The Pacific (95 page)
Authors: Hugh Ambrose
Tags: #United States, #World War; 1939-1945 - Campaigns - Pacific Area, #Pacific Area, #Military Personal Narratives, #World War; 1939-1945, #Military - World War II, #History - Military, #General, #Campaigns, #Marine Corps, #Marines - United States, #World War II, #World War II - East Asia, #United States., #Biography & Autobiography, #Military, #Military - United States, #Marines, #War, #Biography, #History
The dominant country of the Axis alliance, Adolf Hitler's Germany, decided to prevent the Allied powers from seizing Italy, so the war there would continue.
Into the Valley
by John Hersey was published in February 1943. It detailed the Third Battle of the Matanikau, in which Chesty Puller's Seventh Marines (led by the marines of Basilone's Charlie Company) won their first clear victory. Richard Tregaskis's
Guadalcanal Diary
was also published in 1943.
Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson became one of the most revered Confederate generals of the American Civil War, renowned for his brilliant military tactics.
The victory became known later as the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot, phase one in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. As in all air combat, the number of kills was overstated. In this battle, though, the size of the victory was not.
The 3rd Battalion of a regiment in the Marine Corps did not have a Company J, reputedly because in the days of handwritten messages, J could be confused with I.
A popular acronym in all branches of the U.S. armed services in World War II, SNAFU stood for "Situation Normal, All Fouled Up." the Canal fascinated Burgin. King Company, however, had only a few men like Marmet and fewer still of "the Old Breed," or the men who had been in the corps before the war. Eugene Sledge, in turn, looked up to Snafu and "Burgie" because they had served on Cape Gloucester.
That day, September 11, 1944, Admiral Halsey sent a recommendation to Admiral Nimitz that the invasion of Mindanao be canceled. On September 14, with General MacArthur's approval, a new strategic plan was approved, calling for the army to bypass Mindanao and invade Leyte on October 20.
The Fifth Regiment landed with 3,227 men and officers. It sustained about 250 casualties during D-day and D + 1, the highest two- day total of the regiment during the campaign.
Micheel's briefing did not include any warning about the fact that Japan was shipping thousands of U.S. POWs back to its home islands in unmarked ships. The navy brass may not have apprehended the situation in September 1944. Even if they had, they could not have ordered their pilots to stop destroying all Japanese shipping.
A unit of fire is the amount of ammunition needed to sustain a marine's weapon (carbine, 60mm mortar, whatever) for one day of heavy combat.
The chain of islands that includes Okinawa was a recognized part of Japan long before World War II. The episode described here attests to the complicated relationship between the "Japanese" from Okinawa and the Japanese of the "home islands." the wilds of Peleliu.
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Relieving the 2/5 in their positions--the terrain forbade anything resembling a front line--took great care. Love Company had to make its way the farthest east, to the tip of Hill 140, before turning to face south. Love's left flank was secured by the hill's vertical cliff face. King moved on to Hill 140 to secure Love's right flank, with Item on King's right flank as the 3/5 prepared to push southward.
Although not made public at the time, General MacArthur agreed with Shofner that General Krueger's assault lacked speed and aggressiveness.
Sledge was referring to the Presidential Unit Citation. The 1st Marine Division had indeed been awarded this distinction for Peleliu, as it had for the Battle of Guadalcanal.
The intelligence estimates given to the marines aboard ship were wrong. The Japanese had reinforced Iwo Jima with roughly twenty-two thousand men.
Shofner's memo traveled beyond the commander of the 37th Division and above the Fourteenth Corps' commander to the intelligence staff of General Walter Krueger's Sixth Army. These were the men who planned the raid. His memo arrived on their desks two days before local guerrilla leaders told them that the Japanese camp guards were likely to murder all of the POWs before the camps were overrun. Shifty's memo, therefore, helped to inspire the mission that has come to be known as the Great Raid.
At ten forty-two a.m. the Twenty-seventh Regiment HQ radioed this message: "All units pinned down by artillery and mortars. Casualties heavy. Need tank support fast to move anywhere."
Naha was Okinawa's largest city.
In his memoirs, Sidney Phillips capitalized the word "Marine," as many proud marines do. It is not a convention observed by historians.
Leatherneck
magazine was created within the Marine Corps in 1917, which made it semiautonomous in 1943. Its mission is to celebrate the United States Marine Corps.
Historians have since debated the wisdom and the necessity of America's two-prong drive to Japan.
Peiping is now known as Beijing, Tientsin is Tianjin, and Chingwangtao is now spelled Qinhuangdao.
Translated from the Latin, Semper Fidelis means "Always Faithful." It is the motto of the United States Marine Corps. In World War II the shortened version "Semper Fi" was often used by marines who were not of a mind to grant a request made by a fellow marine, or as Sledge used it above.
Of the 1,343 marines who surrendered on Corregidor and Bataan, 490 did not live to see their freedom won, according to the USMC's official history of its operations in World War II. When included in with all of the POWs taken by the Japanese (the largest group being from the U.S. Army), the fatality rate dropped significantly. The chances of survival, however, were much lower than that of the U.S. POWs in Germany.
