Code Talker (21 page)

We fought with the 3d Division for the rest of the war.

Now 3d Division Marines, we had survived the battle for Guadalcanal, the longest of the Pacific war. The entire battle lasted more than six months, and we code talkers had been involved for more than three. The U.S. invading forces numbered around 60,000. Between 1,200 and 1,600 American troops died on the island and in the surrounding waters. Many others were wounded in action. Estimates run from 3,000 to 4,400. Although estimates of Japanese losses vary drastically, their dead were thought to number between 24,000 and 30,000 out of a total force of close to 38,000.

Now that the Japanese were mostly gone, we had more time for things like fortifying our foxholes with sandbags. During the fighting, we'd been too busy to spare any time for filling bags with sand. Ironically, when things got safer, we had time for additional precautions, precautions that were no longer terribly necessary.

A screen was erected, and we got to watch movies—cartoons like Tom and Jerry and other stuff that made us laugh. Nothing heavy. I especially liked one Gary Cooper picture,
The Westerner
. Betty Grable was a big morale booster, too. Her musicals were always good. Much of our entertainment came courtesy of the Army. They tended to arrange that type of thing, while the Marines, for some reason, didn't. We'd sneak out and join the Army troops for the fun. They didn't mind. Nobody ever kicked us out. Occasionally, when there was no danger of additional hostilities, there was even live entertainment, kind of like vaudeville or burlesque, with good-looking women dancing and singing. I can't remember whether we had any of that on Guadalcanal, or whether it happened later. After a while, when you've been fighting, everything tends to run together.

We were able to eat hot food and bathe on a somewhat regular schedule. Showering felt especially good, and let us think about things going back to normal. Francis and I stood in line for the portable showers. Several rows of showers, made from thirty-two-gallon barrels with a hose attached, stretched for thirty or forty feet down the beach.

“Guess we'll be shipped off to another island soon,” said Francis, a towel looped around his neck.

“We've secured Guadalcanal,” I said. “Enough for now.”

A couple of weeks after the Americans took Guadalcanal, we communications men were lounging around. Most of the non-Navajos were smoking. A man offered a cigarette to Francis and me. We both shook our heads. My father had told me stories about smoking, that it was a health hazard. Apparently the other Navajos had been raised the same way. Only occasionally would any of us indulge in a cigarette. We donated our rations of cigarettes to the other men. But I smoked any cigars I could get.

Now that things had quieted, we had daily mail call. That was a morale booster, although you felt kind of sad when you didn't get mail. That was me, most days. I knew my family followed a strenuous regime of praying for me, but Dora was the only one at home who wrote and read English, and they weren't too big on letters. Most everyone who got mail shared it with us, though, reading out loud.

We spotted a small group of people, six of them children, approaching our Marine encampment. The children—a couple of them less than five or so—walked slowly, dragging their bare feet. An adult woman carried a baby in a sling made from woven tree bark. The baby had been hit by shrapnel. Several Marines directed the family to the medical tent, where we knew corpsmen would treat the injury.

More and more of the island's native Melanesian population had begun to trickle into camp. They'd hidden in the mountains during the fighting. Many brought children and babies injured by the war in which they'd taken no part. American corpsmen cared for them and gave them medicine. American troops gave them food.

“They seem peaceful,” said Francis, watching the little group of Melanesians trudge toward the tent holding our medical personnel.

“That didn't save them from war, though.” The native people gathered around the medical tent.

I ran a hand through my hair, which hung down over my ears. When I looked into a mirror, I resembled a bogeyman, with all of that heavy growth. But my beliefs wouldn't let me get a haircut on land during battle. It was dangerous enough getting your hair cut during peacetime, when you could be sure that the hair was properly disposed of. During battle, I sure didn't want to take a chance. But a shipboard haircut, after the battle was done, was okay. There, the cut hair would be burned, disposed of properly, along with the garbage. I told myself I needed to get out to the ship for a serious trim. Some of the men were okay with getting their hair shaved during hostilities on land, even though the hair was often not disposed of properly. It all depended on what your family taught you. And my family had taught me to let it grow until I could get away from the battle site. That went for your beard and mustache as well. No shaving. Of course, I had no beard. Many of the Marines were too young to grow beards. We Native Americans had very little facial hair, regardless of age.

I nodded toward the group of island natives. “They're lucky we Americans secured this island. The Japanese would have got rid of them all.”

Huge tractors lumbered along the beach at Guadalcanal, burying bodies. Dog tags collected from the American dead contained each man's name and serial number. The tags would be sent home to their next of kin. Sometimes we were able to erect wooden crosses over the graves of our men, but often sheer numbers made individual graves impractical. Then, dead American troops were buried in mass graves, the enemy dead alongside them.

A group of us Navajo communications men sunned on the “cleared” part of the beach after a dip in the ocean.

“You know, they're trying to recruit more talkers. A hundred per division, I heard,” said Roy Notah.

“And guess where the First and Second Division Marines are right now?” asked Roy Begay. He pointed across the ocean with his chin and answered his own question. “Hawaii. Training.”

A Navajo Marine shook water from his hair and ran a towel across his chest. “And here we are, the Third Division, still no R and R.” He grinned. “Wonder what island is next?”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Bougainville

Black beach canted up at a sharp angle from the ocean. Waves crashed against shore, turning Higgins boats sideways. Roiling ocean swamped several nearby boats, driving them into the land, like beached whales. That was bad. The boats were supposed to drop their men, return to the ships offshore for supplies, then bring those supplies back to the troops who were in the process of invading the island.

Francis and I advanced toward the beach at Cape Torokina, Empress Augusta Bay, in our Higgins craft. Wind whipped the inhospitable west-central coast of Bougainville. It was November 3, 1943.

Our assault had begun on November 1. Landing on the treacherous, steep coast had proved a painstaking job, and when darkness fell, we stopped loading into the shore-bound craft and waited for first light, next day. That day, November 2, the Japanese Navy stationed in Rabaul, New Britain, dispatched four cruisers and six destroyers to Torokina, attempting to intercept the American troops while we were still in the process of landing. The enemy ships made it to within forty-five miles of Torokina before being intercepted and driven off by Admiral Merrill's four cruisers and eight destroyers in the three-hour Battle of Empress Augusta Bay.

Now, on November 3, we were finally nearing shore.

 

 

Our assault on Bougainville was one prong of Operation Cartwheel, a two-pronged attack aimed at rendering the mighty Japanese base on Rabaul, New Britain, useless.

Admiral Chester W. Nimitz controlled Allied forces from the Pacific Ocean Areas command. His forces, with me among them, advanced through the Solomon Islands to take Bougainville. In the Southwest Pacific Area, Supreme Allied Commander General Douglas MacArthur was in command of the other prong of the attack. His forces proceeded along the northeast coast of New Guinea to take nearby islands. The Allied forces involved in both prongs included troops from the United States, New Zealand, and Australia, as well as from the Netherlands.

 

 

We code talkers were always part of the offensive, even though I can't remember ever attacking the beaches with the first wave. After we stormed the beach in the second or third wave, other assault waves followed. At the end came the regimental reserve. Troops waiting to land watched what was happening with us men who went ahead of them. Each wave offered feedback on the previous assault, letting commanders know about any snafu,
³²
so that corrections could be made.

The unforeseen challenges of landing men on Bougainville threw all schedules off. Supplies and stores of ammunition sat in the holds of ships, waiting to be off-loaded and delivered to shore. Those ships sailed from Empress Augusta Bay at noon on November 3, as scheduled, with many of our supplies still stashed in their cargo bays.

U.S. strategy had been designed to mislead. On the northern tip of the island, at Buka and Bonis, sat two Japanese airfields. Four Japanese airfields and a seaplane base had been constructed at Buin, on the island's southern end. The airfields were heavily garrisoned with enemy troops. Eight Allied destroyers and four light cruisers had bombarded the northern and southern ends of the island prior to the U.S. landing, leading the enemy to assume that American troops would land in either the north or the south.

However, we Marines were counting on the element of surprise. Those men from the Land of the Rising Sun had not expected us to invade at Cape Torokina, approximately halfway up Bougainville's western coast, an area which boasted no airfield and was scantily defended.

Despite the meager Japanese defenses, enemy bullets strafed the beach sporadically. The expanse of sand provided poor cover, and the footing was hazardous. Strange black sand flexed underfoot like a bog. Water squeezed out of that black sand with each imprint of our boondockers. There were scattered patches of quicksand. Picking our way across quicksand and bogs, we hit areas where the sand was tan-colored and firm. That gave us a false sense of security, when we really needed to use caution with every step.

Francis and I, crouching low, made our way to the tree line—maybe 250 yards away. Roots and more swampland greeted us. The soggy terrain of Bougainville made Guadalcanal look almost dry. There was nowhere to dig a decent foxhole.

Still, with most of the Japanese soldiers stationed at the distant airfields on the northern and southern ends of the island, the U.S. military took Cape Torokina that same day.

That evening, we dug in as best we could in the saturated, root-filled soil. Wind blew and the night actually grew cold. We'd been warned to stay in our foxholes, with smoking lamps out—which meant no smoking and no striking of matches—because of the possibility of Japanese soldiers arriving from elsewhere on the island, seeing the burning tips of our cigarettes, and attacking.

I tried to get comfortable, but didn't dare stand. My jacket was soaked and clammy, but at least it offered some protection from the wind. We wore our helmets, even when sleeping, over the mosquito nets that covered our heads. You can get used to almost anything when you're tired enough. I stretched one leg out as far as I could. When the other began to cramp, I switched legs. I rubbed my arms and crossed them over my chest for warmth. Francis seemed to be asleep.

A shot sounded nearby.

Francis jerked. “What was that?”

“I thought you were sleeping.”

“Not a chance.”

The next morning we discovered that one of the code talkers, Harry Tsosie, had crawled out of his foxhole and stood to take a leak, or maybe to say a prayer. A tall man, he was spotted by an American corpsman, who aimed his .45 revolver, shot, and killed him. Not till morning did the medic and the rest of us Marines realize that the man who was killed had been one of our own. Harry, mistaken for a Japanese suicide warrior, or Banzai, had been a buddy—one of the first code talkers. His death made us all sad. And we felt nervous, too, knowing we could be next.

Not too many nights later, we had trouble sending an important message. For some reason, our message couldn't be received by radio. So Francis and I acted as runners, leaving our foxhole and our buddies and venturing out into hostile territory. We only had to go four or five hundred yards, but it seemed like miles. The moon was really bright that night, and the trees cast dark shadows. We dashed from shadow to shadow. We heard mortars and gunfire everywhere, and of course we thought about Harry Tsosie and his death by friendly fire. Man, we were scared. But we made it.

Our U.S.-held beachhead surrounding Cape Torokina expanded slowly. Since most of their forces were concentrated in the northern and southern airfields, the Japanese lacked the numbers they needed to attack us en masse on the ground. Instead they snaked through the island, set traps, climbed trees, and sniped at any American soldier they saw. Nowhere could we feel safe. Of course, we Americans had snipers, too, the telescopic sights on their rifles almost as long as the barrels. But we held the beach, not the high ground, and the series of high ridges and volcanic mountains forming the backbone of Bougainville gave the entrenched enemy an advantage we needed to eliminate.

U.S. troops nicknamed an especially dangerous ridge “Hellzapoppin.” An unknown number of Japanese had fortified the ridge, which overlooked the Cape Torokina area. From their vantage point, enemy snipers were picking off too many Americans. Several Marine assaults on the ridge failed when we were forced back down the steep slopes.

One morning around six o'clock, Francis, myself, and a few others ran along the beach, heading toward the forward line. Artillery fire and the explosions of hand grenades pursued us.