No Bended Knee

by Merrill B. Twining

  Bill Buse and Ray Schwenke, my able assistants, served full careers, and Buse became a general officer. My jeep driver, Northrop, became a combat correspondent and reached high noncommissioned rank before leaving the Corps. They were a fine group and more than deserved the recognition they received for their superb performance of duty.

  The night of 10 December we even had a social occasion. Brigadier General Rupertus invited us to supper at his command post on the beach at Block Four outside the old perimeter. No cocktails, of course. But in the beautiful beach environment we had, of all things, a concert by the 7th Marines band, which just a month before had been carrying wounded for twenty-four hours down the rocky slopes of Hanneken’s Ridge during the two-day fight with Colonel Oka. The band had suffered several casualties but the resourceful bandmaster had fleshed it out for this occasion with volunteers. They played “shipping over music,” as Marines call it, and we all enjoyed these triumphant compositions immensely.

  After supper we went into the matter of a 1st Division shoulder patch, which General Vandegrift wanted because he knew we would have to wear U.S. Army or Australian uniforms, at least temporarily, as we had none of our own. I had been designated for the chore, and I brought along some excellent sketches made by Lt. Don Dickson, a former art editor of our monthly magazine, The Leatherneck. Unfortunately all these designs depicted classified code words pertaining “to the Guadalcanal operation, words such as “Lone Wolf,” “Cactus,” and “Watchtower.” It was therefore thought best not to use any of these despite their artistic merit.

  General Rupertus suggested a simple shoulder strip, bearing the word “Guadalcanal,” a device commonly used by the British, but General Vandegrift, who for some reason disliked shoulder strips, disapproved. I’d have to come up with a bright idea before we reached Australia. Over a year later General Rupertus, who then commanded the division, authorized such a strip for the Cape Gloucester operation in New Britain. An unrelenting Vandegrift, now commandant of the Marine Corps, told him to “get rid of it.”

  That night a steady rain set in. We began to worry. The right combination of bad weather and flooded runways could give the Japanese another clear chance. Lt. Col. Thomas F. “Muggs” Riley, USMC, and his 1st Aviation Engineer Battalion had come in on 1 December. Jerry Thomas instructed me to keep them working under division control until adequate drainage had been provided for fighter strip one, which was most subject to flooding. They were working hard at the task.

  This strip was the first of several we eventually completed. We simply called it “the fighter strip” to distinguish it from the main runway. When we completed an additional strip near the beach on the other side of Lunga, we had to number them one and two to avoid confusion leading to accidents.

  Our last full day on the island was 12 December, and it was still raining. There seemed to be no limit to the paperwork— we were totally unused to it. Sometime after midnight I put on my only pair of starched and pressed khaki trousers— saved for months for the trip out. I had to go to the general’s tent, where he was waiting to sign a recommendation for an award to Col. Bryant Moore, U.S. Army, who had commanded the 164th Infantry.

  It was still raining. The ground was flooded. This familiar area was darker than a tomb. I tripped over the root of a banyan tree and fell headlong into a puddle. I spent most of the rest of the night scrubbing my pants in a bucket of freshly caught rainwater. They were still damp when we got to Noumea the next day. Colonel Moore received his well-deserved citation.

  After daylight on the morning of 13 December I rode to the airfield with Jerry Thomas. We stopped at the fighter strip and looked around; despite the rain, for the first time it was dry and operable. Jerry remarked, “If the Japs come down today, they’ll get a rough reception. Muggs Riley has done a fine job. Now he can build all the showers and shacks the fly-fly boys can use.”

  As our plane to Noumea lifted off Henderson Field, we looked down on the “unsinkable carrier” that had turned the tide. We had prevailed. The Japanese would never advance again. Above and beyond that, the long battle for Guadalcanal had defined the war in the Pacific and set the pattern for victory—joint action by and between all forces at all times and in all places.

  CHAPTER 16

  Australian Interlude

  The trip from Noumea to Brisbane, Australia, by Qantas Airlines was very pleasant. General Vandegrift seemed unusually affable and “visited” up and down the aisle. Worried about the matter of the 1st Division shoulder patch, I was doodling with a lead pencil on the fly leaf of an old notebook when I was surprised to find him looking over my shoulder. He took a close look at it and, in his very small handwriting, initialed it with an “AAV.” Handing it back, he said, “Now, get it done,” and moved on to the front of the plane.

  We were well received by the U.S. Army in Australia. The working staff was very interested in what we had to say and in turn showed us things we knew little or nothing about. These included samples of their new field uniform made of camouflage material and modern weapons including the M-1 carbine. This carbine would largely replace the Colt .45 carried by officers and senior NCOs in forward areas and give them substantial firepower in emergency situations. There would be no difficulty in rearming the division with the latest weapons from M-1 rifles to Sherman tanks.

  A complete replacement of all items of uniform clothing and equipment was utterly essential. The wear-and-tear of jungle fighting had reduced the Marine herringbone twill field uniforms to unsightly rags. Shoes were destroyed by wear, water, and tropical mold. Items of web equipment had suffered equally. Only the battered metal helmets had survived the six-month ordeal. We were supplied with U.S. Army dress shoes plus khaki shirts and trousers. The Australian Army provided dark green woolen jackets, similar to our own Marine Corps winter uniforms.

  General Vandegrift and senior staff officers were billeted at Lennons Hotel in downtown Brisbane, an exceptionally pleasant place. General MacArthur and his family had a large apartment on the upper floor. We often encountered their small son playing on the staircase or accompanying his Chinese amah to the park across the street. General MacArthur was in Port Moresby, New Guinea, at the time, and General Vandegrift reported to him there.

  Only two of our regiments, 5th Marines (Edson), and 11th Marines (del Valle), our artillery regiment, had reached Brisbane. They were assigned to Camp Cable, a vacant Australian cantonment forty-five miles from Brisbane. It was far from being a desirable place to rehabilitate a division fresh from the devastating trauma of Guadalcanal. Facilities were scant and of the most primitive sort. The surroundings were depressing. Limited transportation would allow only brief six-hour “liberty” visits to Brisbane for not more than 500 men per day, and there were no adequate training facilities anywhere within practical reach of those who would need them.

  We moved in at once, completing most of the operation at night. To everybody’s sorrow we had one casualty, the well-known and well-liked Stinky Davis. Having survived bullets, bombs, bayonets, and malaria on Guadalcanal, he was struck by a truck while making camp in the dark. Badly injured, he recovered and was at the top of his form again on Tinian and Okinawa.

  The camp was situated in an area infested with malaria-bearing anopheles mosquitoes, making it utterly unacceptable for troops already infected with the disease. Even the new replacements began to contract malaria during the few weeks we were there.

  Our division surgeon, Captain Brown, again lived up to his well-deserved reputation for being a very determined man. He proved his case concerning the unsuitability of this region beyond contradiction and was soon joined by the local health authorities, who had not been made aware how prevalent malaria was in the newly arrived 1st Marine Division.

  On 27 December I was ordered to proceed to South Australia, an area of more temperate climate, to find a malaria-free area suitable for the rehabilitation of the division. I was accompanied by Col. Harrison Heiberg, Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army, an outstanding gradu
ate of West Point. He was most helpful, for he knew Australia and understood our numerous problems.

  We visited Sydney. Like Brisbane, it was overcrowded with military personnel and unfriendly. It was the home of a vast U.S. logistics establishment of a size obviously far exceeding the present requirements of our small army in the Southwest Pacific. The headquarters was established in a great skyscraper in downtown Sydney. I noted that an entire floor was devoted to handling paperwork connected with artillery camouflage nets.

  This swollen bureaucracy was commanded by a Colonel Marshall, a relative of Gen. George Catlett Marshall. He informed us—somewhat icily—that they were not willing to do anything for us. So we proceeded to Melbourne.

  This beautiful city was now somewhat out of the war, for only a small U.S. military presence remained after General MacArthur moved his headquarters north to Brisbane. Melbourne was located around an extensive harbor that afforded protected areas and beaches appropriate for amphibious training. Also nearby were other areas suitable for training and maneuver. In addition, there was a brand-new hospital manned by an American unit from Cleveland, Ohio. They had everything except patients. The 1st Marine Division could provide plenty of those. Best of all, the people here would be glad to see us.

  I had come off Atabrine when we left Guadalcanal, and the fever returned, as I expected it would. I spent New Year’s Day in bed at the Australia Hotel. Next day we scoured the area and produced a billeting plan. The 7th Marines (Sims) would go to Balcombe, a suburban area on the bay, while Edson’s 5th Marines moved into adjacent Mount Martha. Small camps, which we could quickly expand with our own resources, already existed at both places. The 1st Marines (Whaling) would be billeted in central Melbourne at the cricket grounds using the huge grandstand as a semiprotected barracks. It was a strange arrangement, but it proved highly successful. The men liked the location because it gave them a head start in crashing the gate with the local girls. The 11th Marine Artillery (del Valle) went to Ballarat, a small city twenty-five miles from Melbourne. They liked it so well that some Marines came back and settled down there after the war. To this day there is a small chapter of the 1st Marine Division Association in existence in Melbourne.

  The 7th Marines were the last of our regiments to reach Australia. They came directly to Melbourne. I met them at the dock and was shocked at their condition. A single month of good living in Australia had made us forget that only a short time before we also looked like that. It was necessary to station men along and at the foot of the accommodation ladder to assist the disembarking Marines, some of whom, under the weight of their packs and equipment, were unable to decelerate as they came down the steeply slanting gangway. Plenty of milk and a few days on “styke and aigs” would cure all that. The Melbourne paper restrainedly remarked that “the newly arrived troops did not look especially fit.” For the Marines, Melbourne was the single pleasant experience of a long war that for Old George did not end until 1947 in North China.

  Our first step in rehabilitating the division was to get them well again. This seemed easy to accomplish in our pleasant new surroundings, but as Marines were taken off the routine dose of Atabrine, malaria recurred in an alarming number of cases and in a peculiarly virulent form. It would strike without warning. A Marine on liberty walking down a pleasant city street would suddenly fall flat, a delayed casualty of Guadalcanal. Malaria attacks were sometimes accompanied by amnesia or other complications. The large hospital in Melbourne operated by the Cleveland Medical Unit was filled to capacity, and the excellent Australian medical service found beds for hundreds more in other cities as far away as Perth. Maj. Jim Murray, our very active and conscientious D-1 (personnel officer), was at his wit’s end trying to maintain an accounting of this dispersion of the division’s members. Eventually all personnel returned, and this strange portion of the division’s history came to a close.

  How many cases of malaria did the 1st Division suffer? Captain Brown reported a 75 percent admission rate, but this takes no account of thousands who never sought treatment. I personally remember only one noncasualty in the entire division headquarters group: General Vandegrift, the old coconut warrior. The mosquitoes had given up on him years ago. In my own case I continued to suffer recurrent attacks until 1946, when an early wonder drug, Chloroquine, became available.

  One of my first jobs on reaching Melbourne was to get the division shoulder patch job taken care of. It was surprisingly easy. I took the design the general liked to the Australian Knitting Mills in Melbourne, and they accepted the task cheerfully. I pledged the credit of our post exchange in lieu of payment, though I think they would have done it for nothing. Eventually they produced tens of thousands of these distinctive patches, which Marines bought up eagerly for two shillings apiece in our post exchanges. (Coffee cups and other small items marked with the 1st Division patch, plus decals, are still selling well today in the post exchange at Camp Pendleton.) The whole drill proved unnecessary in a sense, because the problem of identity never arose. Marines who had lost or destroyed or worn out everything they possessed except their ’03 Springfield rifles had hung on to their globe-and-anchor collar devices and wore them proudly on their Australian jackets. This delighted General Vandegrift. After the war I asked the general to do away with all unit patches because of their divisive effect in the small peacetime Corps. He agreed and issued the necessary order. But during the war our distinctive unit patches served a useful purpose.

  General Vandegrift had many notable guests at the house in the quiet Toorak area of Melbourne where he maintained his headquarters staff mess. Among these were Adm. William F. Halsey; Adm. Arthur J. Hepburn, investigating the Savo Island battle; Lt. Col. John Thomason, USMC (Ret.), author of Fix Bayonets and many other excellent Marine Corps books and stories; Ambassador and Mrs. Nelson Johnson, who lived with us a short time while awaiting appointment to head the Australian embassy; and Rear Adm. Samuel E. Morison, the noted naval historian.

  Morison dropped by the D-3 section and asked to see one of the highly unofficial “George” medals, which had just made their mysterious appearance. He was amused but did not seem interested in looking over our records of the recent operation on Guadalcanal. I was relieved to escape the embarrassment of having to tell him that we had very little such material to offer.

  Soon after we were settled in our new surroundings, General Vandegrift and Colonel Thomas were called to Washington for a lengthy stay. Brig. Gen. William H. Rupertus assumed temporary command of the division, and I was designated to act as division chief of staff. This brought me into contact with a quite different world, where it was necessary to deal with such heretofore remote matters as public relations, joint command, army and navy forces, and complex matters of both U.S. and Australian concern. It was a challenging and revealing experience for me.

  Relations with the U.S. Army were never particularly difficult. The army provided full support for our activities; it was always ample, timely, and appropriate to our peculiar needs as an amphibious division. We in turn adjusted to the requirements of service with the army in every respect in an effort to contribute to rather than complicate their mission in the Southwest Pacific. There was little formal communication between the two staffs because there was little need for it; the relationship was both pleasant and effective.

  Marines got along famously with Australians at almost every level. Less reserved than the always polite New Zealanders and more like Americans in their habits, faults, likes, and dislikes, the Australians were easier to empathize with. Of course, this cut both ways.

  We were rationed by the Australian army and furnished with their rations, which was abundant and for the most part very acceptable. But there were exceptions, notably the old gripe about the American soldier’s dislike of mutton. Like New Zealand, Australia had abundant stocks of every variety of food, but our requests for mutton substitutes fell on deaf ears. It reached the Australian press, and the Op-Ed sections were filled with fiery blasts, all to the effe
ct that “what’s good enough for our Australian boys is good enough for the Yanks. Eat it and shut up!” In New Zealand, under exactly similar circumstances, they had simply laughed at our, to them, absurd prejudices and substituted beef, pork, or fowl.

  Now the result was predictable: “What’s for chow, Mac? Mutton! What, that goddamn dog again? Three times this week already! C’mon, let’s go over to the slop chute and get a face full of ‘styke and aigs.’ ”

  This insistence on issuing mutton to our Marines led in turn to considerable waste, which was duly noted in letters to the editor. Some of these zealots had even inspected our garbage.

  Another altercation came about when the same small group of wowsers originated the accusation that we had defiled the community with venereal disease. Hardly likely, since we had just come from several months of enforced monasticism on Guadalcanal, where few if any Marines had even laid eyes on a member of the opposite sex. We were probably the most venereal disease–free group in the history of the armed forces.

  The matter of intermarriage, however, was more perplexing. When the problem was first recognized by the local ministry and our own navy chaplains, steps were taken to deter impulsive unions, not all of which would survive the combined onslaughts of war, time, and distance. We resorted to administrative procedures designed to introduce an element of delay. Of doubtful legality, although benign in purpose, they gave our small number of detractors grounds for another spurious complaint. I can only state that the numerous such marriages among my own friends and acquaintances seem to have been unusually successful. In several cases the newly married couples established themselves permanently in Australia or New Zealand after the war.

  While General Vandegrift was still in Washington, large numbers of Australian troops withdrawn from the desert forces of North Africa began arriving home to join the Australian contingent of MacArthur’s army driving northward in New Guinea. General Rupertus diplomatically decided to contribute toward amicable relations by holding a large get-together at the cricket grounds. It was a king-sized entertainment, organized and conducted to perfection by Bandmaster Leon Brusiloff of our splendid 1st Marine Division Band, which had recently rejoined us in Australia. It was a howling success, with live entertainment and other smoker-type events. Beer was in generous quantity and was served in paper cups at Brusiloff’s express direction.