Sergeant Snuffy Anderson’s bravery didn’t go unnoticed. After the war was over, the sergeant and several other men were invited to the White House. On Memorial Day, 1946, President Harry S. Truman pinned the Medal of Honor on Sergeant Beauford Anderson in recognition of his bravery and the lives he saved. Anderson was the second Deadeye to receive the country’s highest recognition.
But he wasn’t the only hero. Heroes were all over the place. Over in F Company, a Japanese officer came through the bushes mistakenly approaching someone he thought was one of his own men. Apparently trying to get the soldier’s attention, he whistled. PFC Tony O’Neil instantly knew what was about to happen and fired almost without looking. The officer and ten men fell dead. E Company’s Lieutenant Maurice Douthit had been nearly overwhelmed in the enemy’s offense but kept fighting. He heard a shot behind him but couldn’t turn around. Looking over his shoulder, he saw one of his men about to be stabbed by a Japanese. Without turning, Douthit shot over his shoulder and killed the attacker. When the day was over, those companies had killed over 196 Japanese.
Hard to believe how many people were being killed hour after hour. They lost their boys; we lost ours. By the end of the day on April 13, we figured that the 381st, the 382nd, and the 383rd had 1,401 wounded and a total of 2,004 put out of action forever. Some of the units had to pull back with half their men gone.
I went down to Command to attempt to understand what was going on. Generals James Bradley and Claudius Easley had already gone to the front and were talking. Finally, the meeting officially began.
“Gentlemen, I believe the Japanese thought they’d push us off the island with their night offense,” General Bradley explained. “We’ve lost way too many men, but we held our position. In the exchange, their bodies littered the fields like fallen leaves. It certainly turned into a bitter night. Even though many of your units bore the brunt of the assault, the Japanese now have a big rethink coming. The Japanese have lost 4,663 men and have no other soldiers to replace them. Attrition alone is cutting them down.”
The general kept explaining as he pointed to a large map behind him. “I know that some of you believe we ought to wait for another division to come ashore. I understand, but the stakes are too high to wait. Our chances of success are too good for us to wait. If the Ninety-Sixth and the Seventh can achieve a breakthrough, the war will be shortened and, in the end, lives saved. We need to keep hitting them as hard as we can.”
I kept listening, but my mind wandered back to those frontline soldiers and their commanders. Units like the 383rd Infantry that had landed on Easter Sunday and were now radically depleted wouldn’t get the bigger picture General Bradley described. The ideas certainly sounded good, but those men had paid a terrible price for what had become a seemingly unattainable objective.
After the meeting, I walked outside and thought about our next move. The first phase of the battle for Okinawa had been completed. We attacked; they retreated. Finally, they attacked big-time; we held. Still, both sides had lost far, far too many men. If the figures kept mounting, eventually the Japanese were going to be finished for a lack of soldiers if for no other reason.
We had come ashore on April 1, and now thirteen days later we had endured what seemed like months of combat. In only a couple of weeks, we had lived through a lifetime of struggle. Thousands had died, and we were still at it. Staggering thought.
Our men had endured horrible conditions, and more were ahead. God help us.