With the Old Breed (46 page)

By mid-June familiar faces were scarce in Company K and in all the infantry units of the 1st Marine Division. On 1 June the company lost thirty-six men to enemy action. Ten days later, twenty-two men left with immersion foot and other severe illnesses. Despite midmonth replacements, Company K moved toward its final major fight with about one hundred men and two or three officers—only half of whom had landed at Hagushi two and a half months earlier.

Toward the middle of June we began to hear disturbing rumors about a place south of us called Kunishi Ridge. Rumors circulated that our division's other infantry regiments, the 7th Marines and later the 1st Marines, were involved in bitter fighting there and would need our help. Our hopes began to fade that the 5th Marines wouldn't be committed to the front lines again.

We continued our patrols. I enjoyed my canned Japanese scallops and hoped there was no such place as Kunishi Ridge. But, the inevitable day came with the order, “Square away your gear; we're movin’ out again.”

The weather turned dry and warm as we moved south. The farther we proceeded, the louder the sound of firing became: the bumping of artillery, the thudding of mortars, the incessant
rattle of machine guns, the popping of rifles. It was a familiar combination of noise that engendered the old feelings of dread about one's own chances as well as the horrible images of the wounded, the shocked, and the dead—the inevitable harvest.

Following the retreat from Shuri, the Japanese defenders of Okinawa withdrew into their final defensive lines along a string of ridges near the southern end of the island. The western anchor was Kunishi Ridge. In the middle was Yuza-Dake. Farther east was Yaeju-Dake.
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Kunishi Ridge was about 1,500 yards long, a sheer coral escarpment. The Japanese dug into caves and emplacements on its forward and reverse slopes. The northern frontal approaches to Kunishi lay wide open: flat grasslands and rice paddies across which the Japanese had perfect fields of fire.

On 12 June the 7th Marines made a predawn attack and captured a portion of Kunishi. The Marines were on the ridge, but the enemy was in it. For four days, the Marines of the 7th Regiment were isolated atop the ridge. Air drops and tanks supplied them, and tanks removed their dead and wounded.

On 14 June the 1st Marines attacked portions of Kunishi and suffered heavy losses for their efforts. On the same day, the 1st Battalion—led by Lt. Col. Austin Shofner (former CO of ⅗ on Peleliu)—attacked and captured Yuza-Dake but suffered terrible casualties from the Japanese defenders there and from intense fire sent over from Yaeju-Dake.

Into the hellish confusion we went on 14 June with the words still ringing in our ears, “The 5th Marines may not be committed again.” We plodded along the sides of a dusty road, next to tanks and amtracs moving forward and a steady stream of ambulance jeeps returning loaded with the youthful human wreckage of the battle for Kunishi Ridge.

That afternoon our company deployed along a row of trees and bushes on the south side of the road. We saw and heard
heavy firing on Kunishi Ridge across the open ground ahead. My mortar section dug in near the road with our guns adjusted to fire flares over a picturesque bridge that remained intact over a high stream bank.

A couple of us went to look at the bridge before dark. We walked down to the stream on a trail leading from the road. The water was crystal clear and made a peaceful gurgling sound over a clean pebbly bottom. Ferns grew from the overhanging mossy banks and between rocks on both sides. I had the urge to look for salamanders and crayfish. It was a beautiful place, cool and peaceful, so out of context with the screaming hell close above it.

The next morning we relieved 1/1 on Yuza-Dake. As we moved up along a road, we passed a small tree with all the limbs blasted off. So many communication wires hung from it at all angles that it looked like a big inverted mop. A ricocheting bullet whined between me and the man in front of me. It raised a little dust cloud as it smashed into a pile of dry brush by the roadside. Back into the meat grinder again, I thought, as we moved up toward the sound of heavy firing.

Yuza-Dake looked terrible to me. It resembled one of the hellish coral ridges on Peleliu. We could see Kunishi Ridge on our right and the Yaeju-Dake escarpment on our left. Army tanks were moving against the latter while machine guns and 75mm cannons hammered away.

For the first time in combat I heard the wailing of sirens. We were told that the army had put sirens on their tanks for the psychological effect it might have on the Japanese. To me the sirens just made the whole bloody struggle more bizarre and unnerving. The Japanese rarely surrendered in the face of flamethrowers, artillery, bombs, or anything else, so I didn't understand how harmless sirens would bother them. We got mighty tired of hearing them wailing against the constant rattle of small arms and the crash of shell fire.

While we were on Yuza-Dake under sporadic enemy fire, ⅖ joined the 7th Marines in the bitter fighting to capture the rest of Kunishi Ridge. The Japanese emplacements and caves received terrific bombardment by mortars, artillery, heavy naval gunfire, and air strikes consisting of twenty-five to
thirty planes. It reminded me more and more of Bloody Nose Ridge on Peleliu.

The 2d Battalion, 5th Marines gained some ground on Ku-nishi but needed help. Company K was attached to ⅖ and arrived just in time to help that battalion fight off a company-sized night counterattack on 17 June. Later that night we heard that our company would attack the next morning to seize the remainder of Kunishi Ridge in the 5th Marines’ zone of action. Once again we would enter the abyss of close combat.

We learned that we would move out well before daylight and deploy for the attack, because we had to move across a wide-open area to get to the ridge. An officer came along giving us what sounded like a pep talk about how the 5th Marines could finish the job on Kunishi Ridge. (We all knew that the 1st Marines and the 7th Marines had already been terribly shot up taking most of the ridge.)

Moving in the darkness was something the old salts of Gloucester and Peleliu didn't like at all. We were stubborn in our belief that nobody but the Japanese, or damned fools, moved around at night. The new replacements who had come into the company a few days before seemed so pitifully confused they didn't know the difference. But moving up under cover of darkness was the only sane way to approach Kunishi Ridge. The 1st Marines and the 7th Marines had already found it necessary to move that way to get across the open ground without being slaughtered.

We moved slowly and cautiously across dry rice paddies and cane fields. Up ahead we saw shells exploding on and around the ridge as our artillery swished overhead. We heard the familiar popping of rifles, rattle of machine guns, and banging of grenades. Enemy shells also exploded on the ridge. We all knew that this was probably the last big fight before the Japanese were wiped out and the campaign ended. While I plodded along through the darkness, my heart pounding, my throat dry and almost too tight to swallow, nearpanic seized me. Having made it that far in the war, I knew my luck would run out. I began to sweat and pray that when I got hit it
wouldn't result in death or maiming. I wanted to turn and run away.

We came closer to the ridge silhouetted against the skyline. Its crest looked so much like Bloody Nose that my knees nearly buckled. I felt as though I were on Peleliu and had it all to go through over again.

The riflemen moved up onto the ridge. We mortarmen were positioned to watch out for Japanese infiltrating from the left rear. We didn't set up our weapons: the fighting was so close-in with the enemy on the reverse slope and in the ridge that we couldn't fire high explosives.

Our 105mm artillery was firing over Kunishi Ridge while we moved into position in the dark. To our dismay, a shell exploded short in our company's line. The company CP alerted the artillery observers that we had received short rounds. Another 105 went off with a terrible flash and explosion.

“Corpsman!” someone yelled.

“Goddamit, we're getting casualties from short rounds!” an officer yelled into his walkie-talkie.

“What's the word on those short rounds?” the company executive officer asked.

“Says they'll check it out.”

Our artillery was firing across the ridge into and around the town of Kunishi to prevent the enemy from moving more troops onto the ridge. But each time they shot, it seemed that one gun fired its shells in a traversing pattern right along the ridge in Company K's lines. It was enough to drive anyone into a state of desperation.

The Japanese were throwing grenades all along the line, and there was some rifle and machine-gun fire. On the right we began to hear American grenades exploding well within our lines.

“Hey, you guys; Nips musta gotten hold of a box of our grenades. Listen to that, wouldja?”

“Yeah, them bastards'll use anything they can get their hands on.”

During the next flurry of grenades, we heard no more U.S. models explode within our area. Then the word came along in the dark to be sure all the new replacements knew exactly
how to use grenades properly. One of our new men had been discovered removing each grenade canister from a box of grenades, pulling the sealing tape from the canister, and then throwing the unopened canister at the enemy. The Japanese opened each canister, took out the grenade, pulled the pin, and threw the deadly “pineapple” back at us. The veterans around me were amazed to find out what had happened. The incident, however, was just one of many examples of the poor state of combat readiness of the latest group of new replacements.

With daylight I got a good look at our surroundings. Only then could I appreciate fully what a desperate, bitter battle the fight for Kunishi Ridge had been—and was continuing to be. The ridge was coral rock, painfully similar to Peleliu's ridges. But Kunishi was not so high nor were the coral formations so jagged and angular as those on Peleliu. Our immediate area was littered with the usual debris of battle including about thirty poncho-covered dead Marines on stretchers.

Some of our riflemen moved eastward along the ridge, while others moved up the slopes. We still didn't set up our mortars: it was strictly a riflemen's fight. We mortarmen stood by to act as stretcher bearers or riflemen.

Snipers were all over the ridge and almost impossible to locate. Men began getting shot one right after another, and the stretcher teams kept on the run. We brought the casualties down to the base of the ridge, to a point where tanks could back in out of the view of snipers on the ridge crest. We tied the wounded onto the stretchers and then tied the stretchers onto the rear deck of the tanks. Walking wounded went inside. Then the tanks took off in a cloud of dust along a coral road to the aid station. As many men as possible fired along the ridge to pin down the snipers, so they couldn't shoot the wounded on the tanks.

Shortly before the company reached the east end of the ridge, we watched a stretcher team make its way up to bring down a casualty. Suddenly four or five mortar shells exploded in quick succession near the team, wounding slightly three of the four bearers. They helped each other back down the ridge, and another stretcher team, of which I was a member, started
up to get the casualty. To avoid the enemy mortar observer, we moved up by a slightly different route. We got up the ridge and found the casualty lying above a sheer coral ledge about five feet high. The Marine, Leonard E. Vargo, told us he couldn't move much because he had been shot in both feet. Thus he couldn't lower himself down off the ledge. “You guys be careful. The Nip that shot me twice is still hiding right over there in those rocks.” He motioned toward a jumble of boulders not more than twenty yards away.

We reasoned that if the sniper had been able to shoot Vargo in both feet, immobilizing him, he was probably waiting to snipe at anyone who came to the rescue. That meant that anyone who climbed up to help Vargo down would get shot instantly. We stood against the coral rock with our heads about level with Vargo, but out of the line of fire of the sniper, and looked at each other. I found the silence embarrassing. Vargo lay patiently, confident of our aid.

“Somebody's got to get up there and hand him down,” I said. My three buddies nodded solemnly and made quiet comments in agreement. I thought to myself that if we fooled around much longer, the sniper might shoot and kill the already painfully wounded and helpless Marine. Then we heard the crash of another 105mm short round farther along the ridge—then another. I was seized with a grim fatalism—it was either be shot by the sniper or have all of us get blown to bits by our own artillery. Feeling ashamed for hesitating so long, I scrambled up beside Vargo.

“Watch out for that Nip,” he said again.

As I placed my hands under his shoulders, I glanced over and saw the entrance of the sniper's small cave. It was a black space about three feet in diameter. I expected to see a muzzle flash spurt forth. Strangely, I felt at peace with myself and, oddly, wasn't particularly afraid. But there was no sound or sight of the sniper.

My buddies had Vargo well in hand by then, so for a brief instant I stood up and looked south. I felt a sensation of wild exhilaration. Beyond the smoke of our artillery to the south lay the end of the island and the end of the agony.

“Come on, Sledgehammer. Let's move out!”

With another quick glance at the mouth of the small cave—puzzled over where the sniper was and why he hadn't fired at me—I scrambled back down the rock to the stretcher team. We carried Vargo down Kunishi Ridge without further incident.

After bringing down another casualty, I passed our company CP among some rocks at the foot of the ridge and overheard one of our officers talking confidentially to Hank Boyes. The officer said his nerves were almost shattered by the constant strain, and he didn't think he could carry on much longer. The veteran Boyes talked quietly, trying to calm the officer. The officer sat on his helmet, frantically running his hands through his hair. He was almost sobbing.