 8 SHOFNER'S MEN WENT BACK INTO THE LINE, RELIEVING THE 3/1 IN A village called Yuza at four p.m. The bad news they received was that the Japanese resistance seemed to be stiffening and U.S. planes "had bombed, strafed, and rocketed the area near the 3rd Battalion causing two casualties."563 That day, though, supplies came forward in greater quantity as the roads dried out and the airplanes became more proficient at dropping packages. Shofner had a day to prepare for his next mission. The regimental HQ ordered Lieutenant Colonel Shofner's 1/1 to cross the Mukue River and seize Yuza Hill, "the high ground approximately 700 yards west of Yuza," on June 10.564 The 2nd Battalion had already seized the high ground on the right flank, so it would support Shofner's assault by firing at targets of opportunity. To his left, elements of the U.S. Army's 96th Division would assault an escarpment called the Yuza Dake, which was connected to his target. The combined attack would be important enough to merit the maximum support of the artillery battalions and ships' cannons offshore. The day before the attack, bulldozers cleared the roads and pushed enough dirt into the Mukue River to create a ford for tanks to cross. The time devoted to preparation and the arrival of armored support meant one thing. "This time," Shofner admitted to his company commanders, "they had to do it the hard way."

  A rolling barrage began the day, sweeping forward across the bottomland and up the sides of Yuza Hill. Shofner's Charlie Company jumped off at nine fifteen a.m. On the far side of the Mukue River the riflemen crossed an open flat area. The enemy's machine guns and artillery waited for the right moment and caught them. Of the 175 men in the company, 75 fell before the lead squad reached the foot of Yuza Hill. Shofner kept waiting for the army units on his left flank to engage and relieve some of the pressure on Charlie Company. The 96th Division, however, was pinned down. Shofner's Baker Company attempted to swing through the army's sector and come at Yuza Hill, but the enemy positions in the Yuka Dake poured fire on them. Charlie Company reached the crest with the help of its tanks. The enemy still occupied many fortifications around them, still fired mortars from unseen positions on the reverse slope of the hill and from the Yuza Dake. Charlie was exposed and in danger. Late in the afternoon Shofner ordered Baker Company to fall back, move to their right, and follow Charlie's path up the hill. The two companies dug in to hold their gain. The disaster continued, though, as mortar and heavy artillery shells dropped on them and the enemy machine gunners sent bullets grazing over the landscape.

  Shofner had watched his men charge that day in the face of raging machine-gun fire and seize Yuza Hill "in the tradition," he believed, "of the Halls of Montezuma," referring to one of the Marine Corps' early battles that had become its touchstone. He called in as much artillery support as he could. He went over to confront the commander of the regiment from the army's 96th Division. Shifty walked into the CP and demanded to know why his "flank had been left wide open." The army colonel complimented Shofner's 1st Battalion and explained what had happened with his soldiers on the Yuza Dake. Unsatisfied, Lieutenant Colonel Shofner told the colonel, "You and your men are responsible for the death and maiming of many of my marines. You will understand why I will not trust you again" and walked out in disgust.565

  The "constant deluge" of high explosives on the 1/1 continued through the evening until four a.m., when the enemy came out of their holes and charged. Charlie and Baker held, although all of Charlie Company's officers "were either dead or wounded" and the total casualties of both depleted companies exceeded 120 men.566 The next two days demanded more hard fighting and courage to clear Yuza Hill, endure the shelling, and await the 96th Division's destruction of the attached headwall called Yuza Dake. On June 15, Shofner's 1st Battalion was relieved by his former command, the 3/5. Whatever discomfort he may have felt at the memory of Peleliu, Shifty believed he had proven himself to the 1/1 in the past few weeks; his leadership, particularly his leadership at Shuri Castle, had earned their trust. At the regimental HQ, Shofner was given the good news: the regiment was being pulled back into division reserve; and the bad news: it had lost twenty officers and 471 enlisted personnel in twelve days.567 For their part the men of the First Marines were "praying we don't have to go back up on the lines."568

  KING COMPANY ESTABLISHED A GUARD ON THE BA
ILEY BRIDGE, ERECTED BY THE engineers, over the Mukue River on June 15. The other companies of the 3/5 crossed the bridge and walked up to the summit of Yuza Hill to relieve the 1/1. One look at the 1/1's position on Yuza Hill confirmed that it had been taken in a nasty fight with lots of casualties. Worse, the Seventh Marines was being badly mauled in their attempt to take the next ridge to the south, called Kunishi, and the 2/5 had gone to help them.

  Enough Japanese soldiers had surrendered, however, to encourage Tenth Army HQ to attempt to reach out. U.S. aircraft and the 105mm howitzers of the artillery dropped a lot of leaflets on enemy positions around southern Okinawa, encouraging the enemy to surrender and explaining how best to do so. The so-called war of paper also included an edition of the weekly newspaper Ryukyu Shuho, to offer the recipients a glimpse of an alternative future.569 To veterans of Peleliu, though, it could only be a matter of time before Sledge and his comrades got called back into combat. An explosion of paper would never defeat the IJA. The call came on the afternoon of June 17.

  As night fell, the 2/5 had claimed "approximately three-fourths of the 1,200 yards of Kunishi Ridge in the regimental zone."570 The 2nd Battalion's hold, however, was weak. Rockets, tanks, self- propelled 105s, ships, and aircraft had all punished Kunishi Ridge for days, but the countering fire came so thick and fast, wounded marines had to be evacuated by tanks. An armed bulldozer had begun to cut a road up the ridge. King Company made the run to the base of the ridge and began sliding into contact with the 2/5. The new lieutenant, Brockington, ordered a fire team out to "see if you draw a fire."571 One of the men observed, "That was probably the shortest mission by a K Co. fire team during the campaign." The marines dug in as the volume and intensity picked up after four p.m. About 250 Japanese came out of the caves and launched a counterattack that night, coming over the ridge and down on the 2/5, but also hitting King. The war so often dominated by huge cannons had come to a fight with small arms at close quarters. It lasted well into the following morning.572

  The 1/5 swung around the western end of Kunishi during the day of the eighteenth to attack another section of it. The 3/5 moved out in support of the 1/5 later that day, waiting for darkness to cross a field and climb back into the ridge, certain only that they were fighting for another hill, or ridge, or Japanese holdout position that had no significance in the war, only to the soldiers, civilians, and marines involved. Tanks brought up their water, chow, and ammunition.573 The night's firefight ended the fierce resistance on Kunishi Ridge. The slow, dangerous process of destroying the caves and the snipers and the infiltrators had only begun. King came down off Kunishi late in the day, having lost fifty enlisted men and Lieutenant Brockington.574 Not all the men had been killed but a lot of the dead had been shot at close range in the head.575 Sergeant Hank Boyes drew less than sixty rations from the quartermaster to feed all of his men.

  The morning of June 19 began with a bang, as nine 47mm shells detonated in the 3/5 area, causing casualties and damage.576 The cave from whence the shots came was not immediately identified. Hank and Shadow got the men of King organized and they set off in the rear of the other two companies of 3rd Battalion, which were following in the footsteps of the Eighth Marine Regiment. The Eighth Marines had become the spearhead. The 3/5 passed through a village; Item Company stopped and secured it. King Company took the high ground, called Komesu Ridge, and Love walked all the way to the beach. The 1st Division had reached the southern tip of the island of Okinawa. Still the final shot had not been heard. The Eighth Marines and other units were engaged on various hills. Hundreds of civilians needed to be processed. That night, King killed thirty- five infiltrators. The enemy's refusal to surrender, even when "there was no where they could go," and their desire to kill more marines, despite being beaten, built a fury inside Eugene. "What's the matter with these crazy damn people?"577 Tanks drove up the next day and the work of blast, burn, and bury continued for days. The 3rd Battalion estimated it killed 175 more enemies at a cost of five marines.

  The long, difficult battle had not ended. It had tapered off into a difficult world. The men were exhausted and heartily sick of always being on edge and of living in the bottom of a foxhole. They had no choice. One afternoon while the company walked in single file a few paces apart, "a bullet came through that queue within half an inch" of R.V. Burgin's ear. "Oh man, what a wicked sound." A lot of thoughts went through his mind: "I guess he picked me out 'cause I was as tall as any of them"; and that snipers "fired and then they'd wait awhile . . . so we couldn't pick up their position." The divisions of the Tenth Army controlled all of Okinawa. The U.S. Navy controlled the Pacific Ocean. The remaining Japanese soldiers, however, chose annihilation in the hopes of killing a few more marines. "In most cases the enemy was armed only with grenades and sabers and did not put up much resistance," the 3/5's commander concluded.578 Their fanaticism seemed meaningless and inexplicable to the marines, a font of pain, sorrow, and hatred. According to Eugene, every man in King Company knew they had to "kill every one of them to get off that damn island."579 Safety for the men of K/3/5 came slowly.

  Eugene found a spot on a little knoll covered in pine trees where he could sit. He and his friend Jay enjoyed the view, the breeze, and caught up. " The scene on the southern tip of the island is the one scene we all wanted to see," Eugene thought, for "it means the fight is won." Now that the fighting had ended, the losses had begun to be totaled. The Fifth Regiment had lost about two-thirds of its men. The 3/5 had lost eight company commanders, but this total was not the highest in the regiment.580 Looking around, they could see that King Company numbered less than a hundred, the majority of them replacements. The standard strength of an infantry company was 235. King had received 250 replacements during the course of the battle.

  The statistic that fascinated Eugene was the number of men who had survived both Peleliu and Okinawa. He referred to these men as "the originals" and, after checking with Sergeant Hank Boyes, Gene calculated that of the sixty-seven men who had fought in both battles, twenty-six of them were in King's camp at the end of June.581 Half of the twenty-six originals, he figured, had not left the unit for a day due to illness or wounds. Both R. V. Burgin and Snafu had fallen out for short periods. Sledge's use of the word "original," a curious term for someone who had joined the Raggedy-Assed Marines in the summer of 1944, conveyed his fierce pride at having stuck it out. The Imperial Japanese Army had thrown everything it had at him. He had done everything he had been asked to do.

  THE MEN OF THE 1/1 HAD WATCHED THE FIFTH MARINES MAKE THE FINAL assault on Kunishi Ridge "like it was a movie."582 In the following few days the rear echelon arrived, bringing showers and hot chow.583 The commanding general of the Tenth Army announced that Okinawa would be transformed into a massive army, navy, air corps, and marine base for the coming invasion of Japan. On June 22, Lieutenant Colonel Austin Shofner led his battalion north a few miles. They took up blocking positions along the cross- island highway, facing south. Other units in the south marched northward toward them, clearing caves, salvaging discarded equipment and supplies, and flushing out the diehards. Shifty's men had the easy job as the Eighth Marines and others went about the job of killing an additional eighty-nine hundred enemy troops, while managing to accept the surrender of almost three thousand Japanese military personnel.

  With the battle over, the men of the 1st Division expected to be sent to Hawaii to recuperate. It seemed only fair, since the Raggedy-Assed Marines had lived in the boonies since it left Melbourne two years previously. No other marine division had been away from civilization that long. General del Valle had promised his men a trip to Hawaii and some of the division's rear-echelon men left on Pavuvu had been sent to Pearl Harbor to prepare the way. The rumor went around, however, that when the last marine stepped off the island of Pavuvu and aboard ship "millions and millions of rats and land crabs came down to the dock and made obscene gestures to let it be known that Pavuvu was the only Pacific island the First Marine Division could not conquer.
"

  EUGENE SLEDGE AND THE OTHER PRIVATES OF KING COMPANY HAD BEEN PICKING up the large brass shell casings left by the artillery at the direction of their sergeants, like Burgin. They hated it and looked forward to getting back to civilization. On June 30, 1945, it was announced that the 1st Marine Division would remain on Okinawa.584 It would have to build its own camp. Morale plummeted. A few days later the division traveled north, crossing the length of the long skinny island. The Okinawa they saw had changed. Squadrons of B-29s and fighter aircraft filled the airfields in the center of the island. New airfields, bigger roads, depots, hospitals, HQs, and administration buildings had been or were being built. Reaching the Motobu Peninsula, the division found a thousand men already setting up their tents in a quiet area along the west coast.

  Eugene Sledge found it "the most beautiful area on the entire island." They set up tents near a stream and started to catch up on their sleep. At mail call Eugene received an entire mailbag of letters, boxes of goodies, and magazines from his folks. A few weeks previously his parents had obtained a new cocker spaniel because Gene had taken the loss of Deacon so hard. When he learned of their desire to name the dog Semper Fidelis, he objected. "I don't want anything connected with the service when I get out." With little else to write, he thought of home. Hunting with his father and attending church with his family topped his list, although news that one of his parents' friends had given him some more "Confederate relics" delighted him and he made sure to say thanks. "I'll always remember how Mrs. Dole Parco used to let me explore her old slave quarters and barn." Lying on his cot, Gene and a friend whiled away hours talking about the Civil War and making plans to see some of its more important sites.