WWII Marine John Morgan Talks about Okinawa and Sugar Loaf Hill

hello my name is John Morgan where and when were you born I was born in Kirkman Iowa in 1926 so how old are you right now I'm 92 years of age do you feel like you're 92 no how old do you feel perhaps in my mid 70s physically what does it like to be 92 sometimes it says challenge what do you mean well mother is not as spry as I was at 30 it actually in actuality people 82 has been a big handicap for me I hike regularly enjoy hiking the desert walking dog I do have a lot of activities they're doing a lot of reading and studying I'm doing the okay for okay 92 I guess what branch of the military were you in during World War 2 that was in the Marine Corps and what specific units were you in during your time overseas well let overseas with a replacement company to New Caledonia and that after several weeks there went to Guadalcanal and joined the replacement company with the 22nd Marines and so just state for the record what division regiment and company you ended up being into combat with at the beginning the 22nd raids were part of the 1st marine Brigade and I was with a replacement company until the invasion of Guam when I was assigned it to company G of the 22nd Marines eventually it became a part of the six brain division after the campaign in a qualm what was your specific role in Company G initially I was a rifleman and then after the campaign a Guam was made a fireteam leader fireteam is only for man tell me about the job of a fireteam leader well basically you take instructions from your officer or your squad leader or your platoon sergeant and make sure that the other three are in the positions that are supposed to be in with the equipment that they have and do what we're ordered to do what was the highest rank you achieved by the time you left the service corporal and where all did you see combat in world war ii and Mariana Islands the retaking Guam from the Japanese was the first one we had returned to Guadalcanal to form the sixth Marine Division and begin to prepare for Okinawa however at that time we did not know whatever we're doing until a very short time before we invaded Okinawa can you talk to me about your actual experiences on the island of Guam did you actually see combat there periodically as I mentioned we were with replacement platoon for the 22nd Marines and after the initial invasion we came ashore and our job largely was one of accompanying Amtrak's with ammunition and supplies to the units on the line and then returning frequently with dead or wounded yeah I was 17 when the first one overseas and 17 when we invaded Wow I had my birthday on Guam turned 18 well yeah so okay so mr. Morden just to backtrack a little bit you mentioned you were born in Iowa yes did you grow up in Iowa yes where'd you grow up in southwest Iowa my childhood we moved to Ames Iowa when I was a little later in grade school talk to me about growing up in Ames what kind of things do you do for fun well I it was a nice college town and we live right across the street from the campus and I used to with some encouragement from my mother I used to visit the various department museums and university programs is programs its of worth and of course we played sports games and so forth so what were you planning on doing with your life before the war broke out I had no idea it's no idea what I was going to do so talk to me about your family structure did you have any brothers or sisters yes I have one brother my parents were divorced when I was quite young so I had actually a lot of good support from my mother and I had surrogate parents and aunts and uncles particularly one aunt and uncle one side now we're very supportive of my brother and I tell me about that uncle what was his name well his name was Horace but he went by the name of John and he was world war one better combat better and could be crusty guy but he's one of those people that can be crushed me you know that he loves you wonderful support for us talk to me about your memories of growing up and the Great Depression yeah I was I was small and the worst part of the depression although I certainly remember a lot at my first memories were of seeing WPA work groups working on digging ditches and improving ditches along roads and removing of brush and so on and so forth that's not quite a bit of that I remember seeing the Triple C folks guys in the Triple C camp and I would never saw them working with my parents divorce my mother was left pretty much her own devices it of economics and she had a very fine classical high school education but that didn't didn't do much for her economically so she really struggled financially to support it tell me about some of those struggles well just finding work she tried to be a waitress and she could have job doing that and she was harassed in that job so she quit she finally got a job for 25 cents an hour at the university just sorting papers filing and that kind of thing she built a small prayer and at the university eventually do you all ever go hungry right after the first year for the divorce we had some food issues yes however he had enough oh I was telling you about found out about it and they made sure that didn't happen much longer but I remember food wise was we had some days where my mother went to the store and bought skim milk which in those days was less expensive than regular milk and she bought day-old bread which you could get for 5 cents a wolf and then she broke that up and me to serve it like cereal with a little sugar on I kind of liked it what did she call it I don't so talk to me about the kind of things you would do with your buddies when you were a teenager what kind of mischief would you guys get into I wasn't a mischievous channel I don't think I ever gave my family any any heartache until they joined the Marine Corps went away to war what about on Halloween you wouldn't pull any pranks on Halloween no I didn't like helloween I never had like a lolly yeah it's very taking ceremony how did you hear about the attack on Pearl Harbor the back of the place where we lived in Ames was a large vacant lot and one time had been a there'd been a home there that had been destroyed by fire but it was all leveled with craft and I was out there playing we were a bunch of us out there playing touch football and somebody came out and said Pearl Harbor was being bombed at that moment that's how I learned about it what was that like for you to hear out the tape what was that like for you to hear that your country was being attacked well I was upset about don't know the know-how what I understood it but I would know I was upset so what did you all do after you heard the news I don't when they recover well we did that the ticket II mean the same day yeah yeah I publish almost assuredly went to the radio and listen for more news and of course the basically in a day or two we heard from President Roosevelt national radio was an important part of for his it was an amazing leader I thought that I came from the family of Democrats no no not everyone in my family was a Democrat so take me through how did you end up in the server's microphone how did you end up in the service in the first place well I just simply don't join I've tried to join I shouldn't even tell you this but I tried to join the for i dissolving i got caught and said well how old are you 16 what branch did you try to join right four and so as when I was 17 of course then I could sign up so I don't remember exactly why I was so enamored by the brink but I was can you explain to me though why you wanted to join the service so bad in general to the to the point where you were willing to go underage and join I mean I mean you knew that there was a war going on why do you want to put yourself in harm's way why not wait till you go frog did you have to first understand that I really didn't understand well or was that that page that takes experience but I did have a patriotic motivations most assuredly and I I think the attack by the Japanese Pearl Harbor was such an insidious thing for them to do that probably felt like a lot of Americans and who he was room for revenge here I don't know how much I thought I went to revenge I was going to extract a penny but I know I felt that way as well why not the Navy or the Air Force what was it about the Marine Corps well the Marine Corps had this mystique about it first fight and the holes of autism that's what I thank I like that and so well I I went to a recruiting office quite some distance from my home so that they wouldn't know me and I went to a recruiting officer is a very small recruiting station and signed up for it and he asked me a couple times how old I was and I afraid I fibbed about that and at any rate that it was going very well and I called my uncle in Iowa there's no same uncle that I told you about and told him and he drove to the recruiting station and told him how old I was and to kept the whole thing I'm done why have you calling him I thought he probably because he was a veteran that he would be supportive of me which he was but not yet so how would you how much each other a cruder you were 17 okay so after you get caught what was your mother's reaction I don't think she quite knew quite how to cope with it but I do know that when I did sign up at 17 I learned the later much later that she decided to had to have permission of 1730 apparent and that she decided to go ahead and sign the permission because I was so intent on doing it that I was probably gonna try something strange like I did when I was 16 so she just went ahead and signed it I think she was reluctant actually the war experience was very painful for her for me to be gone did your brother serve during the war at all world war ii no vision so after you join the Marine Corps at 17 where did I send you for boot camp San Diego was sworn in in Des Moines Iowa and spent the night in not the most expensive hotel I've ever been in and we took the train with a lot of marine recruits Navy recruits and some soldiers on that train and came through Kansas and actually came down here to Arizona and we were informed at that for one section of it because the rail lines were so busy with transporting troops and cargo that they were routing us through a real line in northern Mexico to get us to San Diego which was interesting to me at the time because at that time I thought was a big deal when you crossed a county line so I thought that oh I'm going to Mexico and so so ahead boot camp it hit San Diego Murray Marine Corps Recruit Depot and take me through a typical day of boot camp well after the early part or you get clothing and a permanent here and so forth the they got us up very early in the mornings we had exercises with a rifle and a lot of drills marching and we had a lot of movies training movies and propaganda movies like what why would I fight no more how did they depict the enemy in these movies thank you hardly depicts the enemy in these movies especially the Japanese a traitor there was something less than human and of course with the the behaviors of the Japanese forces in China and other places it was pretty easy to believe in it you fear a young guy probably closer to the truth that the Japanese would want to believe yeah so tell me about the actual physical regimen that you experienced in boot camp well it was pretty hard it was difficult and there were a lot of things like jumping off of a 20-foot platform into the water and making a life jacket out of fear out of your coat you're done you're eco and swimming to the other end of the pool one that one of the training exercises that we had that was the most arduous I thought was had to crawl a very long distance under machine-gun fire at boot camp yes set up a a 30 caliber heavy hit browning up machine gun and he just kept firing it and you had to crawl on your belly no incentive to stand up whatsoever water running that's about all I remember about it we had a pretty good drill instructor I his name was Bell ski I remember but the rascal that he had as an assistant was he was no cup of tea that's for sure he he was much harder on us would he make you guys - oh hey we get up at midnight go out do some running get up at 3:00 and do those Zweifel exercises where we lifted him up and down just been different things like a he was not he would have been in trouble for some of the things that he did I think a little rough and then he have you ever heard of gas stamps tell me during the war - there was a terrible gasoline shortage because I'm sorry had a law against Louie but civilians good bye but it was very limited and they gave you with stamps that we didn't have a car so I never had stamps but but you had to have those stamps in order to in order to buy gas and a gas station he had to only pay the money but you had to have the steam so but he wanted to drive to his home in the warms but he didn't have caste and so he took us out in Ranas until he got enough gas tips from guys that he could drive his car to New Orleans and back so he kept making you guys brought until guys gave up there's gas pants for him yep sounds like real jerk yeah we didn't care for it we didn't care so can you tell me what do you remember about the expression you'll be sorry yeah we used to use that a lot I used to hear it a lot especially in boot camp you'll but you'll be sorry you know when you first arrived at the camp you know some guys go by you know we're sorry but I don't remember that being really common I certainly heard it yeah if anything you have any experiences with what would happen when a marine we called his rifle a gun oh you don't do that what would they make you do push-ups or run around for a few laps around the playground that's that's I don't know so can you take me through them will come with how cover some of this stuff as we get further along but I would like to get straight to your combat after boot camp what happens to you well what was sent to Camp Elliott which is a camp that doesn't exist anymore there are a couple buildings left they campus in San Diego and at the at that time San Diego being exploring was on the north side of San Diego and they they did all kinds of put really kind of infantry training their rifleman var training the two levels of machine gun training there I did rifleman trainee can't build it and I was there about how long cup two and a half months maybe something like that before I shipped overseas and where are you sent overseas Island of New Caledonia New Caledonia is a French colony and it was a intricate interesting experience for a Iowa boy yeah that we were allowed to go into the capital of new male one had one Liberty in there and it was really a French town it was since it was a French colony so you felt like you were more like you were in France than you were in island in the Pacific there were a lot of plantations there and there was a village the people were not indigenous to New Caledonia they were from the island of Java which is now of course part of Indonesia but they were brought there to serve as labor for those plantations they lived in houses with thatched roof and what was surprising to a youthful Iowa boy was that the women didn't wear tops just just skirts which I found very interesting we did some training there I took the longest hike I ever took Marine Corps personnel by a 25 mile hike full fuel attack it fall back fall back the rifle cartridges everything so how heavy would that all be how happy would everything be all right I don't really know but I'd guess maybe 65 something like that and we started out after dinner and I don't think and it did stop him take a break now in that and of course the officers were in jeeps but it was I was surprised when I got back that I felt as good as I did I had breakfast with the beds I felt fine so from new caledonia where you go they start breaking up the most of all of the people at they do tell me when you can't pour to be replacements and that's what I went to we were sent the group I was to Guadalcanal we were adjacent to the 22nd marine 22nd race and been to him we talked I went and had taken that island yeah Pacific and we were replacing some of the people who injured or rotated or west of the sign right away was under a lieutenant and even Bohannon who also was from Iowa he's been part of the reason I remember but I kept running in T through life in fact and we imported shipment with the 22nd reason went to Guam for the invasion but we didn't what transpired was it was simultaneous with invasion of Saipan and Tinian in the Mariana Islands and the second Marine Division and the 4th Marine Division were trying to take those are bad ones and they were having a heck of a time so they kept the first the twice I got raised in 4th Marines which was at that time called the 1st marine brigade we kept those at sea and kept us in abeyance until they made sure that that we weren't going to be needed on Tinian and or cycling a particularly Saipan so we floated around out there for days and ran out of pretty much ran out of food and we had probably as many as 8 or 9 days were all we had to eat or can't fix and then we went to Guam and then the invasion took place as a replacement replacement people did not go in click on the first wave with this better guy we came in and joined him they a day or so later and the role there depended on what they wanted done but mostly it was things like especially initially taking ammunition front and bringing casualties back usually inside of the Amtrak and on my birthday which was about four days overdue that something like that the night before we were behind the very company George company that I would eventually be a scientific right behind them and they took a bad side Church on a lot of peninsula and the that were casualties on both sides but under the Japanese side it was horrendous literally hundreds of them died and so the next morning after that evening I was one of several people involved in burying the Japanese it was a rota peninsula at the base of it there was an old Marine barracks there was from pre-war and that's where that bad side took Church took place and so they brought in CPS I guess it was they dug very deep trenches with locals and then we carried the Japanese bodies to that those trenches and they used the bulldozer to send the tropics and so it was pretty horrific odor well yeah they deteriorate rapidly and already they were full of maggots and flies and that's very dangerous for the people who live around there in the end the Marines we were stationed around there that had to be taken care of and they did very that's why it was done that way it has just tend to be expeditious happens we have no gloves or anything we just care to carry their bodies we basically what we did to this week we dragged them and we took over their like their feet and pulled them to that grave site and put them in the grave site and then watch Molly bulldozers covered them up and describe to me the scene having how many Japanese would you say there were a couple hundred did you come across any that were pretending to be dead or did you come across any Japanese that were still alive they were dead the first American dead I saw was a marine lieutenant was a blond haired guy we put him in an Amtrak took him we've done it in the Amtrak to the beach Navy small boat and came and took him and a couple of other bodies back out to a hospital ship or they had facilities for the disease talk to me about the difference when it comes to dealing with casualties of the enemy versus casualties of your own what was it like to see American casualties versus Japanese casualties difference much more sensitive to the American dead yeah because he couldn't you can associate you know everybody's gotta go I sort of thing you know from our tribe not there crying being you know if we have been very insensitive to the death of the enemy soldier and sometimes to hit later on to civilians can you describe to me the general terrain of Guam where most of the fighting took place it was it was an open area but very tropical but lots of tropical plants and trees and so forth that and a rata Peninsula well developed you know buildings and houses and so on and so forth around that area I don't remember too much about the area but I do remember that much of no did you come across any active Japanese soldiers when you were on Guam do you talk to me about the casualties that you dealt with but do you have any experiences but live Japanese soldiers on Guam very many some can you tell me about to say that then I see memorize said I was in a replacement to it well then I had an assigned to George company and when I got assigned to George company they were heading to another part of the island which was against the jungle I mean dance and and so when I do join to the the company that and the first Platoon of George company there were only seven Marines left in the whole platoon and and so when we got there that moved probably up to around 15 in the platoon about half not even half strength and our job in that part of it was a lot of the Japanese when they lost a skirmish in a battle in the initial part of Guam or were located they fled out into the jungle and so we went out looking for them that's that was a whole other kind of experience well it's it's the uncertainty of going through any jungle and not knowing what's there or if anything is there at all and so there were surprises sometimes and sometimes there it was boring except for the fact that the job was kind of hard to get through and you find trails and so on so the some sepoys were lost if their sabar boys go to Austin area but it wasn't they liked a lot of pitched battles or anything like that so my combat experience on Guam was more related to being on the front supporting with ammunition like what do you remember about the surprises that you mentioned you mentioned you guys came across some surprises well sometimes the Japanese were were waiting I never breathe I did not have they big surprise myself but no I didn't have any really difficult ones I just was surprised how how dense that uncle was how would you guys feel unpredictable there were trails and animal trails you guys wouldn't use machetes or anything oh yeah we have my Chinese I don't remember if I used one or not I don't recall I think usually a squad leader but but there weren't animal trails though and you couldn't follow those pretty well but that may be the top part might be kind of overgrown so identity kind of wax out of the way or pushed out of the way so we'll come back to the warm but after warm what happens to you well we took a shipment back to to the bottom now almost the same place full same location it was but at before and we got back in in the fall would be fall 44 wouldn't never say but the big event was a whole new regiment 29th regiment came and joined too form the six brain division in addition to that we went from 14 people in our platoon and probably all the other platoons in torch company to the default strength that's why I have 18 I became a fact you later 18 because even though the guys who came in we're a lot older than I had a fireteam my fighter team that I worked with VAR man was 20 the assistant be air man was 26 and rifle who knows 26 but you know his president they never ever made me feel like you know I was too young or that that was just a kind of a luck of the draw in the sense that I had seen combat and they were fresh from the United States they were good guys I was lucky to have three guys on the team like that today survive Okinawa they also voted and they were all one and the air man was very severely wounded court Shafto was he he was a pretty tough kid is from Wyoming and I think he fancied himself as something of a cowboy then the assistant be aware I remember as long as I was around him I never quite figured cook however really yet that went very well yep he I thought he was from Michigan but it turns out that he was from New York upstate somewhere his name was Palladino Palladino Italian boy and he should not have been in the Marine Corps I don't know what happened that he got into the Marine Corps but he was completely illiterate he could not read or write either one and he's never talked and you stayed to himself but he wasn't stupid and he just was and every team member was in the helo Jose Padilla from Albuquerque read like he was 26 when he was married and I thought he had one child but it turned out I mom later that yeah at that time he already had two kids but they were the rifleman idea and I spent a good many hours and the good many places in a foxhole with together and of course the VAR man his assistant they were constantly together in a foxhole various places no they were they were all all three of them Shafto the lore was most seriously wounded and Padilla was fairly severe and I don't think Valentino's were very serious that was on Okinawa what was shaft to his wound well the first people to shot himself over machine he was hip I think twice including in a chest and I made some efforts to to help him out some of the first aid and he they they made machine gunners that woman she knows I guess fought me working another man and they fired at us and he hit him again de not me at that time eight rookies are pretty spiritually shattered his floor so he hit about three times I saw that he came to see me after the war he did a long stay in hospital at Great Lakes hospital and I was in Ames Iowa and he stopped to see me and I wasn't there and he thought he prided with me he married like a nursing assistant when they and so he he found out I was out at that uncle's house which was about a hundred miles away so my telephone he figured out how to get him out there and I get to see him and he was doing well he's still yet our was everyone problems with his arm he was doing pretty well he was alive but yeah I D I stayed in touch with him for several years after by mail and he was a he was an amazing guy I thought he was the first first mexican-american I ever knew so take me through the training you all experienced on Guadalcanal in preparation for the invasion of Okinawa well it was it started out of a standard jungle tree because LZ I know we got to probably two or three couple months before the we left for Okinawa even though we didn't know whatever but a couple of months before that the Seabees came in and built these artificial houses fake houses with windows don't worry this is over and so that was a big clue we weren't we weren't going to use that jungle training and we worked hard to have those places going down these these streets that weren't really straight submitted and jumping through windows I remember there was one area there all right I kept jumping into that house through the window we're supposed to do that you know I would always scrape that chin on that thing I couldn't stop doing that they got really bad and you've got to canal used we used to all suffer from something called jungle rot it was a skin disease and you could get that just waiting through the swamps or anything immediate from a little cut or even maybe a large pour in your skin it would also rate very very fast I got one on my nose and so when I scraped that then you know then I really had a mess because I I had to edit to somehow job treated it we treat ourselves with early antibody called the sulfa sulfanilamide and it was a little grainy powdery kind of a substance and we put that on the ulceration and it did a pretty good job of taking care of it talk to me about your experiences with dysentery I've never had this under not even on Okinawa what about malaria no I didn't you take out of it yes what would out of undertook a blood canal would take anyone okay no what would it do to you what kind of ID so remember it kind of upset it takes start terrible even if it was a pill yeah yeah view turn yellow you turn yellow we gotta cut it a yellow complexion yeah I've kind of forgotten about that so after Guadalcanal take me through how you guys made your way to Okinawa what market al we took in a standard group ship to the Palau Islands there was a one The Plough called a Ulithi at war and we put into that and we met that were placed upon an LST that already had am track in the LSD mtech crew reach and and we're out in the middle of this they can only go up and had to make that transition by boat over to the LST then we took the LST - okay no tokino and we were scheduled for first leave and which caused certain moment apprehension except when we got to Oh canal and went in on the first wave we didn't get the usual welcoming party though we had expected there was no Japanese fire nothing I wasn't disappointed but I was so surprised and in fact there was a big Japanese bunker right where we landed and it was full of when I had to walk it out and little guys I remember I went in there and tried to find out where the Sultan Japanese soldiers were and they didn't understand what I wanted and I'm sure they would have who wouldn't have told me probably anyway and it was a lady had the cutest little boy it was about two years old you know and I reached down to top somebody's hair and the mother screamed she thought I was going to kill him just felt terrible about that I decided not to toss all they didn't work kids here in there so that was very quiet and then we moved on to a airfield called a young time and a lot of wrecked airplanes and so forth damaged by our American aircraft and by naval so that was the the initial trip - okay no can't think of too much else it was pretty quiet take me through your first experience under enemy fire on Okinawa well see we we did it right turn we're ready right turn and one more that was our job and and so the innocent that we weren't shot at but it works out that very often and we went to town called I think was called inaudible and it was a pinnacle well booked and I think that went off to the west side Okinawa had a fourth Marine Regiment went up the Eponine saloon and they they ran into some gum fire a lot of them in there and all we did was we didn't know if there were Japanese forces further north or not so we stayed there so that the fourth wouldn't get trapped on the peninsula and so there was some shooting there and some about halfway up the north end of yeah we had to is is going to Northland to very north end of Oklahoma one so when he got up there and that was found to be pretty sick in her we found something care stuff up there but like what fairly high-ranking Japanese officer but that was all did you see them yeah what was he doing well when I saw him some other guys are already grabbed me yeah arrogant that we were peons or don't work American peons that was probably word what about you mentioned you had two incidents on the way to the north over the to sit down I did a soldier was off to we were marching north just with packs and another right and there's a soldier off to the right that gave us some trouble and then ran away and didn't run very far and what do you mean this was a Japanese soldier another one came came through I don't know if these guys are strikers or who they were in but anyway they were I came through to lino tried to come through our line at night I don't know what he thought he was up to and when I tell you the rest of the story you'll really wonder what is it but at a rate spotted him and he was kidding and then in daylight nobody let me off and did when they were safe in there but look the body was all full of condoms yeah that's all oh yeah I uh what else do I say happy you know it's just crazy yeah well Japanese soldier was all right right side within the same and then he made a decision that he would fire at us and then he took off and he ran over to just kind of a small cliff and tried to climb up over that and take it away from us and he didn't make it well who was that your first time firing the rifle Pocono on Okinawa yeah it was I don't remember but that was a whole bunch of you firing at the same time not very many is it just instinct at that point huh is it just instinct at that point yeah it's just like a reflex yeah so these two incidents happen before that Japanese officer got captured correct that happened on the way there yes so after that Japanese officer gets captured take me through what happens to you all well we had one potentially very dangerous situation that happened it was not by the Japanese way we were on the very far in North evoke Annamma and there were one event that we saw was a aerial dogfight a Japanese zero and I don't know which kind of play to have was an American plane maybe Japanese what he did to come out wall and a crepe crepe is our and so what's it that some of the guys went down there it was maybe 40 yards some of the guys went down there I decided I must not do that and then the company pulled all of George company made a move over to clear an area sort of be sort of south and east of him where we were and we got over there and that's where we saw the Japanese officer and over there was a vacant old girls Academy and but there were no Japanese soldiers or any anybody around it but all of a sudden we were under fire from a Navy the Naval Aviation Navy planes were trying to strafe and long and I was most concerned about I was most concerned it's maybe they had an ape on one of those they just um would really be ugly and there was a huge Japanese cave that had been abandoned there and we went into that cave and I kept thinking about the Japanese caves that I saw wrong and all of the guys I saw that were dead inside of those caves from the Napalm so I was hoping that maybe wouldn't drop in April this communication was so primitive yeah finally the captain Stebbins got word to battalion battalion got word of regular to division to the Navy and they quit stream of this were there he had no casualties say that again we had no pensions which makes you then wonder if there the air support for you they got to be part of a state that's funny so there's a mixed message there yeah did you really feel that where you thought when you heard that there weren't any casualties yeah yeah yeah I didn't think of that so after that incident what happens well we had worst shot the whole division was going south and we were replacing an army division on the would be the west side of the front and we heard it was going really badly down there and so we knew we were in for some difficult days ahead it was there were a couple that was a symbol that I will never forget that have no importance whatsoever but I just will not forget it it was it first of all that had started raining it was it was pretty miserable was a cold rain and we had been told about in some sort of a training or an information thing we had to watch out for a particular snake it's called habu I think and they told us how big they were how dangerous they were and so forth and then we got in these trucks to go south and we got down probably we probably go in about five six seven eight miles something like that and I look up in this bear Cree was not a leaf on it and it was a big habu up in that tree I kept the key is this a message I'm getting here and I see something as ugly as so it's not important but I just remember it happening that was important for you I mean it was a symbol what you were about to answer yeah yeah and we went down and formed up to replace the I think it was two semi so perform a division but I'm not sure it wasn't and the commanding officer of the six brain division will let me see Shepherd later to clone he was and all the grunt a little buddy furries eighteen thousand or whatever he picked me and he come over and talk to me basically I don't remember exactly what he said but basically they were questions you know are you ready for this this is gonna be difficult going to be ready for this but I can't give you the recite exact words at all why my fire team mates said that I actually said why did he come to me he said they said because you look so he'll they may be the reason were you ready what I was yeah I believed it even though you experienced some combat on Guam that was nothing to what you were going to experience right yeah this was much harder turned out that way yeah yeah before we get into your combat talk to me about the conditions on Okinawa the living conditions that you in the fighting condition that you were in well yes it certainly was muddy at first part of that adventure and the the lad was pretty bare but a lot of that was from artillery ferry and so forth we were on a ridge and we could look down into that Ridge honor to a river I think it was called the Asakawa and but that formed an estuary whether the ocean backed up the backed up the water and there were I'm sure a lot of Japanese you know soldiers on the other side of that River that's what we found out for sure but you know I couldn't tell it when I first got there so we stayed there in the hood in foxholes for short time did some forays down into the towards the river to see whether what kind of reaction come from the Japanese we had we had two casualties death count duties what happened they were killed by Japanese coupler another way to explain it well you get one of them with with Ernest it was a good friend of mine the back before mu Caledonia taking the ship from San Diego there we go he and I were buddies all the time who his thing was her mr. Putin he's from North Carolina you have two young didn't know about the whole TV series called the waltz I know well he would have feed her lived he could have fit into the that series the southern hill boy from Kannapolis he was a farm boy from Kannapolis North Carolina and he done most forays down there were you with him no nobody's been different different squad different different to you you told me about the rain and just what it's like I mean there was a cold rain the thing is people nowadays were so sheltered that when we have rain you have umbrellas or you go inside but you guys you know explain how it rained and you stayed where you were yeah you got a poncho and you throw that poncho over yourself if you're stationary if you're blowing there is nothing to protect you from the rain you should get what but uh foxhole fills up no it's not pleasant so after this incident was Shepard when you come to talks to you take me through your first real experience against the Japanese soldiers well that's kind of first before they actually are on the move against the Japanese we were kind of defensive because we were under heavy fire our temporary we might get you know our break except that when we were on that Ridge before we crossed now I can't see how we were going to get across that day and so but I got fooled in the marine engineer company they had gone down there in the middle of the night and the footprint think you could go get across that estuary I could not believe it always saw it in the morning I knew we were gonna go down there but my hat was off to those guys how big was it that I don't know huh if they suffered casualties come in it I mean the Japanese other side of that River but how big how wide was the river forty feet a switch for enter what kind of current no it was no because the ocean was backing in water up in the bridge couldn't you have waited through Oh take that would have been a good way to get shot because you'd be a very small target well did you guys take any casualties when you were crossing the footbridge on the bridge of something all know everybody under an or unit made it across a bridge but I can't hurt what were you guys taking on any fire as you cross the bridge or no no I don't remember a man shot at it until we got on the other side okay and the first caption we had from sorry to interject seriously was a seriously wounded it in a way it's kind of hard to describe he was a giant man see he was a replacement me back home Guadalcanal we had a a platoon sergeant that was no to us and he was very very unpopular and so the tenant ruse somehow gotten rid of and got this guy came in and I'm not exaggerating this was a new you they say that guy was at least six six and it was Kim her and he was from Newark New York City anything and so we gotta cross that bridge then get up into go to my rocky area and he was sort of out in front of me aways and he turned a TV turn to a coming back toward me and he had blood all over his face and he had a hole in his helmet and the book of bullets had gone through that and it just put that big kind of big gash in it in where it is top of his head and he's there and so forth and I said I said something to him to things to them oh one is not a very good shot given your size and the other thing I said to him you got a ticket home because that looks serious and he just created happy and walked on back to get some medical hours that's the last time I ever saw ke em him eat or eat our camera I don't remember his first name so that was the first time like we want to engage it in firefights on that side yeah almost immediately I mean talk to me about the firefights I mean what happens in that situation what are you doing it's just where you think there's a soldier Japanese so pretty fire in that direction you a lot of times can't see but you have good reason to think where they are they don't come out and say you know Here I am unless this an Banzai I never saw a bonsai in myself so yeah were there any other casualties on that side of the river immediately or just generally well there were but I don't think I don't remember our platoon we made it very well my bad some wounded we don't think we had anybody killed so from from that incident where'd you guys go from there well straits help me just follow me we ended up in a dare to there a day over over dere so I don't know how long it took you know kind of a gap that was a road and as a rocky area on one side and then we and some of our people were on that's my the road and several of us on the right side and then off to the right was he a rock very rocky hill was full of caves Japanese soldiers in it and Charlie Company of the 22nd I would be first battalion they were to her immediate right and so we were told we were to stay here and let Charlie Company do their thing on that hill and we would make sure that the Japanese did not come around and get behind them overcome up and from the site and that was really something to see because Tony company farm there all night all night long they fought out there and they finally subdued that hill and I just had a hearing aid go out anyway so we published so we were holding that area and we started we didn't get any kind of an attack there and so but we did get assaulted by mortars heavy mortars and by our teller and I think before we started I told you a little story about them spotting us yeah would you mind sharing that that's hard it's hard let me try it see in order to protect ourselves from the Japanese coming at us we use the captain had us use a lot of flares sky and but I don't think that the Japanese and firing at us knew exactly where they were they couldn't tell by the flare well that's what to happen to us and all Okinawan woman who was walking up that road in the middle of the night I could I could see her very well I was probably no 5060 feet from her oh my god and she had a Okinawa tall walking stick that they use usually my head higher taller and I thought it was dangerous to let her go because with the flare she saw where we were she could didn't mean she did see us but she could see us easily and so I think a lot of us when I know I did thought maybe she better die so I put my rifle up but I would have been an easy shot I couldn't bother other guys did that they didn't either because she just kept right on top of them along and it wasn't you know maybe a half hour or so after that that artillery just rained in dollars yes it was exact right into guys foxholes and everything else it was a pretty horrendous day my good friend Dale Cox lost both of his legs in that barrage bill Halloween is a good friend of mine he lost one leg and it was a horrible night before that by the way before that was Charlie Hill kind of subdued it a little bit and before that our tour Eve arrives I'm retired I was very tired I don't know how long they've been since I slept in a long time and so Padilla died traded off he'd be you know wait text number hours maybe three or two and then we'd trade off to each one try to yeah yeah said we did that a couple of times and then apparently Padilla told me later he couldn't wake me up he thought I was dead so I assured him I wasn't dead he he was a good Scout about it and he saw through my watch for me no but it but of course that's easy to do if you think I'm dead so going back to that artillery barrage yeah can you put me in your shoes I mean describe to me what does it like to have these shells going off around you well it's hard to describe own took in this terrifying it just simply so loud and if they're coming in so there's so many of them coming in there's a very good chance they're going it hits so close to you that foxhole isn't it day yet but oh you can do a suck it up and trying to get through the get through the whole thing how do you protect yourself can't no you can't protect yourself against that it's it's too hard how long would you say that barrage went on for three or four hours and then can you just explain that the connection between the old lady do you I mean would you what is your personal belief that she probably sided told them where I'm going where she probably told one who told the Japanese soldier who did the little lady yeah I think she probably did to say they're so exact and were any of the men killed yeah the barrage oh yeah but I don't think I couldn't come up with their names oh they see I remember those two because I was so close to those guys but that's outside of my fireteam those two and a couple of other guys about four guys were really close friends of mine I sit I try sometimes to come up with you know my name after all these years have I and sometimes I kicked come up with a name or a face I just can't do it anymore do you remember just the number numbers-wise how many were killed in that barrage is the two men you met u-boat survived correct in that broth no I wouldn't want to venture a guess but there were some killed oh yeah had to be can you just say that well yeah there had to be have been quite a number of people that died in it but I don't really know how many after this broad you mentioned see company fighting up on the hill so I can see company fighting up on that cecum but you mentioned that that was really something to see what do you remember guys could you actually see the firefights going on yeah yeah and forth learners describe describe to me what I've seen charlie company ran into a lot of bunkers and chiseled right out of volcanic I don't know Koenig rock and caves carbide that day yeah so that's fighting at night you could see tracers of machine-gun tracers you could see flamethrower being used in those bunkers and in those caves that it is pitch if it wasn't for them for those tracers and this those flowers you wouldn't be able to see anything it was just pitch black it really had dark night very dark so after the barrage what happens to you all oh well you me like in the morning well we move forward and we met some resistance there was some bunkers that put beam aids in and it started a covering a lot of neem workers do you know what an e border is Britannia knee mortar was not very effective Japanese weapon in World War two and it was currently a tube and there was a platform on the bottom that was shaped like it would fit around your knee and then the Japanese would drop a mortar shell into that and they were very small and they generally they weren't very effective but that doesn't mean that they blew dangerous at all and for some that also means that these people were not in bunkers or something because you can't fire a mortar of any size from inside a bunker or any kind of a protective area so we did get one casualty of servicemen from a name order say the demurrer tended to when it lands they attended the exporters it was pretty much straight up so unless you know it's really close to an individual it may not hurt them very spiritually at all and it would be some flex will come out the side but not not a lot but we had a we had a guy who was a really good man as name was Johnson and don't ask me his first name because we always called him old man old man Johnson because he was 29 years ago this married had two kids in Missouri and it was a terrific person after the war he made a point of coming to see me at Ames and like my other previous experience I wasn't there but he stopped and talked to my mom and and told her stories about the things we had done that made her cry but that was that was completed as laterz narrate Johnson got a knee mortar exploded right down Abby's feet and it was kind of bending over it and the fragments from the NIEM the knee mortar the blanket he still had when they got out of the hospital I understand that he still had subsiding in one eye but no sight in the other eye at all I picked up a couple little flicks from that too but that wasn't anything what do you mean quit little pieces of shrapnel that was what they think serious but all sort of like having a dance and and hearts liver wasn't much little tiny things - not anything that would require so yeah major surgery yeah and just to go back a little bit can you talk to me more about the grenades and the bunker yeah is who explain to me what what happened well there were small bunkers that we in covered never thought they would hold maybe take four guys who Japanese soldiers and we would what we covered those we would just put it created at whether we saw it later or not and we had tried to look in there and so that would clear that area for safe passage for us to go by a when shaft oak come out of the hospital after the war and came to see me hey he embarrassed me by telling my family how I almost blew my Michael offered I'd dropped a grenade in and there's an aperture where he just threw it in there and then I walked back I knew I had about five seconds then I just stepped over to the side then I decided I got time I'll go back over the other so I make it over and that went off and my old phone a grenade a little subscribe go right through my dungaree pants no I didn't do that again were there other times that you used foreign aids in combat no I don't remember ever using it but I may have but I don't remember besides that time yeah okay I tried to use they have uh it's kind of a rifle grenade I was going to use that one time but that went sour I had a think placed the lots on my rifle but you needed a special cartridge to launch it and I couldn't couldn't find that watching coverage so I so I didn't use it obviously no so I was not a perfect marine I don't know if there is such a thing so can you talk to me about well after all me and Johnson gets hit what happens to you all I don't remember if we get many days together now I know that that's up to either there the next day we're starting to do well with where they have Shelley Hill that that period where that point were only you know two to three hundred yards from sugar rolls no but we didn't know it was sugar I mean we didn't give it that name some officers of stairs gave it that name and we hadn't seen that we were in that next to Johnny come in a day or so later after the NIEM order think it's that is so slow yet mr. rose present lieutenant ruse had been he me the lead for the platoon so we kind of formed a fee and went up a ridge but this time even though we didn't know sure it'll feel it was just off to her left what up we went up that Ridge and to my utter amazement there was a giant city the other side of that Ridge it was not the capital city I was astonished and I thought we would just keep going right on down into now huh Japanese had other plans so so we came back down that Ridge and no more got back down that Ridge then captain Stebbins I remember him talking I don't know why I was as close to him and to hear that but he said the boys from our Easy Company he company I having a lot of trouble down that hill over there and we were going down there and we're going to go to assist assist them so they kind of left me in that same position it was point people fanned out actually a whole company behind that we just started rich on the rigid and the right sugar overhead in a road on the other side of the road was a very shallow ditch not that I noticed that right away but and as we just started out we hit a tremendous fire from the Japanese the never machine or machine guns I don't know never didn't know whether there was one or whether it was more than that I have a feeling it was more than that it just decimated our platoon we had thirty puppy 30k Ovie's I'm guessing a little their deaths won't my fireteam all three went down I didn't I don't know why that's what happened and I took I looked at my right and right there was a fella named Hank Casca from egg was from New Jersey and he was in death throes I'd looked after I looked at my fire team and Shaftoe was a PR man was down the other two guys were hurt hurting especially Padilla and I don't think they do forecast yet but I got those guys to get into that shallow ditch on the other side of that road and they gave especially that were trying too hard to the help help Shafto because he was in a lot of pain he'd been shot to the chest some other place I can't remember he had a we'd been Ted if you get a love them they just won't take it first aid kit that could spindle it and then just try to shove that in in that hole so that that D helps maintain the ability to breathe baby and I I was pushed pushing hard on him to do that and they saw Japanese apparently so we had all had activity and they fired at us with that damn bow again and hip shaft oh it broke his arm now he was in a lot of pain then it was with us still had a sense of humor he told me that he didn't think he could use anymore first days kind of leave him alone so I I just took my rifle and I fired I could see the aperture were at least one machine gun was and I fired into that they'd fire back and that went on for quite a while and then I before the before I guess was right after I gave first aid to shaft oh and the other guys but I realized that we were alone well there's still be no parades around everybody was gone and we couldn't move what could get out of it we had to stay in that ditch and it was way too shallow to be safe and eventually with veteran troops I could recognize his voice and he shouted from off in the distance from that he was going to try to get a tank to come up and fire on any of those of Nambu apertures that saw there and that this forest to hang tough out there so he did in other words we were trapped it was a fifth person with this I have no recollection as to who he was 15 I mean so that was my introduction to your home from your position can you just explain where were all the Japanese no defense I couldn't see anything and just a few about the church but when you say a pitcher is do you mean apertures in a bunker or just a little hole in the hill and in in that original were they rigid the hill together you couldn't tell anything it was but it wasn't like a big there's a bunker they have a big wide aperture that they absolutely it may have been this big yeah okay but you know it was it it was disguised a lot of them were disguised you couldn't see the apertures were maybe this big and camouflage you couldn't really tell much about it what are they lower was it apparently a very elaborate defensive skill this today and set up okay and how hard would you say should rule of was part of how high was it know the Sugarloaf yeah that's always your rule yeah well I'm not I'm at the base when I tell this for you I'm at the base of sugar no I'm not on well like climb doubt days like like Hills that very high fairly steep but let me tell you right up this is a peculiarities that I've wondered about from time to 20 through the years first of all when I didn't try to go up there right away you lied to me daily but I did make it eventually a day or so later I don't remember how long I have no recollection whatsoever of going to the top of the hill but I did I did make I I don't know why I think maybe see back at the base later after the incident that I talked about on another time there were about five of us left in the platoon and one of them was mr. Wu's lieutenant was the terrorist was had already been wounded but not terribly serious in fact he came over and said I didn't Fox will with me when he was running and he showed me he's a big man he had big meaty hands and he showed me a head on out memories left memory right away but the meat of the Hat you couldn't put a pencil right to the hole quarry or he'd been shot and I said why don't you go back and get that taken care of I said I'm not gonna do it and at any rate so later after that he netted with the nabu's at the base of sugar no we were still at the base of this you know about five of us left and I don't know who called for it but somebody with a primitive communication system we had call for a tank and that take came and what out there we did call for didn't ask for they take out sort of the far end of I said that that's really dangerous for them because the Japanese could come there's a number of things that you do they throw gasoline on there's a week nobody there to protect them and lieutenant ruse I think I said I think I said do you want me see they there's no communication that take care of in a box from the back with a total so yes you want to communicate to those guys he had it go to the tank it talk I said you want me go out over there and it was I bet it was 50 yards or more and tell him that they better back off because we can't give him any protection he said no no I think I said that I know for a fact he said I've been wanting to go take talk to him not gonna go tell him to back up and what's a truce went well out there I saw him buckle a couple of times so he'd been hit and he got that phone off and he talked to the day commander and then when he came back he got hit again so that would be about the third third hit I think that he took and he he made it all the way back to where I was and by the way I cannot say enough about her our Navy corpsman it was terrific but I remember the one from Guam I remember his knee but I don't remember this guy anyway he he tended to let that ruin and got a vehicle to take him but he died it didn't survive did he say anything to you when he came back it wasn't up - no it was a great natural leader of men and he could I would have guessed that had he lived if whether it was in business or education or politics or whatever he doesn't he would have really been good at it because he he was good at it understanding of the people who were so to speak under him one of my favorite stories an idea was on gorica now remember I told you that guy Palladino and my fire team was illiterate well we were having a training thing on compasses and maps and so after he explains some things lieutenant explain some things he called on Palladino to explain stand word he couldn't read it I couldn't read it Matt yeah yes so I told I told her squad later I did blond tech topics and masters chitters told blonde tech that Palatino is a literate he can't read it right he doesn't know I can't get some of those questions and the Senators didn't know he didn't know so quietly he was really mad that that was a truce was really angry with Dino he was pay attention discuss stuff and so after I talked to Bob Bob pick one up told him he said Morgan you would Palladino go someplace he sent us I don't know and when I got back bondic said that the rooks apologized to the whole platoon for his tip indeed not realizing that one of these Ben couldn't read and then he said he bent over roost he bent over and grabbed his own ankles with his hands and had Bhavik kick it right in the butt in front of the whole platoon I mean how many of officers would do that because he said he should have known he wasn't a glitch I did not know him well enough to that's the kind of guy he was how old was he when he was killed 28 28 years old he's from New Jersey in his navy cross citation it talks about him firing at the enemy well have you read this oh yeah yeah yeah he did yeah it he's all over the place yeah he did that but see that's the Navy Cross yeah those guys right those things where I was it's like yeah like that business of us being trapped I saw a report one time about that and it was it was all wet wait going back to your story actually and so when you leave your fire team plus that one other marine we're at the base of sugar look what happened to know we were up we're finally close yeah yes or fairly close you so who may have been by that time we may have been 75 years from general you should support what happened to you also after all these guys got cut down around you from the Nambu machine-gun fire then what happened well that's what I was trapped yeah don't the the rest of the people were wounded got out of there and just left the area with mental health and so forth and the people who were hurt were helping those who were and we would just lift up to know what happened to you guys well they did they did get a tank to come up and close that one Nambu area I hadn't seen it I could see that where that was coming from and I had fired into when I saw but and then as soon as they did that we didn't get any more fire for a little while we have plenty later well if you died very suddenly you know the nervous system is going crazy you know it's like that then it stops it oh yeah hey question who was in the death throes in what do you remember about him what kind of marine was he he didn't like being a nerd he complained a lot he wasn't a very popular guy and it was really close really close I know you know this okay you know the bulk of the TV series I met does this say that TV show you Band of Brothers yeah that is really true yeah they could talk about us being patriotic and out there for mother and God and company but what you're really out there for just take care of your buddies and they take care of you that's absolutely true so there's this patriotic stuffs all real nice just let it come back you don't think one thing about it it's a spread protecting the guy next to you yeah he's taking care of you and you know you know like of the of my fireteam of those three guys the only one of those three that I would normally in civilian life have much anything to do with this Padilla Padilla and I sure know a lot of I think same values and even though I never met a Mexicans before I don't even know if you're Catholic yeah so forth but little brother said and chef know what our brothers are fighting on this other project well the only place that really did just kind of standard patrols was on Guam that was in jungles on the north end of the island looking for Japanese stragglers oh no Cano I didn't patrol we went in force what would you say was the closest you got to the Japanese infantry in a firefight 35 feet and where was that okay no that was when we were attempting to get down to a Easy Company that was already on sugarloaf hill and we were fired on by the Japanese machine guns and rifle fire and it was very close that's the incident where your fire team got hit is that how you were talking about okay were there any expensive clothes for you were there any experiences you had firing I mean because those Japanese were dug in in those positions did you guys have any open firefights where they were up above ground and so were you know they were always disguised really well motorsport and caves are in and tube stop fukin and but mostly behind large emplacements defensive emplacements of ridge there's a question of that being the firepower if you get everyone firing into the dark seated area and the someone has some officer or other person has a good reason to think that there's an emplacement they're defensive in placement or that there are soldiers Japanese soldiers that have placed themselves in the brush burn and a disguised camouflaged area or something like that if fire into that was really true at the top of of trigger rule because you were kind of looking slightly down and lieutenant Baer who became well he was a company executive officer with Captain Stemmons was badly wounded he took command of the company not was much company there anymore but he this is an incredible story I was fascinated even then about it thinking about the Senate bear picked up a regular 30 caliber machine gun not a submachine gun but a machine course the heavy he cradled it in his arm like this and used it like he was firing from a hip and he would fire off it in a direction with tracers which would show us the target that he wanted us to be shooting and he did a lot and dr. Knapp 30 caliber machine gun you know it's not the one with the big water tank around it it's the one with a little barrel error protected on it yep it burned right through his dungaree jacket into his arm but he just kept firing like that did he survive he survived he was badly wounded but he was survived yeah he had major Courtney major Courtney took a word of the battalion which like the company was kind of non-existent at that time major Courtney was doing similar kinds of you've been pretty far back well he just refused to give up ground to the Japanese when they would they attacked and and then what he did it was he organized with only 20 men left he organized attack on the Japanese it's not something that I would have done but he did and he paid my price tremendous amount of courage did you see him at all did you ever meet him oh yeah sure my battalion commander even the way the timer was down to about 35 40 50 guys I wasn't very many left good to see it after he did see it then I was gone when he decided to do that and the division commander general Shepherd moved that 29th Regiment in the entire was the French regiment moved the 29th Regiment in to replace us on sugarloaf which we had maintained when you mentioned that you were gone when your battalion commander was killed where were you at that point then Bobby all the way to my beta are in Bobby okay okay yeah we'll get to that but before we go back to Sugarloaf just some more general questions about your time on Okinawa do you have any experiences against the Japanese planes were you guys ever strafed by the Japanese fighter planes never did you complete air control the only thing that I saw peculiar was on that very first night on Okinawa nobody told you I was only on tiny Airport we dig foxholes there and the Navy was out there in full force still you know they didn't go away all those battleships and cruisers and destroyers and all kinds of the rocket ships and so forth a lot of them there were a lot of anti-aircraft stuff going so when a Japanese a zero or a kamikaze would come in I saw kamikaze come here and the Navy did not take that lightly they really put up a lot of firepower for that one that first night though I was dumbfounded do you know what I don't know if you recognize it the name but the Japanese have a bomber called a Betty bomber and any bomber we have we were looking flew into all that fire that was going up there and I could not believe it what that thing was my mile or more white maybe observable wasn't it and it flew out the other side oh how I ever got through that thing that was just amazing I'm sure they didn't survive somebody fighter plane or somebody probably got them but I I just watched that with fascination I thought sure that plane is going to come down mostly when it was in there that in that firing I couldn't see it at all but there came it came out the left side of it that's pretty really strange do you ever see any other kind of kamikaze attacks I think I saw one a Ted kamikaze attack of ship and it didn't make it to the ship it came in he came down to the Lowell and doves straight full of ice either destroy he must have been a destroyer it went after because I wasn't really a hardship but talk to me about your experiences with can you can you describe to me what do you remember about the Okinawan tombs and you explained the whole culture behind that no I can't really accept that the Okinawans had quite reverence for their ancestors and they would place little bowls of rice and food in sake drink and so forth outside those tombs yeah I suppose birds and evaporation took care of them and I think they thought maybe they know but the Japanese in Okinawa were really not considered Japanese by the Japanese and the Japanese committed kind of a sacrilege by sometimes making those using those as that's a defensive let's take a placement for machine guns so forth to shoot it were there times that you encountered Japanese and placements in those tombs are they shortly after we coach the ostraca whatever we did have that what do you remember about but that's the only time I saw what do you remember about that incident we did not demolish it I know that there's somebody else may have but we did that he said went around it but somebody had to take care of that so I'm sure it was but it wasn't the torch economy one full of us killed us so I don't remember his name no he was a very quiet guy pleasant enough he never wanted to talk he had been with the 22nd in the Marshall Islands and then we talked he had been with the 22nd Guam and he got sent for medical things or something and he came back to the gorge company and his squad mates or one of them or somebody in this squad told he told me that he said that he'd been through a lot of those two operations and that he would not survive the next one and he didn't maybe for the life of me I can't remember that proposed name do you remember how he was killed put it in rifle fire can you tell me about some of the times that you really besides the ones we've talked about but are there any other times you know other close calls that you had that you thought you might not make it other than what we've talked about already no but that was kind of a constant constant thing after we crossed the Asakawa you never away from very few light spills it was it was pretty heavy-duty thinking that's why you don't sleep or you don't it's difficult very difficult no not one you know like what house was her or the time commander one second easy was there and one second he was sniper so you don't have don't have a reset sometimes the Japanese is a fairly little caliber rifle 25 mil and it made it singing and that time it was not I couldn't even begin to lucky to be here were there times that you provided first aid to some of the wounded men around you yeah well what about fire TV I came first into those three guys especially the shaft up because he was really and unfortunately my efforts were not appreciated by the Japanese soldiers saw me moving around but fire around me missed me and hit chapter it didn't hit the deal or they didn't tell me do you know fortunately that was a machine gun that was the principle time that a first day were there other times no I don't think probably don't but I got people help from them from a medic or something like that in fact that was kind of my swan song sure is I was pretty well washed up and I thought I was the only member left it couldn't have been more than 30 left I think that ran across I was moving from one place to another or trying to and run across whether friends my cannon my first Irish your American friend from Boston and so I got down trying to give him first aid it was way beyond me I didn't have the skills I call for a medic and he came and he tagged and I couldn't get up you take take a break go back Mike so I did and got back there and what's back about an hour and I asked about my can nurse said I explained what I'd seen my men shot through the chest and when he exhaled his huge blood bubbles when the next quarter his mouth and his nose and I told her that I saw that so forth and she either checked on him or something she told me it was not naked but I what i 94 i found evidence if he did but well i think just that that was a mighty Hennigan didn't have a little town in Massachusetts and he was from or something they got totally was very very very convincing oh and also I think I must have searched records or something to see if he had listed as dead oh and he wasn't I don't I think I didn't find him you know it was a fun guy very Irish it was a second generation Irish it clutters thought he was he was he saying anything to you when you they didn't because talk I couldn't talk her struggle breathing they're good after we're done I'll try to find out if he stole around how old how old was he his older than me so I would guess he was probably about 24 at that time that means maybe really oh no he wouldn't be really old that means he would be born in 28 years 24 that would just mean he's 98 so can you talk to me about your living conditions in combat can you describe that to me well you're exposed to the elements from one thing which sometimes when is a cold rain is particularly it's not very much not very much fun to be there food was C rations they keep this little silvery cans with a with a little key to unscrew it and so forth and of course your canteen for water I got school I would say from the hospital or everyone I probably didn't eat or drink anything at all in my case I can't speak for anybody else didn't ever an appetite why too emotional difficult but I don't think I thought about it either and I don't think I was hungry I don't think I was felt thirsty oh I was anyway I got back to the hospital with Mike and doctors looked at me and kept me I ate some square meals thinking I was gonna go back up but after I'd eaten square meals I weigh 217 pounds I went in token I will probably 142 something like that you after the war I my grandpa Morgan died believer god this is relevant he died it was a big robust man 6 when he died he before he died it was four he was sick he was about 235 or maybe was I'm like and he's prime probably 220 I had his weight got down to he had a stroke there's weight my don't know 115 and he died and it's like red is about that because my grandmother said that's kind of doctors kind of a magic number for the system just collapsing and I said I did read so I guess they thought my system was gone might collapse so they kept me and then I was there just a couple days they had me flown to Bob 103 Bobby's hospital so that kinda ended might come back to rare there so did just some more general questions sir can you tell me about did you have any experiences against Japanese booby traps no I don't remember seeing it on the edge of Naha would have been pleased to see them and in that tone I mentioned earlier I think to you now go that would have been an ideal place for booby traps because I broke into a number of houses and I'd never gotten booby-trapped well if I had one really strange experience there if you want to hear I broke into it as house looking for Japanese soldiers that might be there we were ostensibly there just for the purpose of protecting the flank of the 4th regiment had gone up a peninsula there and when I was a teenage kid at home I was kind of a fan of teenaged Shirley Temple I went into this house and it had little tiny rooms and one of the little tiny rooms the every wall was pasted from floor to ceiling with certain a typical British solid I couldn't believe it that's one of the other bizarre things besides the officer and condoms so your war experience can be summed up in three words condoms officer Shirley Telles yeah yeah strange and did you find it but you know but you know I didn't find it in none of the houses no no I didn't find people there hiding someplace from the vicious Americans and there were I understand that people go to visit Okinawa now they take tours there they still tell you how bad makes me feel bad but their sports are probably actor vitality some of them some of those things probably really didn't happen what makes you say that well there were civilians killed for no reason I thought did you hear about this or you saw this I saw I saw an elderly Okinawan couple got into death what was the reason to do it because they could were you guys in the middle of a firefight no we were sort of between artillery shellings and maybe they were ticked off they did some call for now there were you know like when I saw you we were on water canal there were a few Japanese prisoners that we saw but the army had them confined there were very many maybe it doesn't something like that I saw I personally saw no Japanese prisoners or go on you saw the prisoners taste of it though yeah they didn't give up can you describe the hatred that you would say the Marines had for the Japanese or not maybe nature but describe the animosity that you all had for the enemy Klee well I think he'd started with a disdain more than a hatred although it was easy to express it orally in terms of hatred you could you here to heard stuff like that and people said it Bobby said it myself remember but but what you get in combat and once your folks get killed and hurt that's pretty easy to generate hatred it's really kind of silly because they're doing the same thing the other way but because there's that Band of Brothers thing you know they already killed I began to change a little bit of one about that kind of thing i cured myself but this there was a cave pretty close to get beat some Japanese soldiers in a cave in that cave you got the napalm I didn't see this personally but kind of ran out on fire I was there very shortly after they killed it was almost like a mercy killing cuz he was burning and I was very curious about seeing him there I did something he didn't do very often I looked at his wallet I wasn't trying to get rich I just looking at I'd hit two pictures in all one was a over older man and an older woman probably no doubt his parents and it was one individual picture which I mean his sister or maybe yes we don't and they looked like and I just thought it started me thinking then things like that that's really a temple group you know there's appreciate something that I appreciate so it didn't after the war I went to graduate school there was a Japanese in a little graduate seminar in history and it was a little bit younger than I but it was from Japan it wasn't Japanese American it was Japanese it was nice Scott and we talked a lot about history and so on and so forth yes remember thinking very clearly for in just a few years ago a few years after that I I was teaching community college in San Diego I had a lady in my class she was nice and she spent well we're doing a camp and yeah I talked to her about that and she said we're having a celebration at our temple why don't you and your family come I did it No I took my two kids and she was there she was so happy to see me there was my family so yeah just through the years I began to grow up a little bit but time I was teaching and one of my best friends and colleagues or the faculty was a guy named she can't read that that's not Irish he spent he was younger spending his childhood and so I didn't like America I've kind of slowly evolved so now I'm about to close to a pacifist as you can be without being especially about the picture in the wallet and the Shirley Temple room that really brings it home yeah see ya and I think that would be a really nice thing for future people to see you know what your experience is you know here you go fighting them to becoming friends with them not the same one job sleep with the same people yeah you know not all Japanese are bad but they're definitely something that we're definitely bad that's for sure you know some of the leaders in everything what it is it's just the other side of the coin that I talking about no more being immoral and conducted by a moral young people there and people are pretty flexible you can mold them you get them to believe things besides that they have this stamina for war and so there the idea wants to to involve in those kinds of hostilities because there's a lot of what-ifs even if I I mean you've pointed out big things about World War two and tyrants the Japanese Imperial Government really a military government Hitler's government and all that's very true but if you go back a little bit further maybe if those policies had been a little more reasonable with those those kinds of people wouldn't have arisen to power in those countries so can you tell me when you came home from the war talk to me about the difficulties that you had readjusting to civilian life yeah I had problems all right I never thought about them as being like a social problem it is just my problem I had tried to deal with them I went back to school that was good I was sometimes pretty erratic because also adaptation wasn't very easy because yeah well you better go back to school cause frankly there weren't any jobs you know 16 million people just came back into the job by her office yeah there's a lot of a lot better qualifications and some 19 year old candidate just got out of the river so school was here which was the blessing that cover the GI Bill I got paid to go to school eventually it worked out though there were some social things this is a crazy one but in fact I've got a letter from my dear it might have been after the war cars cars however I may be girl trouble was true there's a bike well with you once but probably not but they both need to be very very long if you don't have a car and if I did I couldn't afford one because the prices on them were really high because they were scarce so he wrote back and just said be patient everything just for the fatherly advice I guess but you know that really bothered me you don't have to tell her that but it was expecting it now looking back on funny but it wasn't funny to me at that time no you wanted to be able today you want to be what makes ya here you've gone off I think the big issue is that you dirty you've gone across the world you've done all these adult things you know you had fought in a war and everything but here you are you're it's like you're a kid again you can't even get around you've got it exactly that is exactly what the issue was yeah you know and even if you were that was I had a girlfriend when I first got back but frankly she turned out she was a nice girl like a kid is he's dead now but it's gonna hurt pretty good hope she was nice but it became real evidence to me that she was kind of showing me in office the guy that just got back from the Pacific yeah it was it was a yeah a social icon so to speak about a real person and see you know they're sweet but they wanted to party and dance and so forth and I was still thinking about absolutely I'm still alive and some other guys are so I wrote what I correspond with Padilla I corresponded and for a while probably longer the other guys I correspondent with a fortune guy a little bit I thought with Holliday longer I kind of screwed that one up I said some something I was trying to be helpful and correspondent a little bit with captain Stebbins company commander of George County he lost the use of his legs also he was a all the rest of his life he lived a long time though that way he lived in San Francisco anybody else think that's pretty much so did you have nightmares after the war no I don't want four called nightmares I think I just subjected to sweep and what about loud noises I've never bothered by no no you didn't do occupation duty did you know because you went to the mall from there they sent you home well yeah go to Guam then they decided to send me for a short tournament but we got to Honolulu and they said not here according to San Diego City what I said oh I said well we need some room and they sent me to myth I could have gone back to duty months before that I was just kind of lost they lost me I went to Memphis and finally they follow me and said send me back to duty at Philadelphia Navy Yard all awaiting discharge catch the district I got over there I was there overnight and they said we're changing your orders you're going to crane Indiana so I went cream curry Indiana by train and I was there six weeks and they said go up the Great Lakes to get your discharge I got up to Great Lakes to get my discharge and that went pretty smoothly the interesting thing was till I checked into another barracks there and they put me in a separate facility from the other guys because every one of those other guys had been Japanese PW and the Philippines and they said where that checked me and said well keeping you separate and you'd be better off just not talking to him because they're really on edge so I didn't talk to him but of course I saw I can't remember specifically and he but I took the sailors word for it that they were very ng what do you see what the bottom is if they had start fuses and blow up easily that's what he's really said poppy nicer terms were there times on Okinawa that you would run out of ammunition no I think I've always had a good spot I can't remember a time and what was on the words I don't remember seeing people who ever yeah I don't want whoever knows guys doing it for me that's a good question what weapon do you carry in combat what weapon did you carry everyone what did you think of the n1 oh I like reasonably good people can you tell me the story about the two twins and your outfit yo head brothers to do two brothers they were brothers in our platoon and I don't know how much after they died yes Sullivan brothers situation it was but orders came to that brothers could not be in this in the same unit and these two little brother there's a Italian boys from Milwaukee had to separate and they did not take it gently he wanted to be together and I guess it was probably mr. Bruce's job to explain to them you don't have it have a choice but what they did do was leave one with us and one to an adjoining company and apparently that was far enough I'm not so sure that I actually met the policy requirements I wouldn't know but but that's what they did ironically both of them more wounded but neither was killed can you talk to me about your experiences with elephantitis well I certainly never have but some of the people that had been in the 22nd Marines for some time particularly and some oh one I think some other islands where elephantitis was prevalent had acquired and we had a boy in our company and in fact our plutonium did gene Locksley from West Virginia and hopefully it had elephantitis but they made decisions to repatriate people back to the United States for treatment based on the measurement of the limb that was stolen and if it wasn't swollen by a certain number of beaches they the person had to stay on duty Long's we barely qualified for a repatriation back to United States just before we left for Okinawa we were glad for him because he he had been in the enemy tuck campaign the opinion the Guam campaign and that been through some really tough things and he it was nice that he could home they sent him to a hospital in Oregon for treatment how old would you say he was maybe 26 I'm surprised I remembered his name it all comes back to you eventually what was the name of that original outfit you were in on the wall the brigade yeah yeah well the full title was first Marine provisional brigade we just usually referred to dues as a first Brigade first provisional marine brigade could that be the same one yep were they an Icelander originally that's possible yeah Iceland and Guang Shepard yep well love you Lemuel huh lemme old sea Shepherd shepherd lamb you I've never heard that name before have you ever heard that name Lemuel limpio it's how I am you yeah Lemuel yeah I've heard that lamb you or anybody else no I haven't it's probably a family name that back in his genealogy some water but no I'd never heard it anywhere else tell me about your job of bringing ammunition to the front lines I mean explain to me where would you get the ammunition how would you bring it coming right at the beach agate beach and they bring that in a little label boat they put down the ramp we go aboard the ramp and pick up it the 30 caliber ammunition came in fairly large wooden boxes and we load several of those into the Amtrak take it up to the line or the 22nd trailer and did just that offloaded wherever they wanted us to offload it if there were dead over wounded or if there were materials to take back we load that up and then take it take it back it was pretty simple right unless you're burying simple XP over you know a lot of different little tabs what time I picked up oh hey Nambu light machine gun was just left laying there by somebody that we cited I picked it up and throw it in the Amtrak I was going to try to find personal place to store it except I didn't have any place to start you know and help that open in the autumn each slept on the beach if I got some sleep and this naval officer LST the LST was running up almost on the land and he saw that Nambu and I couldn't just keep carrying it around he offered me six roast beef sandwiches for that bamboo but I got dang floor I gave it but I didn't have much choice really what else would you have done yeah what I was pretending to do is dismantle it and mail it to that home how about where the sandwiches how where the sandwiches oh we good of course the food of it had been a tea was just C rations that was a dead body to Japanese donut bodies flood of boating you talk about it on land yeah and since what is pretty tropical and even on Okinawa with a cooler weather it doesn't take long for the Flies together they create splutter maggots in the apertures of the body the mouth the nose maggots are crawling all over in very short order it's a pretty disgusting I have us that's real problem with sense of smell and I may be full of beans but I felt for a long time that I lost some of my sense of smell I can't say scientifically that that's true you felt like after you but you smelt them you smelled that odor turmoil but now I don't smell that orders I go back to Iowa I could smell stuff truthfully really yeah dad skunker it's done good sprays you used to be around the skunk in Iowa anywhere near you could smell it I couldn't smell I think I think it had some sort of a traumatic kind of thing maybe but I I've never sent out to try to prove that or does it do anything about it I just accept the fact I don't have a very good sense of smell did I did I tell you that when I joined the first Platoon first joy University they were down to seven guys okay he wall was the platoon leader mistook corporal and he was a platoon leader and he filled me in a lot about about and what they saw of the banjo charges but no I I don't never hear you die what life advice do you want to give to future generations about combat on life general life advice well don't spend a lot profit from the past to focus on the future I think I found to be a really good lifestyle no I mean like imagine if you're talking to your great great great grandkids what would you want them to know for their life what whatever imagine you're talking to your great great great grandkids yeah what would you want them to know for their life well I would hope that they would understand that after all is said and done people are pretty much alike with the same aspirations same needs and that was need to aid and abet people with reaching those good thing goals they want to reach as long as they're peaceful beautiful yeah were you afraid of getting killed when you were in combat I mean do you think about the fact that you could get killed oh sure I somehow had faith that I wasn't but that I mean I wasn't afraid I was afraid I don't they'd be really hard to avoid buddy in the midst of combat is not too difficult - forget your fare if you're concentrating on something you're supposed to be doing that's very helpful but if you sit in I can imagine sitting and worrying a lot of not doing anything I'd be good way to end up on your hand so tell me I mean do you believe that there's a higher being probably like God I'm not a big fan of organized religion because there's something very presumptuous about that that we in this religion can interpret for you all of these significant facts about the importance of life it's wonderful that they have some very smart people trying to do that and there's some great theologians but it's still presumptuous I think maybe as science progresses which is both teams you change who he was destiny is quite a lot if I get to that point right now we can't even find facts that was it sorry about that I thought there was a Trump sign outside don't worry I'm from California as well from the first time that conman I mean I used to every I talk graduate seminars for about 13 years guy comes in talks with Blue Streak and doesn't say anything I've learned to pick those guys off pretty fast and he's one of the first time I heard it man this is a photo of Lieutenant Edward ruse originally from Englewood New Jersey he was my platoon leader on ok know he was killed at cerner wolf hill the situation was that he was attempting to keep a tank from getting too far away from infantry protection and he to talk to a telephone to the tank captain and he was injured did twice going out and again sir Lee in the abdomen when he came back and he succumbed to his injuries he was later awarded the Navy Cross for his incredible and courage at at Sugarloaf hill in Okinawa I was with him when he was subjected to those injuries we talked about a fact that a tank was getting too far out away from us for a sort of protection and I suggested that perhaps I should go up and talk to thank captain through the through the text telephone and he vetoed that and went himself I doubt and I was injured twice reaching the tank talk to the tank indicating to them that they should back drop back aways and then he was a doctor mr. Luce was also injured once again this time in the abdomen as he was returning to the area where I was staying so he succumbed a short time after that by the time he got back to where you were I mean what kind of state was here pain a lot of pain and he wasn't talking what did he do I mean were you all at a foxhole or where were you dug in no one were just as I recall we just kind of leave him behind the mount old mount we didn't have a lot of protection ourselves there that was a lot of gunfire going on you know coming in in our direction and when he came back to your position what did he do collapsed corpsman came Navy corpsman came and attacked me and arranged for Amtrak taking that's what I saw he didn't didn't live was he alive when he got on the Amtrak yes yes he was but I don't think he survived much longer explain to me can you talk to me about just where your position was where were you when this happened Sugarloaf low at the base of Sugar Loaf Hill do I miss one of the north west side of the of the hill and how far away was that tank close maybe 50 60 yards I don't want to remember for sure of course yeah all by itself no other range there to protect him from the Japanese coming out and you know throwing a Molotov cocktail or putting a bomb under it or whatever if it had no protector did the tank backtrack after yes truce yep it came back so when he got hit he lurched and on one of the times I don't remember which one it hit him so hard that he went down on one knee but then got back up and proceeded to the tank and then when he started back then he was hit once more and Edward was really a very serious injury all of them and this was all by what kind of fire rightful burner Oh rightful what kind of person was Bruce well he seemed to be a natural leader he knew his men and he dealt with them with a certain amount of equality you might call but you knew that he was stood charts dude by his demeanor he had a good sense of humor he was seemed to be very smart and he had a background in football and in law enforcement so he had even though only 28 years old he'd had a lot of experience he had been a participant in the invasion in a retarget and of guam prior to the okinawa campaign did you have any children no no did you visit any of his family members after the war no idea look for them until after I retired and he had a brother who was in the military I think in Europe I think there had two brothers but I think one was in the military but I'm not sure of that even I'm not that well informed Army's family can you tell me but before I mean what before this incident where you how do you and ruse end up there in the first place well we started out some time before to try to join up with other units of a 1st battalion and Easy Company on on Cheryl that's as far as we have gotten at that particular point and you'd mentioned to me earlier this is off topic but you mentioned to me about some of the fighting on the top of Sugarloaf yes what do you remember about that well my memory is just you know firing in two and two spaces we really believe that were Japanese soldiers hidden and we're behind behind structures that were designed for defense and I do remember very vividly seeing lieutenant Ferrer company exec officer who know what had become her to a company commander using a full size 30 caliber machine gun like cradling it in his hand and then firing it into spaces where he wanted us to exercise firepower and try to overcome with the Japanese soldiers there

Channel: Legends of WWII (apart of Remember WWII)

Views: 62,645

Rating: 4.9004583 out of 5

Keywords: world war II, veterans, world war II veterans, world war 2, combat veterans, heros of world war, heros of war

Id: ReLHqB8_44U

Length: 186min 33sec (11193 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 23 2020