The Pacific (28 page)

A rumor made the rounds that two Japanese colonels, who had known Colonel Cates, the CO of the First Marines, before the war, had radioed him. "If we catch you we won't have any mercy, although we were once friends." This struck everyone as odd, since every day more men and supplies and planes and equipment were arriving, whereas the marines had known for some time that the Japanese were "on their last legs." Cates supposedly had radioed back, "Remember Hell's Point." On the same day, November 23, Cates announced that they would be leaving soon. The rumor of celebrating Christmas in Wellington, New Zealand, after a brief stop in Espiritu Santos, now seemed possible. Bottles of whiskey had been shipped in for officers, some of whom proceeded to get drunk and fight, whereas the enlisted men got better chow, including steak and eggs.

A few days later, another enemy air raid came over, killing six and wounding nineteen. The enemy infantry, however, endured a rain of artillery shells and air strikes. Seventy enemy soldiers, out of water, tried to surrender. A sergeant "shot them down like the damn dogs they are," Deacon heard. The atrocity elicited only a statement of fact. " They extend no mercy to us, so need not expect it."

UP ON BLOODY RIDGE, MANILA'S MEN HAD GOTTEN A LITTLE ORNERY. THE 1/7 HAD decided they had done their share of offensive work and would leave the chore of long patrols to the fresh army battalions. In the meantime, they manned their line and waited for the day when they left this awful place. In late November, Chesty signed Basilone's promotion to platoon sergeant.
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Manila, who had experienced the prewar years as both a soldier and a marine, would have been delighted to see the war greatly speed up the promotions process. A few days later, an attack of malaria overcame him so badly he was sent to the hospital.

THE YEAR 1942 HAD SEEMED AN ETERNITY TO EUGENE SLEDGE.
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MOST OF HIS friends, including his best friend, Sid Phillips, had gone off to war. The nearest he had gotten to the action was Marion Military Institute, a junior college a few hundred miles north of Mobile. Beginning in September, Cadet Sledge had chosen chemistry as his major. Although he wore a uniform and observed the forms of military organization, his enthusiasm soured. He wanted to make his career in the Marine Corps. Further study, even though it included a class in military science, seemed pointless. He needed his parents' permission to enlist and he pursued it relentlessly. During the Thanksgiving break, he at last wrung a concession from them. Dr. and Mrs. Sledge agreed to sign the consent form if Eugene agreed to attend the USMC's new V-12 program. The V-12 program would give him a college education, which they wanted, and it put him on a path to becoming an officer. His father, a leading physician known across the South, secured his son a place in the program.

After he returned to Marion Military, Eugene Sledge volunteered for the Marine Corps' reserve on December 3, 1942. The enlistment contract to "serve in the Marine Corps in time of war" required him to "solemnly swear" to "bear true allegiance to the United States of America"; to "serve them honestly and faithfully against all enemies whomsoever"; and to "obey the orders of the President of the United States, and the orders of the officers appointed over me. . . ." Being a reader, Sledge read every word with growing delight. This was exactly what he wanted. He signed his full name, Eugene Bondurant Sledge, and received a promotion to private first class. A few weeks later, he underwent the standard physical examination. In all respects, the examiner found him normal: Private First Class Sledge had 20/20 vision, brown hair and brown eyes, stood a shade under five feet eight and weighed 132 pounds. Passing the physical did not bring change, however. His course work would continue until he entered the V-12 program in the summer.

TABINTA
DOCKED IN SAN FRANCISCO ON DECEMBER 6, 1942. ITS PASSENGERS disembarked the next day, December 7. Lieutenant Micheel had survived one year of war. The first thing to do was get paid. So he and the others visited the bursar of the Twelfth Naval District. Mike picked up $220, which included his $6 per day travel allowance. He and Ray and the others had a few days of fun in the city, though it was crowded. Mike preferred the quiet hotel bars and stayed away from the rowdy places. Reporting to the Alameda Air Station on the tenth, each pilot got in line to be processed. The first thing Mike received was his orders home on leave for thirty days. He told the navy where he'd spend it, at home, and the navy let him know what he could say and what he could not say while there.

As Mike made it down toward the end of the table, a man asked, "Where do you want to go next?"

"What's your options?"

"Well, you can go to the same squadron or you can go to another squadron; you can be a Landing Signal Officer; or you can do something else." Mike could feel the men behind him crowd him--everyone was anxious to get out of here and get home. He said, "I'll just go with the same group." His preference was duly recorded and he was informed his next assignment would be mailed to his home. As he was walking away, it irritated him that he had had no time to consider his options, much less learn anything about the other choices.

He took a train back to Davenport, Iowa, wearing his dress navy uniform. Along with the welcome from his parents and family and all the uncles and aunts came interviews with the local newspaper and an invitation to speak at the Rotary Club. It surprised and pleased him to find out he "was a big hero when I got home then because I'd been in the Battle of Midway." He accepted several invitations to speak at local clubs and answer questions about what was going on out there. His audiences would have soon understood that they were not going to get much about his role. Mike had a way of turning aside such topics. He told them the marines would win the battle for Guadalcanal if they got the support they needed. When asked if he had gotten a hit on a carrier, he'd say he didn't know, he never had turned around to look.

One afternoon he went to visit the parents of his friend John Lough. They lived across the river from his house. He had met them briefly when he and John had shared rides home during their flight training. It must have been very difficult for Mike to walk up the path to the front door, and even more difficult for John's parents to receive him. The Loughs had known of their son's disappearance for six months. They had received the telegram informing them that he went missing in action on June 4, 1942. The telegram said they would be informed as soon as more information became available.

Mike told them some of the things they needed to hear. During the launch on June 4 a malfunction in the plane ahead of John's had forced it to be struck, so by happenstance, John had flown in Mike's section that day.
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Three planes made up a section: Lieutenant ( Junion Grade) Norman West led the section. Mike flew the number-two wingman spot, and then John was the number three. They and their gunners had launched off the flight deck of USS
Enterprise
to stop a gigantic Japanese fleet from invading the island of Midway. Mike would have told them of the long flight out to maximum range, of a chance flash of white wake that had led them to the enemy. None of the enemy's carriers had been damaged when Scouting Six arrived overhead. Using his hands to illustrate how a Dauntless dove, he said, " The section leader went first, I went second; John came over here and went third." The last step Mike had made before pushing over had been to salute his friend John. " That was the last I ever saw of him."

Mike explained that the Zeros had not been a problem for him as they had for others. The big problem had been getting back to the ship. He had landed with enough gas "for one more trip around the carrier." A lot of the planes behind his had failed to return. His friend Bill Pitman had been back there and had had a large hole taken out of his wing by a Zero. "So they may have all gone down someplace. I don't really know." He assured them the navy had searched the ocean for days and days with their big PBY flying boats. And then the story came to an end. He had told them the truth. Never much of a talker anyway, Mike struggled to find the words. "John . . . had . . . the same training I had, had the same ability I did, and it just was bad luck." For their part, the Loughs refused to accept the loss. The navy had listed Ensign Lough as MIA, missing in action. They maintained their hope that their son had gone down "on one of those islands out there . . ." in the Pacific. John would make it back to them.

ONE LAST GREAT RAIN POURED DOWN UPON THEM, FLOODING THEIR BUNKERS. Water rose over their beds in their shacks, sweeping mud into their weapons and equipment. The #4 gun squad spent the morning of December 3 shoveling it all out. When the Eighth Marines arrived, though, they turned it over, grabbed their gear, and departed for Kukum. Hoping for an immediate departure, they waited a day before setting up their tents. Of course, such things rarely happened in the United States Marine Corps. For days on end, they loafed, read mail, and played cards. The news about the battle continued to reach them, and they could certainly hear the artillery and the airplanes, but they paid more attention to who had left and who was on deck to leave. Units from the Fifth Marines boarded ship and departed for Espiritu Santos and then on to Brisbane, Australia.

Deacon made sergeant and moved out of Sid's tent and in with other NCOs. Sid got put on another working party. On December 11, he and W.O. were out on a barge, unloading supplies to bring into shore, when an enemy air strike came in. The supply ship cast off the barge "and left them to their mercy." So he watched the air raid as a sitting duck in a channel of water so loaded with sunken ships it had become known as Iron Bottom Sound. After the all clear, they got a tow back to the dock and learned how funny the rest of the mortar platoon thought they were.

After two weeks, on December 17 they learned their departure was another nine days away, so they set up their tents. Two days later, the officers read off the embarkation orders. The assembled marines of the 2/1, like all the units of the 1st Marine Division, were told that no member of the First Marine Regiment, upon departure, "will have or keep in his possession any article of Army clothing or any item of Army equipment that has not been properly issued him by an authorized Marine Corps Quartermaster representative, or for which he does not hold a proper receipt of purchase."
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Read to the men at three separate assemblies, the order made clear that all of the M1 Garand rifles marines were carrying around were not getting on the ship with them.

Sid and his friends paid a visit to the division cemetery the next day. They walked back to Hell's Point, along the banks of the Tenaru River. According to their count, in five months they had endured 257 air raids, 163 shellings, and nine banzai attacks. They watched a movie that night and boarded ship the next day, December 21.
^q

DEPENDING UPON THE TYPE OF WORK DETAIL, THE WORKDAY BEGAN AT EITHER six a.m. or eight a.m. at the Davao Penal Colony. Lunch break lasted for two hours. The workday ended about five p.m. Shifty's first job had been moving rock for a railroad bed. He found it curious that the Japanese not only had so little in the way of machinery that they expected to handle this problem with teams of men, but also that they were so obviously unfamiliar with machinery. When the engine of the train broke down, the guards forced the men to move it back to the station. Pushing, pulling, heaving, Shifty thought this was a stupid waste of energy.

At least he received more fuel for the hard work than the handfuls of rice at Cabanatuan. Along with pieces of a varied selection of fruit, including exotic ones like jackfruit, the POWs also enjoyed a meat stew once or twice a week. Beyond the meals served in the mess hall, many men working in the fields supplemented their diet with whatever came to hand. The prisoners still ate a lot of rice, though. A few weeks after their arrival from Cabanatuan, another group arrived. These men, both American and Filipino, had been captured on Mindanao and surrounding islands. The new guys arrived in fine condition and it made Shofner's group feel like "scare-crows."
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As the weeks passed, though, some of the men--particularly the younger men--began to feel their strength return.

Work ceased on December 24, when the POWs received two days off. In the mess hall, a group of Americans and Filipinos provided some entertainment. The Filipinos gave all Americans a small casaba cake. The Japanese officers gave each POW a package of Southern Cross cigarettes. Not to be outdone, the U.S. officers--army, navy, and marine--pooled some of the money they had to give each man a Christmas present of one peso, enough money to buy tobacco through the black market.

During the party, Jack Hawkins told Mike Dobervich that he did not intend to spend another Christmas in prison. The subject had been discussed on and off since their first meeting with Austin Shofner in Cabanatuan, but when they told Shifty of their decision, they delivered it with a new seriousness. Escape meant survival. It meant freedom and the pride of being one's own man. After all they had been through, though, another reason was just as important. "Our mission," as Shifty stated it, "was to reach Allied territory and report the treatment of Japanese prisoners of war so that something could be done to save the lives of many American prisoners."