Hell in the Pacific: A Marine Rifleman's Journey From Guadalcanal to Peleliu (25 page)

Sending a guy home after he’d spent two years or more in the combat zone was supposed to be standard procedure for the Marine Corps. But I’d heard they were setting the rule aside for senior NCOs like John and me—and for commissioned officers like Captain Haldane and Lieutenant Jones, too—because they didn’t have enough of us to go around. The way I read it, this meant we’d probably have to land on at least one more damn island before they’d let us go.

General Rupertus and Colonel Selden, who was now chief of staff of the division, put in a strong pitch with Marine Corps headquarters in Washington to get some of the old-timers relieved. As a result, 260 officers and 4,600 enlisted men were approved for rotation. But as far as I know, nobody in K/3/5 was on that list. John and I were among 264 officers and 5,750 enlisted men who’d have to go through a third campaign before we’d see the U.S.A. again.

For Teskevich, as he was fond of saying, this meant “another golden opportunity for my old man to collect twenty grand off my GI insurance.”

A
LTHOUGH I WASN’T AMONG
the lucky group selected to guard the beer on Banika, Captain Haldane did write a letter of commendation about me to the commandant of the Marine Corps while we were on Pavuvu.

It was in regard to a new kind of sight that I’d developed in my free time for firing rifle grenades from the M-1. I submitted the idea accompanied by a drawing, some photos, and a record of tests performed with the sight. I’ve always enjoyed tinkering with mechanical things, and I considered it quite an honor for Haldane to recommend my device for use by Marines everywhere.

I still have a copy of the letter that Ack-Ack gave me. It’s dated August 24, 1944, just two days before we shipped out for the Peleliu operation, and I still treasure it.

The letter reads in part:

“On his own time and initiative, based on former experience in the field, Sergeant McEnery has developed a new, improved antitank grenade sight for the U.S. Rifle, caliber .30 M-1. Although primarily an anti-tank grenade sight, it is easily adapted to other rifle grenades and has proven effective and practical in use. . . . Sergeant McEnery’s devotion to duty is a credit to the naval service, and the adoption of the sight is a benefit to the personnel of the Marine Corps.”

It’s signed “Andrew A. Haldane.”

D
URING THE LAST THREE WEEKS
of August, the brass got dead serious about maneuvers. We had them just about every day, and although most of them overflowed into other units’ bivouac areas, we felt a new sense of urgency about getting the new replacements ready for combat.

On August 26, K/3/5 boarded LST 661 and bade a not particularly fond farewell to the rat and land crab capital of the Pacific. We headed straight for Guadalcanal for more maneuvers, this time
concentrating on large-scale landing exercises that we didn’t have room for on Pavuvu.

A lot of us veterans wanted to visit the Guadalcanal cemetery while we were there to pay our respects to buddies who were buried there, but we weren’t allowed to go. Too much training to do, we were told.

On August 31, officers and senior NCOs of the division’s three infantry regiments—the First, Fifth, and Seventh Marines—met in a movie area on Guadalcanal to hear a briefing and pep talk on our upcoming mission by General Rupertus.

The general made it clear that Peleliu wasn’t going to be another long, drawn-out affair like Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester, and he could hardly have sounded more confident.

“We’re going to have some casualties,” he said, “but let me assure you this is going to be a short one, a quickie. Rough but fast. We’ll be through in three days. It might take only two.”

On September 4, the thirty LSTs carrying the division’s 9,000 infantry troops sailed for Peleliu. On the same ships with us were the amphibious tractors (amtracks) that would carry us ashore.

D-Day was set for September 15, and H-hour was 8:30 AM.

By noon that day, with hundreds of Marines pinned down on the beaches and dozens more already dead or wounded, we’d know for sure that General Rupertus’s predictions were full of shit.

I
N THE FIRST
Marine Division’s first two landings on enemy-held islands, the Nips hadn’t fired a single shot at us on our way to the beaches or while we were establishing a beachhead onshore.

Peleliu was different. Damn different.

Jap mortar and artillery shells were hitting all around us that morning as we headed for the Fifth Marines’ designated sector of Orange Beach 2, and it felt like our amtrack was standing still. It was a turtle compared to the Higgins boats we’d used before. Its top speed was only four and a half knots, about a third of what a Higgins boat could do.

The new guys in our unit huddled low behind the gunwales, and I saw a couple of them puking as near-misses rocked the amtrack
and splashed us with seawater. When we got closer in, we could hear the constant rattle of Jap machine gun fire.

On both sides of us, as far as you could see down the shoreline, other amtracks—many of them still loaded with Marines—were taking direct hits, bursting into flame, and spouting plumes of black smoke.

The First Marines were on our left, and the Seventh Marines were on our right, and it looked like both of them were catching hell. But those of us in the center of the beachhead with the Fifth Marines weren’t as bad off. Our amtrack clawed its way onto the beach unscathed, and we scrambled out the rear-opening ramp onto the wet sand.

For a moment, some of the replacements hesitated behind the sheltering hulk of the amtrack. Then Lieutenant Bauerschmidt started shouting at them and waving them forward with the hog-leg .45 revolver his father had carried in France in 1918. “Don’t stand there like a bunch of dummies!” he yelled. “Remember what you’ve been taught. Get off the beach as fast as you can. A beach is a bad place to be, so move it! Move it!”

I was running inland as hard as I could go when a young private named Jerry Sullivan stumbled and fell beside me. I thought for a second he’d been hit, but I didn’t see any blood. Then he started gagging and vomiting.

“God, I’m sick as a dog,” he said. “I think it’s the exhaust fumes from the tractor.”

I was pretty sure it was mostly nerves, but this was no time to argue the point. I grabbed Sullivan by his shirt and pulled him upright, then gave him a shove toward a strip of pale green undergrowth about forty yards ahead.

“You’ll be okay,” I said. “Just stay low and run, damn it, run! I’ll be right behind you.”

I was carrying a “Spam can” radio, hoping I’d be able to get some useful information out of it about where the rest of K Company and the Third Battalion were. But all I could hear on it was about a million voices, all talking at once and not making any sense.

The weirdest thing I saw on the beach was a dog. At first, it was running along at the edge of the surf and barking its brains out. Then it turned inland and ran past me. It didn’t seem to be hurt, just spooked out of its mind, and I wondered how it had kept from getting hit with all the American bombs and shells that had exploded on the beach that morning. Our ships and planes had been pounding the island for three days, including a constant bombardment that started before dawn on D-Day and lasted right up until the first amtracks got close to shore.

If that dog can come through all those fireworks without a scratch
, I thought,
what about the Japs? Is there a shitload of them waiting for us just ahead?

I got my answer a moment later. I spotted a group of eight or ten Nips scrambling around behind a pile of rocks maybe thirty yards in front of us. I felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck when I realized they were moving a 75-millimeter field piece into position to fire toward the beach, where more Marines were pouring ashore.

I tried again to use the radio I was carrying to call for artillery support, but the damn thing was just as useless as before. I bellowed into it as loud as I could, but I couldn’t get any kind of response.

Just at that moment, I heard one of my platoon mates yelling at me.

“Hey, Mac,” he said, “there’s one of our tanks heading this way!”

I turned around and saw an amphibious tank, with its own 75-millimeter cannon jutting out from its turret, grinding slowly toward us.

Thank you, Lord
, I thought.

“We’re looking for the Seventh Marines,” the tank commander shouted, stopping beside me.

“They’re not in this sector,” I shouted back, “but stay with us if you can. We need your help.” I pointed toward the pile of rocks and that Jap 75. “Can you take that thing out?”

The tank commander’s eyes followed my pointing finger, and he nodded. “Consider it done, Sergeant,” he said and ducked down to talk to his gunner.

About ten seconds later, a flash of flame erupted from the tank’s cannon with a deafening roar. The first round struck the target dead-center, knocking the Jap field piece onto its side. It was followed almost instantly by a second round that flung up a cloud of dust, chunks of coral, and several enemy bodies.

Some of the surviving Japs in the gun crew tried to run, but they didn’t get far. Eight or ten of us opened up with our M-1s and dropped them in their tracks. Then we edged forward cautiously toward the wrecked gun, ready to finish off any Japs that moved.

None did.

I saluted the tank commander, and he waved as he rumbled away.

F
OR ANY READER
who hasn’t guessed it by now, our primary objective on Peleliu was taking control of the island’s airfield—the same as it had been at Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester.

We were supposed to seize the airfield and get rid of the Japs defending it before nightfall on D-Day. But because of the fierce enemy resistance, it was obvious by afternoon that this wasn’t going to happen.

The edge of the airfield that faced us on the seaward side was only about 300 yards from the water. The field itself was only about half a mile wide, so when we first saw maps of the layout, we didn’t think it’d be that hard to get control of it the first day.

After all, General Rupertus expected us to secure the whole island in two or three days. So advancing half a mile plus 300 yards on the first day shouldn’t be such a big deal, right?

We should’ve known better, but nobody told us going in that the steep ridges that rose up just beyond the airfield were bristling with Jap artillery, all of it zeroed-in on the field itself and the area between the field and the water. Now we were bogged down, and some of our Fifth Marines guys had gotten lost and wandered over into Seventh Marines territory.

The First Marines, now commanded by Colonel Chesty Puller, who’d won multiple Navy Crosses with the Seventh Marines at the ’Canal, were in a really bad way up on the White Beaches to our left. One battalion of the First was supposed to help the Fifth secure the airfield, but at the moment, Chesty’s whole regiment was having to fight like crazy just to keep from being driven into the sea. We heard they’d taken hundreds of casualties, and several of their companies were pinned down on the beach, while others were clinging by their fingernails to a rocky knob of high ground called the Point.

Once K/3/5 got past the beach, the ground was solid coral that was next to impossible to even dent with a trenching tool, and the only natural cover between the beach and the field was some
scrubby brush and a few low outcroppings of coral. Some of the men were able to find enough rocks to pile up and crawl behind, but many others were basically out in the open with nothing to protect them.

All this was tough enough on infantry trying to advance, but the airfield itself was going to be the real ballbuster. Except for some shell holes and the carcasses of a few wrecked Jap planes, it didn’t offer us any cover at all. Once we started across, there’d be no turning back. We’d be like a bunch of clay pigeons in a shooting gallery. It was actually a big relief when Lieutenant Bauerschmidt told me we’d been ordered to hold the ground we had and wait till tomorrow morning to make the crossing.

They’d warned us it’d be hot on Peleliu, but we weren’t prepared for the kind of heat we were getting. By mid-afternoon on D-Day, the temperature was close to 115 degrees. The only way to keep from getting heat stroke was to drink water. For that reason, each Marine had come ashore with two quart-size canteens filled to the brim.

It wasn’t nearly enough, though, and a lot of Marines drank up their water way too fast. Within the first few hours, some guys had drained their first canteen and were dipping deep into the second one. I guess they thought we’d get resupplied with water before the day was over.

They were wrong.

T
HAT AFTERNOON, INSTEAD
of the banzai charge we’d been half-expecting, the Nips sent a squadron of thirteen light tanks rolling across the airfield toward the Fifth Marines’ loosely
organized lines. They were supported by at least 500 infantry troops, and they aimed the center of their attack at a gap between the First and Second Battalions, hoping for a breakthrough that might throw one or both battalions back onto the beach.