War Stories II (65 page)

Sergeant Richard Gordon spent time at U.S. Army hospitals and aboard hospital ships heading back home, finally ending his journey at Madigan General Hospital in Fort Lewis, Washington. Gordon finally boarded a train in Seattle and crossed the country to arrive at Penn Station in New York City. His wife and other relatives were not allowed to see him yet, and Dick recalls a poignant moment when an older woman came up to the railroad car window and peered inside. He describes the moment: “I saw my mother come up and look through the window... she had put on weight, and her nose was all smudged from the dirt on the windows. And I saw a kid standing next to her about eighteen years old. It was my kid brother. I didn't recognize him, 'cause I hadn't seen him in some time.”

An ambulance took Dick Gordon to Holland General Hospital in Staten Island. There a proper reunion with his family took place. Two weeks after that reunion, Dick's mother died.

Dick Gordon stayed in the hospital another four months before being discharged. Then he reenlisted, received a commission as second lieutenant, and remained on active duty until 1961.

By mid-February 1945, six weeks after the successful prison break, the former residents of Camp Cabanatuan had recovered enough in the Army evacuation hospitals to begin the long trip home. They boarded the USS
General Anderson
for the long trip back to the United States. With no escort, the 20,000-ton troop transport ship was virtually defenseless in the Pacific lanes on its way back. Ordinarily, it would've been a major target for Japanese subs and other enemy ships. But there were no Japanese ships and the
Anderson
pulled into San Francisco Bay with her precious cargo intact. The city went wild in celebration and gratitude.

The 121 young American Rangers, the Alamo Scouts, and the Filipino guerrillas who went on the raid to rescue the “Ghosts of Bataan” at Cabanatuan were a remarkable lot—and they were all volunteers. They all made a choice—believing that the value of the lives of their comrades was worth putting their own lives at tremendous risk.

Captain Bob Prince and Lt. Colonel Henry Mucci were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation's second highest award for valor, and the other officers were awarded the Silver Star. All the other men from the 6th Ranger Battalion were awarded the Bronze Star for their courageous acts during the raid. But the Rangers had chosen to dare the difficult and dangerous not for personal glory, fame, or fortune, but simply because if they didn't do it, who else would?

The American military, war correspondents, and the American public alike celebrated the remarkable achievement. The raid had touched a nerve among Americans who cared about the fate of those long-suffering defenders of Bataan and Corregidor.

To this day, the 6th Rangers' raid on Camp Cabanatuan has remained the largest and most successful rescue mission of its kind ever conducted.

A
fter the Battle of Leyte, the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington began to plan for the invasion of Iwo Jima. This tiny spit of land, called “sulfur island” in Japanese, was eight square miles of volcanic rock.

The battle for Iwo Jima would turn out to be perhaps the bloodiest combat in American history. Two out of three of the boys (most of them were just seventeen, eighteen, or nineteen) who landed on the island were killed or wounded. Twenty-two thousand Japanese soldiers defended Iwo Jima. Most were older and more experienced than the Americans, but nearly all of them were killed as well.

To put that in perspective, almost 7,000 Americans were killed in action at Iwo Jima. If the battle had lasted nine months, it would have equaled all those killed in ten years of war in Vietnam. Despite its relatively short duration, Iwo Jima would truly be the bloodiest battle in the Pacific.

The European front in World War II was governed by a set of traditional rules. The two sides fought intensely but simultaneously observed polite protocols. They took time out for each side to collect their dead and wounded and observed cease-fires for “reasonable” causes. On Christmas, both sides would quit warring and mark the season of “peace and goodwill” with a brief interruption of hostilities. Then, with a sense of heavy-handed irony, they would resume shooting after the short respite.

But there were no rules of warfare in the Pacific. Japanese soldiers had been ingrained in the samurai code, which sent them into “heroic” battle with great ferocity and no fear of death. Throughout the war the Japanese would fight until the last man was dead. They knew that there could be no surrender. A Japanese soldier trying to surrender was likely to be shot by his own officers or fellow soldiers. A soldier who surrendered brought dishonor not just upon himself, but also upon his family, his village, and his emperor. Any soldier who surrendered would have his name taken from the village records, and his family would disown him.

The Japanese had also rejected the Geneva Conventions, which prescribed various “rules of warfare.” When the time came to invade the Pacific Islands, both sides understood that it would be a battle of “no holds barred.”

The Joint Chiefs of Staff decided to overrule General MacArthur's recommendation to swing south and retake the rest of the Philippines as well as the East Indies. They decided to concentrate on Luzon instead, ratcheting up the pressure on the Japanese mainland with attacks by American bombers, some of which would be based on the recaptured territory of Luzon.

But winter monsoon rains foiled American plans to establish air bases on Leyte, thereby making it impossible for U.S. aircraft to operate from there. The 6th Army made steady progress in clearing the smaller islands with offensive assaults, however.

In June 1944, the Joint Chiefs decided to invade and capture the islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, which lie in the northern waters between the Philippines and Japan. The strategic value of these two islands was still in flux. MacArthur would have his hands full trying to retake Luzon. The invasion of 9 January at Lingayen Gulf was only the beginning of the hardscrabble struggle to regain control of Luzon. The battle to overcome the
250,000 troops of the 35th Imperial Army would last until the Japanese surrendered in August 1945.

The 35th Imperial Army, led by General Sosaku Suzuki, put up a skilled resistance to the American invasion of Luzon. It was here that the Japanese war plan had changed. The old plan was to throw everything against the American and Allied troops to keep them from getting ashore. The reason was simple: If the Americans took the small outlying islands, it was an easier step to invade the Japanese Home Islands, as they were able to put more bombers and fighter planes within range of Japan.

However, now it was too late for that. The current Tokyo strategy was to save all war matériel and troop strength for defending the Japanese homeland. Hence, General Suzuki was fighting an ongoing “hide and seek” war with MacArthur and General Walter Krueger, not wanting to engage the Americans and risk any major war resources.

In January 1945, the Americans finally landed on the main Philippine island of Luzon. After a bitter battle, they reached the capital city of Manila on 2 February. Over the next six months, the Japanese would lose 170,000 troops in the Philippines, in contrast to the American losses of 8,000.

Meanwhile, the Joint Chiefs began to consider Iwo Jima more seriously after the Japanese showed lighter resistance to the initial U.S. landings on the Philippine islands. Iwo Jima served as an early warning station for the Japanese; from there they could detect approaching aircraft and radio reports of the incoming bombers to mainland Japan. When the U.S. and Allied bombers arrived over Japanese cities, Japanese air defenses could be ready for them.

Japanese aircraft still based on Iwo Jima also continually harassed the Americans in operations across the northern Pacific. The Joint Chiefs believed that taking Iwo Jima could neutralize those air attacks, make other U.S. operations in the region less risky, and provide another launching site for B-24s and B-25s headed for Tokyo.

The Joint Chiefs had postponed the operations to take Iwo Jima and Okinawa because of the monsoons and the difficulties encountered in taking Leyte and Luzon. Now seemed to be the right time to dust off those plans.

Their decision was made: Iwo Jima would be first and Okinawa next. The islands were to be taken rather than bypassed. Recon planes showed that Mount Suribachi was being dug in, with gun emplacements and pillboxes both above and below ground. Because so many enemy troops were dug in and couldn't be seen by the recon aircraft, reports grossly underestimated the Japanese troop strength. The naval air bombardment would blast away at the island until D-Day for the Iwo Jima invasion.