War haunted Marine
By PETER GUINTA
peter.guinta@staugustine.com
Publication Date: 05/25/09

PALM COAST -- Giles McCoy, once a Marine sniper in World War II, spent more than 60 years feeling he could never atone for all the Japanese soldiers he killed during the bloody battle to take the island of Pelileu.

Then-Pfc. McCoy didn't remember how many he killed, but told a friend, "I lost count."

After that battle, he was assigned to the 39-man Marine detachment on the heavy cruiser U.S.S. Indianapolis, CA-35, known as "Roosevelt's favorite ship" and the one that brought the atomic bomb to Tinian, an island 100 miles north of Guam.

Just after midnight on July 30, 1945, three torpedoes fired from Japanese submarine I-58 hit the Indianapolis, breaking its hull in two and sinking the 610-foot warship in 12 minutes.

Of 1,196 men aboard, 300 went down with the Indianapolis.

On April 30 this year, McCoy, 83, joined his long-lost shipmates, losing a long, courageous battle with cancer.

His name will be one of the many spoken today at St. Augustine National Cemetery as the bell tolls.

McCoy and the other survivors of the sinking, about 880 sailors and Marines, jumped or were thrown into the dark sea as the ship sank.

Over the next four days, the floating men heard agonizing screams as swarms of sharks rose from the Pacific Ocean's depths to devour them one by one. Others grew delirious without water or food; some gave up and drowned themselves, and others succumbed to exposure and the wounds they received aboard ship.

By the time a Navy PV-1 Ventura bomber pilot spotted them, only 316 men were alive. Some died after rescue.

Of the 39 Marines, only nine survived.

McCoy's friend and neighbor Dan Hughes, a retired Marine, said McCoy, a St. Louis, Mo., native, was guarding the ship's brig when the ship was hit. He let out the prisoners and made for the upper deck.

Hughes said McCoy told him, "I promised the Lord what I'd do if I got out of the mess I was in. I'd become a doctor and help my fellow man."

After his discharge, McCoy did just that, working as a physician in Booneville, Mo., for many years before retiring to Palm Coast 16 years ago.

Another friend, decorated U.S. Army Col. Edward Taylor of St. Augustine, said about McCoy, "Of all the thousands of vets I've known and served with, that man stands in the front rank."

Army Staff Sgt. Chet Crowell, an Iraq War veteran, went with McCoy to a school where the older man spoke to students.

"What so impressed me about him was how proud he was to be an American and how much he loved this country," Crowell said. "He was very upbeat, but his biggest fear was that, in the eyes of God, the things he did as a doctor did not outweigh the things he had to do as a Marine."

Hughes said McCoy might have beaten his cancer.

"He told me that five years ago he could have fought it, but he didn't," Hughes said. "He was a tough old Marine."

Ellie