Hell in the Pacific: A Marine Rifleman's Journey From Guadalcanal to Peleliu (34 page)

As I mentioned at the beginning of this story, I think I’ve always been a Marine at heart. And today, nearly sixty-six years after I received my discharge from the Corps and returned to civilian life, I still consider myself a Marine.

The men I fought beside and shared foxholes with in World War II—especially those in K/3/5—are like members of my own family. Except for my wife, Gertrude, my daughter, Karen Cummins, and my two grandsons, Brendan and Erik, these guys are the most important people in the world. (My sister, Lillian, passed away in 2004, and my brother, Peter Jr., was killed in a car crash in the early 1980s.)

This is why I’ve made it a point to stay in close touch over the years with as many of my Pacific comrades as possible. I still talk regularly by phone to wartime buddies like Slim Somerville, Bob Moss, and T. I. Miller, my old platoon guide at Guadalcanal. They’re as close to me as brothers, and they will be for as long as we live.

I also feel a strong kinship with all the men who ever saw combat with K/3/5, including many that I’ve never met. Not long ago, I read an article in
American Legion Magazine
about the major role played by the Third Battalion, Fifth Marines, in the Afghanistan war, where 3/5 had the highest casualty rate among U.S. infantry units—30 killed and 200 wounded.

Accompanying the article was a color photo of my old company in combat during the brutal fighting in Helmand Province. When I saw it, I felt such a powerful emotional connection to those young guys in the picture that it almost brought tears to my eyes. Their weapons and equipment were much more modern and sophisticated than the prehistoric stuff we used at Guadalcanal. But the point is, they were doing exactly the same kind of dirty, deadly job that we did seventy years ago.

I couldn’t have felt a greater sense of pride if I’d been there myself.

In my younger days, I never missed a K/3/5 or First Marine Division Association reunion. Gertie and I traveled all over the country to see my old buddies. But travel’s gotten tougher for everybody in recent years, and I’m not as young as I used to be. I turned ninety-two in September 2011, and my Pacemaker plays hell with those metal detectors in airports, so I don’t go as far or as often as I’d like anymore.

Sadly, the number of World War II vets at those reunions grows
smaller every year, and every time another one of my old comrades passes away, I feel a deep personal loss. This was especially true in 2001, when Gene Sledge, who did so much to immortalize the men of K/3/5 in his book
With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa
, reported for duty to the Man Upstairs.

When Gene’s book was first published in 1981, he sent me a complimentary copy, along with one of the most touching notes I’ve ever received:

“Best wishes to one of the Old Breed—Guadalcanal, Gloucester, and Peleliu,” he wrote. “With profound admiration for one of the best Marines and bravest NCOs I ever saw under fire. It was guys like you, Jim, that acted as an example to some of us ‘boots’ and kept us going when things got rough.”

I was also deeply touched several years ago when retired Marine Major General Pat Howard promoted me to the rank of honorary captain—and later honorary major—when he met with a wonderful group I’m involved with called Vets Helping Vets.

(The head of this organization is Hank Whittier, who served as a machine gunner with the Second Marine Division many years after I left the Corps and who ranks as one of the most caring people I’ve ever known. Hank is never too busy to help out a fellow veteran who needs transportation to a clinic or hospital, a bit of financial assistance, a sympathetic ear in times of trouble, or any other type of helping hand. He’s the living personification of Vets Helping Vets.)

I’d mentioned to General Howard that, through some sort of paperwork snafu, my promotion to platoon sergeant had never come through, although I passed all the requirements two years before my discharge.

“Maybe these promotions will help make up for that oversight,”
he told me, jokingly, as he presented me with a captain’s gold bars and a major’s gold leaf, “but you understand, of course, there’s no pension involved.”

Truth is, it’s me who owes a debt to the Marine Corps, not the other way around. My six-plus years as a Marine gave me a totally different perspective on life and taught me a lot of practical lessons that were worth a fortune later on. As a Marine in combat, I learned to adapt to conditions that most people would find unbearable. As a result, I was able to hold down a wide range of civilian jobs after the war and even own and operate my own successful auto trim business in Hempstead, Long Island.

When a local urban renewal shopping center project claimed the land my business was located on, I took a position as a maintenance foreman at Rutgers University in New Jersey and worked there until my retirement in 1981. After that, Gertie and I bought a nice home with a swimming pool in Ocala, Florida, where we still live today.

For a kid who never went beyond the eighth grade in regular school, I think I did pretty well.

Of course, it also helped that I had a tough childhood. But remembering what I went through as a Marine gave me the strength and confidence to take on risks and challenges I probably would’ve avoided otherwise. Once you’ve lived through hell in the Pacific, you figure you can cope with whatever happens here on American soil.

Let me make one thing clear. I don’t consider myself a hero. Never have and never will. Except for the presidential unit citations earned by the First Marine Division at Guadalcanal and Peleliu, I never received any valor-based decorations. I never suffered a wound in combat, so I don’t even own a Purple Heart.

I’m just a journeyman Marine and damn proud of it.

I
’
VE OFTEN BEEN
told that I have a good memory for dates, and I guess it’s true. When someone asks me when a certain firefight I was in seven decades ago took place, I can usually come close to the exact date and maybe even hit it right on the nose.

But at the top of the list of dates I’ll never forget is May 9, 1947. That’s the night I met a girl named Gertrude Johanson, who was a friend of my sister, Lillian, and worked at the same insurance company with her.

The company was holding a dance for its employees at the Hotel New Yorker in midtown Manhattan, and Lil invited me to come.

“I’ll have this friend of mine meet you at the hotel entrance and show you where to go,” my sister told me.

I had a feeling I was being set up for a blind date, but once I met Gertie and danced with her a couple of times, I didn’t care. She turned out to be the love of my life, and on August 30, 1947, less than four months after that first meeting, we were married.

That was sixty-five years ago, and I’ve never regretted it for a second—and I hope she hasn’t, either. But early in our marriage, we went through some very sad and rough times trying to have children. It was especially hard for Gertie. After the normal birth of our daughter, Karen, we lost four precious babies who were born with fatal birth defects.

When we learned that an irreversible condition called the RH factor was to blame and that it was caused by the fact that our blood types weren’t compatible, we realized how blessed we were to have a healthy child like Karen.

I’m equally blessed to have a wife like Gertie. Her love and her
faith in me are the source of my strength. She helps and comforts me in more ways than I could ever deserve, and I thank God for her every day.

I
F I HAVE
any complaints relating to my service in World War II, they’d be directed at a few of the military officers and civilian leaders who controlled the fate of the millions of Americans who fought—including thousands who died—in the Pacific during that terrible time.

As you’ve probably gathered by now, I don’t have much regard for General Dugout Doug MacArthur. I blame him for thousands of needless American casualties. When I think of the misery we endured at Peleliu and the good men who died there in a struggle that had no strategic value—all because of MacArthur—it makes me sick.

His sorry record started in the Philippines, where he let his air force be destroyed on the ground, then abandoned his sick, starving, surrounded troops on Bataan and Corregidor. After that, he spent the rest of the war in the safe haven of Australia, except for a few publicity photo ops.

President Roosevelt didn’t do those of us who fought in the Pacific any big favors early in the war, either. To rescue Britain and his friend Winston Churchill, he left the defenders of the Philippines high and dry while he sent all our available manpower and best equipment to the European Theater. He promised help to Bataan’s garrison, then refused to deliver any.

It’s never made sense to me why Roosevelt stuck with that “Europe first” approach and let the Nips do whatever they wanted in the Pacific for months after they knifed us in the back at Pearl Harbor.
It was Japan that attacked us directly, but Roosevelt’s only concern seemed to be Germany.

He fired General Walter Short and Admiral Husband Kimmel, our top Army and Navy commanders in Hawaii, and made them the scapegoats for Pearl Harbor. Kimmel tried to send a relief force to the Marines at Wake Island, but he was relieved of his command before it could get there. Then Roosevelt let Dugout Doug get away with murder.

The Marines saved MacArthur’s butt in the Pacific, but he was always jealous of them. Why else wouldn’t he allow a single Marine Corps general to be present at the Japanese surrender aboard the USS
Missouri
in Tokyo Bay?

This was a calculated slap in the face to men like Marine Generals Vandegrift, Roy Geiger, and Oliver Smith, who had as much to do with our victory over Japan as anyone in the U.S. military. Sixty-seven years later, I still get steamed about it.

And seventy-three years after I enlisted in the Marines, I’m still convinced it was the best damn thing I ever did.

I don’t want Americans of the twenty-first century to forget what happened at Guadalcanal or Cape Gloucester or Peleliu. I want the memory of those tragic times and terrible places to live forever.

Thinking back on them sometimes causes me actual physical pain. But I truly believe that keeping the memory of them alive for future generations is the only way to make sure they never happen again.

People ask me now and then if I ever feel remorse or regret over some of the things I did in the heat of combat. My answer is a simple “No.” It was kill or be killed out there, and I did what I had to do to protect my own life and the lives of the Marines around me.

I still grieve over the friends and comrades who didn’t make it,
and I’m sure I always will. But I’ve never lost sleep over the enemy soldiers I shot or bayoneted or blew to bits with grenades—not even the wounded ones I put out of their misery or the occasional prisoner who posed a potential threat. I did it the same way you’d chop off the head of a poisonous snake that was about to bite someone.

When conditions allowed, I turned captured Japs over to rear-echelon troops to be taken to a holding area, but in the midst of hostile action, that was impossible.

I feel no bitterness toward the Japanese people of today. I prayed for them as earnestly as I ever prayed for anyone after the deadly earthquake and tsunami that struck their country in early 2011. But the ones we fought at Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester, and Peleliu were utterly ruthless and treacherous. Time after time, I saw unarmed American corpsmen—all of them clearly identified by their Red Cross armbands—deliberately shot down by enemy soldiers when all our medics were trying to do was help wounded and dying men.

The Japs we faced in the Pacific between 1942 and 1944 were instilled with hate and contempt for all Americans. They proved it countless times, and they didn’t change when they were wounded or had supposedly surrendered. They forced us to learn—if we wanted to survive—that the only “good Jap” was a dead Jap.

I can only hope that God takes such things into account when Judgment Day comes—and I honestly believe He will.

For the record, I hated every minute I spent on those islands, but I’m glad I was there to fight those battles. If I had my life to live over, I’d willingly do it all again.

That’s what it means to be a Marine.

Semper Fidelis!

Private First Class Jim McEnery shows off his new PFC stripes during training camp at New River, North Carolina, in October 1941.

With his 1903 Springfield in hand, McEnery pauses en route to the rifle range at New River to talk to a buddy, Private Shirley Keith, who is working a cleanup detail.