With the Old Breed

by E. B. Sledge

  On 3 October our battalion made an attack on the Five Sisters, a rugged coral hill mass with five sheer-walled peaks. Before the attack the 11th Marines covered the area with artillery fire. We fired a heavy mortar barrage on the company front, and the machine guns laid down covering fire.

  As we ceased firing briefly, we watched the riflemen of ⅗ move forward onto the slopes before Japanese fire stopped them. We fired the mortars rapidly to give our men cover as they pulled back. The same fruitless attack was repeated the next day with the same dismal results.* Each time we got orders to secure the guns after the riflemen stopped advancing, the mortar section stood by to go up as stretcher bearers. (We always left a couple of men on each gun in case mortar fire was needed.) We usually threw phosphorous and smoke grenades as a screen, and the riflemen covered us, but enemy snipers fired as rapidly as possible at stretcher bearers. The Japanese were merciless in this, as in everything else in combat.

  Because of the rugged, rock-strewn terrain and intense heat on Peleliu, four men were needed to carry one casualty on a stretcher. Everyone in the company took his turn as a stretcher bearer nearly every day. All hands agreed it was backbreaking, perilous work.

  My heart pounded from fear and fatigue each time we lifted a wounded man onto a stretcher, raised it, then stumbled and struggled across the rough ground and up and down steep inclines while enemy bullets snapped through the air and ricochets whined and pinged off the rocks. The snipers hit a stretcher bearer on more than one occasion. But luckily, we always managed to drag everybody behind rocks until help came. Frequently enemy mortars added their shells in an effort to stop us.

  Each time I panted and struggled with a stretcher under fire, I marveled at the attitude of the casualty. When conscious, the wounded Marine seemed at ease and supremely confident we would get him out alive. With bullets and shells coming in thick and fast, I sometimes doubted any of us could make it. Even discounting the effects of shock and the morphine administered by the corpsmen, the attitude of the wounded Marine seemed serene. When we reached a place out of the line of fire, the man usually would encourage us to put him down so we could rest. If he wasn't wounded severely, we stopped and all had a smoke. We would cheer him up by asking him to think of us when he got on board the hospital ship.

  Invariably the not-so-seriously hurt were in high spirits and relieved. They were on their way out of hell, and they expressed pity for those of us left behind. With the more seriously wounded and the dying, we carried the stretcher as fast as possible to an amtrac or ambulance jeep, which then rushed them to the battalion aid station. After getting them into a vehicle, we would throw ourselves down and pant for breath.

  When acting as a stretcher bearer—struggling, running, crawling over terrain so rugged that sometimes the carriers on one end held the stretcher handles above their heads while those on the other end held their handles almost on the rocks to keep the stretcher level—I was terrified that the helpless casualty might fall off onto the hard, sharp coral. I never saw this happen, but we all dreaded it.

  The apparent calmness of our wounded under fire stemmed in part from the confidence we shared in each other. None of us could bear the thought of leaving wounded behind. We never did, because the Japanese certainly would have tortured them to death.

  During the period between attacks by our battalion on the Five Sisters, our front line was formed on fairly level ground. The mortars were dug in some yards behind the line. The entire company was out in the open, and we knew the Japanese were watching us at all times from their lairs in the Five Sisters. We came under sniper and mortar fire only when the Japanese were sure of inflicting maximum casualties. Their fire discipline was superb. When they shot, someone usually got hit.

  When night came it was like another world. Then the enemy came out of their caves, infiltrating or creeping up on our lines to raid all night, every night. Raids by individual enemy soldiers or small groups began as soon as darkness fell. Typically, one or more raiders slipped up close to Marine positions by moving during dark periods between mortar flares or star shells. They wore tabi, and their ability to creep in silently over rough rocks strewn with pulverized vegetation was incredible. They knew the terrain perfectly. Suddenly they rushed in jabbering or babbling incoherent sounds, sometimes throwing a grenade, but always swinging a saber, bayonet, or knife.

  Their skill and daring were amazing, matched only by the coolheaded, disciplined manner in which Marines met their attacks. Strict fire discipline on our part was required to avoid shooting friends if the enemy got into a position before he was shot. All we could do was listen in the dark to the desperate animalistic sounds and the thrashing around when a hand-to-hand fight occurred.

  No one was allowed out of his position after dark. Each Marine maintained a keen watch while his buddy tried to sleep. Mutual trust was essential. Frequently our men were killed or wounded in these nightly fights, but we invariably killed the foe.

  One night so many Japanese crept around in front of the company and slipped in among the rocks and ground litter between some of the forward positions that much of the following morning was occupied with trying to kill them all. This was difficult, because in any direction one fired one might hit a Marine. The excellent discipline and control exhibited by the Marines finally got all the Japanese without any Company K casualties.

  The only “injury” that occurred was to my friend Jay's dungaree trousers. Jay walked past my foxhole with a deliberate, stiff-kneed gait and wearing a wry expression on his face.

  “What happened to you?” I asked.

  “Aw hell, I'll tell you later.” He grinned sheepishly.

  “Go on, tell him, Jay,” another man near him yelled teasingly.

  Several men laughed. Jay grinned and told them to shut up. He waddled on back to battalion like a tiny child who had soiled his pants, which was just what he had done. We all had severe cases of diarrhea by this time, and it had gotten the best of Jay. Considering what had happened, the incident really wasn't funny, but it was understandable.

  At daylight Jay had slung his carbine over his shoulder and walked a short distance from his foxhole to relieve himself. As he stepped over a log, his foot came down squarely on the back of a Japanese lying in hiding. Jay reacted instantaneously and so did the enemy soldier. Jay brought his carbine to bear on the Japanese's chest as the latter sprang to his feet. Jay pulled the trigger. “Click.” The firing pin was broken, and the carbine didn't fire. As the enemy soldier pulled the pin from a hand grenade, Jay threw the carbine at him. It was more an act of desperation than anything else.

  As Jay spun around and ran back toward us yelling, “shoot him,” the Japanese threw his grenade, striking my friend in the middle of the back. It fell to the deck and lay there, a dud. The Japanese then drew his bayonet. Waving it like a sword, he took off after Jay at a dead run.

  Jay had spotted a BARman and fled in his direction, yelling for him to shoot the enemy. The BARman stood up but didn't fire. The Japanese came on. Jay was running and yelling as hard as he could. After agonizing moments, the BARman took deliberate aim at the enemy soldier's belt buckle and fired most of a twenty-round magazine into him. The soldier collapsed in a heap. The blast of automatic rifle fire had cut his body nearly in two.

  Terrified and winded, Jay had had a close call. When he asked the BARman why in the hell he had waited so long to fire, that character grinned. I heard him reply something to the effect that he thought he'd just let the Japanese get a little closer to see if he could cut him into two pieces with his BAR.

  Jay obviously didn't appreciate his close call being used as the subject of an experiment. As all the men laughed, Jay received permission to go back to battalion headquarters to draw a clean pair of trousers. The men kidded him a great deal about the episode, and he took it all with his usual good nature.

  During the entire period among the Umurbrogol ridges, a nuisance Marine infantrymen had to contend with was the rear-echelon souvenir h
unters. These characters came up to the rifle companies during lulls in the fighting and poked around for any Japanese equipment they could carry off They were easy to spot because of the striking difference between their appearance and that of the infantry.

  During the latter phase of the campaign the typical infantryman wore a worried, haggard expression on his filthy, unshaven face. His bloodshot eyes were hollow and vacant from too much horror and too little sleep. His camouflaged helmet cover (if it hadn't been torn off against the rocks) was gray with coral dust and had a tear or two in it. His cotton dungaree jacket (originally green) was discolored with coral dust, filthy, greasy with rifle oil, and as stiff as canvas from being soaked alternately with rain and sweat and then drying. His elbows might be out, and his knees frequently were, from much “hitting the deck” on the coral rock. His boon-dockers were coated with gray coral dust, and his heels were worn off completely by the sharp coral.

  The infantryman s calloused hands were nearly blackened by weeks of accumulation of rifle oil, mosquito repellant (an oily liquid called Skat), dirt, dust, and general filth. Overall he was stooped and bent by general fatigue and excessivephysical exertion. If approached closely enough for conversation, he smelled bad.

  The front-line infantry bitterly resented the souvenir hunters. One major in the 7th Marines made it a practice of putting them into the line if they came into his area. His infantrymen saw to it that the “visitors” stayed put until released to return to their respective units in the rear areas.

  During a lull in our attacks on the Five Sisters, I was on an ammo-carrying detail and talking with a rifleman friend after handing him some bandoliers. It was quiet, and we were sitting on the sides of his shallow foxhole as his buddy was bringing up K rations. (By quiet I mean we weren't being fired on. But there was always the sound of firing somewhere on the island.) Two neat, clean, fresh-looking souvenir hunters wearing green cloth fatigue caps instead of helmets and carrying no weapons walked past us headed in the direction of the Five Sisters, several hundred yards away. When they got a few paces in front of us, one of them stopped and turned around, just as I was on the verge of calling to them to be careful where they went.

  The man called back to us asking, “Hey, you guys, where's the front line?”

  “You just passed through it,” I answered serenely. The second souvenir hunter spun around. They looked at each other and then at us in astonishment. Then, grabbing the bills of their caps, they took off on the double back past us toward the rear. They kicked up dust and never looked back.

  “Hell, Sledgehammer, you should'a let 'em go on so they'd get a good scare,” chided my friend. I told him we couldn't just let them walk up on a sniper. “Serve them rear-echelon bastards right. And they call them guys Marines,” he grumbled. (In fairness, I must add that some of the rear-area service troops volunteered and served as stretcher bearers.)

  In our myopic view we respected and admired only those who got shot at, and to hell with everyone else. This was unfair to noncombatants who performed essential tasks, but we were so brutalized by war that we were incapable of making fair evaluations.

  A LEADER DIES

  By 5 October (D + 20) the 7th Marines had lost about as many men as the 1st Marines had lost earlier in the battle. The regiment was now finished as an assault force on the regimental level. The 5th Marines, the last of the 1st Marine Division's infantry regiments, began to relieve the 7th Marines that day. Some of the men of the battered regiment would be killed or wounded in subsequent actions in the draws and valleys among the ridges of Peleliu, but the 7th Marines were through as a fighting force for the campaign.

  On 7 October ⅗ made an assault up a large draw called Horseshoe Valley, known commonly as “the Horseshoe.” There were numerous enemy heavy guns in caves and emplacements in the ridges bordering the Horseshoe to the west, north, and east. Our battalion was supposed to knock out as many of them as possible. We were supported by six army tanks, because the Marine 1st Tank Battalion had been relieved on 1 October to be sent back to Pavuvu. Somebody erroneously assumed there would be no further need for tanks on Peleliu.

  My guess is that the 1st Tank Battalion was relieved not because the men were “badly depleted and debilitated”—the official reason given—but because the machines were. Machines wore out or needed overhauling and maintenance, but men were expected to keep going. Tanks, amtracs, trucks, aircraft, and ships were considered valuable and difficult to replace way out in the Pacific. They were maintained carefully and not exposed needlessly to wear or destruction. Men, infantrymen in particular, were simply expected to keep going beyond the limits of human endurance until they got killed or wounded or dropped from exhaustion.

  Our attack on the Horseshoe was preceded by terrific artillery fire from our big guns. The shells swished and whined toward the ridges for two and a half hours. The mortars added their bit, too. The attack was surprisingly successful. The Horseshoe wasn't secured, but many Japanese were killed. We also knocked out many caves containing heavy guns, but only after several of the tanks took hits from them.

  In the estimation of the Marines, the army tankers did a good job. Here the tanks operated with our riflemen attached. It was a case of mutual support. The tanks pulled up to the caves and fired into them point-blank with their 75mm cannon—wham bam. Their machine guns never seemed to stop. A tank unattended by riflemen was doomed to certain destruction from enemy suicide crews carrying mines. And the riflemen got a lot of protection from the tanks.

  About the only instance I know of where tanks tried to operate without riflemen in the Pacific was a case of army tanks on Okinawa. Predictably, the Japanese knocked out most of those tanks. Marine tanks always operated with riflemen, like a dog with his fleas. But with tanks and riflemen, it was mutually beneficial.

  After the attack of 7 October on the Horseshoe, ⅗ pulled back some distance from the ridges. Shortly thereafter we again went up toward the northern part of the island.

  Between 8 and 11 October we emplaced our 60mm mortars between the West Road and the narrow beach. We were only a few yards from the water. Thus set up, we fired over the West Road, our front line beyond, and onto the ridges. We had an observer somewhere across the road who sent us orders by the sound-powered phone.

  We kept up a brisk rate of fire because Japanese had infiltrated into positions on the ridge next to the road and were sniping at vehicles and troops with deadly effect. Our mortar fire helped pin them down and clean them out. We had good gun emplacements among some rocks and were screened by a narrow strip of thick foliage between us and the road and, therefore, from the enemy in the ridge beyond.

  I was extremely confused as to where we had left our company. An NCO told me our mortars were detached temporarily from Company K and were supporting another unit hard-pressed by snipers. The enemy were firing from positions that were almost impossible to locate and they shot any and everybody they could—even casualties being evacuated by amtracs. More than one desperate amtrac driver, as he raced down the West Road toward the Regimental Aid Station, arrived only to find his helpless cargo slaughtered where they lay.

  While we were in this position we were particularly vulnerable to infiltrators who might slip in along the beach as well as from the water to our rear. We kept watch in all directions at night; in this place, there were no friendly troops to our rear, just the water's edge about ten feet away and then the ocean-covered reef. The water was only about knee deep for quite a distance out. The Japanese would wade out, slip along the reef, and come in behind us.

  One night while I was firing flare shells, James T. (Jim) Burke, a Marine we called the Fatalist, was manning Number One gun. Between firing missions, I could see him sitting on his helmet next to his gun, keeping watch to our left and rear.

  “Hey, Sledgehammer, let me see your carbine a minute,” he whispered nonchalantly in his usual laconic manner. He had a .45 pistol which was of little use at much distance. I handed him my carbine. I didn't
know what he saw, so I followed his gaze as he pointed my carbine toward the sea. In the pale light a shadowy figure was moving slowly and silently along the reef parallel to the shoreline in the shallow water. The man couldn't have been more than thirty yards away or we couldn't have seen him in the dim moonlight. There was no doubt that he was a Japanese trying to get farther along to where he could slip ashore and creep up on our mortars.

  No challenge or demand for password was even considered in a situation like that. No Marine would be creeping along the reef at night. The Fatalist rested his elbows on his knees and took careful aim as the figure moved slowly through the glassy-smooth water. Two quick shots; the figure disappeared.

  The Fatalist flipped the safety back on, handed me my carbine, and said, “Thanks, Sledgehammer.” He appeared as unconcerned as ever.

  During the morning of 12 October, an NCO brought word that we were to take up our guns. The mortar section was to rejoin Company K. We gathered our gear and mortar. Snafu, George Sarrett, and I got into a jeep parked along a sheltered part of the road. We had to hang on because the driver took off with a lurch in a cloud of dust and drove like hell down the West Road bordered by the sniper-infested ridge. It was my first—and only—jeep ride during my entire enlistment. It was an eventful day because of that.

  Shortly the driver stopped and let us off in a supply area where we waited for an NCO who was to guide us up into the ridges. Directly the rest of the Company K mortarmen arrived with directions to reach the company. We hoisted our mortar and other weapons and gear and headed across the road. We picked our way around the end of the ridge, then headed up a narrow valley filled with skeletons of shattered trees jutting up here and there on the slopes amid crazy-angled coral masses.