thedrifter
02-26-03, 08:32 AM
An unknown Major motivated a terrified 16-year-old to get out of the killing zone at Peleliu.
By Charles H. Owen
In the early morning of September 15, 1944, I was a 16-year-old private in A Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines (A/1/7), 1st Marine Division. The 1st Marine Division had made the initial land offensive effort in the Pacific theater at Guadalcanal and, subsequently, had fought in the Cape Gloucester/New Britain campaign. Now it was embarked on its third campaign, my first. The mission: to take Peleliu, in the Western Carolines, thus protecting the eastern flank of General Douglas MacArthur's drive into the Philippines. It was an effort that many believe should not have been made.
One of the chief opponents of the landing was U.S. Third Fleet Commander Admiral William F. Halsey. However, Halsey's pleas to have the landing on Peleliu called off fell on deaf ears. Hence the 1st Marine Division and all of its supporting units prepared to take a heavily defended island, the first wave positioning itself to move toward the landing beaches. Leading the assault was the 3rd Armored Amphibian Battalion (Provisional), composed of 75 armored amphibious tanks. The executive officer of that outfit was leading the way in his command tank.
Hugging The Sand
My company was to land on Orange Beach 3, which was on the far right flank of the 7th Marines sector, but somewhat to the left, or north, of a large segment of the assaulting tanks. To say that I was scared as our amtrac made its way beachward would be putting it mildly. The defending Japanese forces were unleashing a galling fire on the assaulting Marine elements -- fire that seemed to increase in intensity as our amtrac ground to a halt on the edge of the beach. After vaulting over the side, with the amtrac already backing up and getting out of there, I ran up onto the beach, where I found myself among others of my company and mortar section, all of us prone on that beach and hugging its sand. The noise of the incoming fire made voice contact almost impossible. Japanese artillery and small-arms fire were dealing death wholesale upon the assaulting Marines and particularly those who chose to remain on that beach.
My fellow A/1/7 comrades and I had been instructed repeatedly in our training exercises that the beach was the last place we would want to be. The Japanese would have it "zeroed in." After debarking from our landing craft, getting off the beach immediately was a must. Despite such instructions, in the face of the fire from our front and both flanks, we remained frozen to that beach with fear.
Never before or since have I experienced such fright. Yet neither I nor any of the people around me took any steps to avoid what was bound to happen. If we remained in that position, we would almost certainly have been killed. Actually, I do not know how long I remained there. It could not have been for more than a few minutes, but it seemed an eternity. I was terrified, and the first thing I saw that had an effect on my mind was either a detached arm or a leg that landed beside me.
As I hugged that beach, many thoughts raced through my mind. Why had I joined the Marine Corps two years earlier, at age 14, falsifying my date of birth on my enlistment papers? Why had I asked for combat duty when, after finishing boot camp and attending sea school, I had been assigned to a nice berth on a training ship tied up in the Norfolk Navy Yard?
A Voice I Would Never Forget
Then, in my state of complete fear, something shook me back to reality. I heard a voice, a very loud voice. I would describe it as a booming voice, one that could be heard over all of the accompanying noises of battle, one I would never forget. I looked around me. There was nobody moving in our immediate area. I looked again, down to my right, and at a point on the beach where the fearful storm of iron and lead was raging most furiously, there was a man coming up the beach toward us. He was the only person on his feet, as far as I could see.
At that very moment, the enemy artillery, machine-gun and small-arms fire seemed to be at its height. The mortars were dropping down upon the beach all around that man. With all of the enemy fire being directed on that area, it startled me to see a man ignore it completely and unflinchingly continue to walk in our direction. At the same time, he was screaming at the troops lying huddled together on the beach.
His yell still rings in my ears today. He screamed, "Get the hell off this beach or I'll shoot you!" He was raising hell with those of us on that beach. As he got closer, I noticed he was a major. He had on his insignia, and it surprised me that a senior officer would be there. I had never seen him before. He was armed with a Tommy gun, had a Jap shovel across one shoulder, was bloodied and mud-encrusted, and he was kicking and screaming. Just before he got to me, all I could think of was that this crazy SOB was going to kill me if I didn't get the hell off that beach. I ignored everything else and got the hell off that beach, which undoubtedly saved my life. I learned later that just moments after my buddies and I had been moved off the beach by that major, a tremendous mortar barrage had come down right where we had been lying.
Complete Exodus
When I got up and moved, so did others of my section and company, mortarmen and riflemen -- everybody started moving off that beach. It was a complete exodus, in fact. All I can say, really, is that if that major had not been clearing that beach on his own, I would have been dead right there at the age of 16.
That same night, right after midnight, my outfit came under a heavy mortar barrage. I was hit and evacuated to a ship offshore. After being treated for several days, I was interviewed by one of the Navy doctors. He indicated that I did not have to go back to the island, but if I did not do so, I might well end up in a different company. In those days, in the Marine Corps, particularly in a rifle company, it was like a family. You knew the people, and you felt safer being with them. Accordingly, I chose to go back ashore and found my outfit in the process of relieving the 1st Marines, who had been pretty badly shot up.
I finished the campaign on Peleliu with the A/1/7, and from April to June 1945, I was involved in three months of intense combat on Okinawa. Subsequently, I went into North China with the 7th Marines.
Unknown Man's Heroic Influence
During the Korean War, I was in H Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, and commanded a rifle platoon much of the time. I was there from October 1952 to November 1953 and was promoted to gunnery sergeant. I retired from the Marine Corps in 1962 after 20 years of service but returned in 1966 during the Vietnam War, serving with the 3rd Tank Battalion in the Dong Ha area.
I have witnessed many acts of bravery and heroism on the part of Marines in combat situations. But never in all of my 221/2 years of active duty as a Marine did I observe a man with more guts than that unknown major exhibited. His heroic conduct on that beach at Peleliu stuck in my mind. It had a decided effect on me, especially after I became an NCO and was called upon to lead and train young Marines during two tours at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, Calif., as a drill instructor.
The major had proved to me that you do not try to win your troops over by being a nice guy. If the major had acted thus on the beach at Peleliu, if he had been there explaining the situation and pleading with us, we would have all been dead. On the other hand, he put it to us bluntly: "Get your asses off this beach or I'll kill you. Move." In my mind, he meant what he said, and that is how I led and trained my troops in later years. That incident immediately came to mind when I was interviewed a few years back by Bill D. Ross, who wrote Peleliu: Tragic Triumph. Ross asked me to tell him about something that stood out in my mind concerning Peleliu. I told him about the conduct of that major early on the morning of D-day on Orange Beach 3.
http://www.military.com/pics/ww0998PELELIU_1l.jpg
Dug-in Marines wait while explosives are used to clear Japanese-held caves on a hillside. Pockets of resistance remained long after the island was secured; the last few Japanese finally surrendered on February 1, 1945. (Cowles Photo Archive)
continued........
By Charles H. Owen
In the early morning of September 15, 1944, I was a 16-year-old private in A Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines (A/1/7), 1st Marine Division. The 1st Marine Division had made the initial land offensive effort in the Pacific theater at Guadalcanal and, subsequently, had fought in the Cape Gloucester/New Britain campaign. Now it was embarked on its third campaign, my first. The mission: to take Peleliu, in the Western Carolines, thus protecting the eastern flank of General Douglas MacArthur's drive into the Philippines. It was an effort that many believe should not have been made.
One of the chief opponents of the landing was U.S. Third Fleet Commander Admiral William F. Halsey. However, Halsey's pleas to have the landing on Peleliu called off fell on deaf ears. Hence the 1st Marine Division and all of its supporting units prepared to take a heavily defended island, the first wave positioning itself to move toward the landing beaches. Leading the assault was the 3rd Armored Amphibian Battalion (Provisional), composed of 75 armored amphibious tanks. The executive officer of that outfit was leading the way in his command tank.
Hugging The Sand
My company was to land on Orange Beach 3, which was on the far right flank of the 7th Marines sector, but somewhat to the left, or north, of a large segment of the assaulting tanks. To say that I was scared as our amtrac made its way beachward would be putting it mildly. The defending Japanese forces were unleashing a galling fire on the assaulting Marine elements -- fire that seemed to increase in intensity as our amtrac ground to a halt on the edge of the beach. After vaulting over the side, with the amtrac already backing up and getting out of there, I ran up onto the beach, where I found myself among others of my company and mortar section, all of us prone on that beach and hugging its sand. The noise of the incoming fire made voice contact almost impossible. Japanese artillery and small-arms fire were dealing death wholesale upon the assaulting Marines and particularly those who chose to remain on that beach.
My fellow A/1/7 comrades and I had been instructed repeatedly in our training exercises that the beach was the last place we would want to be. The Japanese would have it "zeroed in." After debarking from our landing craft, getting off the beach immediately was a must. Despite such instructions, in the face of the fire from our front and both flanks, we remained frozen to that beach with fear.
Never before or since have I experienced such fright. Yet neither I nor any of the people around me took any steps to avoid what was bound to happen. If we remained in that position, we would almost certainly have been killed. Actually, I do not know how long I remained there. It could not have been for more than a few minutes, but it seemed an eternity. I was terrified, and the first thing I saw that had an effect on my mind was either a detached arm or a leg that landed beside me.
As I hugged that beach, many thoughts raced through my mind. Why had I joined the Marine Corps two years earlier, at age 14, falsifying my date of birth on my enlistment papers? Why had I asked for combat duty when, after finishing boot camp and attending sea school, I had been assigned to a nice berth on a training ship tied up in the Norfolk Navy Yard?
A Voice I Would Never Forget
Then, in my state of complete fear, something shook me back to reality. I heard a voice, a very loud voice. I would describe it as a booming voice, one that could be heard over all of the accompanying noises of battle, one I would never forget. I looked around me. There was nobody moving in our immediate area. I looked again, down to my right, and at a point on the beach where the fearful storm of iron and lead was raging most furiously, there was a man coming up the beach toward us. He was the only person on his feet, as far as I could see.
At that very moment, the enemy artillery, machine-gun and small-arms fire seemed to be at its height. The mortars were dropping down upon the beach all around that man. With all of the enemy fire being directed on that area, it startled me to see a man ignore it completely and unflinchingly continue to walk in our direction. At the same time, he was screaming at the troops lying huddled together on the beach.
His yell still rings in my ears today. He screamed, "Get the hell off this beach or I'll shoot you!" He was raising hell with those of us on that beach. As he got closer, I noticed he was a major. He had on his insignia, and it surprised me that a senior officer would be there. I had never seen him before. He was armed with a Tommy gun, had a Jap shovel across one shoulder, was bloodied and mud-encrusted, and he was kicking and screaming. Just before he got to me, all I could think of was that this crazy SOB was going to kill me if I didn't get the hell off that beach. I ignored everything else and got the hell off that beach, which undoubtedly saved my life. I learned later that just moments after my buddies and I had been moved off the beach by that major, a tremendous mortar barrage had come down right where we had been lying.
Complete Exodus
When I got up and moved, so did others of my section and company, mortarmen and riflemen -- everybody started moving off that beach. It was a complete exodus, in fact. All I can say, really, is that if that major had not been clearing that beach on his own, I would have been dead right there at the age of 16.
That same night, right after midnight, my outfit came under a heavy mortar barrage. I was hit and evacuated to a ship offshore. After being treated for several days, I was interviewed by one of the Navy doctors. He indicated that I did not have to go back to the island, but if I did not do so, I might well end up in a different company. In those days, in the Marine Corps, particularly in a rifle company, it was like a family. You knew the people, and you felt safer being with them. Accordingly, I chose to go back ashore and found my outfit in the process of relieving the 1st Marines, who had been pretty badly shot up.
I finished the campaign on Peleliu with the A/1/7, and from April to June 1945, I was involved in three months of intense combat on Okinawa. Subsequently, I went into North China with the 7th Marines.
Unknown Man's Heroic Influence
During the Korean War, I was in H Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, and commanded a rifle platoon much of the time. I was there from October 1952 to November 1953 and was promoted to gunnery sergeant. I retired from the Marine Corps in 1962 after 20 years of service but returned in 1966 during the Vietnam War, serving with the 3rd Tank Battalion in the Dong Ha area.
I have witnessed many acts of bravery and heroism on the part of Marines in combat situations. But never in all of my 221/2 years of active duty as a Marine did I observe a man with more guts than that unknown major exhibited. His heroic conduct on that beach at Peleliu stuck in my mind. It had a decided effect on me, especially after I became an NCO and was called upon to lead and train young Marines during two tours at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, Calif., as a drill instructor.
The major had proved to me that you do not try to win your troops over by being a nice guy. If the major had acted thus on the beach at Peleliu, if he had been there explaining the situation and pleading with us, we would have all been dead. On the other hand, he put it to us bluntly: "Get your asses off this beach or I'll kill you. Move." In my mind, he meant what he said, and that is how I led and trained my troops in later years. That incident immediately came to mind when I was interviewed a few years back by Bill D. Ross, who wrote Peleliu: Tragic Triumph. Ross asked me to tell him about something that stood out in my mind concerning Peleliu. I told him about the conduct of that major early on the morning of D-day on Orange Beach 3.
http://www.military.com/pics/ww0998PELELIU_1l.jpg
Dug-in Marines wait while explosives are used to clear Japanese-held caves on a hillside. Pockets of resistance remained long after the island was secured; the last few Japanese finally surrendered on February 1, 1945. (Cowles Photo Archive)
continued........