Despair.
Sooner or later, soldiers experience discouragement.
How do you deal with seeing your buddies get bullet holes in the middle of their chests? What do you do with recurring images of dead men lying in a ditch with empty eyes? Sure, it’s easy to hate the enemy, but what do you do when you see them sprawled over the ground and find pictures in their pockets? Photographs of them standing next to a Japanese woman, all smiles. She’s a pretty thing, just like your girlfriend back home. You can’t escape the fact that even with different facial figures and skin tone, they are human beings. Just like you.
Despair sinks in if you let yourself think about what’s going on. Particularly when the fighting becomes increasingly brutal and your side is getting pushed back. Men in the units get quiet. Sometimes they quit talking to one another. Everyone’s trying to make adjustments but aren’t sure where it’s all going. Gritting your teeth will hold it all back for only so long, and then—
Despair doesn’t mean you’re afraid, though sometimes you are. You don’t want to go AWOL, though sometimes you think about it. The sinking feeling signals that you don’t have it all figured out. Maybe Command isn’t telling you the whole story. Possibly nobody knows the truth about what’s coming down next.
I knew the men on the front line wouldn’t understand the “big picture” that the generals were talking about. The top brass already knew the Japanese were licked even if the enemy didn’t accept that conclusion yet. The thoughts of the guys in the foxholes were mainly on surviving. Another night assault like what they had barely survived might take out every one of them. Such a situation settles in on you and produces its own emotion.
Despair.
* * *
By the morning of April 19, the pieces in the puzzle had been rearranged. During the day and at night, we kept firing at the enemy mainly to keep them off balance. Small patrols kept checking on what the enemy appeared to be doing while we built up our stockpile of ammo. We certainly didn’t want them mounting another offensive. However, we were fundamentally marking time while the details were worked out for our response. As the sun came up that morning, we were prepared for the greatest land attack in the history of Pacific warfare.
Out in the ocean, Admiral Turner’s fleet stood ready to hammer the enemy with the huge guns on those battleships. Both navy and marine dive-bombers had been loaded with bombs and prepared to strike like lightning bolts. Six battalions of the Ninety-Sixth were ready to roll. The 198th Battalion’s 155mm howitzers stood ready along with the First Battalion of the Eleventh Marine Artillery unit. The big guns were aimed at the face of the enemy. This was a do-or-die campaign to the bitter end. We didn’t expect to die.
Command had given me the assignment for the 361st Artillery unit. At six in the morning, we were to begin firing. The sun had barely peeked over the horizon when I gave the signal. Our howitzers bounced off the ground as they rapidly fired shell after shell. The enemy certainly had a wakeup call coming down their chimney. Like monstrous sledgehammers smashing boulders, our bombardment slammed down on them.
Smoke began curling up and then spread across the sky. The entire enemy line became engulfed in a smoky cover as our explosives relentlessly fell. I grabbed my binoculars and raced to get a good reconnaissance view of what was happening. By the time I looked down on the front line, I could see nothing but the enemy shrouded in hazy fog. Dive-bombers kept up their attacks, making the ground shake. I couldn’t see how any of the enemy had survived.
The Ninety-Sixth Deadeyes found their place along two lines, ready for the follow-up to the bombing. The Seventh Division stood to the north of Tombstone Ridge and the town of Kaniku. The Twenty-Seventh Division waited on the north side of Kakazu Ridge. Along with other units, each group had their own specific objective. A series of pinnacles we called the Crags gave the enemy excellent cover, and we knew they’d be firing at us from that significant position. The 382nd would have to deal with that problem.
Everyone knew the plan of attack. Our artillery would pound the Japanese for forty minutes, and then the infantry would move out. Forty minutes later, artillery was to shift to the right and pound that corridor. When we stopped, another battalion would jump off and begin opening up the area for still another battalion to hook up. By this time the Japanese were getting lambasted with everything we had.
I figured the advance should prove easy. We must have flattened the enemy’s front line and could walk over them, making excellent progress. Wrong. As the smoke began to lift, machine-gun fire opened up everywhere. Mortars started flying. It turned out that the Japanese had holed up in huge holes and pillboxes. They had survived the barrage and were back in action.
The Japanese were still there and waiting for us.
* * *
The First Battalion of the 382nd Infantry had fought their way up Tombstone Ridge three times. I imagined they’d got to know the area like their backyard. Now the task fell to them again. Once more they started up that treacherous terrain. For the first hour all went well, but from eight on, progress became difficult and costly.
Company A charged up the sheer, rocky cliffs, searching for footholds and watching for cover. The men crept up behind Lieutenant Roger Smith, grabbing at any handhold they could find. Smith kept shouting for them to stay down and keep low.
A machine gunner opened up somewhere above them. The men hit the ground. Smith started shooting back.
Then he stood up and swung his arms to encourage the men forward. A blast of machine-gun fire exploded. The lieutenant flew backward with his arms still extended.
A soldier yelled that Smith was hit and needed a medic.
The paramedic scrambled over the rocky terrain and bent over Smith’s body. He listened for a minute before shaking his head and saying he’s gone. They called for a litter to carry him back.
The soldiers kept pushing. By three o’clock, the company had worked their way up to the northeastern tip of the slope. The unit kept pressing the enemy and slowly inching to the top. By nightfall, they had taken half the ridge.
Darkness settled in and the infantry began to calculate what had happened. The bodies of 240 Japanese lay sprawled across the slopes. We had knocked out eighteen machine guns and mortars with only six of our soldiers killed. Tragically that loss included Lieutenant Smith and Captain George Gerrans, who had been the commander of Company B. I figured Roger Smith had a posthumous award coming. He did: the Distinguished Service Cross.
Even with these losses, our men had made genuine progress. F and G Companies occupied important high ground. The 381st ran into savage opposition, but the Second Battalion pushed forward. By the time the sun went down, F and G Companies had settled into advantageous positions. No matter where the different units turned, they had encountered deadly opposition.
The Japanese had the advantage of observation that the soldiers didn’t. Wherever the doughboys moved, the enemy could hit them hard. We had blasted them big-time, but they still maintained an advantage although their losses were staggering. Maybe this time, I thought, they might be the ones struggling with despair.