Oh, Beautiful: An American Family in the 20th Century (18 page)

Two seasoned Marines, standing tall in the tractor, laughed and made fun of the frightened, praying privates. A shell from a Japanese antiship gun hit right where the two older Marines were standing, striking them aside and punching a hole in the tractor. The two men died on the reef, while the wounded tractor kept jerking and sputtering forward.

“
The rest of us at least landed alive,” said Joseph. “But those two guys, who had no need for God, apparently found out that God had no need for them, either.”

The U.S. Army aircraft and U.S. Navy ships had grounded the Japanese air fleet on the Orote Peninsula and reduced the town of Agat to rubble. But the army and navy bombardment had done little to damage the caves, tunnels, and pillboxes with their weapons trained on the oncoming Marines.

“
Between a third and half of our landing craft were hit before we even landed!” said Joseph. “That was a real big surprise.” Some of the tractors became trapped on the coral and were obliterated right there. Others were demolished in the couple hundred yards remaining between the reef and the beach.

“
We were sitting ducks,” Joseph recalled. “We didn’t have a chance.” The backup wave of army troops quickly became necessary.

Those who made it ashore faced the onslaught of gunfire from the pillboxes built into the coral cliffs and from the blockhouses camouflaged in the foliage along the beach. Some of the invading Marines desperately scooped out shallow foxholes in the booby-trapped sand.

Joseph hit the beach with bullets pinging around him and bodies lying beneath him. Guys were dying everywhere. Bodies and body parts were floating in the water, lying on the beach, or sinking into the wet sand. Guys who were still alive were sinking four to five inches into the dry sand with each step. It was two steps forward, one step back. Still other guys were following from behind. Guys just had to keep moving so guys from behind could keep moving.

Joseph and his field telephone partner, a gangling Mississippian named Roy Brewer, staggered through the sand and up into the foliage of higher ground. They assembled a switchboard at a temporary headquarters near the beach and readied the radio equipment for communication with the ships offshore.

Joseph and Roy then followed on the heels of the advancing front line, running in a zigzag formation to elude enemy fire through the coconut grove. They took turns climbing the coconut trees 15 to 20 feet above the ground and stringing the telephone wire to connect the headquarters near the beach with the observation post closer to the front line. At the observation post, they connected the wire to a crank telephone. As the front line advanced, the telephone line had to advance with it before the backup platoons could be called in.

In that unsettled territory between the advancing front line and its reinforcements, Joseph was an easy target for snipers as he slithered up and down the naked coconut trunks on his spurs. He knew that some of the Japanese were still lying in wait in the coconut trees, camouflaged in the nests of fronds that were perched above the soaring trunks. Even after the bulk of the Japanese ground troops had withdrawn behind the advancing Americans, a few Japanese snipers remained behind in the trees with orders to continue fighting to the death. The snipers knew they’d eventually be trapped unless other Japanese fighters could retake the lost territory. If not, the snipers were suicides.

Joseph never knew when he might be climbing into a sniper’s bullet. The only way to shield himself from the hail of close-range enemy fire from a camouflaged tree was to avoid climbing suspicious trees. Trees became suspicious either because of the shots that had been evidently fired from them or because of the thickness and density of their nests. When Joseph climbed an exposed trunk of one tree, he could shield himself from the enemy fire from another tree only by dodging the bullets, swinging his body over to the opposite side of the trunk, and hoping that no other sniper waited in yet another tree on the other side of the trunk.

He was climbing one of the trunks when he heard a shot and then a thud in the dirt. Within an hour of hitting the beach, Roy lay on the ground, face down, with the spool of wire at his side. Blood flowed out of his back from beneath his collarbone. Joseph slid down the tree and crouched on his knees, ducking for cover behind the trunk. He looked at the spot where Roy had fallen. Joseph looked all around at the trees that stood at various distances from the spot. He figured that the shot must have been fired from about 70 feet away. He then recognized, at about that distance, a suspicious nest of palm fronds high in a coconut tree. Some of its branches were covered with extra leaves, just enough to shroud a sniper. Joseph lay in a prone position in the tangled jungle undergrowth and aimed his carbine toward the nest. He shot three rounds. Silence. Either he had killed the sniper, or Joseph would be the next target.

He dashed about 500 yards toward the beach to find a navy corpsman (or medic) for Roy. As Joseph zigzagged through the trees, nobody fired at him, suggesting that he had indeed killed the sniper.

As soon as Joseph hit the beach, he ran right into a navy corpsman. It was an extremely improbable encounter with an incredibly lucky corpsman. He was the sole uninjured survivor of a medical team whose aid-station party had taken a direct hit as it landed ashore. “Man down!” Joseph grabbed the corpsman by the wrist and led him directly to the motionless, bleeding Roy. The corpsman applied first aid, saved Roy’s life, and hauled him back to the beach.

Joseph raised his eyes toward heaven. For Joseph, it was more than mere chance or dumb luck that had helped him to save his partner’s life. It was providence. It was divine intervention. “By the grace of God,” said Joseph, “I ran right into this fortunate U.S. Navy corpsman,” the only one available to do his job.

Joseph returned alone to his drum of wire, for there were no backup partners for the field telephone men. He strung his wire from tree to tree at reduced speed, continuing north toward the Orote Peninsula, a solitary soul linking a mass of men by a thin thread.

As he scrambled up and down the coconut trunks and sprinted along the ground, he thanked his heavenly creator for having made him a short 5’7” and thus a relatively small target. Roy stood 6’3”. He was a bigger target and couldn’t zigzag as nimbly.

In four days of continuous fighting, the 1st Battalion advanced about two miles. Then on the morning of July 25, the battalion attacked the enemy at the narrow neck of the Orote Peninsula. Gunfire from Japanese pillboxes delayed the American advance. Japanese tanks then drove it back. The Japanese were wiping out the assault troops of the 1st Battalion, but ultimately its reserve companies were able to overrun the Japanese with flamethrowers. Slowly and excruciatingly, the head was being severed from the body. By the end of the day on July 25, the Japanese were trapped on the peninsula.

As darkness fell, a heavy rain began to douse the island. Continuous torrential rains over the next few days produced such a quagmire of muddy trails and roads that vehicles could not pass. Casualties had to be carried out by hand.

Joseph mended the telephone wires that frayed and sagged under the heavy downpour. He spent the nights in foxholes dug out with his bayonet—foxholes that filled up halfway with cold water from the rain. Many of the wounded around him died in their foxholes.

The Japanese were being eliminated, but Joseph confronted a new enemy. “The closest I ever felt to death,” he said, “was from exhaustion.” He slept very little in the soggy foxholes, hearing gunfire and anticipating attacks all night long. He contracted a raging case of sinusitis, but there was no time to worry about that. For sustenance, he ate the C-rations (meals from cans) and K-rations (meals from cardboard boxes) that he carried in his knapsack. He refilled his canteen from the water barrels at the headquarters near the beach.

During his patrols, he came across little religious booklets that Spanish missionaries had left behind to convert the natives to Catholicism. He also caught glimpses of the native Guamanians, known as Chamorros, hiding in their own dugout holes and praying. The natives seemed to be praying as fervently as he was. They were people with whom he identified personally. It boosted his morale to witness firsthand that he and the other U.S. Marines were fighting not only against far-flung totalitarian dictatorships but also for good people like the Chamorros and for their right to worship freely.

“
I was fighting not just for America,” Joseph declared, “but for my faith. These were people who deserved to be saved.”

From July 25 to July 29, the Marines fought their way up the Orote Peninsula yard by yard, sometimes in hand-to-hand combat. They advanced about three miles over those five days, slogging through marsh, mangrove swamps, and dense undergrowth. In the nine days between July 21 and July 29, the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade advanced about five miles.

Finally, at 3 p.m. on July 29, Joseph witnessed the official raising of the U.S. flag over the ruins of the former Marine barracks on the Orote Peninsula. A representative of his 22nd Regiment, which had captured the site, was given the honor of raising the flag. Major General Lemuel Shepherd, commander of the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade, paid homage to his men and then made the following declaration: “Under our flag, this island again stands ready to fulfill its destiny as an American fortress in the Pacific.”

“
Oh, the feeling of accomplishment!” Joseph sighed. “We had reached our objective. We had avenged the loss of our comrades. We had done our job and could go back. It was such a tremendous relief. It was one of the happiest moments of my life!”

Casualties continued to mount, though, during the ensuing operations over the next 12 days. From August 1 through August 5, the brigade patrolled the southern part of the island, clearing it of Japanese stragglers and inviting the grateful Chamorros to come out of hiding in the jungles and to return to their homes. On August 6, the brigade marched north to join the 3rd Marine Division and to rid the remainder of the island of the enemy. On August 10, the last vestiges of organized resistance on Guam dissolved.

Joseph trudged back toward Agat Beach, fighting a growing list of ailments: chills, fevers, sinus inflammation, aches, and an invisible but deep-seated malaise. He could hardly lift his feet. In 21 days, he had lost 25 pounds, from a firm 155 to a gaunt 130. He lugged his communications equipment: telephones, reels, cables, telegraphs, batteries, and spare parts. He staggered past the flattened town of Agat.

Near the beach, he encountered a group of navy Seabees—a construction battalion of mechanics, carpenters, and welders—who were sitting down for lunch. Some of the Seabees seemed old enough to be his father. They took one look at the 20-year-old Joseph and the other bedraggled boys, invited them over, and gave them their hot food.

During the 21-day battle for Guam—from July 21 through August 10, 1944—a total of 1,147 U.S. Marines were killed in action. Another 373 died later from wounds inflicted in the battle. Still 18 more were listed as missing in action and presumed dead, according to the 1954 U.S. Marine Corps monograph,
The Recapture of Guam
.

The sum total of 1,538 U.S. Marines who gave their lives accounted for 87 percent of the grand total of 1,769 U.S. fatalities associated with the battle. The 1st Battalion, to which Joseph belonged, lost 112 men, more than any other battalion.

Nearly 11,000 Japanese were killed.

A weary Joseph walked into a naval field hospital on Guam on August 12, 1944.

“
What can we do for you today, private?” asked a navy corpsman.

“
For the last several days, I’ve had pounding headaches,” began Joseph. “They keep getting worse. And I’m all stuffed up.”

The corpsman detected acute tenderness around Joseph’s eyes, nose, and jaws, telltale signs of sinusitis. “How long were you out there, private?”

“
The whole time,” Joseph reeled his head upon recalling the battle. “Twenty-one days,” his eyes drifted. “From day one of the invasion.”

The corpsman took notes. He referred Joseph immediately to an eye, ears, nose, and throat specialist working under a separate section of the hospital tent.

“
Tell me about the pounding headaches,” said the specialist, reviewing the corpsman’s notes. “They won’t go away?”

“
That’s right,” answered Joseph. “They won’t. They just keep getting worse.” He hesitated. “Everything keeps getting worse, sir.”

The specialist looked intently at Joseph, setting aside the notes. “What do you mean, ‘everything,’ private?”

Joseph breathed deeply and dropped his head and shoulders, as if in shame. “Nightmares, sir. I keep reliving the battles. Only now they’re even more horrible than before.”

A week later, Joseph returned to the field hospital for an appointment with a psychiatrist. “I can’t sleep,” Joseph told him. “The battle dreams. They keep coming back.”

“
What keeps happening in them?”

“
I wake up to a land explosion or when a Jap is sticking me with a bayonet.”

The psychiatrist didn’t flinch. “No need to fear, private. This is common. This, too, shall pass. In the meantime, a sedative will help you sleep.” The psychiatrist scribbled a prescription and handed it to Joseph.

“
Yes, sir!” Joseph lifted his chin in relief. “Thank you, sir!” He then left the hospital.

The psychiatrist added a notation to Joseph’s medical records: “Private preoccupied with battle dreams but appears to relax with reassurance.”