May 15 became the night of rain.
Seemed like no one would start out or stand in the downpour, much less launch an attack. Wrong. The Japanese sent a crew up the reverse side of King Hill with the usual deadly intent. Their exchange with M Company’s heavy machine guns suggested that staying inside under a warm blanket had certainly been the better idea. Through the trees, M Company knocked out at least sixty Japanese in that little foray.
For the moment, Command Center had not been asking for artillery support from our unit, so we could wait out the rain under water-repellant cover. No one complained about that opportunity. However, we knew the situation for Company G had to be different. They had been given orders to make another run at the western slope of Conical. The task would not be easy, and the rain only intensified the struggle. Nevertheless, Colonel Dill sent the men into action.
G Company quickly discovered they were confronted by a battery of caves and pillboxes. There was good reason why that side of the hill had proved so obstinate. Our soldiers were not deterred by such a formidable defense system, but the advance proved to be costly. PFC Robert Coy recognized the problem and rushed one of the machine-gun nests.
“Teki!” the Japaneses screamed. “Teki!”
Though he was completely exposed, Coy kept firing his BAR. A surviving Japanese soldier rushed him with a trench knife. Coy’s bullet hit the assailant square in the forehead. He fell backward in the grass, his blank eyes staring emptily at the dark sky. Another Japanese popped up and fired a pistol, but Coy left him sprawled on the ground.
G Company kept moving, but as they were almost to the crest, artillery fire increased. Mortars were falling every four square feet. Dust and debris flew in every direction. The men did not flinch and kept crawling forward. Even under those adverse circumstances, the platoon did not stop.
Six men tried to hook around the Conical peak, attempting to tie in with the Second Platoon. Sergeant Denton Jackson led the men upward. PFC Clifford Tschoepe made it to the top. Suddenly a machine gun opened up on them, hitting all six. The hill was so steep that they all rolled seventy-five feet to the bottom. Amazingly, they all survived.
Company G kept pounding. The rain and the mud did not stop them. By the end of the day they had established a front line that wound around the area and hooked up with C Company on Charlie Hill. Conical peak remained a problem, and a gap still existed between Conical and King Hills. Still, the gains were important even if they occurred in the deluge.
* * *
The next day, the 382nd’s new objective was Love Hill. The area turned out to be a low, barren ridge that ran into the southern spur of Conical. Once we held that area, we’d be in position to knock out the Japanese entrenchments that still existed on the southwest slope of Conical, as well as support the ongoing attack on Oboe Hill.
Sergeant Hilton Stults was to lead the direct assault on Love Hill. He and a platoon of twenty-six men were to hit them with full force.
Signaling for the platoon to follow, Stults started forward. He knew Japanese were to the rear and that they were alone in this attack, but he didn’t hesitate.
One of the men asked how far they were going.
The sergeant answered they were charging all the way to the top because they had to take the Love Hill area. He warned the men to stay low and pay attention because they didn’t seem to be encountering the enemy. He knew that was not a good sign.
The platoon kept moving. Occasionally, rifle fire cracked through the air, but no enemy appeared.
One of the men grumbled that he was as wet as an old hound dog in a storm. The bushes were about as dry as a swimming pool. The ground felt like mush.
Another soldier growled that it was like being assigned to take a bath with your clothes on.
The heavy rain became more of a drizzle. The climb wasn’t steep, so the men didn’t struggle with the ascent. In record time, the platoon reached the top of the hill.
A soldier remarked, “That was easy.” He couldn’t believe they’d just moseyed up the trail like they owned the place.
Sergeant Stults kept looking to the right and left. He mumbled to himself that it was too good to be true.
A roaring thunderclap of cracking guns opened up on the exposed men. Over fifty machine guns fired at once directly at the men standing in the open. Hidden guns from Charlie, King, Conical, Oboe, and Love Hills fired simultaneously. The squad fell right and left. Stults tumbled over on the ground. The shooting didn’t stop as man after man of the trapped platoon dropped to their knees or fell on their faces. The killing didn’t stop.
From the valley below, the American soldiers watched in horror. Nothing could be done to save the stranded twenty-six soldiers. The Japanese continued firing until no one moved on the top of Love Hill. Finally, the barrage stopped. The platoon had been wiped out.
Firing went back and forth throughout the entire day. The rest of C Company could only glance at the men still lying all over the top of the hill, men whom they could no longer reach or assist. The situation left the company horrified by the extent of the loss. The day ended, and by eight the night was black.
Sergeant Stults raised his head slightly and asked if anybody was still alive.
One voice answered.
Another answer came from the far corner.
Someone said that two of them were there.
Stults said in a low voice that only six had survived, but they shouldn’t move yet.
Another soldier called out that he was alive but wounded.
Stults said they had to crawl off the top of this hill quietly. Possibly they could hide in one of those caves.
Stults started inching his way between dead soldiers until he got to the edge of the clearing and called in a low whisper for the men to join him. Four other men crawled toward him.
They knew that they all had been hit in one way or the other.
Stults told them to be careful because the Japanese were watching. He started leading them down.
The wounded men made no sounds but kept their pain to themselves. In the dark, the trail still had broken limbs and jagged rocks than made the slow descent even more difficult. The men slid some of the way. A couple of the wounded could barely walk.
One of the soldiers spotted another of the island’s tombs. They could hide inside.
The men hurried to the entrance and pulled away a rock covering the opening. The soldiers dragged the two badly wounded men in with them. Sitting in the pitch-black cave, they caught their breath. At least they were alive.
* * *
Four days later in the early morning, a bright red flare pierced the sky. Two soldiers on duty saw the trail of fire streaming across the sky and thought it could be a trick of some kind.
As they watched, two figures seemed to be walking out of the bushes.
The figures kept waving, and the first one was shouting “Don’t shoot! Hold your fire!”
The first guard drew a bead on them and was ready to fire if they tried anything funny.
The second man shouted that they really were Americans. They had two more back in a cave and needed help.
The two guards rushed forward. Each man put his shoulder under one of the wounded men and walked them back into their camp.
The guards said everybody had been talking about the lost platoon. It was assumed they were all dead.
One of the men confirmed he was Sergeant R. D. Turner. They had spent three nights and days holed up on Love Hill.
Private Kenneth Boynton and Turner tried to get out. However, the Japanese had a machine gun fixed on the tomb. For some reason, they seemed satisfied to keep the Americans holed up so they couldn’t get out.
A guard asked how they survived.
Private Keith Cochran said that the second night an old man and an Okinawan woman came into the tomb with a girl about ten years old. “The old coot must have been ninety. No kidding. We didn’t know what they were doing, but there were two rooms in the tomb, and we hid in the second.”
Private Bill Schweneger added, “They turned out to be right friendly. Cochran communicated with them in sign language. The girl went out and filled two of our canteens with water. We put halazone tablets in and could drink the water even if it looked dirty.”
Cochran said that the Okinawans stayed with them all day and even cooked food for the soldiers. “We just couldn’t believe that they would treat us so good.” The unit rested during the day waiting to see what would come next.
Turner explained that on the fourth day a big air strike hit. “We guess our own airplanes thought Japanese had holed up in the tomb. Artillery went off and the ground shook. They almost thought an earthquake had hit. Charlie Company started pounding the cave with machine-gun fire. Bullets were flying everywhere. Our own artillery opened up on us and blew one of the rooms all to pieces. Looked like our own side would wipe us out.”
That night Cochran sneaked out to one of the shell holes to get more rainwater. He saw a cave not that far from them that had a campfire burning in the entrance. He listened carefully and realized the Japanese were singing. Women were laughing. It sounded like they were having a big-time party.
When he got back to the men, he shared what he had seen. They decided the time had come for a now-or-never break. The men took off their shoes and left everything behind, even their rifles. They knew they couldn’t afford to make a sound and had to help each other because a couple of them were badly injured. The survivors didn’t stop before they got back to our side of the line. Boyton helped Schweneger because his foot had really gotten mangled.
Boyton said that they prayed all the time they were there. With only one Bible, they took turns reading it.
The guard pointed and saw another soldier coming through.
Sergeant Donald Williams hobbled in, leaning on a tree branch for a crutch. Color had faded from his face: he appeared pale. He exclaimed that they were a sight for sore eyes. Then he slumped onto a fallen tree sprawled out on top of the grass.
One the guards recognized that he needed a medic.
Willliams agreed. He and a buddy had gotten pinned down in a depression on Love Hill. The two of them got hit three times apiece. “The Japanese were floating around after the artillery barrage they put on us, so we had to play dead.” Williams stayed there with his buddy from four to seven that night and didn’t move. When it got dark, he carried his friend down the hill. Eventually, they found a cave and crawled in, exhausted and bleeding. During the night, Williams crawled out and started looking for water. He found the body of a dead American soldier with his canteen still half full. The man obviously couldn’t use it again, so Williams took it back to the cave. Just before morning, while it was still dark, he tried to carry his buddy out. Unfortunately, the injured man was so weak that he fainted, and Williams had to return to the cave.
“The Japanese never saw us, but they were out there. We could hear them walking around and talking. Thank God they never entered the cave. We settled in for the night but kept watching the entrance to the cave and didn’t sleep. The next morning became the real nightmare. Artillery blasted everything around the cave and one of our airplanes even hit the area with rockets. Somehow, we made it through the day with explosions constantly pounding the area. When night came again, I crawled out and went looking for water. This time I found a full canteen and brought it back.”
The guard asked if it came off a dead soldier.
A glazed, faraway look swept over Williams’s eyes. His voice quivered when he said yes.
The camp guard understood.
Some Japanese must have seen him crawl back into the cave. Williams could hear them approaching outside. “I don’t know where they got it, but the Japanese had an America bazooka they fired into our cave. We guessed the explosion must have knocked me out for a few moments. The concussion was awful, but that wasn’t enough. They tossed in a grenade and the explosion showered my buddy with shrapnel. Everything felt blurry, but I could see two Japanese fixin’ to come in. I had a Japanese pistol taken off a dead officer some time back. I aimed.
Donald Williams stopped and began coughing. He mumbled and took a deep breath. “The cave was a small tomb . . . maybe eight by ten feet at most. The two Japanese bent down to come in. I shot the first one right through the head. The second guy took off and I never saw him again. All night and the next day, we waited, hoping we’d be found by our soldiers, but no one came.”
Williams took another deep breath. He explained that he knew by this time that after all he’d been through, his friend was dying and would never make it back. He himself had not eaten in three days and had given most of the water to his buddy. “I had become so weak that I doubted I could make it back by myself. All I could do was try.”
Nobody said anything. The camp guards and the four other survivors just listened.
“I staggered out of the cave in the dark and started down the hill. At the bottom, I found a shell hole filled with rainwater. I fell on my face and drank like a thirsty horse. Forget those damn tablets, I felt like I was dying. If a flare went off, I would flop on the ground and play dead. Eventually, the moon came out and it stopped raining. I found a hole and must have slept for four hours. When it started getting light again, I woke up. Didn’t take a moment to know I had to hotfoot it back to our lines. Along the way, the Japanese fired a couple of mortars at me. I’d hit the ground and play dead. Once a Japanese walked by only a few feet away. That’s when I finally got up and made it back to our lines.”
* * *
The story got around about the “lost platoon” and the few men who ended up surviving the ordeal. When the intelligence officers interviewed the survivors, they received invaluable information on the position of the Japanese weapons and mortars. The soldiers looked weary beyond fatigue. Each man’s eyes were sunken, and their cheeks drawn. Their bodies were covered with flea bites. Fleas had settled in, leaving them with a constant irritation. Sergeant Turner and PFC Schweneger were immediately taken to the hospital. The remainder went to the rear for extended rest and recovery.
Surprisingly enough, in a few days PFC Cochran, Sergeant Williams, and Private Boynton were back in action. The war went on.