With the Old Breed

by E. B. Sledge

  Those, though, were typical modern battlefields. They were nothing like the crazy-contoured coral ridges and rubble-filled canyons of the Umurbrogol Pocket on Peleliu. Particularly at night by the light of flares or on a cloudy day, it was like no other battlefield described on earth. It was an alien, unearthly, surrealistic nightmare like the surface of another planet.

  I have already mentioned several times the exhaustion of the Marines as the campaign wore on. Our extreme fatigue was no secret to the Japanese either. As early as 6 October, nine days before we were relieved, a captured document reported that we appeared worn out and were fighting less aggressively.

  The grinding stress of prolonged heavy combat, the loss of sleep because of nightly infiltration and raids, the vigorous physical demands forced on us by the rugged terrain, and the unrelenting, suffocating heat were enough to make us drop in our tracks. How we kept going and continued fighting I'll never know. I was so indescribably weary physically and emotionally that I became fatalistic, praying only for my fate to be painless. The million-dollar wound seemed more of a blessing with every weary hour that dragged by. It seemed the only escape other than death or maiming.

  In addition to the terror and hardships of combat, each day brought some new dimension of dread for me: I witnessed some new, ghastly, macabre facet in the kaleidoscope of the unreal, as though designed by some fiendish ghoul to cause even the most hardened and calloused observer among us to recoil in horror and disbelief.

  Late one afternoon a buddy and I returned to the gun pit in the fading light. We passed a shallow defilade we hadn't noticed previously. In it were three Marine dead. They were lying on stretchers where they had died before their comrades had been forced to withdraw sometime earlier. (I usually avoided confronting such pitiful remains. I never could bear the sight of American dead neglected on the battlefield. In contrast, the sight of Japanese corpses bothered me little aside from the stench and the flies they nourished.)

  As we moved past the defilade, my buddy groaned, “Jesus!” I took a quick glance into the depression and recoiled in revulsion and pity at what I saw. The bodies were badly decomposed and nearly blackened by exposure. This was to be expected of the dead in the tropics, but these Marines had been mutilated hideously by the enemy. One man had been decapitated. His head lay on his chest; his hands had been severed from his wrists and also lay on his chest near his chin. In disbelief I stared at the face as I realized that the Japanese had cut off the dead Marine's penis and stuffed it into his mouth. The corpse next to him had been treated similarly. The third had been butchered, chopped up like a carcass torn by some predatory animal.

  My emotions solidified into rage and a hatred for the Japanese beyond anything I ever had experienced. From that moment on I never felt the least pity or compassion for them no matter what the circumstances. My comrades would field-strip their packs and pockets for souvenirs and take gold teeth, but I never saw a Marine commit the kind of barbaric mutilation the Japanese committed if they had access to our dead.

  When we got back to the gun pit, my buddy said, “Sledgehammer, did you see what the Nips did to them bodies? Did you see what them poor guys had in their mouths?” I nodded as he continued, “Christ, I hate them slant-eyed bastards!”

  “Me too. They're mean as hell,” was all I could say.

  VICTORY AT HIGH COST

  Twelve October continued to be an eventful day for us on Hill 140. Following Captain Haldane's death in the morning, we set up our mortars below and behind a 75mm pack howitzer tied down within Company K's lines. We were to fire our usual support for the company, but we also were to provide covering fire for the artillery piece.

  Johnny Marmet was observing for us through a crack in the coral rock up near the howitzer when he suddenly called down to us that he saw some Japanese officers just outside the mouth of a cave. Apparently confident they were sheltered from American fire, they were just sitting down to eat at a table on a ledge beneath a thatched canopy.

  Johnny called the range to us and the order to fire five rounds. Snafu sighted in on the proper aiming stake, repeated Johnny's range, and yelled, “Fire one.” I grabbed a shell, repeated the range and charge, pulled off the proper number of powder increments from between the tail fins, put my right thumb over the safety pin, pulled the safety wire, and dropped the shell into the muzzle. Snafu realigned the sight after the recoil, grabbed the bipod feet, and yelled, “Fire two.” I prepared the second shell and dropped it into the tube. It went smoothly and we got all the rounds off in short order. We listened tensely for them to explode on target. My heart pounded away the seconds. It was a rare occasion to get Japanese officers bunched up and rarer indeed on Peleliu for them to expose themselves.

  After seemingly endless seconds of suspense we heard the dull boom as each shell exploded over the ridge and across the valley. Something was wrong though. I heard one less explosion than the number of shells we had fired. We looked anxiously up at Johnny who had his eyes glued to the target. Suddenly he spun around, snapped his finger, and stamped his foot. Scowling down at us he yelled, “Right on target, zeroed in! But the first damned round was a dud! What the hell happened?” We groaned and cursed with frustration. The first shell had gone right through the thatched roof and the Japanese officers dove for the cave. But the shell didn't explode. Our remaining shells were right on target, too, smashing up and blowing apart the thatched canopy and the table. But the enemy officers were safe inside the cave. Our pinpoint accuracy had been remarkable for a 60mm mortar that normally functioned to neutralize an area with fragments from its bursting shells. Our golden opportunity had vanished because of a dud shell. We set about trying to figure out what had gone wrong.

  Everybody in the mortar section was cursing and groaning. Suddenly Snafu accused me of forgetting to pull the safety wire to arm that first shell. I was confident that I had pulled the pin. Some defense worker in an ammunition plant back in the States had made a mistake in the manufacture of the shell, I contended. Snafu wouldn't accept that, and we got into a hot argument. I was angry and frustrated enough myself. We had missed our one chance in a million to avenge the death of our CO. But Snafu was in a rage. It was a matter of pride with him, because he was the gunner and, therefore, in command of our mortar crew.

  Snafu was a good Marine and an expert mortarman. His performance of his duties bore absolutely no resemblance to his nickname, “Situation Normal All Fouled Up.” He felt it was a reflection on him that a chance to clobber several Japanese officers had failed because his assistant gunner hadn't pulled the safety wire on a shell. He was proud of a newspaper clipping from his hometown paper in Louisiana describing the effective fire his “mortar gun” had poured on the Japs during the bloody fighting for Hill 660 on Cape Gloucester. Snafu was a unique character known and respected by everybody. The guys loved to kid him about his intrepid “mortar gun” on Hill 660, and he thrived on it. But this foul-up and escape of those enemy officers because of a dud shell was another matter.

  As we argued, I knew that unless I could prove the dud wasn't my fault, I'd never hear the end of it from Snafu and the other Company K survivors of Peleliu. Fortunately, luck was on my side. We had fired only a couple of shells to register the gun before Johnny called on us to fire on the Japanese. Consequently I had an accurate count of the number of rounds we had fired from this position. While Snafu ranted and raved I crawled around on all fours a few feet in front of the gun. With incredible good luck I found what I was seeking amid the coral gravel and pulverized plant material. I retrieved the safety wire from each shell we had fired.

  I held them out to Snafu and said, “OK, count them and then tell me I didn't pull the wires on all those rounds.”

  He counted them. We knew that no other 60mm mortar had occupied this newly captured position, so all the wires were ours. I was angry the shell had been a dud and the Japanese had escaped, but I was delighted that it wasn't due to my carelessness. I heard no more about the dud. We all wa
nted to forget it.

  Word also came that day that the high command had declared the “assault phase” of the Palau Islands operation at an end. Many profane and irreverent remarks were made by my buddies to the effect that our leaders were as crazy as hell if they thought that held true on Peleliu. “Somebody from the division CP needs to come up here and tell them damned Nips the ‘assault phase’ is over,” grumbled one man.

  After dark the Japanese reinfiltrated some of the positions they had been driven out of around Hill 140. It was the usual hellish night in the ridges, exhausted Marines trying to fight off incredibly aggressive Japanese slipping all around. It was mortar flares, HE shells, grenades, and small-arms fire. I was so tired I held one eye open with the fingers of one hand to stay awake while clutching a grenade or other weapon with the other hand.

  The next day, 13 October, ⅗ was ordered to renew the offensive and to straighten our lines, forming a salient on Hill 140. Our battalion was the only unit of the 5th Marines still on the lines and ordered to attack. Snipers raised hell all over the place. It seemed to me the fighting would never end, as we fired covering fire for our weary riflemen. Our artillery fired heavy support. The next morning, 14 October, Corsairs made a napalm strike against the Japanese on our right. Company I made a probing attack after a mortar barrage was halted by heavy sniper fire. Companies K and L improved their positions and put out more sandbags and concertina wire.

  The battalion's efforts at attacking seemed like the gasping of a tired steam engine struggling to pull its string of cars up a steep grade. We were barely making it. Rumors flew that army troops would relieve us the next day, but my cynicism kept me from believing them.

  We found some Japanese rifles and ammunition in our area. Hidden under pieces of corrugated iron, I discovered two boxes containing about a dozen Japanese grenades. I suggested to an NCO that we take them in case we needed them during the coming night, but he said we could get them later if necessary. We got busy on firing missions with our mortar, and the first time I glanced back toward the boxes, the souvenir hunters had moved in and were emptying them. Another mortarman and I yelled at the scavenging pests. They left, but all the Japanese grenades were gone.

  A wave of hope and excitement spread through the ranks that evening when we got solid information that we would be relieved by the army the next morning. I got less sleep that night than ever. With the end in sight, I didn't want to get my throat slit at the last moment before escaping from the meat grinder.

  During the morning of 15 October soldiers of the 2d Battalion, 321st Infantry Regiment, 81st Infantry Division (Wildcats) began moving single file into our area. I couldn't believe it! We were being relieved at last!

  As the soldiers filed by us into position, a grizzled buddy squatting on his battered helmet eyed them critically and remarked, “Sledgehammer, I don't know about them dogfaces.Look how many of 'em wearin’ glasses, and they look old enough to be my daddy. Besides, them pockets on their dungaree pants sure do look baggy.”

  “They look fine to me. They're our replacements,” I answered.

  “I guess you're right. Thank God they're here,” he said reflectively.

  His observations were correct though, because most of our fellow Marines hadn't reached the age of twenty-one yet, and army dungarees did have large side pockets.

  “We sure are glad to see you guys,” I said to one of the soldiers.

  He just grinned and said, “Thanks.” I knew he wasn't happy to be there.*

  The relief, which had gone smoothly, was completed by 1100, and we were on our way to the northern defense zone of Peleliu. Our battalion deployed along the East Road facing seaward, where we were to stop any counterlanding the Japanese might try.

  My mortar was emplaced near the road so we could fire on the strip of mangrove swamp between the narrow beach and the sea as well as up the road toward the Umurbrogol Pocket if necessary. There was a sloping ridge to our rear along which the rest of the company dug in defensively. We stayed there from the time we came off the line until the last week of the month.

  The area was quiet. We relaxed as much as we could with the nagging fear that we might get thrown into the line again if an emergency developed.

  We learned that our battalion would leave Peleliu as soon as a ship was available to transport us back to Pavuvu. By day we rested and swapped souvenirs, but we had to be on the alert at night for possible Japanese movement. To the south we could hear the constant rattle of machine guns and the thud of mortars and artillery as the 81st Infantry Division kept up the pressure around the Umurbrogol Pocket.

  “Have you gone Asiatic?” I gasped. “You know you can't keep that thing. Some officer'll put you on report sure as hell,” I remonstrated as I stared in horror at the shriveled human hand he had unwrapped.

  “Aw, Sledgehammer, nobody'll say anything. I've got to dry it in the sun a little more so it won't stink,” he said as he carefully laid it out on the rock in the hot sun. He explained that he thought a dried Japanese hand would be a more interesting souvenir than gold teeth. So when he found a corpse that was drying in the sun and not rotting, he simply took out his kabar and severed the hand from the corpse, and here it was, and what did I think?

  “I think you're nuts,” I said. “You know the CO will raise hell if he sees that.”

  “Hell no, Sledgehammer, nobody says anything about the guys collecting gold teeth, do they?” he argued.

  “Maybe so,” I said, “but it's just the idea of a human hand. Bury it.”

  He looked grimly at me, which was totally out of character for his amiable good nature. “How many Marines you reckon that hand pulled the trigger on?” he asked in an icy voice.

  I stared at the blackened, shriveled hand and wondered about what he said. I thought how I valued my own hands and what a miracle to do good or evil the human hand is. Although I didn't collect gold teeth, I had gotten used to the idea, but somehow a hand seemed to be going too far. The war had gotten to my friend; he had lost (briefly, I hoped) all his sensitivity. He was a twentieth-century savage now, mild mannered though he still was. I shuddered to think that I might do the same thing if the war went on and on.

  Several of our Marines came over to see what my buddy had. “You dumb jerk, throw that thing away before it begins to stink,” growled an NCO.

  “Hell yes,” added another man, “I don't want you going aboard ship with me if you got that thing. It gives me the creeps,” he said as he looked disgustedly at the souvenir.

  After several other men chimed in with their disapproval, my friend reluctantly flung his unique souvenir among the rocks.

  We had good rations and began to eat heartily and enjoy being out of the line as we relaxed more each day. Good water came up by jeep with the rations, and I never brushed my teeth so many times a day. It was a luxury. Rumors began to spread that we would soon board ship and leave Peleliu.

  Toward the end of October, we moved to another part of the island. Our spirits soared. We bivouacked in a sandy, flat area near the beach. Jeeps brought in our jungle hammocks and our knapsacks.* We received orders to shave and to put on the clean dungarees we all carried in our knapsacks.

  Some men complained that it would be easier to clean up aboard ship. But one NCO laughed and said that if our scroungy, stinking bunch of Marines climbed a cargo net aboard ship, the sailors would jump over the other side as soon as they saw us.

  My hair, though it had been short on D day, had grown into a thick matted mass plastered together with rifle oil and coral dust. Long ago I had thrown away my pocket comb, because most of the teeth had broken out when I tried to comb my hair. I managed now to clean up my head with soap and water, and it took both edges of two razor blades and a complete tube of shaving soap to shave off the itching, greasy tangle of coral-encrusted beard. I felt like a man freed of a hair shirt.

  My dungaree jacket wasn't torn, and I felt I must keep it as a souvenir of good luck. I rinsed it in the ocean, dried it in th
e sun, and put it into my pack.†

  My filthy dungaree trousers were ragged and torn in the knees so I threw them into a campfire along with my stinking socks. The jagged coral had worn away the tough, inch-thick cord soles of my new boondockers of 15 September to the thin innersoles. I had to keep these until we returned to Pavuvu, because my replacement shoes were back there in my seabag.

  That afternoon, 29 October, we learned that we would board ship the next day. With a feeling of intense relief, I climbed into my hammock at dusk and zipped up the mosquito netting along the side. I was delighted at how comfortable it was to lie on something other than hard, rocky ground. I lay back, sighed, and thought of the good sleep I should get until my turn for sentry duty came around. I could look inland and see the ragged crest of those terrible ridges against the skyline. Thank goodness that section was in U.S. hands, I thought.

  Suddenly, zip, zip, zip, zip, a burst of Japanese machine-gun fire (blue-white tracers) slashed through the air under my hammock! The bullets kicked up sand on the other side of a crater beneath me. I jerked open the hammock zipper. Carbine in hand, I tumbled out into the crater. After all I had been through, I wasn't taking any chances on getting my rear end shot off in a hammock.

  Judging from the sound made by the bullets, the machine gun was a long way off. The gunner was probably firing a burst toward the army lines over on some ridge between him and me. But a man could get killed just as dead by a stray bullet as an aimed one. So after my brief moments of comfort in the hammock, I slept the rest of the night in the crater.

  Next morning, 30 October, we squared away our packs, picked up our gear, and moved out to board ship. Even though we were leaving bloody Peleliu at last, my mind was distracted by an oppressive feeling that Bloody Nose Ridge was pulling us back like some giant, inexorable magnet. It had soaked up the blood of our division like a great sponge. I believed that it would get us yet. Even if we boarded ship, we would get jerked off and thrown into the line to help stop a counterattack or some threat to the airfield. I suppose I had become completely fatalistic; our casualties had been so heavy that it was impossible for me to believe we were actually leaving Peleliu. The sea was quite rough, and I looked back at the island with great relief as we put out for the ship.