WW2 Soldier Describes Extremely Close Shootouts with the Japanese | Legends of WWII Episode#3

uh one of the one of the worst things i've ever seen was uh on a philippine battlefield and uh 18 year old land bleeding and crying for his mother that's one of the most pitiful sights i've ever seen [Music] we was was playing foot touch football at camp shelby out behind the mess hall and somebody come out there said the jeff said bomb pearl harbor and we didn't think much of it thought it but we went to the tent pretty soon after that and that was all it was on radio then was jeff's bomb pearl harbor what was that like for you to hear that your country had been attacked oh i i never i thought well it thought it's not what we don't know much about it you know let's wait till and see so our company had one latrine one building for everything and uh about six o'clock at night i decided i'd go up and get take a shower but uh that latrine is on the company street see and when i went up there while the buglers were out and they was fixing to blow retreat that's to send everybody back to that was out and uh so i didn't take a shower and orders come down that we had see we was in tents to have to tear them tents down and store them and put us on a truck and the next morning daylight where's the gulfport mississippi on guard duty and people come by their car stop get out and salute get back in their car go on we was guarding bridges and stuff like that i saw combat on rendova new georgia vela lavella and bougainville i didn't fight on guadalcanal i was there after it was secured what was the closest you got to a japanese soldier in combat during a fire fight the closest i got to one i hadn't thought of it that way uh uh i've killed i remember killing one that was about 50 yards from me and uh well i i've never well it has healed 700 uh on boganville while we got and grenade distance of each other i mean we're throwing grenades at them and they're throwing grenades at us what happened to that one japanese soldier what was that incident the one that was 50 yards away from you well we'd been dug in on a ridge and that morning while we began to get up out of our holes and stretch a little bit you know and i seen a bunch of bushes down in front of me and i've seen this jabs slip in behind it you know and so i just picked my rifle up and i put two shots through that bunch of bushies and a buddy of mine jesse watson he is from north carolina he's a turkey hunter he said boy why are you shooting that i said japs why don't we shoot that up here he said there ain't no jabs down there and i said go look and he went down there and he said yeah boy it said he's still warm he says i says well uh let's see if he don't have a bullet to him yeah he said yeah he's got one through his belly i said well look up above and he said he had one on under his chin so i'd put both of my shots to him and of course we left him there on new georgia we had a i forget that guy's name now but uh we were out in this bunch of bushes and the jabs were on a hill up above us and they've been raining and all and uh this this boy had a bar gun and uh he kept this meant quiet you know and we gathered around and the jabs were moving closer together and we seen that they had a pot and finally barfield he kept saying be quiet be quiet and he i guess knew that they were going to eventually move to that pot and they had uh canned heat japs had and they was go they cooked gonna cook some rice or and he was laying on that bar gun and he kept everybody quiet and after he got them all close enough he just raised up on it and pulled the trigger and blew half a dozen jabs out and all that one lick he really done a good job on it did it ever come to hand to hand combat in your area yeah we've healed 700 we we had some hand in hand uh we had a boy by the name of zebuski he was strong boy and i seen him uh he had his bayonet on his gun and this jab grabbed that band again and he throwed him over him all the way over him and he hit the ground behind him and a guy with a 45 pistol shot him let me tell you a story about that maggots uh i had some mechanics in my platoon and we run into a [ __ ] truck that they had discarded and a vehicle that the japs done away with they put leaves in the gas tank so these boys of mine they took that gas tank off and poured got them leaves out of it and got some gas down at the kitchen and we're going down the road with it and i don't know if you know we covered ever operation with drop leaflets surrender leaflets you know that no you didn't know that no i did not well you know i thought we did it on every operation but anyway we're going down this road up on the bank is this japanese waving one of them surrender leaflets so we turn around and go back pick him up and take him up to the kitchen that's where we were located and uh he was wounded and he had maggots under his arms between his legs and all and the medics cleaned him up he wanted to smoke we gave him a cigarette and we fed him and all and it got late in the afternoon and the company commander says to me he said boyd said you guys guarded you your platoon guard him tonight y'all caught him i thought [ __ ] and so uh there's a building our field around there closing one of them long trucks that haul that tarmac stuff that they lay down to run on come along and he had one of them iron boxes behind his cab and we knew that not far away was a stockade so we stopped him and asked him to take this prisoner down there for us and he said no i'm afraid i'll run out of gas he said we said we get you some gas so we went to the kitchen and got some more gas and uh gave it to him and we cleaned him up and we had a interpreter and this interpreter explained to him what was going to happen and told him now you if you do what you're told to do you'll be free back home and all and so we put him in that box and he left waving and but he had maggots he was thousands on him i believe how bad were his wounds that wasn't too bad he he said his commander told him that he couldn't keep up with them as fast as they were going and gave him that leaflet and told him to come to our lines and surrender that's the only one i ever seen surrender [Music]

Channel: Remember WWII

Views: 800,021

Keywords: world war II, veterans, world war II veterans, world war 2, combat veterans, heroes of world war, heroes of war, soldiers, marines, navy, airforce, combat, army, interviews, WWII, fighting the germans, fighting the japanese, Allied forces, Allies

Id: x7zbknzZlJ0

Length: 11min 9sec (669 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 28 2021