by E. B. Sledge
We picked up our gear and prepared to move out in preparation for the attack across the airfield. Because ⅗'s line during the night faced south and was back-to-back with that of ⅖, we had to move to the right and prepare to attack northward across the airfield with the other battalions of the regiment. The Japanese shelling of our lines began at daylight, so we had to move out fast and in dispersed formation. We finally got into position for the attack and were told to hit the deck until ordered to move again. This suited me fine, because the Japanese shelling was getting worse. Our artillery, ships, and planes were laying down a terrific amount of fire in front on the airfield and ridges beyond in preparation for our attack. Our preattack barrage lasted about half an hour. I knew we would move out when it ended.
As I lay on the blistering hot coral and looked across the open airfield, heat waves shimmered and danced, distorting the view of Bloody Nose Ridge. A hot wind blew in our faces.
An NCO hurried by, crouching low and yelling, “Keep moving out there, you guys. There's less chance you'll be hit if you go across fast and don't stop.”
“Let's go,” shouted an officer who waved toward the airfield. We moved at a walk, then a trot, in widely dispersed waves. Four infantry battalions—from left to right 2/1, ⅕, ⅖, and ⅗ (this put us on the edge of the airfield)—moved across the open, fire-swept airfield. My only concern then was my duty and survival, not panoramic combat scenes. But I often wondered later what that attack looked like to aerial observers and to those not immersed in the firestorms. All I was aware of were the small area immediately around me and the deafening noise.
Bloody Nose Ridge dominated the entire airfield. The Japanese had concentrated their heavy weapons on high ground; these were directed from observation posts at elevations as high as three hundred feet, from which they could look down on us as we advanced. I could see men moving ahead of my squad, but I didn't know whether our battalion, ⅗, was moving across behind ⅖ and then wheeling to the right. There were also men about twenty yards to our rear.
We moved rapidly in the open, amid craters and coral rubble, through ever-increasing enemy fire. I saw men to my right and left running bent as low as possible. The shells screeched and whistled, exploding all around us. In many respects it was more terrifying than the landing, because there were no vehicles to carry us along, not even the thin steel sides of an amtrac for protection. We were exposed, running on our own power through a veritable shower of deadly metal and the constant crash of explosions.
For me the attack resembled World War I movies I had seen of suicidal Allied infantry attacks through shell fire on the Western Front. I clenched my teeth, squeezed my carbine stock, and recited over and over to myself, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff comfort me.…”
The sun bore down unmercifully, and the heat was exhausting. Smoke and dust from the barrage limited my vision. The ground seemed to sway back and forth under the concussions. I felt as though I were floating along in the vortex of some unreal thunderstorm. Japanese bullets snapped and cracked, and tracers went by me on both sides at waist height. This deadly small-arms fire seemed almost insignificant amid the erupting shells. Explosions and the hum and the growl of shell fragments shredded the air. Chunks of blasted coral stung my face and hands while steel fragments spattered down on the hard rock like hail on a city street. Everywhere shells flashed like giant firecrackers.
Through the haze I saw Marines stumble and pitch forward as they got hit. I then looked neither right nor left but just straight to my front. The farther we went, the worse it got. The noise and concussion pressed in on my ears like a vise. I gritted my teeth and braced myself in anticipation of the shock of being struck down at any moment. It seemed impossible that any of us could make it across. We passed several craters that offered shelter, but I remembered the order to keep moving. Because of the superb discipline and excellent esprit of the Marines, it had never occurred to us that the attack might fail.
About halfway across, I stumbled and fell forward. At that instant a large shell exploded to my left with a flash and a roar. A fragment ricocheted off the deck and growled over my head as I went down. On my right, Snafu let out a grunt and fell as the fragment struck him. As he went down, he grabbed his left side. I crawled quickly to him. Fortunately the fragment had spent much of its force, and luckily hit against Snafu's heavy web pistol belt. The threads on the broad belt were frayed in about an inch-square area.
I knelt beside him, and we checked his side. He had only a bruise to show for his incredible luck. On the deck I saw the chunk of steel that had hit him. It was about an inch square and a half inch thick. I picked up the fragment and showed it to him. Snafu motioned toward his pack. Terrified though I was amid the hellish chaos, I calmly juggled the fragment around in my hands—it was still hot—and dropped it into his pack. He yelled something that sounded dimly like, “Let's go.” I reached for the carrying strap of the mortar, but he pushed my hand away and lifted the gun to his shoulder. We got up and moved on as fast as we could. Finally we got across and caught up with other members of our company who lay panting and sweating amid low bushes on the northeastern side of the airfield.
How far we had come in the open I never knew, but it must have been several hundred yards. Everyone was visibly shaken by the thunderous barrage we had just come through. When I looked into the eyes of those fine Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester veterans, some of America's best, I no longer felt ashamed of my trembling hands and almost laughed at myself with relief.
To be shelled by massed artillery and mortars is absolutely terrifying, but to be shelled in the open is terror compounded beyond the belief of anyone who hasn't experienced it. The attack across Peleliu's airfield was the worst combat experience I had during the entire war. It surpassed, by the intensity of the blast and shock of the bursting shells, all the subsequent horrifying ordeals on Peleliu and Okinawa.
The heat was incredibly intense. The temperature that day reached 105 degrees in the shade (we were not in the shade) and would soar to 115 degrees on subsequent days. Corps-men tagged numerous Marines with heat prostration as being too weak to continue. We evacuated them. My boondockers were so full of sweat that my feet felt squishy when I walked. Lying on my back, I held up first one foot and then the other. Water literally poured out of each shoe.
“Hey, Sledgehammer,” chuckled a man sprawled next to me, “you been walking on water.”
“Maybe that's why he didn't get hit coming across that airfield,” laughed another.
I tried to grin and was glad the inevitable wisecracks had started up again.
Because of the shape of the airfield, ⅗ was pinched out of the line by ⅖ on our left and 3/7 on our right after our crossing. We swung eastward and Company K tied in with 3/7, which was attacking in the swampy areas on the eastern side of the airfield.
As we picked up our gear, a veteran remarked to me with a jerk of his head toward the airfield where the shelling continued, “That was rough duty; hate to have to do that every day.”
We moved through the swamps amid sniper fire and dug in for the night with our backs to the sea. I positioned my mortar in a meager gun pit on a slight rise of ground about fifteen feet from a sheer rock bluff that dropped about ten feet to the ocean. The jungle growth was extremely thick, but we had a clear hole in the jungle canopy above the gun pit through which we could fire the mortar without having shells hit the foliage and explode.
Most of the men in the company were out of sight through the thick mangroves. Still short of water, everyone was weakened by the heat and the exertions of the day. I had used my water as sparingly as possible and had to eat twelve salt tablets that day. (We kept close count of these tablets. They caused retching if we took more than necessary.)
The enemy infiltration that followed was a nightmare. Illumination fired above the airfield the previous
night (D day) had discouraged infiltration in my sector, but others had experienced plenty of the hellish sort of thing we now faced and would suffer every night for the remainder of our time on Peleliu. The Japanese were noted for their infiltration tactics. On Peleliu they refined them and practiced them at a level of intensity not seen in the past.
After we had dug in late that afternoon we followed a procedure used nearly every night. Using directions from our observer, we registered in the mortar by firing a couple of HE shells into a defilade or some similar avenue of approach in front of the company not covered by our machine-gun or rifle fire where the enemy might advance. We then set up alternate aiming stakes to mark other terrain features on which we could fire. Everyone lighted up a smoke, and the password for the night was whispered along the line, passed from foxhole to foxhole. The password always contained the letter L, which the Japanese had difficulty pronouncing the way an American would.
Word came along as to the disposition of the platoons of the company and of the units on our flanks. We checked our weapons and placed equipment for quick access in the coming night. As darkness fell, the order was passed, “The smoking lamp is out.” All talking ceased. One man in each foxhole settled down as comfortably as he could to sleep on the jagged rock while his buddy strained eyes and ears to detect any movement or sound in the darkness.
An occasional Japanese mortar shell came into the area, but things were pretty quiet for a couple of hours. We threw up a few HE shells as harassing fire to discourage movement in front of the company. I could hear the sea lapping gently against the base of the rocks behind us.
The Japanese soon began trying to infiltrate all over the company front and along the shore to our rear. We heard sporadic bursts of small-arms fire and the bang of grenades. Our fire discipline had to be strict in such situations so as not to mistakenly shoot a fellow Marine. The loose accusation was often made during the war that Americans were “trigger happy” at night and shot at anything that moved. This accusation was often correct when referring to rear-area or inexperienced troops; but in the rifle companies, it was also accepted as gospel that anybody who moved out of his hole at night without first informing the men around him, and who didn't reply immediately with the password upon being challenged, could expect to get shot.
Suddenly movement in the dried vegetation toward the front of the gun pit got my attention. I turned cautiously around and waited, holding Snafu's cocked .45 automatic pistol at the ready. The rustling movements drew closer. My heart pounded. It was definitely not one of Peleliu's numerous land crabs that scuttled over the ground all night, every night. Someone was slowly crawling toward the gun pit. Then silence. More noise, then silence. Rustling noises, then silence—the typical pattern.
It must be a Japanese trying to slip in as close as possible, stopping frequently to prevent detection, I thought. He probably had seen the muzzle flash when I fired the mortar. He would throw a grenade at any moment or jump me with his bayonet. I couldn't see a thing in the pale light and inky blackness of the shadows.
Crouching low so as to see better any silhouette against the sky above me, I flipped off the thumb safety on the big pistol. A helmeted figure loomed up against the night sky in front of the gun pit. I couldn't tell from the silhouette whether the helmet was U.S. or Japanese. Aiming the automatic at the center of the head, I pressed the grip safety as I also squeezed the trigger slightly to take up the slack. The thought raced through my mind that he was too close to use his grenade so he would probably use a bayonet or knife on me. My hand was steady even though I was scared. It was he or I.
“What's the password?” I said in a low voice.
No answer.
“Password!” I demanded as my finger tightened on the trigger. The big pistol would fire and buck with recoil in a moment, but to hurry and jerk the trigger would mean a miss for sure. Then he'd be on me.
“Sle-Sledgehammer!” stammered the figure.
I eased up on the trigger.
“It's de l’Eau, Jay de l’Eau. You got any water?”
“Jay, why didn't you give the password? I nearly shot you!” I gasped.
He saw the pistol and moaned, “Oh, Jesus,” as he realized what had nearly happened. “I thought you knew it was me,” he said weakly.
Jay was one of my closest friends. He was a Gloucester veteran and knew better than to prowl around the way he had just done. If my finger had applied the last bit of pressure to that trigger, Jay would have died instantly. It would have been his own fault, but that wouldn't have mattered to me. My life would have been ruined if I had killed him, even under those circumstances.
My right hand trembled violently as I lowered the big automatic. I had to flip on the thumb safety with my left hand; my right thumb was too weak. I felt nauseated and weak and wanted to cry. Jay crept over and sat on the edge of the gun pit.
“I'm sorry, Sledgehammer. I thought you knew it was me,” he said.
After handing him a canteen, I shuddered violently and thanked God that Jay was still alive. “Just how in the hell could I tell it was you in the dark with Nips all over the place?” I snarled. Then I reamed out one of the best friends I ever had.
HEADING NORTH
“Get your gear on and stand by to move out.” We shouldered our loads and began moving slowly out of the thick swamp. As I passed a shallow foxhole where Robert B. Oswalt had been dug in, I asked a man nearby if the word were true about Oswalt being killed. Sadly, he said yes. Oswalt had been fatally wounded in the head. A bright young mind that aspired to delve into the mysteries of the human brain to alleviate human suffering had itself been destroyed by a tiny chunk of metal. What a waste, I thought. War is such self-defeating, organized madness the way it destroys a nation's best.
I wondered also about the hopes and aspirations of a dead Japanese we had just dragged out of the water. But those of us caught up in the maelstrom of combat had little compassion for the enemy. As a wise, salty NCO had put it one day on Pavuvu when asked by a replacement if he ever felt sorry for the Japanese when they got hit, “Hell no! It's them or us!”
We moved out, keeping our five-pace interval, through the thick swamp toward the sound of heavy firing. The heat was almost unbearable, and we were halted frequently to prevent heat prostration in the 115-degree temperature.
We came to the eastern edge of the airfield and halted in the shade of a scrub thicket. Throwing down our gear, we fell on the deck, sweating, panting, exhausted. I had no more than reached for a canteen when a rifle bullet snapped overhead.
“He's close. Get down,” said an officer. The rifle cracked again. “Sounds like he's right through there a little way,” the officer said.
“I'll get him,” said Howard Nease.
“OK, go ahead, but watch yourself.”
Nease, a Gloucester veteran, grabbed his rifle and took off into the scrub with the nonchalance of a hunter going after a rabbit in a bush. He angled to one side so as to steal up on the sniper from the rear. We waited a few anxious moments, then heard two M1 shots.
“Ole Howard got him,” confidently remarked one of the men.
Soon Howard reappeared wearing a triumphant grin and carrying a Japanese rifle and some personal effects. Everyone congratulated him on his skill, and he reacted with his usual modesty.
“Rack 'em up, boys,” he laughed.
We moved out in a few minutes through some knee-high bushes onto the open area at the edge of the airfield. The heat was terrific. When we halted again, we lay under the meager shade of the bushes. I held up each foot and let the sweat pour out of my boondockers. A man on the crew of the other weapon in our mortar section passed out. He was a Gloucester veteran, but Peleliu's heat proved too much for him. We evacuated him, but unlike some heat prostration cases, he never returned to the company.
Some men pulled the rear border of their camouflaged helmet cover out from between the steel and the liner so the cloth hung down over the backs of the necks. This gave the
m some protection against the blistering sun, but they looked like the French foreign legion in a desert.
After a brief rest, we continued in dispersed order. We could see Bloody Nose Ridge to our left front. Northward from that particular area, 2d Battalion, 1st Marines (2/1) was fighting desperately against Japanese hidden in well-protected caves. We were moving up to relieve 1st Battalion, 5th Marines (⅕) and would tie in with the 1st Marines. Then we were to attack northward along the eastern side of the ridges.
On this particular day, 17 September, the relief was slow and difficult. As ⅗ moved in and the men of ⅕ moved out, the Japanese in the ridges on our left front poured on the artillery and mortar fire. I pitied those tired men in ⅕ as they tried to extricate themselves without casualties. Their battalion, as with the others in the 5th Marines, had had a rough time crossing the airfield through the heavy fire the previous day. But once they got across they met heavy resistance from pillboxes on the eastern side. We had been more fortunate: after getting across the airfield, ⅗ moved into the swamp, which wasn't defended as heavily.
With the relief of ⅕ finally completed, we tied in with the 1st Marines on our left and ⅖ on our right. Our battalion was to attack during the afternoon through the low ground along the eastern side of Bloody Nose, while ⅖ was to clean out the jungle between our right flank and the eastern shore.
As soon as we moved forward, we came under heavy flanking fire from Bloody Nose Ridge on our left. Snafu delivered his latest communiqué on the tactical situation to me as we hugged the deck for protection: “They need to git some more damn troops up here,” he growled.