thedrifter
03-30-08, 05:45 AM
A WORLD AT WAR"If you stuck your head up, you'd get a bullet through it."Charles Evans,WWII Marine
A Marine remembers what he'd like to forget
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Brian Albrecht
Plain Dealer Reporter
As Charles Evans remembered the war, he rested his hand against a beard as white as the Tarawa surf after Japanese shells and bullets had churned the ocean and coral to a milky froth.
Those waters would soon run red from the blood of U.S. Marines assaulting the central Pacific stronghold in 1943.
"They gave us such a line of bull," Evans recalled. "They told us, Don't worry, the battleships are going to level that island, and the pilots will level what they miss.' . . . They just mowed us down."
Betio Island in the Tarawa atoll was only a mile long and a few hundred yards wide, but it had an airfield America needed in its drive toward Japan during World War II.
The Marines would pay dearly for that spit of sand.
Evans, 87, of Lakewood, was among some 35,000 troops assembled for the invasion and was awarded the Silver Star during that three-day battle.
The medal is somewhere in his house. He wasn't sure where. He said he was never one to hang on to mementos of his military past, though he still flies the Marine flag every Fourth of July.
"Some guys make a life out of being a veteran," he said. "To me, it was an incident in my life and now it's gone."
But the memories are not so easily discarded.
Particularly Tarawa, the only time in his six island battles - from Guadalcanal through Saipan - that Evans said he was truly, absolutely frightened for his life.
For good reason. The U.S. naval and air bombardment scarcely dented the island's defenses. Plus, invasion planners miscalculated the tides, leaving Marines stranded 500 yards from shore when their assault craft ran aground.
The Marines slogged forward, rifles held overhead, into murderous fire. By day's end, 1,500 of the 5,000 Marines thrown at the beach were dead or wounded.
Evans was part of a scout/sniper platoon sent in advance of the first wave to clear enemy gun emplacements. Their assault boat made it to a pier, but heavy gunfire raked the structure, forcing the Marines to jump in the water and wade in.
Evans remembered ducking underwater each time he saw a line of bullets stitching the waves toward him. Once ashore he joined Marines pinned against a log sea wall in a beachhead where they spent the night.
"If you stuck your head up, you'd get a bullet through it," Evans recalled.
The next day, combat became death by demolition as each Japanese bunker had to be methodically destroyed. Evans said they rarely saw the enemy: "Most of the time it was just blowing them up. That was the name of that game."
That "game," and other actions, earned Evans a Silver Star. Part of the citation reads: "With the greatest of personal valor and military skill, he attacked an emplacement by crawling under heavy enemy fire to a gun port of the position and destroyed it by use of grenades and demolitions. He then entered the position and killed the remaining enemy personnel."
Evans shrugged. "There was nothing heroic about it," he said. "There was so much going on, I don't even remember that incident."
Only 17 of 2,600 Japanese troops surrendered. The rest were killed. The U.S. lost 1,056 Marines and sailors killed, and 2,300 wounded.
The remembered stench of bodies on the island still gives Evans pause. Everything after Tarawa could have seemed anticlimactic.
Evans finished the war training Marine recruits, then returned to his Lakewood hometown where he went to work for Ohio Bell and got married. He and his wife, Harriet, have two daughters.
He stored the war, his medals and memories away. But they're around. Somewhere. And he can still find them.
Evans never hated the Japanese, not even when they were killing his buddies. He said he'd learned during his first action on Guadalcanal that the Japanese were "damn good soldiers. They were doing their job, and we were trying to do ours. Fortunately, we prevailed."
Nothing personal. Just a job. Except when he recalled one of the rare times that he actually saw an enemy he killed.
On Tinian Island, he got a clear shot at the Japanese soldier who'd just shot Evans' squad leader through the head.
"I hem-stitched him," Evans recalled, dropping a finger along the length of his torso in remembered mimicry of the bullets hitting home.
It felt good, Evans said. "The exhilaration of combat is, in a perverse way, enjoyable," he said. "Combat is wonderful if you don't get hurt too bad or killed. It makes you realize that other things in life are relatively unimportant."
Though he misses the camaraderie of the service, Evans said he wouldn't have made a good peacetime Marine. "Back then we had an objective, something to live for, the excitement of war," he explained.
"And it was interesting. Really interesting," he added, "though I couldn't do it again."
He smiled and added, "Nowadays I have enough trouble just getting out of bed in the morning."
Suggested subjects for "A World at War" can be made by contacting reporter Brian Albrecht at The Plain Dealer, 1801 Superior Ave., Cleveland, OH 44114; balbrecht@plaind.com or 216-999-4853.
Ellie
A Marine remembers what he'd like to forget
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Brian Albrecht
Plain Dealer Reporter
As Charles Evans remembered the war, he rested his hand against a beard as white as the Tarawa surf after Japanese shells and bullets had churned the ocean and coral to a milky froth.
Those waters would soon run red from the blood of U.S. Marines assaulting the central Pacific stronghold in 1943.
"They gave us such a line of bull," Evans recalled. "They told us, Don't worry, the battleships are going to level that island, and the pilots will level what they miss.' . . . They just mowed us down."
Betio Island in the Tarawa atoll was only a mile long and a few hundred yards wide, but it had an airfield America needed in its drive toward Japan during World War II.
The Marines would pay dearly for that spit of sand.
Evans, 87, of Lakewood, was among some 35,000 troops assembled for the invasion and was awarded the Silver Star during that three-day battle.
The medal is somewhere in his house. He wasn't sure where. He said he was never one to hang on to mementos of his military past, though he still flies the Marine flag every Fourth of July.
"Some guys make a life out of being a veteran," he said. "To me, it was an incident in my life and now it's gone."
But the memories are not so easily discarded.
Particularly Tarawa, the only time in his six island battles - from Guadalcanal through Saipan - that Evans said he was truly, absolutely frightened for his life.
For good reason. The U.S. naval and air bombardment scarcely dented the island's defenses. Plus, invasion planners miscalculated the tides, leaving Marines stranded 500 yards from shore when their assault craft ran aground.
The Marines slogged forward, rifles held overhead, into murderous fire. By day's end, 1,500 of the 5,000 Marines thrown at the beach were dead or wounded.
Evans was part of a scout/sniper platoon sent in advance of the first wave to clear enemy gun emplacements. Their assault boat made it to a pier, but heavy gunfire raked the structure, forcing the Marines to jump in the water and wade in.
Evans remembered ducking underwater each time he saw a line of bullets stitching the waves toward him. Once ashore he joined Marines pinned against a log sea wall in a beachhead where they spent the night.
"If you stuck your head up, you'd get a bullet through it," Evans recalled.
The next day, combat became death by demolition as each Japanese bunker had to be methodically destroyed. Evans said they rarely saw the enemy: "Most of the time it was just blowing them up. That was the name of that game."
That "game," and other actions, earned Evans a Silver Star. Part of the citation reads: "With the greatest of personal valor and military skill, he attacked an emplacement by crawling under heavy enemy fire to a gun port of the position and destroyed it by use of grenades and demolitions. He then entered the position and killed the remaining enemy personnel."
Evans shrugged. "There was nothing heroic about it," he said. "There was so much going on, I don't even remember that incident."
Only 17 of 2,600 Japanese troops surrendered. The rest were killed. The U.S. lost 1,056 Marines and sailors killed, and 2,300 wounded.
The remembered stench of bodies on the island still gives Evans pause. Everything after Tarawa could have seemed anticlimactic.
Evans finished the war training Marine recruits, then returned to his Lakewood hometown where he went to work for Ohio Bell and got married. He and his wife, Harriet, have two daughters.
He stored the war, his medals and memories away. But they're around. Somewhere. And he can still find them.
Evans never hated the Japanese, not even when they were killing his buddies. He said he'd learned during his first action on Guadalcanal that the Japanese were "damn good soldiers. They were doing their job, and we were trying to do ours. Fortunately, we prevailed."
Nothing personal. Just a job. Except when he recalled one of the rare times that he actually saw an enemy he killed.
On Tinian Island, he got a clear shot at the Japanese soldier who'd just shot Evans' squad leader through the head.
"I hem-stitched him," Evans recalled, dropping a finger along the length of his torso in remembered mimicry of the bullets hitting home.
It felt good, Evans said. "The exhilaration of combat is, in a perverse way, enjoyable," he said. "Combat is wonderful if you don't get hurt too bad or killed. It makes you realize that other things in life are relatively unimportant."
Though he misses the camaraderie of the service, Evans said he wouldn't have made a good peacetime Marine. "Back then we had an objective, something to live for, the excitement of war," he explained.
"And it was interesting. Really interesting," he added, "though I couldn't do it again."
He smiled and added, "Nowadays I have enough trouble just getting out of bed in the morning."
Suggested subjects for "A World at War" can be made by contacting reporter Brian Albrecht at The Plain Dealer, 1801 Superior Ave., Cleveland, OH 44114; balbrecht@plaind.com or 216-999-4853.
Ellie