Hell in the Pacific: A Marine Rifleman's Journey From Guadalcanal to Peleliu (31 page)

Those of us in the Fifth Marines were extremely fortunate to have a CO like Colonel Bucky Harris. That was one of the most positive things going for us. Harris refused to send us on suicide missions against those Jap caves like some of the other commanders had done. Instead, he played a patient waiting game, calling in artillery, tanks, mortars, and air support and giving them time to do their work before the infantry went in to clean up with flamethrowers, bazookas, and TNT.

I truly believe that most of us in K/3/5 who left Peleliu with breath in our lungs owe our lives to Colonel Harris. If I’d been in Puller’s regiment, I’m convinced I would’ve died there.

B
Y THE SECOND
week of October, the Jap snipers in those ridges above the West Road were still giving us fits. They were a constant threat to anything or anybody trying to use the road, and they were so well concealed and so scattered out, usually firing from one-man positions, that it was next to impossible to see them, much less return their fire.

On the morning of October 10, K/3/5, along with six or seven tanks, was sent into the same general area where John Teskevich had been killed to try one more time to get rid of the snipers.

At this point, the company’s casualty rate had climbed to over 40 percent, and the First Platoon, now led by Lieutenant Hillbilly Jones, was down to about fifteen riflemen—half its normal strength—with Jones as its only officer. (The lieutenant had been wounded in the hand several days earlier, but he’d insisted on staying on the line and treating the wound himself.)

Most of the snipers were firing from positions about 100 yards south of Jones’s guys, and as the morning wore on, they got steadily more active. They took their time, though, and picked their targets well. PFC Charles R. McClary was hit in the gut, much like Teskevich had been, and died a short time later. Two other K/3/5 riflemen were seriously wounded within a couple of minutes of each other.

Like everybody else in the company, Jones was tired and on edge, and these latest casualties didn’t help matters. If they continued at this rate, his whole platoon could be wiped out before the day was over.

“Hillbilly was one of the calmest, most levelheaded officers I ever knew,” one First Platoon Marine told me, “but he was really depressed and sick about our losses. He was desperate to get back at the Japs, and that’s why I think he did what he did that morning.”

As Jones crouched behind one of the tanks, gripping his tommy gun and studying the sniper-infested ridge through binoculars, Major Clyde Brooks, a staff officer from Third Battalion headquarters, came running up and took cover beside him.

“Major Gustafson sent me over to see what we could do about those snipers,” Brooks said. “You got any ideas?”

Jones nodded. “I’m thinking about climbing up on this tank to try to spot a target for the gunners to shoot at. They’d have a better chance of hitting something with a machine gun or a 75 than we do from the ground with rifles. What do you think?”

Brooks frowned. “It sounds awful damn risky to me,” he said.

“Yeah, but I figure it’s either that or sit here in this Nip shooting gallery the rest of the day.”

Brooks thought about it for a moment. “Okay then,” he said. “Give it a try, but watch yourself.”

Jones left his tommy gun on the ground—the snipers were well out of its range, anyway—and climbed up on the rear deck of the tank, then tapped on the turret to get the tank commander’s attention.

“I’m gonna try to find you a target for your .50-caliber or your 75,” he said, “so get ready.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Brooks yelled up at Jones from the protected area behind the tank.

Hillbilly shrugged. “So far, so good,” he said.

Those were the last words anybody heard Jones speak. As he peered around the tank turret toward the ridge, a single shot rang out. The bullet hit Jones in the left side below his ribs, and he fell backward and slid off the side of the tank onto the ground.

Somebody yelled for a corpsman, but the other Marines were
stunned to see Jones pull himself erect and stagger back to the tank. He was obviously hurt bad and maybe delirious with pain. His shirt was soaked with blood, but somehow he climbed back onto the deck of the Sherman and tried to stand up.

Then a second shot hit him, and this one went straight through his heart.

The handsome, guitar-strumming officer described in Eugene Sledge’s book as “a unique combination of bravery, leadership, ability, integrity, dignity, straightforwardness, and compassion” was gone. I think every man in the company felt a sense of personal loss when they learned of Hillbilly’s death.

The snipers kept plaguing us for the rest of that day with both small-arms fire and knee mortars. But the next morning, battalion ordered every inch of that damn ridge pulverized for hours by our tanks, artillery, and mortars. Our Corsairs also came in and blistered it with napalm.

After that, the sniping in that particular area stopped. But the killing went on and on.

O
VER THE NEXT
day or two, with most of the Seventh Marines now in a secure rest area near the airfield, fresh Army troops were moved into the line to take over the Seventh’s old positions. But these untested troops were there mainly in a defensive role, and their main job was to prevent any kind of breakout by the Japs. Carrying on the offensive against the Pocket was up to the battle-scarred Fifth Marines, who were damn near as bad off as the Seventh.

With the help of a 75-millimeter howitzer that was manhandled up a cliff to the top of a strategic ridge by sixty-eight Marines, Major
Gordon Gayle’s 2/5 managed to capture the piece of high ground known as Hill 140. But because of the heavy casualties that small victory cost, it turned out to be their last organized action on Peleliu. Along with Colonel Robert Boyd’s 1/5, Gayle’s battalion was ordered off the line and into reserve.

Early on the morning of October 12 (D-plus-27), what was left of the Third Battalion replaced the withdrawing survivors of 2/5 on the crest of Hill 140. We were now the last infantry battalion of the First Marine Division still actively engaged with the enemy.

“You’ve still got Jap sharpshooters all over the place out there,” one of the 2/5 Marines told me, “so be sure to warn your guys to keep their heads down. Just one quick look over the crest of the hill can be fatal.”

That was demoralizing enough in itself, but I guess it was an omen of things to come. For the approximately ninety of us in K/3/5 who were still capable of combat, the most tragic day of the war lay just ahead.

B
EING AS HE
was an old machine gun man, Captain Ack-Ack Haldane still liked to take a personal hand in making sure the company’s .30-caliber weapons were in the most effective locations.

This was especially true that morning on Hill 140, where Haldane was told that 2/5’s machine gunners were kept so pinned down by Jap snipers that the only way they could take aim was by sighting along the undersides of their barrels.

For that reason, Ack-Ack called on some of his senior NCOs to go with him to an observation point on the ridge to discuss where our company machine gun section should set up.

We were running very low on commissioned officers at this point. Besides Haldane, the only two we had left were Lieutenants Thomas “Stumpy” Stanley, the company exec, and Charles “Duke” Ellington, who commanded the mortar platoon.

Because I’d been functioning as leader of the Third Platoon since Lieutenant Bauerschmidt was killed, Haldane asked me to join the group on the hilltop. Other noncoms who were there included Platoon Sergeant Johnny Marmet of the mortar section, Sergeant Dick Higgins, Haldane’s personal aide, and Corporal Jim Anderson, one of the captain’s most trusted runners.

Haldane was no more than four or five feet ahead of me as he crawled up to the edge of the ridgeline and raised his head a few inches to steal a look.

I heard him say something like, “We need the guns as close as we—”

In a split second, the sharp sound of a rifle shot cut off Haldane’s words. It sounded less like gunfire than somebody slapping his hands together, but every one of us on that hill knew instantly what it was.

Then Ack-Ack’s head vanished in a flash of red, and a shower of blood blew back in my face.

“Oh, dear God, no!” I think I whispered. Then my tongue froze in my throat as Jim Anderson and I stared at each other in shock and disbelief. Dick Higgins scrambled forward toward the body, and I seem to remember someone else pulling him back to keep him from getting hit, too. Then he whirled around and ran back down the hill, screaming for a corpsman.

There was no need for a corpsman. What Ack-Ack needed was a priest.

I can’t remember what happened over the next minute or two. Whatever it was, it’s still a total blank for me. When I came back to reality, Johnny Marmet had left—to tell his mortar men out on the line what had happened, I learned later. Dick Higgins was gone, too, and I understand he ended up at an aid station that morning being treated for severe shock. Two Marines were carrying the captain’s body away on a stretcher. Jim Anderson was wiping his face and shaking his head.

“I can’t believe this,” he muttered. “I saw it, but I can’t believe it.”

As for me, I’d reached the point where I could believe almost anything, but there was no way to get rid of the emptiness inside me. Gradually, though, as I started to sort things out, the reality of the situation hit me like a ton of bricks:

Haldane was dead. Lieutenant Stanley was at battalion headquarters and out of reach, and so was First Sergeant David Bailey. Lieutenant Ellington was out with his mortar squads, and Platoon Sergeant Marmet was probably out there, too, or on his way. Platoon Sergeant Harry Spiece was somewhere on the line, but nobody knew where.

“You’re the highest-ranking NCO available, Mac,” somebody told me. “You’ve gotta take charge of the company.”

It was true. Whether I liked it or not. Whether I knew what to do or not. I was it. There was nobody else to do it.

So there I was, a lowly three-stripe buck sergeant, trying to take the place of one of the best COs in the Marine Corps in one of the toughest spots we’d ever been in.

What the hell was I supposed to do now?

One thing I
could
do, I decided, was get on the phone in the company CP and try to tell our artillery where those damn Jap snipers
were concentrated. I was able to get in contact with an Army 105 down in the valley below Hill 140 and direct his fire on Jap positions I could see from the high ground. I also got through to a tank destroyer with a 75, and he also opened up on the Jap caves.

I sent out a few patrols and met with some aviation Marines who’d been sent up to help us. They weren’t supposed to go out on the line, but when I told them about the spot we were in, they volunteered to go—all of them. I gave them a quick lesson on how to throw grenades. None of them had ever done it before, but they learned in a hurry.

When Major Gustafson, the battalion CO, found out what was going on, he phoned the company CP and asked who was directing the artillery fire.

“I am, sir,” I said. “I’m the senior guy up here, and I didn’t think we could afford to quit shooting till one of our officers gets back to take over.”

“Okay, Sergeant,” he said. “I’m sending Lieutenant Stanley back your way. In the meantime, keep doing what you’re doing. Just be careful.”

O
N OCTOBER 14
(D-plus-29), K/3/5 was back in action in the vicinity of Hill 140 with Lieutenant Stanley in command. We spent most of the day sending out patrols, sealing caves, rooting out diehard snipers, and stringing wire to keep infiltrators away from our foxholes that night.

We also took our last two casualties on Peleliu, when Sergeant Harry Spiece and PFC Earl Shepherd were wounded and evacuated.

That afternoon, we started hearing rumors about Army troops
relieving us on the line the next morning. At first, I didn’t believe it, and most of the other guys didn’t either. By now, we were too damn exhausted to waste energy getting our hopes up.

But this time, to our great relief, the rumors were actually true.

About noon on October 15, we turned over our foxholes to some grim-looking replacement troops of the Army’s 321st Infantry Regiment. We didn’t say much to them, and they didn’t say much to us, but the expressions on their faces were worth a thousand words. They were scared shitless—understandably so—and as awful as we looked, they envied us.

We made our way down the hill, still under sporadic small-arms fire, and boarded trucks for a ten-minute ride into another world—a neat, orderly bivouac area near the East Road, where the constant gunfire from the ridges was barely audible. It was so quiet that I thought for a while I was going deaf.

It was also the closest thing we’d seen to civilization in a long time. It had a well-equipped cookhouse and mess tent, showers with plenty of fresh water, decked tents, and even an outdoor movie screen. There were clean uniforms, boondocker shoes, and new white socks waiting for us to replace the filthy, rotting rags most of us had worn since D-Day.

As a precaution, we established a defensive perimeter facing the beach in case of an enemy counter-landing, but it was only a formality. Outside of the Pocket, the Japs on Peleliu were done, and for us, the fighting there was finally over.