PART SEVEN
Collected From the Four
Corners of The County
Histories, Documents,
a Diary, Some Newspapers
This final part started out with one or two documents, then began to grow, taking on a life of its
own. It's kind of like an Appendix
because it explains or supplements things in other parts of the book. But I don't like the word Appendix, so it
became and remained Part Seven. We start
off with the story of some Marines in a heavy artillery battalion who used to
be forgotten.
A Battalion of Marines fought on Tulagi, Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan,
Eniwetoc, and Guam.
They rated five Battle Stars and two Unit Citations and yet they called
themselves "The Forgotten Battalion."
They claimed, with good cause, that nobody in the States ever heard of
them. I say, let's fix that here and
now. With the help of Sergeant Bill
Miller's article published in Leatherneck
(a magazine of the United States Marines) loaned to me by Stan
Holloway, here is a short essay to help
us remember The Forgotten Battalion.
THE FORGOTTEN BATTALION
The Forgotten Battalion's story began on January 1, 1941. An Artillery Placement Battalion was
organized on the West Coast early in 1941, then shipped out from the States in
July of 1942. The newly formed unit was
equipped with 75-mm pack Howitzers which they used on Tulagi, Guadalcanal,
and Tarawa. They
then became one of the first Marine units to be equipped with 155-mm Howitzers,
which they received just before they entered the Marianas
operation. They were again redesignated
as the 2nd 155-mm Howitzer Battalion, 5th Amphibious Corps on April 29, 1944. The Battalion continually diminished in
number of surviving original members while its ranks expanded in a progression
of names to identify it.
Among other
distinctions, in addition to decorations earned, they rightly claimed to have
fired the opening artillery round in the first U.S.
offensive of World War II. That round
was fired at a Japanese sniper position in the treetops of Gaomi. The day after that opening volley they fired
the first artillery preparation from Tulagi against Makambo. They had gone
ashore on Tulagi on Sunday morning, August
9, 1942 and set up to shell Makambo at a one thousand yard
range. They fired a ten-minute
preparation under section control. The
Marine infantry later found three Japanese and one dead pig in Makambo. After that small beginning the Artillery
Placement Battalion supported every Marine division that saw action in the
Pacific during World War II, as well as several Army units. They were the only artillery troops to fight
on both Saipan and Guam.
After
organizing defensive positions in which their 75s were set up to fire on the
Japanese fleet if it came in range, the battalion had ringside seats for all
the air and naval battles that took place over and between Tulagi and Guadalcanal. The action they witnessed reinforced their
respect for both Marine flyers and the U.S. Navy. The Battalion spent six harrowing months on
Tulagi and Guadalcanal, a tour few outfits could
match. They fired thirteen thousand one
hundred and forty-five rounds between December 22 and January 7, 1943, finally pulling out for R & R
on January 31. Nearly every man had
malaria, dengue fever, or dysentery, a situation calling for heavy
replacements.
Following intensive
training and troop buildup on New Zealand,
they left with the Marine 2nd Division, headed for Tarawa. They supported the 6th Marines in
a mop-up of the Tarawa atoll, which included a march of
twenty-two miles across a chain of islands and coral reefs. They moved their artillery with them and
finally set up positions on the furthest tip of the island group.
One of their number
won the Silver Star after acting as Scout Sergeant for a Naval gunfire shore
party. He waded four hundred yards to
shore carrying radio equipment and his own gear while men all around him were
throwing away their packs in the deep water and in the face of heavy fire. He set up the radio, laid wire to the front
line position, and prepared to deliver fire wherever it was requested.
The Forgotten Battalion had sweat
out twenty-eight months in the Pacific by October 1944. They saw a lot of salt water over the rails
of a lot of ships as well as seeing Tongatabu, the Fijis,
Tulagi, Guadalcanal, Espiritu Santo,
New Zealand, Efate,
Tarawa, the Hawaiian Islands, Eniwetok,
Saipan, and Guam.
During their extensive tour of the Pacific
Islands, they once went twenty-two
days without rations when supply ships were pulled out of the Solomons after
the Forgotten Battalion had gone ashore with only seventy-two hours
rations. Each gun section had to
organize its own mess, their diet consisting of wormy rice and taro roots. The first day their cooks removed the worms
before cooking the rice, but after that they cooked worms and all, and the men
ate the rice, worms and all, calling it meat and rice. The scant diet caused many to drop out from
exhaustion when they had to carry ammo up the steep Tulagi hills to their gun
positions. That experience certainly
gave support to the name they gave themselves.
They were even forgotten by their supply ships.
On a lighter note, one Captain
William G. "Wild Bill" Winters, who liked to
scout ahead of his outfit, came back from the front one day looking for a
jeep. He hitched a trailer to it and
drove up through the lines. He returned
with the trailer loaded with Japanese beer which he proceeded to distribute
among the men of his battery. Wild Bill also stopped an
adjacent outfit from firing indiscriminately at night by setting up four .50
caliber machine guns in a strategic spot and issuing an ultimatum stating his
men would return any fire coming in their direction. He also methodically destroyed each Japanese
gun in a battery that tried to destroy his position. He got each one by making precision adjustments,
a skill by which the Forgotten Battalion was well known.
Heavy artillery seldom moved so
fast and so far under such conditions as the 2nd met on Saipan
and Guam. They
did such a good job that no one man could be singled out for commendation. Each man carried in his record book a letter
of commendation by Brigadier General Pedro del Valle,
Commanding General of 3rd Corps Artillery on Guam,
plus a letter from his own CO.
The outfit was beat up but proud
when they disembarked from their ships in New
Zealand for R&R. They packed their gear on a little train to
take them to their rest camp. Captured
Japanese flags flew from the engine and from every car. The only thing missing was the sound of the
cheers the Forgotten Battalion rated from every man, woman, and child in America.
Andy Chesnut provided us with some brochures and a book
titled This is The American Legion…. I drew the following article from that
material.
THE AMERICAN LEGION
The American Legion, one of the nation's largest and most respected organizations of wartime
veterans, is made up of men and women who continue to serve America
by serving their communities. The preamble to the Constitution of The American
Legion clearly states its aim. It says
its members associate together to uphold and defend the Constitution of the
United States, to maintain law and order, to foster Americanism, to inculcate a
sense of individual obligation to community, state, and nation, to combat
autocracy, to make right the master of might, to promote peace and good will,
to safeguard and transmit justice, freedom, and democracy, to consecrate
comradeship, and to preserve the memories and incidents of the great wars.
The Legion found its roots in early
European history when both Greek and Roman veterans of war remained active in
civic affairs. In the 13th
century two powerful veteran organizations formed of returning Crusaders were
among those who pressed King John of England
to compose the Magna Carta, the first written by-laws of a free nation. In America
both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars birthed veteran groups and then in 1919
at the close of World War I the largest society of veterans ever formed in any
age in any country was established. That
society would become known as The American Legion.
Twenty officers of the American
Expeditionary Force, formed during World War I, met in February 1919 to
consider how to improve conditions among returning veterans who had survived
the trench warfare of the War to end all war.
Under Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.'s, enthusiastic
leadership, the idea of an association of American veterans of the Great War
met with approval of those gathered. The
new organization was to be based on three concepts: it would include all who
served in American uniforms overseas or at home; it would be a civilian
organization, devoid of rank; and it would operate in a democratic
fashion. After many meetings and lengthy
discussions wherein the Legion was built from the ground up, the United States
Congress passed an act incorporating the American Legion on September 16, 1919.
From its incorporation on, the
Legion focused on caring for disabled veterans and veteran's widows and
orphans, encouraging the government to provide hospitalization, rehabilitation,
and employment programs, as well as paying disability payments to those injured
in the war. Having seen so many
Americans unfit for service in World War I, the Legion also promoted physical
education and child welfare.
The stock market collapse in 1929
saw the Legion rally to prevent financial devastation among veterans and
non-veterans alike. While the Economic
Act of 1933 slashed more than four hundred million dollars worth of veterans'
benefits from the national budget, by 1943 that position was reversed. President Roosevelt announced an assurance to
the men and women in the Armed Forces that the American people would not let
them down when the war was over.
World War II saw the Legion
energetically maintain their programs, even though about one hundred and fifty
thousand Legionaries were back in uniform.
More than seventy percent of draft-board members were from the Legion,
four hundred thousand served as air-raid wardens, three hundred thousand as
volunteer policemen, and fifty thousand as volunteer firemen. Hundreds of Legionnaires served in the Civil
Air Patrol, and hundreds of posts recruited men and women for the Armed Forces.
The Legion was also instrumental in
one of the most important veteran programs ever conceived, the Serviceman's
Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly called the G.I. Bill of Rights. It was the Legion's greatest single legislative achievement and will
stand for all time as an example of Legion statesmanship. The G.I. Bill authorized the government to
pay for tuition, books, and fees for all eligible veterans seeking an
education. It also provided a
subsistence allowance for those veterans who returned to school or vocational
training. Under the G.I. Bill, seven
million eight hundred thousand veterans, nearly half of all who served,
received an education at colleges and universities, trade and tech
schools. Some increased their job skills
through on-the-job training, or combined classroom studies and on-farm
training. Because of its
lifetime-eligibility feature, the loan program in the G.I. Bill enabled
returning veterans to acquire homes as time went by.
As early as 1942 Congress amended
the Legion's charter, making World War II veterans eligible for membership
after honorable discharge or termination of hostilities. A new membership drive began after September 2, 1945. In 1946 membership doubled reaching an
all-time high of three million, three hundred thousand, five
hundred and fifty-six in more than fifteen thousand posts across the nation.
Their programs continue to reflect
the interests of American Legion veterans.
Over the past fifty to sixty years World War II veterans joined their
comrades from previous wars to help needy children, award scholarships to
deserving high school students, assist local charity campaigns, and provide
emergency aid to veterans. Legionnaires
also gave of their time, volunteering about two million hours each year helping
veterans who are patients in Veteran Administration (VA) medical facilities. The Legion also sponsors American Legion
Baseball, Boys and Girls State
and Nation, High School oratorical competitions, and Boy and Girl Scout
scholarships. Whitman County
residents who enjoy seeing flags fly on their streets
and in cemeteries on special holidays, can appreciate that since 1919 the Legion
has been our country's leader in the observance of patriotic holidays,
providing flags and assuring proper posting in public places. These are but a few of American Legion's
programs sponsored nationally.
The American Legion's motto is
"Still Serving America." That
is what Whitman County
men and women did in World War II, and what they still do six decades later.
The Aleutian Front likely has had the least written about it
of any of the campaigns of World War II.
It has been mentioned several times in the stories in this book but we
interviewed no one who was stationed there in a combat unit for the entire
duration. Those few who remember the war
at all don't recall hearing or reading much about what went on in Alaska and on
the Aleutian Islands. It seems the strongest contender in that
particular area of the war was the weather.
A copy of the Winter 2000 edition of National WW II Memorial, a newsletter of
the World War II Memorial Society, recently came into my hands. It contained an article about that campaign
which I have summarized here.
THE ALEUTIAN FRONT
Stretching more than twelve hundred
miles across the northern Pacific, from Alaska
to Siberia, the Aleutian archipelago seemed an unlikely
setting for conflict due to both its isolation and its terrible weather. It was a decision by Admiral Isoroku
Yamamoto, Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese combined fleet,
that brought war to that inhospitable island chain. Yamamoto's decision to attack the Aleutians
in June 1942 seems now to have been more of a diversionary tactic to draw the
American fleet out of Pearl Harbor, and away from
Midway, rather than to secure a staging area for a mainland assault on American
land. Whatever his intent, the diversion
failed. U.S. Navy intelligence had broken
the Japanese war codes and knew of the movement of their fleet. The attack at Midway became a disaster for
the Japanese Navy, and a turning point in the war.
At that point Yamamoto, in an
apparent effort to save face, ordered his northern fleet to continue its
operations in the Aleutians. His fleet had launched an air attack against Dutch
Harbor, Alaska on June 3, 1942, just before the Battle of Midway. They then turned their attention to Attu
and Kiska islands at the western end of the archipelago. Encountering no opposition, Japanese landing
forces controlled both islands by June 7.
Originally Yamamoto planned to occupy those tiny islands during the
short summer months only, but instead he decided to establish permanent
airfields and naval facilities to harass American forces building up in that
Theater of Operations.
Those Japanese installations were
militarily insignificant, but they stirred considerable concern on the American
home front, fanned by media speculation that an attack on the United
States from the north was likely. To allay those fears it was deemed necessary
to clear the enemy from the Aleutians. However, Major General Simon Bolivar Buckner,
Jr., Alaska Defense Commander, in defining Alaska's being hopelessly unready
for war, said, "We're not even the second team up here - we're a sandlot
club."
Not until the spring of 1943 was
the U.S. able
to collect needed forces and supplies to assault the islands Japan
had occupied. The 7th
Infantry Division from Fort Ord, California
was assigned to retake Attu Island,
the first objective. There were thought
to be only five hundred enemy troops on Attu, but it was
later learned three thousand were garrisoned there.
After several days of the
inevitable weather delays, the 7th landed unopposed on cold and
foggy Attu on May 11.
Enemy fire began to rain down from the island's jagged hills. After more than two weeks of hard fighting in
harsh weather, the battle ended when eight hundred Japanese troops launched a
last ditch charge against the American lines.
The battle began the night of May 29 and by morning the enemy had been
completely defeated and the U.S. Army had taken possession of Attu. The battle left only twenty-eight Japanese to
surrender, while the Americans lost five hundred dead and one thousand one
hundred wounded, plus the poor weather sidelined two thousand one hundred
American troops with non-combatant injuries sustained because they had come
unprepared for extended combat in extreme cold conditions.
Three months later the U.S. Army
committed troops to Kiska against approximately five thousand Japanese,
subjecting them to continual bombing raids and heavy naval bombardment. The enemy decided not to fight, but, aided by
an almost continuous fog, managed to evacuate their entire garrison in less
than a day on July 28, without the invading Americans being aware of that
move. When U.S.
forces landed on the island August 15 they assumed the Japanese had moved
inland. It was not until August 22 that
they realized the island was deserted.
Despite its limited impact on the
overall war, the Aleutian campaign furnished several important lessons in
amphibious and poor weather operations that proved valuable in later campaigns
in the European and Pacific Theaters, as well as providing combat experience to
unseasoned American troops. For the
American public the Aleutian victory secured the nation's northern flank and
eased fears the island would be a launching pad for an invasion against the
mainland.
Darwin Nealey loaned me Brian Garfield's book The Thousand-Mile War -World War II in Alaska and the Aleutians to educate
me on the only war front that included on-going combat on American
territory. The following poem, printed
in Garfield's book,
is included here
in memory of The Whitman County men who served on land and sea and in the air
in the Aleutian Theater of War.
ALEUTIAN SUMMER OF 1943
By Warrant Officer
Boswell Boomhower
A soldier stood at
the Pearly Gate
His face was wan and
old.
He gently asked the
man of fate
Admission
to the fold.
"What have you
done," St. Peter asked,
"To
gain admission here?"
"I've been in
the Aleutians
For nigh unto a
year."
Then the gates swung
open sharply
As St.
Peter tolled the bell.
"Come in,"
said he, "and take a harp.
You've had your share
of hell."
One of the biggest issues to be dealt with on the home front
during the war,
besides a pervasive fear of a massive invasion of our shores, was
rationing of certain items, not the least of concern being sugar, the first
commodity to be limited. While we were
compiling information for this book I found a booklet in my mailbox, a gift
from a secret prayer pal who obviously knew my interest in things of World War
II. Here's a recap of what was in that
booklet, following a brief AP wire story out of Washington, DC published
early in January 1942.
SUGAR RATIONING
Under the headline "U.S. WILL
LIMIT USE OF SUGAR Pound a Week for
Person Is Goal of Federal Rationing Program" the following article came
out of Washington on January 24, 1942:
"Government rationing of sugar, it was announced tonight, will
begin early next month with each person limited to about a pound a week. Announcing the program, Price Administrator
Leon Henderson said it was proposed, too, to recover excess stocks from persons
who have hoarded supplies. The
prospective allowance of one pound per person a week compares with average per
capita home consumption of about 1 1/2 pounds a week in 1941. Henderson
said there was an actual shortage of about one-third in the sugar supply, and
that this, rather than hoarding, necessitated this first foodstuff rationing of
this war. Rationing books have been
designed and printing of them will be started in a day or two, he said."
As an almost immediate follow-up,
the booklet titled "Victory Begins at Home! Recipes to Match Your Sugar Ration," and
dated May 1942, was prepared jointly by the Bureau of Home Economics, United
States Department of Agriculture, and the Consumer Division, Office of Price
Administration. The copy that came to me
had been originally postmarked "Portland Oreg. May 29 1942 3pm,"
clear evidence the material was considered worthy of being sent out in a timely
manner.
Inside the front cover the
following message set the tone for the information to follow: "Sugar rationing is here! For most of us it will mean little change in
eating habits. For others it will mean
cutting down on those sweets that food experts say aren't too good for us
anyway. It is going to mean more fruit
desserts. Use fresh fruits liberally in
place of desserts that call for sugar.
Dried fruits are rich in sugar and can be used to sweeten many cooked
foods. Baking and cooking of other
desserts can be done with less sugar.
The recipes in this bulletin will show you how. Many of these recipes call for no sugar at
all. Others call for only small
amounts. And for those who happen to
have sugar substitutes on hand, such as maple products, sorghum, or cane and
corn sirup (sic), this bulletin will tell how to use them in place of sugar, in
preparing the family's favorite desserts."
The text also contained a grim
warning, "The amount of sugar that will be available for home canning is
not yet certain.”
A couple of pages later some good
sugar-saving rules to follow at all times were listed:
© Serve
cooked fruits hot to enjoy their fullest flavor and sweetness.
© Save
sirup from canned fruit to sweeten other fruit, pudding sauces, or beverages.
© A
pinch of salt increases the sweetening power of sugar in cooked food.
© Be
sure all sugar is completely dissolved to get its full sweetness.
After fourteen pages of recipes
using little or no sugar, and lengthy instructions on how to substitute corn,
cane, or maple sirup, or sorghum sirup, or honey for sugar, the Consumer
Division, Office of Price Administration, Washington, D.C. invited the reader
to write for additional copies of that bulletin in a well-planned effort to
reach home-makers all over America with information to help win victory on the
home front by reducing sugar consumption.
Not only was sugar needed in the war
effort to add carbohydrates to rations and preserve rations prepared for
shipment to our troops overseas, but at that time sugar was largely an import
product that had to be shipped to the United
States, and all merchant ships were needed
for the war effort. Sugar was indeed a
big issue and concern, one that prompted the United States Department of
Agriculture to embark on a public educational program that was very effective
and productive.
Not only was there a Forgotten Battalion, there was an
entire "Forgotten War" during World War II. While seeking material from which we could
write a brief summary about what has been termed "The Forgotten War,"
Gil Low, a
regular at the Pullman Senior Center, asked me
if I would like to borrow a book titled The
World At Arms, a Reader's Digest History of World War II. In all of the book's four hundred and eighty
pages, only seventeen pages were devoted to "The Forgotten War," a
telling detail. But those seventeen
pages were enough to give us the following essay. Bob Clegg read it for me and made some
adjustments, for which I thank him.
THE FORGOTTEN WAR
In the jungles, mountains, and
plains of China,
India, and Burma,
American troops waged a tough and lonely war, a war of numbers finally won by
time.
British troops had been in no shape
to hit back in 1942 when the Japanese mounted an attack down Burma's
Arakan coast, rimming the Bay of Bengal. However, the 14th Indian Division
of the 1st Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers set out from India moving
southward through malarial swamps and leech-infested creeks, their goal being
the Japanese Akyab Island airfields from which the invading Japanese could bomb
Calcutta and Chittagong. Torrential
rains impeded their progress somewhat, but the cleverly planned defense mounted
by the Japanese stopped the 14th in its tracks. Eight months after starting out on their
southward campaign the 14th Division was back where it started, a
failure that forced a change in leadership.
The British reorganized and
retrained their Indian Army and by the fall of 1943 work had begun on four new
all-weather roads in northern India, one of them designed to run from Ledo over
the Hump through Burma to the Chinese frontier.
The Japanese, facing stiff opposition in the Pacific, halted their invasion
on the borders of India,
convinced their position there was secure for the
time. That decision gave the Allies
opportunity to mount an offensive against an entrenched, non-moving
target.
Brigadier Orde Wingate, leader of Britain's
77th Indian Infantry Brigade created early in 1943, believed a small
force of fast-moving guerrillas could seriously hamper Japanese operations in Burma
by operating behind enemy lines with supplies dropped from the air. His three thousand men were called Chindits,
taken from the Burmese word meaning mythical lion. Their task was to attack Japanese outposts,
cut railway lines, and blow up bridges.
Their attack took the enemy by surprise, but the Japanese mounted a
counterattack that left the Chindit trying to get back to India,
weak from hunger, exhaustion, and disease.
Wingate did get back to India
on April 29, 1943 with two
thousand one hundred and eighty-two of his original three thousand men, but
only six hundred of those returning were fit to fight again. Although they had gained little in material
terms, they had begun to disprove the myth of Japan's
invincibility in Burma.
To the north, the Japanese had
virtually eaten up China,
but they could not digest it. By
mid-1942 most of the area they occupied was run by compliant local
landlords. Even so, six hundred and
twenty thousand Japanese troops were on duty in China. America
sought to keep those troops engaged by the Chinese Army to prevent their
invading India
or joining the battle in the Pacific.
The U.S.
supplied Nationalist Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek with money, arms, equipment,
and military advice, the latter of which came initially from Major General
Joseph W. "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell.
Stilwell was appointed in January 1942 to head a military mission as
Chiang's Chief of Staff, however there was a definite
conflict of interest between Stilwell and Chiang.
The Japanese had driven Chiang deep
into west China,
where he established headquarters in Chungking. The Chinese armies were disorganized, badly
trained, and ill equipped. The Japanese
had taken China's
arsenals and industrial centers and had cut the Burma Road
link to India,
causing China's
overland supply route to disappear. Work
on a new road had begun at Ledo in Assam, India near the 28th parallel
in December 1942, a road which was to wind east into Burma, then angle off to
the southeast through Myitkyina (pronounced Mitch-in-awe) and Bhano to meet the
Burma Road just south of the China-Burma border a bit north of the 24th
parallel.
The U.S. Tenth Air Force quickly
established a base at Chabua, in Assam,
India. One of the most spectacular airlifts of the
war began, that of flying materials over the flank of
the Himalayas, or "the Hump." It was not an easy flight since some of the
mountains ranged twenty thousand feet high and Japanese fighter planes
patrolled the area from northern Burma. Yet, air supply to China
increased from three thousand seven hundred tons in 1942 to nearly thirty five
thousand tons in October 1944 alone.
While that was substantial, still it was insufficient to maintain China's
army, let alone its population. Those
supplies did enable the Flying Tigers' successors, Channault's U.S.- China Air Task Force and the U.S. Fourteenth Air Force,
to extend their operations over Chinese air space, somewhat loosening Japan's
hold on China.
Chinese military tactics were of
the stand and defend variety, rendering them incapable of reconquering their
homeland. They critically needed
training, which was a significant part of what the U.S.
brought to that Theater of the Operations.
Chiang's greatest handicap was his obsession with defeating his own
Communist countrymen, the Reds. He saw
them as a threat greater than Japan. Mao Tse-tung and his followers did little to
allay those fears.
Bombs fell on Tokyo
in April 1942 when Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle attacked that city with
planes operating from the American carrier Hornet. Soon after the bombing attack on Tokyo,
the Japanese suspended all-out offensive operations in China
and withdrew some men to reinforce their troops in the Pacific theater. But, over half-million Japanese troops were
still in China
in 1945.
The Japanese thought Doolittle's
bombers might have come from the other side of the Hump, where the Flying
Tigers were based. The Flying Tigers
were a group of about ninety American pilots, men released or retired from the
US Army, Navy, and Marines before World War II, who fought as mercenaries for China. Their leader was Colonel Claire Lee Chennault
who drilled his men endlessly and devised brilliant tactics enabling their
Curtiss P-40 fighters to destroy nearly three hundred Japanese aircraft in just
six months when they became part of the U.S.- China
Air Task Force.
The Allies' second thrust into the
Arakan region of Burma
coincided with a fierce Japanese offensive, ending with the Japanese being
out-fought and out-thought, and their myth of invincibility irrevocably
destroyed. Three highly individual
Allied forces then focused on northern Burma,
and fought to take Myitkyina, a town that was the key Japanese stronghold and
air base over the Hump in northern Burma. The three were Stilwell's Chinese troops,
Wingate's Chindets, and Merrill's
Marauders. All three had been tested
almost to destruction. They knew that
Myitkyina had to be taken because it lay in the middle of the route planned for
the Ledo Road, an
absolutely vital supply link that had to be built and maintained for any hope
of victory in the India-China-Burma Theater of Operations.
"Vinegar Joe" Stilwell
saw the advance on Myitkyina as a headache, but he was committed to pushing
through the road which could carry supplies from India
to the Chinese army in western China. In late February 1943 his sparsely manned
road-building crew got stuck on the India Burma border. The Japanese began an attack northward toward
the head of the road, being stopped only about fifty miles south of the road's
starting point by Stilwell's Chinese 38th Division. A stalemate ensued until October when new
engineers pushed the road along behind the probing 38th Division
which was proceeding down the Refugee Trail.
When the Japanese counter-attacked, Stilwell showed up in person driving
the Chinese troops into aggressive action.
As soon as he left, however, the stalemate set in once again.
Stilwell returned in February 1944
with a new card to play: an American independent infantry unit soon to be known
as Merrill's Marauders after their leader, Brigadier General Frank D.
Merrill. Hardened Pacific war veterans,
only three thousand strong, they started a series of actions in March thrusting
flanking attacks deep behind enemy lines while the Chinese battled down the Hukawng
Valley pushing back the
Japanese. Stilwell and Merrill then
headed for Myitkyina with about seven thousand men, part Marauders and part
Chinese, arriving at that stronghold on May
17, 1944. They were not to
rid the area completely of Japanese control until early August.
Meanwhile, Orde Wingate's Chindit
expedition into Burma
had gotten him promoted to Major General.
He and his six brigades, twenty three thousand men, were briefed to
support Stilwell's drive. Wingate was
supported by a "private air force" consisting of the USAAF Number One
Air Commando: twenty-five transport planes; twelve medium bombers; thirty
fighter-bombers; one
hundred light planes; and two hundred twenty-five gliders. His orders were to draw off enemy forces,
prevent reinforcements reaching them, and create havoc behind enemy lines. In the ensuing on-going battle Wingate was
killed when his B-25 bomber crashed. His
Chindits came under Stilwell's command.
Stilwell proved to be a harsh taskmaster, rejecting all requests that
the men be relieved. When the second and
final Chindit operation was over, the force had lost five thousand killed,
wounded or missing.
Stilwell was equally ruthless with
the American guerrillas, Merrill's Marauders.
By the time Myitkyina airfield had been taken, they were exhausted and
sick, Merrill himself having suffered a heart attack. They were down to less than fifteen hundred
of their original three thousand men. Unknown to the Allies, the Japanese had
maintained supply lines to Myitkyina and also had strengthened their garrison
to thirty-five hundred men. Coming
against that fresh force, the Marauders suddenly collapsed,
some actually falling asleep while firing their weapons.
The original Marauders were
reinforced by three Battalions of replacements who arrived shortly after those
battle-weary men had fought their way to Myitkyina. The Allies gradually cut off the Japanese
supply lines. The town of Myitkyina
finally fell on August 3, 1943. The cost had been high on both sides. The Allies lost one thousand forty-four
killed and four thousand one hundred forty wounded. Nine hundred and eighty Americans were
evacuated sick, including five hundred and seventy Marauders. Ledo Road
builders and Hump supply planes moved in immediately to solidify the supply
lines between India
and China.
In spite of the effort expended to
take Myitkyina and build the Ledo Road,
China was
almost lost to a huge Japanese offensive employing one hundred and fifty
thousand men in mid-April 1944. By
mid-June a three hundred thousand strong Chinese army was reduced to a fleeting
remnant and the Japanese held the Chinese railway system from Peking
to Hankow. While the Chinese fought
fiercely in spots, the Japanese continued to moved
south putting Chiang Kai-shek's capital in Chungking at
risk.
Had that city fallen, China
would have been out of the war and hundreds of thousands of Japanese soldiers
would have been free to fight in Burma
or the Pacific. Fortunately for the
Allies, Japanese momentum slowed, although a column of troops did push north on
the railway from Indochina to link with forces at Lungchow in December, giving
control of the railway from Peking into Indochina briefly to the Japanese. The Japanese found themselves spread thin,
short of supplies, and facing an increasingly more resolute Chinese army. While the Chinese were not well trained, they
did have numbers and were still in the war, although the Japanese persisted in
holding China's
railways and airfields.
Chiang Kai-shek finally had to
agree to what Stilwell had been telling him for years. He had said to stop relying on the United
States of America Air Force (USAAF) and to rebuild his own army.
Japan
mounted three more campaigns into southern China,
finally meeting their first serious defeat in China
in March 1945. American successes in the
Pacific and a belated declaration of war against Japan
by the Soviet Union caused Japan
to evacuate from south China
on May 9, 1945 virtually
putting to an end the China-India-Burma Theater of War. The tenacity of the American jungle fighters,
the numbers of Chinese, and enough time had decided the China-India-Burma War,
the Forgotten War, in favor of the Allies.
America's
Chaplains spent uncountable hours counseling and guiding servicemen and women
and encouraging them to persevere and endure the difficulties inherent in going
to war. We included the following story,
taken from The Chaplain's Prayer Manual, in honor of all the Chaplains who
served the people of Whitman County in World
War II.
FOUR CHAPLAINS
Most of the nine hundred troops
aboard the Dorchester
slept as she plowed through icy waters off Greenland
early in the morning, February 3, 1943
when suddenly a German torpedo smashed into her flank. Coming out of their bunks, the troops pounded
up the ladders and milled in confusion on deck.
The coolest men on board were four Army Chaplains: Clark Poling,
Alexander Goode, John Washington, and George Fox. They calmly led the men to boxes of life
jackets, passing them out with boat-drill precision. When the boxes were empty, the four chaplains
slipped off their own precious life preservers, put them on four young GIs, and
told them to jump.
The Dorchester went down in just twenty-five minutes. Some six hundred men were lost, but the
chaplains helped save over two hundred lives.
The last anyone saw of them they were standing on the slanting deck
their arms linked in prayer to the one God they all served.
First Lieutenant Clark Poling
(Reformed Church of America) was the youngest of the four, and a seventh
generation minister of the Gospel. Just
before he sailed on the Dorchester
he told his father, "I don't want you to pray for my safe return…. Many will not return and to ask God for
special favors wouldn't be fair. Just
pray I shall do my duty… never be a coward… have
strength and courage and understanding of men... that I shall be patient… and
be adequate."
Alexander Goode (Jewish) had been
too young for World War I. He became a
Rabbi, married, and had four children.
Even with a synagogue, he felt he needed to know better how to heal
men's souls and bodies. He earned a
medical degree at Johns Hopkins
University to that end. His wife got a telegram from him just weeks
before the Dorchester
went down. "Having a wonderful
experience," it read. She knew he
had found companionship with the men aboard ship.
John P. Washington (Catholic) had
not lived an easy life, being the child of poor immigrant folks. But he loved music, loved to fight, and loved
to laugh, all of which he did even after his ordination as a priest. The story has it that when the Dorchester went down he was
still laughing, singing, and praying to comfort those who could not reach a
lifeboat.
And then there was the oldest of
the four, George Fox (Methodist.) In 1917 he had lied about his age to enlist
in the Marines as a medical corps assistant in World War I. He rescued a wounded soldier from a
battlefield filled with poison gas, even though he had no mask himself. He later studied for the ministry and when
World War II came he told his wife, "I've got to go. I know from experience what our boys are
about to face. They need me."
Those four men met on the Dorchester's sinking deck in a rendezvous with
death. But it was also a meeting with
God. They had been called from their
churches, parish, and synagogue and brought together on that icy February
morning to bring comfort to those they could reach.
In Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania there stands a Chapel whose
Sunday services are open to people of all races and religious faiths. The building also stands as a memorial to the
Four Chaplains. Chiseled in the Chapels
stone is this dedication:
Chapel of Four
Chaplains
An Interfaith
Shrine
Here is Sanctuary for Brotherhood
Let it never be
violated
Rifle Company E, Second Battalion, 161st Regiment
was a Washington State National Guard unit formed in September, 1940 in Pullman . The men were from Washington, Oregon, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, many of
them Whitman County
residents. Carlyle E. Ragsdale, a
member of Company E and a native of Colfax, wrote and produced a video of still
shots with sound and narration that he called The Little Picture, likely in contrast to an official Army
production titled The Big Picture.
Lester Bishop, also a member of Company E, kindly loaned me The
Little Picture and the following summary is composed from several viewings of
it. Written words cannot fully express
what the sounds, sights, and narration presented, but we offer these words as a
tribute to Carlyle Ragsdale, now deceased, who spent twenty-three years putting
his video together and to the Whitman County men who
gathered in September 1940
for one year of peace-time service. Ultimately Company E was assigned to the 25th
U.S. Infantry Division, not to be returned to State control until after the end
of World War II, five full years later.
COMPANY E
In July of 1940 President Roosevelt
was given power to call National Guard units to duty in the Western
Hemisphere. Washington
State National Guard was not a new entity.
It dated back to 1855 when Washington
was a Territory and a militia was formed to protect newly arriving settlers.
The modern day Rifle Company was started by some returning WW I veterans in the
early 1920s. It was then called C
Company, likely becoming E Company in the early 1930s. In September 1940 the newest version of the
militia, Company E of the 161st Regiment, came into existence.
In late September of 1940 twelve
thousand men descended upon Camp Murray,
built next to Fort Lewis
near Tacoma, Washington. They were issued World War I field uniforms,
complete with flat brimmed campaign hats, World War I helmets, bootees, wrap
leggings and riding pants, plus a fatigue uniform of blue cotton. That same uniform later was used for prison
uniforms, including P.O.W.s. At Camp
Murray they started what was to be
one year of active Federal duty, their total enlistment in the National Guard
being three years.
The biggest enemy they faced was a
combination of climate and weather.
Referred to as the wettest camp in the United
States, Camp
Murray attracted rain that soaked
the camp, winds that whipped their tents, and fog that settled in nightly,
seeping through everything it touched.
And it was cold.
Extreme cold weather brought about
the use of the Sibley Stove, a relic of the Civil War. The Sibley was a metal fixture with no
bottom. There was a six inch dirt-filled
frame inside it on which soggy cord wood was coaxed into burning. The men had to remain alert for tent fires at
all times, keeping two water buckets next to the stove in case sparks ignited
their tent. They had to get the stove
red hot in order to heat a tent, and then often the flooring caught fire and
the stove would collapse and the tent again would go up in flames.
The men lived in those flammable
tents, which were only improved as piles of lumber were freighted into Camp
Murray and they could build the
tent walls up with wood. Finally in April of 1941 they
moved five miles through mud to new barracks.
When those new buildings were painted, no one bothered to mask the
windows, so the men of Company E were assigned hours upon hours of paint
scraping duty.
In spite of flu epidemics through
the winter of 1941, from which there was no respite except rest in one of those
flammable tents, the men engaged in a rigorous training program which included
a ten mile full-pack march each Monday morning and a Review each Wednesday. By May 25, the 161st was ready to
try out their infantry skills. They were
loaded onto twenty-six rail cars and sent to Hunter Liggett, California
for maneuvers. There they had no rain
but camped among tarantulas and scorpions.
The maneuvers were over the end of June, coinciding with pay day, which
meant thirty dollars for each man in Company E.
That was nine dollars more than they received the first three months of
their enlistment.
That same month Congress passed an
amendment to their authorization to call up the Guard. They wanted all National Guard members to
remain for one more year from that date, extending the Federal enlistment duty
of Company E another six months.
After the Battle of California, as
their maneuvers were called, they had a furlough, then
engaged in the Battle of Washington in August of 1941. The idea was an invading fleet had landed and
the 161st was charged with defending the coast. That training accomplished, they returned to Camp
Murray and in November joined other
trained infantrymen of the 41st Division on a
eighty thousand-man truck ride to Seattle
for a massive parade. The line of trucks
was so long that the first ones reached the parade site while the last men were
still in Tacoma.
Later in November, the 161st
Regiment was cut out of the 41st to be sent to the Philippines
as replacements for American troops stationed there who were ready to rotate
home. On Saturday, December 6, 1941 the three thousand
men of the 161st were again on board a train, headed for San
Francisco. The
next day, as they rolled through Dunsmuir, they heard a news bulletin over the
radio about a "date which will live in infamy." Suddenly their plans changed radically. On December 14 they loaded onto the Lurline
and two days later set sail from San Francisco
toward Hawaii, knowing nine
long-range Japanese submarines were positioned off the west coast lying in wait
to attack American ships. By zig-zagging
their course, they safely completed a five day voyage to Hawaii. The 161st Regiment thus became the first
military unit to arrive at an overseas destination in World War II.
Over the next year the Washington
National Guard men of Company E moved around on Oahu
several times, mostly performing guard duty in the city of Honolulu
and at transmitter sites, docks, fuel storage tanks, wherever they were
needed. In October of 1942 the 161st
Regiment was released from guard duty, but assigned to the 25th
Infantry, a regular Army unit under the command of General J. Lawton Collins,
who was Army Chief of Staff in the 1950s.
They moved to the Kailua Race Track and started training, which appeared
useless to the men of Company E because they expected to be home by
Christmas. Then General Collins called
them to the race track grandstand and announced, "We shall seek and
destroy the enemy."
On December 6, 1942, the 2nd Battalion of the 161st
boarded the Republic, the rest of the
Regiment shipping on other vessels. The
Army rarely put a whole Regiment on the same ship, so that in case of a sinking
there would be a skeleton unit to start over.
They set sail, headed for the Solomon
Islands, target: Guadalcanal. They were told they were to land and unload
supplies in the daylight hours because the Japanese mounted night raids. The Marines had captured the Japanese air
field on Guadalcanal, renaming it Henderson Field. Due to land, sea, and air attacks they had
been barely able to hang on. On the
other hand, the Japanese were too weak to fight an offensive attack, so a
stalemate formed. The 25th Infantry
Division, of which Company E was now an active part, was thrown into the fray
to shift the balance of power.
The final offensive to end the
fight for Guadalcanal began on January 10, 1943.
E Company took up positions near Hill 52. They advanced quickly against light
opposition until they reached Hill 95.
At that point the 2nd Battalion, including E Company, were pulled back into the perimeter to guard against a
seeming threat of renewed Japanese effort to land more troops and try again to
retake Henderson Air Field. Actually the
Japanese were engaged in what turned out to be a successful effort to rescue
their remaining troops left on the Canal.
They were able to rescue about eleven thousand men.
After about five days in that
position, the 2nd Battalion was returned to the hills to act as
security for the left flank of the Regiment as it moved along the north shore
of the island. This put Company E and
some other elements of the 2nd Battalion way up in the hills, hills
which were very similar to the Snake River breaks. They trudged along up in those hills for
several days with inadequate food and no knowledge of where they were going or
what they were doing. Somebody in the
group had a radio and so they eventually knew when they were to go down to the
ocean.
The area into which they were
directed was the area used by the Japanese as a staging area to bring troops to
the island and also to take them off the island. The Navy was aware of that concentration of
Japanese troops and had repeatedly shelled the area. The result was hundreds of dead Japanese in
an advanced state of decay. While camped
there the Americans had to constantly shoo flies off their food, and, when they
didn't succeed, they could easily get a fly in their mouth. Knowing the point of origin of those flys
caused many to upchuck their meal of canned salmon
served by the field kitchen. They spent
the next couple of days burying bodies.
They were then moved by water to an
area about fifteen miles east of Henderson Field, known as Koli Point which is
located between the Nalimbu River
on the west and the Metapona River
on the east. They sent two patrols up
the Nalimbu River,
but the patrols never saw any Japanese stragglers. However, the last Japanese soldier in the
area gave himself up sometime in 1947
By February 9, 1943 the island was secured by the U.S.
and all Japanese resistance on the island ceased. But, there were more American men sick than
well on Guadalcanal and they had encountered stronger
enemy resistance than expected. In
addition, their rifles were rusting, their clothes were in tatters, their shoes
were rotted and falling off their feet, they had little food or water, and
malaria ran rampant. However, Henderson
Field, built by the Japanese, was now secure in American hands.
By April they had unloaded a convoy
that arrived with supplies, but the effort of that work, the heat, malaria,
dysentery, mosquitoes, and jungle life, plus constant surveillance for snipers
and stragglers had taken its toll. In
May a typhoon hit, driving them out of their tents and seriously disrupting
their camp. But what they did on that
island went down in history as a resounding defense against the last Japanese
attempt to win the war in the air. In
their first major defeat the Japanese saw seventy-seven of their planes go down
in one battle, as opposed to the U.S.
losing only six. The Japanese had made
many tactical errors mostly due to their holding on to misconceptions about the
Americans ability to tenaciously turn defensive duty into an active
offense. The tide of the war in the
Pacific had turned.
July 20, 1943 found Company E leaving Guadalcanal
for New Georgia, the whole 25th Infantry being far below combat
strength. However, orders had been
issued to put them back in battle in the massive attack planned to take Munda
Air Field. Conditions were
difficult. The only bright spot in the
lives of those men was mail call, and even that was dimmed by a startling
frequency of "Dear John" letters.
Bairoka, at the end of a river of
mud weaving through sucking swamps, was their next target. Again, keeping supplies delivered as they
moved along was an on-going problem.
Attempts to air drop food and ammo were aborted when those supplies
landed in tree tops that were inaccessible to the men who were sliding one step
forward, two back through the jungle muck.
But take New Georgia they did, at a great price in terms of lives.
General Collins, who had been
transferred to the European war, was asked when he had been there for some time
to define the difference between the Pacific and European Theaters of
Operations. He said they were bombed
much more often in the Pacific, but the Japanese were lousy bombers, unlike the
precision airmen of Germany. When the Japanese aimed at an airfield, they
often would miss and hit camps. The
physical war was much worse in the Pacific, according to Collins, especially
worse on the private soldier who had to deal with mud and jungle terrain daily. The Pacific combat zone was not civilized in
the sense of there being towns, villages, or even communities where the men
might find some respite from jungle life, such as the European troops found as
they moved toward Berlin. His final comment was the Japanese were not
skillful fighters, but they did not know when to quit, and so had to be
methodically found and executed, often one at a time. There were no mass surrenders, no prisoners
to take.
Company E went back to Guadalcanal
after a year on New Georgia, then in November, 1943 shipped out to New
Zealand for well earned R & R. When they arrived they found a place of rest
in two-man wooden shacks built for them and discovered they could order beer
from a town a few miles away. One of the
voices on the video told of the "heart-felt, warm reception, great kindness,
and hospitality" they received from the New Zealanders, people who to this
day show appreciation to "Yanks" for what the men of the 25th
Division did for them during the war.
Again hearing the call to battle,
the 161st sailed in February 1944 finally docking on New
Caledonia, then moving seventy miles inland to their
camp which was characterized by rain and mosquitoes. At that point, February 24, the 161st
Regiment, having received replacements in New
Zealand, was rebuilt up to one hundred and
fifty men, only fifty of those remaining having been among those who had sailed
on the Lurline in December 1941. Only
nine of the original Company E were still among its
ranks. The rest had rotated home or lay
buried on an island in the Pacific. The
rotation system sent one-half of one percent of the Division combat strength
home each month. The names of eligible
men were put in a drawing. The fortunate
ones whose names were drawn could turn their faces homeward, otherwise the only
opportunity to go home alive lay in serious illness or being critically
wounded.
New Caledonia
was known as a fine training ground where new replacements could "play war
in the weeds." The men there were
called to Parade on Sundays, drills that required them to march two miles to
and from the reviewing stands.
Around Christmas of 1944, the 25th
was again on the march heading for Luzon in great
strength, landing along with one hundred and fifty thousand American
troops. The 25th Division was
assigned to defend the left flank of the invasion against entrenched Japanese
who had set up a tank and artillery defense which they intended to man to the
death. The 25th succeeded in
taking out the tanks, one by one, then proceeded to San Manuel where they
struck a counter-blow leaving seven hundred eighty-nine enemy dead and
forty-nine enemy tanks destroyed.
Company E of the 161st Infantry Regiment, 25th Division was
under constant assault for three days at San Manuel, suffering thirty-four
casualties in one day, fifty-nine in that three-day battle. All their platoons were led by sergeants, yet
they went on under Banzai attacks from both tanks and infantry, engaging in
hand to hand combat. By January 28, 1945, they had taken down
eleven more tanks and the Japanese had sustained one of the heaviest blows of
the war.
The Luzon Japanese force was
smashed, a feat that caused General Douglas MacArthur to appear and offer his
personal congratulations to the men of Whitman
County and the rest of Company E,
25th Infantry. Company E was
also awarded a Presidential Unit Citation, it being the smallest sized unit to
be so honored in the Pacific Theater.
The Citation closed as follows: "The courageous stand of E Company
met and turned back the first Japanese tank counterattack in the Luzon Campaign. The valor and skill of E Company, 161st Infantry Regiment, and it attachments,
and the superb courage displayed by each man, reflect the highest tradition of
the armed forces of the United States."
The next target was Balete
Pass that took another three months
of daily, hourly fighting against an enemy hidden in impregnable caves along
cliffs that stood between the Americans and triumph. The Japanese had again pronounced
"victory or death, deserters will be decapitated." There were fourteen miles of rivers and hills
over which American troops had to move in a chase that seemed likely to end on
a litter or in a grave. And indeed there
were eight hundred and five casualties recorded on that assault. A diary from that time noted "You can't
stay awake when you must. Can't sleep when you should. Don't want to make new friends. Start down the trail. Will this be the day you get it? Is this the last thought I'll have?"
After Company E spent seven hours
securing a small plot of hilltop land called Norton's Knob on March 18, they
continued on through Balete Pass
on the final seven miles to Santa Fe. On May 13 the Pass was officially pronounced
free of enemy troops and open. The cost
was ten thousand Japanese and American lives.
The 25th Division had sustained more deaths than any other
United States Division on Luzon, some of those dead
being Whitman County
men.
At the end of June, the 25th
Division was relieved from active duty to train for the invasion of the
mainland of Japan,
scheduled for November 1945. The 25th
was to land at Miyezaki and Oyodo. They
knew resistance would be high and there would be no negotiated peace. The operation would call for one last battle
on the beaches. They would face
artillery fire which would destroy them on the water, five thousand aircraft,
and ground forces that would include women and children in an inevitable
suicidal attack. The Japanese had
prepared their people to believe their military training would go up well against
the numbers of Americans attacking, and they were willing to put their flesh
against invading steel to defend the Empire.
One United
States bomber, the Enola Gay, set aside both
the tactics of the 25th Infantry and the suicidal resolve of the
Japanese. A bombing run that released
one bomb at 9:15 am prevented the 25th
from landing. The co-Pilot on the Enola
Gay wrote a short entry in his diary that day: "My God."
President Truman said, "The
world will note… the atomic bomb was used to shorten the agony of war… (we) will continue to destroy Japan's
power to make war." And then there
was peace.
Instead of invading Japan,
the 25th moved in as an occupation force. The people hid from them for a time until
they realized the Americans were not there to harm them, and they had money to
spend.
Voices on the video discussed what
might have happened had the landing taken place. "We would have been murdered," said
General Mullins, Division Commander.
There were eight hundred yards of machine guns and other artillery
pieces, hundreds and hundreds of them, set in the hills facing the beach the 25th
would have come ashore upon. There were
nine Divisions of Japanese troops concentrated along that vulnerable part of Japan's
shores fortified in caves overlooking the landing site. And there were airplanes by the hundreds held
in reserve to attack the incoming forces.
Mullins said, "It would have been one of the bloodiest battles of
World War II."
On November 1, 1945 the 161st Regiment, including
Company E, was deactivated, its colors retired and sent home. There were two men left from the original
Company E still on active duty. They
went home to Whitman County.
The following document is the text of the Diary Bryant Smick
kept from June of 1944 until April of 1945 while he was in a POW camp in Germany. It is an amazing recounting, but even more
amazing is that it was not confiscated nor did he lose it somewhere along the
line. His Diary was written in a very
small, slim notebook provided in a Red Cross parcel. The notebook also contains some drawings he
did to keep his mind off his circumstances.
It in no way told all that happened in prison, since he had to be
circumspect about what he committed to writing in case the Diary was found and
read by guards.
Bryant Smick recently added these words: "I do remember
a let down feeling and thinking to myself, here I am in a POW camp feeling very
sorry for myself. Why am I here? Will people think I'm a coward for not fighting
until the end? Should I have tried
harder to escape? Will the people in St. John ever
speak to me again? I'm tired to
death. I've made it this far without
being killed, maybe I can rest and sleep away this
terrible feeling. Even though I'm in
this drab looking camp (color it gray) and not locked in a cell I still feel
the pangs of claustrophobia. Barbed wire
all around, guard towers, guards we called Goons or Ferrets, some vicious
looking dogs, all kind of closing in on me.
I also knew I was not in a game.
One wrong move and I'd be dead. I
didn't come that far dodging death to get killed in
such a God-forsaken place. Talk about
rules. For instance, if a shutter
cracked open at night before lights out, the tower guards simply shot through
the window. We lost one man that I know
of that way."
His Diary is reprinted here in its entirety by his
permission. A few words added for
clarification are placed in [brackets.]
The last line was added in 2001, clearly echoing the heart-felt feelings
of all Smick's
generation who saw the war come to a close.
THE DIARY
June 9 - '44
Turned back on 25th mission - Munich. Reason: #2 "turbo" bad, oil pressure on #1 dropping.
Two generators out. Tried to find suitable
target at Trieste, Italy when jumped by 4 or more 109s. First pass they shot out large section of
left wing. 2nd pass, shot out
controls. Put ship on A5 and ordered
crew to bail out. Two fires in bomb bay
and left wing. Lowered wheels and again
ordered crew to bail out. Ship was
stalling and dropped off on left wing.
Flight deck was clear of men except top turret gunner. I grabbed his feet and told him to jump when
the action of the plane, in spin, threw me out and down through the bomb
bay. Plane evidently exploded as soon as
I left. Counted 5
chutes. I landed in water approx.
3 mi. from shore. Could not free myself
from chute but finally succeeded after having been drawn under water. Taken prisoner by approx. 150 German soldiers
on shore -- questioned and stood in sun for rest of day. Taken to Trieste
at night and locked in old castle -- one blanket, no food or water. I was quite sick from salt water and 20mm
wounds in leg.
June 10 - '44
Was on train all day until approx. 5 p.m. (1700). Then watched
as town and railroad yards were bombed in front of us. Had to walk approx. 10
miles through the city in bare feet.
Population of city tried to hang us but were
held off by German guards. Crowd getting out of hand.
I was spit on quite a bit. Noticed some Italians giving the V for Victory sign. Finally made it to another
train. Had
about a cup of filthy, crawling water.
The first in about 48 hours. Best I have ever tasted. I had a little fever so am quite hazy as to
what happened after that.
June 11 -- '44
Taken to Verona, Italy
for interrogation. Put in
solitaire. I don't know how long as
there were no lights. Had
plenty of water and some black bread.
Was taken and questioned. All
rings, money etc. were taken. More
fever.
June ?
Spent night in beautiful, historic old Vienna
in a flea infested dungeon. The urinal
was evidently out of order as the whole room was about 6 inches deep so the
procedure was to stand at the door and use it.
Another 3 inches and they will have to find another room. Needless to say the smell was awful. Also the fleas were very bad.
June 14
Arrived at Offlag Luft III (Officers
[flying] Prisoner of War Camp.)
Was deloused, given bedding and some shoes - also a shirt, pants, size
36 shorts, socks, towel, some cigarettes and personal or toilet articles
furnished by the Red Cross. Moved into a 12 man room which is rather crowded. The thing that gets you the most is the way
the guys can make stuff out of nothing -- pots, pans, grinders, etc. are all
made out of tin. The tin is literally
pulled apart, flattened out and made into the various assorted articles that
are needed.
June 15
Can't get over the Red Cross. They give us a box of canned food every
week. This is what keeps us from
starving. We get black bread, barley
soup and potatoes from "Jerry".
When combined with American food it isn't so bad.
June 16
Am still slightly sick from the ocean I tried to drink. Four Me 109s put on a dog fight for us. They are good flyers but their planes are not
as good as ours. The planes are fairly
thick but most of them are very old transports or training planes. Can't see how they still hold out.
June 17
Cold today, had to wear my new G.I.
overcoat. News looks good even if it is
German.
June 21
About 300 U.S.
planes came over. We were all herded in
the barracks with windows closed but got a good look at them -- very good for
the morale.
June 22
The crabs and lice are really getting bad. The guys with lice have to shave all their
hair off. Bald pates really look
funny. I hope I don't get them.
June 25
"Jerry" gave me back my dog tags, insignia and
crash bracelet and a receipt for two rings and $45.00. The only thing missing is a pair of pinks
[Army Officer pants] and a comb.
June 30
The last day of the Mo.
(pay day) but that don't mean a thing as I haven't
seen a cent or will see any money until I get home. Saw a 27 ship formation go
over today. I think they were HE
177s. Morale low.
July 3
Saw a show yesterday afternoon - "Orchestra
Wives." It was old but I don't know
when I've ever enjoyed a movie more.
Today we chopped firewood for our stove.
I've got the blisters to prove it.
Just finished reading "Penrod." Really got a kick out of
it. I remember the first time Mom
read it to us kids at Cottonwood School. Wish I was back there now.
July 4
Very nice day today. Was entertained to the
utmost all day. Boxing matches,
volley ball and other entertainment. It
was ended by a very good program made up of impersonators, soloists and a very
hot jive orchestra. The
instruments coming from the YMCA through the R. C.
July 7
Had an Air Raid today but didn't see any of our planes. I get a kick out of the German news when they
say they repressed everything but gave way a little to shorten their
lines. Would give
anything to hear from home.
July 18
I should, I know, keep a more accurate account of what's
going on but the last few days are so damn boring. The same old routine of getting up in the
morning, eating what you can and trying to find a way to amuse yourself until
it's time to go to bed is really getting my nerves. I find that I'm about as short tempered as I
can get. It takes all the self control a
guy has to keep from "blowing your top". Not much has happened except we now have
calisthenics along with morning "Apel" [roll call]. It might be better for us but I can't see
burning up extra energy and that really gets important around here as the food
isn't so great in quantity that a guy can do that and also play a game of
baseball or volley ball without cutting out one or the other. The news is better every day for us but it
seems as though it certainly is taking an awful long time.
July 21
Propwash, my old Navigator, came yesterday. Was I glad to see him -- he gave me a lot of
news of everybody. He was shot down the
24th of June. Had an Air Raid yesterday and today. The Allies are really going to town so the
old morale is really up. It certainly
can't last much longer.
July 26
Have one heck of a cold.
Wish I could clear it up as it makes life very miserable. Nothing of interest except
I just won 6 packs of cigs from Major Brown on a bet. Made a $50 bet with Prop
tha