Read With the Old Breed Online
Authors: E.B. Sledge
Peleliu took its toll. As the executive officer and then commander of Company K, 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, I saw in the eyes of each survivor the price he paid for thirty days of unrelenting close combat on that hunk of blasted coral.
For those weary men returning to Pavuvu in November 1944, the war was far from over. Pavuvu was a better place the second time around than when we had left it. But it wasn't a rest haven. The survivors of Peleliu weren't allowed such a luxury. There was little time for licking wounds. We had to absorb a lot of new men as replacements for those lost on Peleliu and for the rotation home of the Guadalcanal veterans who by then had fought three campaigns.
Peleliu was something special for the Marines of K/⅗— for all of the 1st Marine Division. It has remained so down through the years. Yet Okinawa had its own character, more forbidding in many ways than its predecessor. There the 1st Marine Division fought a different war under a new set of rules where tactics and movement were used in a fashion previously unknown to the island-fighting Marines.
Okinawa is a large island, more than sixty miles long and from two to eighteen miles wide. It introduced the Marines to “land” warfare for the first time. Even in 1945 it had a city, towns and villages, several large airfields, an intricate road network, and a good-sized civilian population. Most important, the Japanese defended it with more than 100,000 of their best troops. Okinawa was Japanese territory. They knew it was our final stepping-stone to the home islands of Japan.
The Marines had learned a lot on the way to Okinawa. We had improved our force structure, tactics, and techniques for
combat along the way. The Japanese had learned, too. On Okinawa we faced a set of defenses and defensive tactics made sophisticated by the Japanese through application of lessons learned from all of their previous losses. They also fought with an intensity born of a certain knowledge that if they failed, nothing remained to prevent our direct assault into their homeland.
Irrespective of the new elements, the battle for Okinawa was fought and ultimately decided the way all battles have been fought and won or lost. The men on both sides, facing each other day after day across the sights of a rifle, determined the outcome. Pfc. Eugene B. Sledge was one of those men. In this book he gives us a unique experience of seeing and feeling war at its most important level, that of the enlisted fighting man. His words ring true, clean of analysis and reaction to past events. They simply reflect what happened to him and, therefore, to all of the Marines who fought there. I know, because I fought with them.
For the men of the “old breed” who struggled, bled, died, and eventually won on Peleliu and Okinawa, Sledgehammer is their most eloquent spokesman. I'm proud to have served with them—and with him.
Capt. Thomas J. Stanley
U.S. Marine Corps Reserve (Ret.)
Houston, Texas
Early next morning the
Sea Runner,
in convoy with other ships including those carrying the survivors of the 7th Marines, put out for Pavuvu. I was glad to be aboard ship again, even a troopship. I drank gallons of ice cold water from the electrically cooled “scuttlebutts.”
*
Most of my old friends in rifle companies had been wounded or killed. It was terribly depressing, and the full realization of our losses bore down heavily on me as we made inquiries. The survivors on board gave us all the details regarding our friends who hadn't made it through Peleliu. We thanked them and moved on. After a few of the visits and bad news about lost friends, I began to feel that I hadn't been just lucky but was a survivor of a major tragedy.
One day after noon chow a friend and I were sitting on our racks discussing things in general. The conversation drifted off, and we fell silent. Suddenly he looked at me with an intense, pained expression on his face and said, “Sledgehammer, why the hell did we have to take Peleliu?” I must have looked at him blankly, because he began to argue that our losses on Peleliu had been useless and hadn't helped the war effort at all, and that the island could have been bypassed. “Hell, the army landed troops on Morotai [Netherlands East Indies] with light opposition the same day we landed on Peleliu, and we caught hell, and the damn place still ain't secured. And while we were still on Peleliu, MacArthur hit
Leyte [in the Philippines, 20 October] and walked ashore standing up. I just don't see where we did any good,” he continued.
I replied gloomily, “I don't know.” He just stared at the bulkhead and sadly shook his head. He was the same friend who had been with me the time we saw the three terribly mutilated Marine dead. I could imagine what he was thinking.
Despite these momentary lapses, the veterans of Peleliu knew they had accomplished something special. That these Marines had been able to survive the intense physical exertion of weeks of combat on Peleliu in that incredibly muggy heat gave ample evidence of their physical toughness. That we had survived emotionally—at least for the moment—was, and is, ample evidence to me that our training and discipline were the best. They prepared us for the worst, which is what we experienced on Peleliu.
On 7 November 1944, (three days after my twenty-first birthday) the
Sea Runner
entered Macquitti Bay. After passing familiar islets, she dropped anchor off Pavuvu's steel pier. I was surprised at how good Pavuvu looked after the desolation of Peleliu.
We picked up our gear and debarked shortly. On the beach we walked over to one of several tables set up nearby. There I saw—of all things—an American Red Cross girl. She was serving grapefruit juice in small paper cups. Some of my buddies looked at the Red Cross woman sullenly, sat on their helmets, and waited for orders. But together with several other men, I went over to the table where the young lady handed me a cup of juice, smiled, and said she hoped I liked it. I looked at her with confusion as I took the cup and thanked her. My mind was so benumbed by the shock and violence of Peleliu that the presence of an American girl on Pavuvu seemed totally out of context. I was bewildered. “What the hell is she doing here?” I thought. “She's got no more business here than some damn politician.” As we filed past to board trucks, I resented her deeply.
Next to a table counting off the men to board the trucks stood a brand-spanking-new boot second lieutenant. He was
so obviously fresh from the States and officers’ candidate school that his khakis were new, and he wasn't even suntanned. As I moved slowly by the table he said, “OK, sonny, move out.” Since my enlistment in the Marine Corps, I had been called about everything imaginable—printable and unprintable. But fresh off of Peleliu I was unprepared for “sonny.” I turned to the officer and stared at him blankly. He returned my gaze and seemed to realize his mistake. He looked hurriedly away. My buddies’ eyes still carried that vacant, hollow look typical of men recently out of the shock of battle. Maybe that's what the young lieutenant saw in mine, and it made him uncomfortable.
The trucks sped past neat tent areas, much improved since we had last seen Pavuvu. We arrived at our familiar camp area to find numerous self-conscious replacements sitting and standing in and around the tents. We were the “old men” now. They appeared so relaxed and innocent of what lay ahead of us that I felt sorry for them. We took off our packs and settled into our tents. In the best way we could, we tried to unwind and relax.
Shortly after we arrived back at Pavuvu and on an occasion when all the replacements were out of the company area on work parties, 1st Sgt. David P. Bailey yelled “K Company, fall in.” As the survivors of Peleliu straggled out of their tents into the company street, I thought about how few remained out of the 235 men we started with.
Dressed in clean khakis and with his bald head shining, Bailey walked up to us and said, “At ease, men.” He was a real old-time salty Marine and a stern disciplinarian, but a mild-mannered man whom we highly respected. Bailey had something to say, and it wasn't merely a pep talk. Unfortunately, I don't remember his exact words, so I won't attempt to quote him, but he told us we should be proud. He said we had fought well in as tough a battle as the Marine Corps had ever been in, and we had upheld the honor of the Corps. He finished by saying, “You people have proved you are good Marines.” Then he dismissed us.
We returned silently and thoughtfully to our tents. I heard no cynical comments about Bailey's brief remarks. Words of
praise were rare from the heart of such a stern old salt who expected every man to do his best and tolerated nothing less. His straightforward, sincere praise and statement of respect and admiration for what our outfit had done made me feel like I had won a medal. His talk was not the loud harangue of a politician or the cliché-studded speech of some rear-echelon officer or journalist. It was a quiet statement of praise from one who had endured the trials of Peleliu with us. As far as being a competent judge of us, there was nobody better qualified than an old combat Marine and a senior NCO like Bailey, who had observed us and endured the fight himself. His words meant a lot to me, and they apparently did to my comrades, too.
One of our first activities after getting settled in our Pavuvu tents was to renew our old feud with the rats and land crabs. Our seabags, cots, and other gear had been stacked around the center tent pole while we were gone. The land crabs had moved in and made themselves at home. When several of my tent mates and I started unstacking the items around the tent pole, the crabs swarmed out. The men started yelling, cursing the crabs and smashing them with bayonets and entrenching tools. Some character sprayed cigarette lighter fluid on a crab as it ran into the company street and then threw a match at it. The flaming crab moved a couple of feet before being killed by the flames.
“Hey, you guys, did you see that? That crab looked just like a burning Jap tank.”
“Good oh,” yelled another man as Marines rushed around trying to find more cans of lighter fluid to spray on the hated land crabs. Men started taking orders for cans of lighter fluid and raced off to the 5th Marines PX tent to buy up all they could find. We killed over a hundred crabs from my tent alone.
One evening after chow as I sprawled on my cot wishing I were back home, I noticed one of Company K's two surviving officers carrying some books and papers down the company street in the twilight. He passed my tent and went to the fifty-five-gallon oil drum that served as a trash can. The lieutenant tossed some maps and papers into the can. He held up a thick
book and with obvious anger slammed it into the trash can. He then turned and walked slowly back up the street.
Curious, I went out to have a look. The maps were combat maps of Peleliu. I dropped them back into the trash (and have since regretted I didn't salvage them for future historical reference). Then I found the book. It was a large hardback volume of about a thousand pages, bound in dark blue, obviously not a GI field manual or book of regulations.
Always seeking good reading material, I looked at the spine of the book and read its title,
Men At War
by Ernest Hemingway. This is interesting history, I thought, and was puzzled as to why the lieutenant had thrown it so violently into the trash. I opened the cover. In the twilight I saw written in a bold strong hand,
A. A. Haldane.
A lump rose in my throat as I asked myself why I'd want to read about war when Peleliu had cost us our company commander and so many good friends. I, too, slammed the book down into the trash can in a gesture of grief and disgust over the waste of war I had already experienced firsthand.
After we had been back on Pavuvu about a week, I had one of the most heartwarming and rewarding experiences of my entire enlistment in the Marine Corps. It was after taps, all the flambeaus were out, and all of my tent mates were in their sacks with mosquito nets in place. We were all very tired, still trying to unwind from the tension and ordeal of Peleliu.
All was quiet except for someone who had begun snoring softly when one of the men, a Gloucester veteran who had been wounded on Peleliu, said in steady measured tones, “You know something, Sledgehammer?”
“What?” I answered.
“I kinda had my doubts about you,” he continued, “and how you'd act when we got into combat, and the stuff hit the fan. I mean, your ole man bein’ a doctor and you havin’ been to college and bein’ sort of a rich kid compared to some guys. But I kept my eye on you on Peleliu, and by God you did OK; you did OK.”
“Thanks, ole buddy,” I replied, nearly bursting with pride. Many men were decorated with medals they richly earned for their brave actions in combat, medals to wear on their blouses
for everyone to see. I was never awarded an individual decoration, but the simple, sincere personal remarks of approval by my veteran comrade that night after Peleliu were like a medal to me. I have carried them in my heart with great pride and satisfaction ever since.
As Christmas approached, rumor had it we were going to have a feast of real turkey. There were several days out of the year when the Marine Corps tried to give us good chow: 10 November (the Marine Corps’ birthday), Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's. The rest of the time in the Pacific war, chow was canned or dehydrated. Refrigeration facilities for large quantities of food were not available, at least not to a unit as mobile and as lacking in all luxuries as a combat division in the Fleet Marine Force. But the scuttlebutt was that there were frozen turkeys for us in the big refrigerators on Banika.
We had special Christmas Eve church services in the palm-thatched regimental chapel that had been constructed skillfully by Russell Island natives. That was followed by a special Christmas program at the regimental theater where we sat on coconut logs and sang carols. I enjoyed it a great deal but felt pretty homesick. Then we had our roast turkey, and it was excellent.
New Year's celebration was even more memorable for me. On New Year's Eve after chow, I heard some yelling and other commotion over at the battalion mess hall. The messmen had just about finished squaring away the galley for the night when a sentry shouted, “Corporal of the guard, fire at post number three!”