thedrifter
07-02-08, 10:56 AM
Memories of battle from the frontline
Featured Photo: Fourth Division assault on Iwo Jima February, 1945.
By Elizabeth Farina, MidlothianExchange.com
editor@midlothianexchange.com
This story is part II of related story: L Company share WW II moments at 2008 reunion
July 1, 2008
“I went to all the invasions,” World War II veteran Robert Perrin said. “The first one was not too bad, in the Marshall Islands, but Saipan was a little different. It was bad for any of us. We lost a lot of people,” Perrin said.
Nine members of the L Company, 23rd Regiment, Fourth Marine Division reunited at the Koger Center in Midlothian a few days before the 64th anniversary of the 25-day battle at Saipan. The group, sharing much of their military humor and moments, spoke individually about their memories on the frontline. Most of the United States’ attention in June 1944 was focused on the liberation of Rome and the invasion of Normandy in Europe. However, a massive assault division of Marines were focused on their objective of four major operations from 1944 to 1945 that would extract the ultimate sacrifice from many on the Pacific islands’ beaches.
Some memories of Marine Corps Boot Camp
Perrin, 88, had joined the Marine Corps at the “old age” of 23. Fellow veteran Walter Wright was only 16. “I forged my mother’s name to the enlistment papers,” Wright said. “I got an old town drunk-notary public to notarize my papers and off I went into the Marine Corps.”
The first night Wright arrived at Parris Island, South Carolina boot camp he recalled feeling trepidation for what laid ahead. “I thought, ‘Oh Lord, what have I got myself into now,” the Missouri native said.
Wright headed to officers’ candidates class in Quantico, Va. “I wasn’t an officer. I washed their dishes and peeled their potatoes. Then, the Fourth Marine Division was formed in Camp Pendleton, Calif. They were asking for volunteers and I volunteered to join,” he said.
Hue Jones tried to join the Marine Corps at 16, but failed the eye exam and learned he was color blind. Not to be outdone by colored dots, the tenacious teen borrowed the exam book from a Navy recruiter to memorize the pages and eventually was able to get into the Marine Corps.
Maj. Everette “Bud” Hampton thought he was joining a company of Marines. “But in reality, I joined a family of Marines because we thought very much, that we had the best company commander in the Marine Corps,” Hampton said.
The division, which included infantry, artillery, tanks, transport and supply and “everything that goes along with supporting a division of marines” trained for shore landings on the coast of California in 1943, Hampton added.
James M. Knighton, a Mississippi native, graduated high school, married his high school sweetheart and joined the Marine Corps within two months.
Fast paced Roi-Namur
Knighton remembers being anxious when the troops landed on Roi-Namur, the first of four operations. “I had gone to demolition school earlier in my training and had some high explosives in my pack when we hit the island. To say I was a little nervous is an understatement. It didn’t take long for us to take those islands,” he said.
Hampton agreed. “We had very little problems in taking the island,” he said. “In fact, we secured it so fast, the men raced across the island so fast, they had to bring them back to get the tanks in there.”
Hampton noted that as a result of Roi-Namur, the Fourth Marine Division created three firsts: first unit to go directly into combat from the United States; first unit to capture their objective in the shortest period of time – which was two days; and the first unit to capture Japanese mandated territory.
Bloody Saipan
On June 15, 1944, the company was in the first wave on the island of Saipan. “Our objective there was inland...about 1,500 yards to stay in our tractors until we reached that point and held the line until other people got up to us,” Hampton said.
However, Hampton recalled his tractor got knocked out on the beach. As leader of a rifle squad at the time, he led them into town and joined a unit on the front lines several hours later.
Wright’s recollection of Saipan in the Marianna Islands was the loss of life within the company. “We landed that day and went about a quarter mile … We landed with 263 men – that was our people and the people attached to our company – at five o’clock that night they pulled us back off that hill and we had lost 200 men that day that were wounded or killed,” Wright recalled.
For Knighton, Saipan was where the company learned hands-on how vicious the toll of combat would be on the islands. “It really intensified when we went into the island. Our group went in … we went in a mile to a ridge to set up so supplies and other troops could come in behind us, but as night came close, we pulled back,” he said.
Perrin’s memories of Saipan include carrying a bazooka for a day. “I had been the company jeep driver; on Saipan, they didn’t land my jeep. They had made me the bazooka man … but the first day on Saipan, the tank that I was riding in got stuck in a big hole made by one of these shells and we had to get out,” he said.
While moving off the beach, Perrin was separated from his ammunition carrier. “I had a bazooka with no ammunition. So, the next day – when we got ourselves together – the captain told me to give up my bazooka and made me his driver and kept me busy all the way through Saipan,” Perrin recalled.
Jones was wounded on the first day of Saipan. “We hit the beach, and I got hit. We were supposed to go a mile inland,” he said.
The L Company was in the first three waves and at the very left flank of the division. “I got hit on the beach… I just got in 57 feet and got hit,” Jones said.
After the battle of Saipan, Hampton received a battlefield commission. “I was really surprised because I was a junior sergeant in the company. In fact, I had just made sergeant a month or two before that,” he said.
He made his way to the station for a required physical. “The doctor was talking to me and he said, ‘Hampton, have you been here since day one?’ I said, ‘Yes, sir, I have.’ He said, ‘Well, you pass.’ That was my complete physical. I guess he felt if I could last that long, I was in good, good shape,” Hampton said with a smile.
The Marines stayed on the island for 10 days to wash up, get new clothes and then move on to the island of Tinian, Hampton said.
The toll of Tinian
The Marines moved on to their next objective – Tinian, where the Enola Gay B-29 bomber would take off for Hiroshima in 1945. The Marines were moving through hundreds of enemy dead along the narrow beach after pre-assault bombings of the Japanese stronghold. “You had to make sure they were dead because they would shoot you in the back or throw a grenade at you as you passed them by,” he said.
Later, he recalled the squad encountering a Japanese company in a cane field where he was wounded in the left arm. “Everybody started firing. We were pretty close. One of our new recruits that had come up the night before – didn’t even know what it was all about – I remember him. He was a really young boy with blond hair and he had a little hole in his head, a little blue spot, and I thought, ‘What a waste.’”
Perrin recalled seeing a block of wood in front of him as he laid low during the skirmish. “Because they were getting so close cutting down the weeds in front of me, I thought to put something in front of me. So, when I raised my arm up there – wham. It took me back for a little bit. I didn’t look at it at first, but felt blood running down my fingers,” he said.
The skirmish didn’t last long, but it was deadly, Perrin added. He was transported to Saipan where an Army hospital was established and was treated. Then, he ‘hitchhiked’ a ride on one of the boats going back to Tinian “It was only a few more days before the rabble was over … then, we landed on Iwo.”
Wounded at Iwo Jima
“That was kind of rough; very rough, really… I remember going towards the airfield … they were firing and dropping shells and we were hitting the deck,” Perrin said.
The L Company landed with 10 officers, Hampton said. “About the eighth or ninth day, we had lost all the officers except me. I was the only one left. I had already been wounded once, but not severely. I just got patched up and stayed with the company,” he said.
However, during a night mission to lead a reinforcement rifle platoon of 45 men to the front line to fill a gap between two units, the North Carolina native was wounded for a second time. “On the way up there, we ran across some troops in the middle of the field … we asked them for the password, as soon as we opened our mouth they knew who we were and they started firing at us … Luckily, I was the only one who got hit. I got splattered up my left side,” Hampton said.
He continued his mission and carried the troops forward to turn them over to the unit in the front. “From there they sent me to the sick bay and from there they put me aboard a ship and I started my way home.”
Wright, who was also wounded during the days of battle, remembered seeing the U.S. flag fly on the island. “I didn’t see the men raise it,” he said of the famous photo that shows six Fifth Marine Division soldiers raising Old Glory. “But I saw it at about the time it was raised and that was a terrific feeling … you got to feel you conquered the island right there. Men were shouting and the ships out in the bay were going off and it made you feel real good.”
New York native Joe Heafy wasn’t feeling real good after being wounded in the arm on the 15th day at Iwo. “When I got hit in the arm … turned out to be what I figured would be a nice flesh wound and I’m going to be the state trooper I always wanted to be,” Heafy said.
Heafy was transported to Saipan. “I didn’t drink. The army doctor at Saipan said, ‘Would you like a shot?’ I thought he meant a shot in the arm, and he gave me a shot of Four Roses. I dumped it down just like it was nothing,” he remembered.
When non-combatants removed the taped bandage from his arm, Heafy passed out from the pain. They revived him with smelling salts twice until he asked them to just let him remain passed out while they removed the rest of the bandage. He had to undergo reconstructive surgery in the states because the bullet had gone through the bone. “I still have an arm,” Heafy said.
Jones, a native of Wyoming, carried survivor’s guilt for many years after Iwo Jima. He remembers a number of the fallen that died before his eyes. “The second day we had a replacement man … he was an old man – 25 with three kids. We’re out there and a machine gun came through. I knew I could never carry him back. It’s not like in the movies … There was only one or two of us to advance. I told him to come up with me,” he said.
Jones will always remember another Marine that had transferred from another division before Iwo Jima. “I told him, Vince you go down the left flank … I’ll go down the right … We hit a fox hole and I said to him, ‘Get in here you damn fool.’ He laughs at me and says, ‘I’m okay’ and a bullet shot him through the throat and he came down on top of me,” he said.
Jones remembers having to write letters home to families of those killed. “We always lied about it saying, ‘Oh, they died instantly,’ even though they may have suffered for hours.”
Once, after Saipan, Jones received a letter addressed to him from the Marine that inspired him to join the corps. “He was in Guam, third division – the letter was addressed to me and I knew what it meant … we had to write letters when we went into battle to our parents and to our close friend or someone to tell them how much you appreciated them and things like that. He got killed in Guam,” Jones said.
A profound moment of victory
New York native Anthony Firgione remembers the day he heard the Japanese had surrendered. “We were preparing, after Iwo, to invade the big [Japan] island when word came down. It was a rainy night, we were all living in pup tents … the battalion commander announced that we were the lucky ones,’ Firgione said.
“It took awhile to comprehend … the war is over. It was one of the most profound moments of my life, I think. There wasn’t a cheer. There wasn’t a sound. No one reacted. It was a private moment. I spent the rest of the night contemplating what was next...it wasn’t a celebration. It was too important for frivolities,” he said.
Years Later
It would be the strength of shared memories that would keep the unit strong and tie their families together through annual reunions that each veteran hosts throughout the years. Veteran Bob Casey added that an understanding from a different perspective has also strengthened the Marines. “Part of the things that you develop being in the Marine Corps and having survived four major invasions to where a good percentage of your fellow Marines have died – and you’re trying to figure out ‘Why am I still here when they aren’t'...then, you get a different outlook on some of the things.”
Ellie
Featured Photo: Fourth Division assault on Iwo Jima February, 1945.
By Elizabeth Farina, MidlothianExchange.com
editor@midlothianexchange.com
This story is part II of related story: L Company share WW II moments at 2008 reunion
July 1, 2008
“I went to all the invasions,” World War II veteran Robert Perrin said. “The first one was not too bad, in the Marshall Islands, but Saipan was a little different. It was bad for any of us. We lost a lot of people,” Perrin said.
Nine members of the L Company, 23rd Regiment, Fourth Marine Division reunited at the Koger Center in Midlothian a few days before the 64th anniversary of the 25-day battle at Saipan. The group, sharing much of their military humor and moments, spoke individually about their memories on the frontline. Most of the United States’ attention in June 1944 was focused on the liberation of Rome and the invasion of Normandy in Europe. However, a massive assault division of Marines were focused on their objective of four major operations from 1944 to 1945 that would extract the ultimate sacrifice from many on the Pacific islands’ beaches.
Some memories of Marine Corps Boot Camp
Perrin, 88, had joined the Marine Corps at the “old age” of 23. Fellow veteran Walter Wright was only 16. “I forged my mother’s name to the enlistment papers,” Wright said. “I got an old town drunk-notary public to notarize my papers and off I went into the Marine Corps.”
The first night Wright arrived at Parris Island, South Carolina boot camp he recalled feeling trepidation for what laid ahead. “I thought, ‘Oh Lord, what have I got myself into now,” the Missouri native said.
Wright headed to officers’ candidates class in Quantico, Va. “I wasn’t an officer. I washed their dishes and peeled their potatoes. Then, the Fourth Marine Division was formed in Camp Pendleton, Calif. They were asking for volunteers and I volunteered to join,” he said.
Hue Jones tried to join the Marine Corps at 16, but failed the eye exam and learned he was color blind. Not to be outdone by colored dots, the tenacious teen borrowed the exam book from a Navy recruiter to memorize the pages and eventually was able to get into the Marine Corps.
Maj. Everette “Bud” Hampton thought he was joining a company of Marines. “But in reality, I joined a family of Marines because we thought very much, that we had the best company commander in the Marine Corps,” Hampton said.
The division, which included infantry, artillery, tanks, transport and supply and “everything that goes along with supporting a division of marines” trained for shore landings on the coast of California in 1943, Hampton added.
James M. Knighton, a Mississippi native, graduated high school, married his high school sweetheart and joined the Marine Corps within two months.
Fast paced Roi-Namur
Knighton remembers being anxious when the troops landed on Roi-Namur, the first of four operations. “I had gone to demolition school earlier in my training and had some high explosives in my pack when we hit the island. To say I was a little nervous is an understatement. It didn’t take long for us to take those islands,” he said.
Hampton agreed. “We had very little problems in taking the island,” he said. “In fact, we secured it so fast, the men raced across the island so fast, they had to bring them back to get the tanks in there.”
Hampton noted that as a result of Roi-Namur, the Fourth Marine Division created three firsts: first unit to go directly into combat from the United States; first unit to capture their objective in the shortest period of time – which was two days; and the first unit to capture Japanese mandated territory.
Bloody Saipan
On June 15, 1944, the company was in the first wave on the island of Saipan. “Our objective there was inland...about 1,500 yards to stay in our tractors until we reached that point and held the line until other people got up to us,” Hampton said.
However, Hampton recalled his tractor got knocked out on the beach. As leader of a rifle squad at the time, he led them into town and joined a unit on the front lines several hours later.
Wright’s recollection of Saipan in the Marianna Islands was the loss of life within the company. “We landed that day and went about a quarter mile … We landed with 263 men – that was our people and the people attached to our company – at five o’clock that night they pulled us back off that hill and we had lost 200 men that day that were wounded or killed,” Wright recalled.
For Knighton, Saipan was where the company learned hands-on how vicious the toll of combat would be on the islands. “It really intensified when we went into the island. Our group went in … we went in a mile to a ridge to set up so supplies and other troops could come in behind us, but as night came close, we pulled back,” he said.
Perrin’s memories of Saipan include carrying a bazooka for a day. “I had been the company jeep driver; on Saipan, they didn’t land my jeep. They had made me the bazooka man … but the first day on Saipan, the tank that I was riding in got stuck in a big hole made by one of these shells and we had to get out,” he said.
While moving off the beach, Perrin was separated from his ammunition carrier. “I had a bazooka with no ammunition. So, the next day – when we got ourselves together – the captain told me to give up my bazooka and made me his driver and kept me busy all the way through Saipan,” Perrin recalled.
Jones was wounded on the first day of Saipan. “We hit the beach, and I got hit. We were supposed to go a mile inland,” he said.
The L Company was in the first three waves and at the very left flank of the division. “I got hit on the beach… I just got in 57 feet and got hit,” Jones said.
After the battle of Saipan, Hampton received a battlefield commission. “I was really surprised because I was a junior sergeant in the company. In fact, I had just made sergeant a month or two before that,” he said.
He made his way to the station for a required physical. “The doctor was talking to me and he said, ‘Hampton, have you been here since day one?’ I said, ‘Yes, sir, I have.’ He said, ‘Well, you pass.’ That was my complete physical. I guess he felt if I could last that long, I was in good, good shape,” Hampton said with a smile.
The Marines stayed on the island for 10 days to wash up, get new clothes and then move on to the island of Tinian, Hampton said.
The toll of Tinian
The Marines moved on to their next objective – Tinian, where the Enola Gay B-29 bomber would take off for Hiroshima in 1945. The Marines were moving through hundreds of enemy dead along the narrow beach after pre-assault bombings of the Japanese stronghold. “You had to make sure they were dead because they would shoot you in the back or throw a grenade at you as you passed them by,” he said.
Later, he recalled the squad encountering a Japanese company in a cane field where he was wounded in the left arm. “Everybody started firing. We were pretty close. One of our new recruits that had come up the night before – didn’t even know what it was all about – I remember him. He was a really young boy with blond hair and he had a little hole in his head, a little blue spot, and I thought, ‘What a waste.’”
Perrin recalled seeing a block of wood in front of him as he laid low during the skirmish. “Because they were getting so close cutting down the weeds in front of me, I thought to put something in front of me. So, when I raised my arm up there – wham. It took me back for a little bit. I didn’t look at it at first, but felt blood running down my fingers,” he said.
The skirmish didn’t last long, but it was deadly, Perrin added. He was transported to Saipan where an Army hospital was established and was treated. Then, he ‘hitchhiked’ a ride on one of the boats going back to Tinian “It was only a few more days before the rabble was over … then, we landed on Iwo.”
Wounded at Iwo Jima
“That was kind of rough; very rough, really… I remember going towards the airfield … they were firing and dropping shells and we were hitting the deck,” Perrin said.
The L Company landed with 10 officers, Hampton said. “About the eighth or ninth day, we had lost all the officers except me. I was the only one left. I had already been wounded once, but not severely. I just got patched up and stayed with the company,” he said.
However, during a night mission to lead a reinforcement rifle platoon of 45 men to the front line to fill a gap between two units, the North Carolina native was wounded for a second time. “On the way up there, we ran across some troops in the middle of the field … we asked them for the password, as soon as we opened our mouth they knew who we were and they started firing at us … Luckily, I was the only one who got hit. I got splattered up my left side,” Hampton said.
He continued his mission and carried the troops forward to turn them over to the unit in the front. “From there they sent me to the sick bay and from there they put me aboard a ship and I started my way home.”
Wright, who was also wounded during the days of battle, remembered seeing the U.S. flag fly on the island. “I didn’t see the men raise it,” he said of the famous photo that shows six Fifth Marine Division soldiers raising Old Glory. “But I saw it at about the time it was raised and that was a terrific feeling … you got to feel you conquered the island right there. Men were shouting and the ships out in the bay were going off and it made you feel real good.”
New York native Joe Heafy wasn’t feeling real good after being wounded in the arm on the 15th day at Iwo. “When I got hit in the arm … turned out to be what I figured would be a nice flesh wound and I’m going to be the state trooper I always wanted to be,” Heafy said.
Heafy was transported to Saipan. “I didn’t drink. The army doctor at Saipan said, ‘Would you like a shot?’ I thought he meant a shot in the arm, and he gave me a shot of Four Roses. I dumped it down just like it was nothing,” he remembered.
When non-combatants removed the taped bandage from his arm, Heafy passed out from the pain. They revived him with smelling salts twice until he asked them to just let him remain passed out while they removed the rest of the bandage. He had to undergo reconstructive surgery in the states because the bullet had gone through the bone. “I still have an arm,” Heafy said.
Jones, a native of Wyoming, carried survivor’s guilt for many years after Iwo Jima. He remembers a number of the fallen that died before his eyes. “The second day we had a replacement man … he was an old man – 25 with three kids. We’re out there and a machine gun came through. I knew I could never carry him back. It’s not like in the movies … There was only one or two of us to advance. I told him to come up with me,” he said.
Jones will always remember another Marine that had transferred from another division before Iwo Jima. “I told him, Vince you go down the left flank … I’ll go down the right … We hit a fox hole and I said to him, ‘Get in here you damn fool.’ He laughs at me and says, ‘I’m okay’ and a bullet shot him through the throat and he came down on top of me,” he said.
Jones remembers having to write letters home to families of those killed. “We always lied about it saying, ‘Oh, they died instantly,’ even though they may have suffered for hours.”
Once, after Saipan, Jones received a letter addressed to him from the Marine that inspired him to join the corps. “He was in Guam, third division – the letter was addressed to me and I knew what it meant … we had to write letters when we went into battle to our parents and to our close friend or someone to tell them how much you appreciated them and things like that. He got killed in Guam,” Jones said.
A profound moment of victory
New York native Anthony Firgione remembers the day he heard the Japanese had surrendered. “We were preparing, after Iwo, to invade the big [Japan] island when word came down. It was a rainy night, we were all living in pup tents … the battalion commander announced that we were the lucky ones,’ Firgione said.
“It took awhile to comprehend … the war is over. It was one of the most profound moments of my life, I think. There wasn’t a cheer. There wasn’t a sound. No one reacted. It was a private moment. I spent the rest of the night contemplating what was next...it wasn’t a celebration. It was too important for frivolities,” he said.
Years Later
It would be the strength of shared memories that would keep the unit strong and tie their families together through annual reunions that each veteran hosts throughout the years. Veteran Bob Casey added that an understanding from a different perspective has also strengthened the Marines. “Part of the things that you develop being in the Marine Corps and having survived four major invasions to where a good percentage of your fellow Marines have died – and you’re trying to figure out ‘Why am I still here when they aren’t'...then, you get a different outlook on some of the things.”
Ellie