JOHN GORDON

John Gordon was born and raised near Pine City, about seven miles out from St. John.  He went to Pine City High School, graduating in 1939.  One of the oddest things about John's military history is how frequently he ran into people from Pine City in far-flung places in the South Pacific.  One time, for instance, he was umpiring a Seabee baseball game on Guam.  He was second base umpire and got to talking to the shortstop of one of the Seabee teams.  John told the guy he knew a Seabee who was supposed to be in Guam, then asked him, "Do you know Bob Charles?"

The shortstop replied, "You mean Bob Charles from Pine City?"  

It seems the shortstop worked in a military sports-equipment check out place there in Guam with the very Bob Charles John was asking about.   John later met up with Bob, hopped in a Jeep with the shortstop and ran around the island to visit several other Pine City boys, a real treat for John.

John ended up in Guam by enlisting in the Marines along with his friend Jack Charles on September 22, 1942.  When asked why they chose the Marines, he responded, "There was nobody standing in that line, and they took us."  That line was in an office building in Spokane across the hall from the Navy recruiting office where the line was long and moving slowly. 

Boot Camp was really rough.  He spent a lot of time on the rifle range and a big drill field where they would march, fall out, run, and holler, all done to teach them to obey orders, become disciplined, and to create unity.  "It worked," said John simply,  "It worked."

He chuckled thinking about a reunion he attended in recent years.  They were given a tour of Camp Pendleton and stopped for awhile to watch some new recruits going through drill.  "They are still doing it the same way," he laughed.  "I guess it still works."

On November 11, 1942, he and Jack joined the 3^rd Parachute Battalion at Camp Elliott.  But after about three weeks John was sent home due to a death in his family, leaving his friend there to proceed in training without him.  When he returned, the parachute unit had already departed for jump school, and that was the last Marine parachute outfit to be trained.  So  John was assigned to the 17^th replacement battalion for training while awaiting shipment to the First Marine Division in the Pacific.

On June 5, 1943 John shipped out to Melbourne, Australia on the Rochambeau, a very crowded ship.  The Marine Corps was reorganizing and reinforcing the First Division after the battle at Guadalcanal.  There were lots of new guys going in because very few had come back.  Gordon  was assigned to the 3^rd Company, 1^st Battalion, 5^th Regiment of the First Division as a Private First Class.  "The Marines were way behind on rank," he explained.  "They just wanted to get us there to get the job done."

The "there" John got to first was a staging area in Milne Bay, New Guinea where he arrived on October 8, 1943.  Then, on December 24  they moved up to Cape Gloucester, New Britain, arriving there December 29 on the USS Kiley.  On his first combat mission he was in a rifle company that moved in on foot.  It was a long mission with several landings and real rugged terrain. 

At one point they experienced three days of continual downpour of rain that actually stopped the war.  Ten to twelve inches of rain fell each day for those three days.  "There was no fighting," he said.  "No enemy fire.  We were just soaked.  After a few days of that when I took my socks off they just fell apart."  He and four other guys in his platoon got under a tree for some protection from the torrential rainfall, but when lightening struck, they moved out into the middle of an open space.

They made two more landings on New Britain.  Casualties were pretty high and enemy opposition was strong.  Having secured the island, they remained on New Britain until May 4, 1944, then sailed on the President Hayes.  Four days later they arrived at their next staging area, Puvuvu, for replacements and training in preparation for an assault on Peleliu, their next destination.  It took about four months for them to get up to full strength.  In the meantime they built roads and a camp on that tiny island. 

On September 15^th the Marines landed on Peleliu under a lot of opposition.  John didn't get very far that first day.  They were just able to move up to the edge of the airstrip.  Things were very bad.  The Japanese were just on the other side of the strip firing heavily, but the Marines had planes strafing for them.  The next day, the 16^th, they received orders to cross the air strip.  John had gotten out into the middle of the airport when he was hit by gun fire.  He went down, out of breath, and realized he had a hole in his chest which actually turned out to be four holes.  He crawled to a bomb crater, not far away, to catch his breath.  From the crater he was evacuated to the beach and taken out to a hospital ship.  The Sergeant responsible for moving him to the ship still attends reunions.  John learned that after the war the Sergeant went to school on the G.I. Bill and became a teacher.  He has spent his life bringing street kids in, getting them to go to school, and telling them, as he used to tell his Marines, "Get out there and fight!" 

John Gordon was sent on the hospital ship back to the staging area on Puvuvu.  The first medical attention he got was from a sweaty doctor who had been on duty for "lots of hours."  When he saw John's injuries he started to clean the wounds with a cotton swab.  When John reacted to the sudden pain, the doctor said, "Didn't they shoot you?"  Well, no he had not received any anesthetic, but the doctor had no time to fool around because John was generally in good shape compared to most of the men that doctor had to see.  He went ahead and cleaned the wounds, bandaged him and sent him on his way.

John stayed on Puvuvu until February, recuperating, and again the 1^st Division absorbed replacements for their next mission.  On February 21, 1945 the Marines did a practice landing operation on Guadalcanal before going to Okinawa on April 1 for what was, for John, a little over a month-long combat mission.  During that mission they got word on April 12, 1945 that President Roosevelt had passed away.

"We went in and headed north, but didn't run into much," John said of their landing on Okinawa.  "Then we headed south and ran into lots of stuff.  The Japanese had quite a few planes there.  And they were holed up in the mountains.  They were going to die there."

On May 11, John Gordon was once again thrown out of action.  What he believes was a hand grenade blew up in front of him leaving his arms and face a bloody mess.  He had to walk out of the combat zone and in fact was assigned as guard for two stretcher bearers and the injured man they were carrying as they moved back over a hill the Marines had just taken.  As they walked along in the dark, they had a conversation typical of military men under tremendous stress.

"If they open up on us, I'm not waiting for you, I'm running out of here," claimed John.

"We're dropping this stretcher and taking off if anything happens," the stretcher bearers insisted.

"You'll have to outrun me," the guy on the stretcher said.

They all made it out to where an ambulance took them to a field hospital.  John was flown out in an airplane after the medics took his bloody clothes, cleaned him up, and carried him to the plane, which had bunks five high on either side.  "It was the worst ride I ever had," said John.  There was a guy below him with three guys working on him.  John was so crammed in he couldn't breathe and kept telling the medics he wanted to get up.  They wouldn't let him move because they needed room to work on the other man, who died before they got to the hospital at Guam.  John's arm began to turn black and swell badly, so much so he feared he would loose it.  A buddy got him to a different doctor than the one who had stitched him up and he began to improve immediately.

After recuperating he boarded the General Bundy and sailed to Bremerton.  After all the time he'd spent in the islands, he contacted malaria after he got back.  He had been out with his buddies one evening.  He was the only one with money, but they had gotten into a poker game.  He started feeling sick so he left his money with the boys and headed back to his bunk.  He got so sick he couldn't get up, and the barracks was due for a brass inspection the next day.   "It was real bad.  I was just as sick as you could get.  There wasn't much to do for malaria back then.  You just had to wear it out."  Someone called an ambulance that took him to a hospital on October 4, 1945.  After a few days rest he was discharged from the hospital.

He was then put on a train and sent to San Diego.  After filling out some papers in San Diego, he once again returned to Bremerton and was free to go home.

John Gordon returned to Pine City to farm.  On December 28, 1946 he married Dorothy Wagner from St. John. 

Dode, as she is called, had attended the one-room Cottonwood School from the first to the fourth grade where she was taught by Mrs. Smick, Bryant Smick's mother.  While she was at Cottonwood, there were about fourteen kids in the school.  They all learned the basic three-R fundamentals and good penmanship, plus they received strict discipline from their teacher.  Dode walked one and a half miles each way to school.  "No one ever worried about us walking all that way," she laughed.  "We just did it, even in the winter."  She recalled how Mrs. Smick was boss of the school, served as janitor and fire starter, and even gave spankings as needed.  Dode once fell through the ice on the creek.  Mrs. Smick put her own coat on her while she dried her clothes so she could wear them to walk home.  "She took good care of us," Dode said.

The Gordons have been to seven First Marine Division annual reunions in recent years, having missed them for many years while they farmed since they were always scheduled during harvest.  At a recent reunion John ran into a "kid" he had gone through boot camp with.  "It is really fun to see the guys, but the last year or so we have noticed there are more Korean War and Vietnam vets there.  We are rapidly losing the World War II vets," he observed.  "But a lot of the guys keep coming even when they are sick and can barely get around," he said of his fellow Marines.  "They are all still tough old devils."