As I often discuss with school kids, no matter how much someone wonders about it, they never know how they will act in combat until they’re actually in it. There is no test to tell who will perform and who won’t. Some of the biggest, gung-ho guys turn out to not be worth a damn, while some sheepish, quiet, seemingly no-good fellow will come through with flying colors and end up a skilled combat veteran. There were a lot of guys in our battalion who would fight anyone at the drop of the hat, but were scared to death in combat. You just never knew beforehand.
I am still not quite sure why I survived the war. Maybe because I did everything right and did not expose myself needlessly. But a lot of us did that and still got killed. On the other hand, I saw so many guys get hit because they were doing something wrong at the time, occasionally on purpose. I mean, for crying out loud, when enemy shells are landing around you, the dumbest thing to do is to get up and start sprinting away from them. I know that these guys were running because they were scared. However, that’s the last thing you should ever do. You stay down, protect yourself.
Some guys just freaked out and froze or locked up out in the open. I sympathized with them, I really did. On the other hand, they were just inviting what they were so afraid might happen to happen.
On the other side of the coin, other guys, like ostriches, would just dig their heads in the sand and pray that the shooting be over. You can pray all you want, but I had learned on Peleliu that the Lord won’t most likely help you until you until you make the effort to help yourself.
I remembered back to one time in mid-May 1945 on Okinawa when we had been attacked. Towards the end of the action, I moved around our slope to get a better bead on a hidden Jap position, and as I did, I walked past one of our foxholes. I looked down and saw a figure crouched down in it, curled up in a fetal position, his rifle on the ground, a few feet away from his hole. He was hunkered over with his hands over his ears, and he was shaking with fright.
I paused above and snarled at him, “What the hell are you doing down there?”
He just lay there, trembling, obviously wanting the world to go away.
“Get up and shoot!” I yelled.
He still did not move.
“Cmon!” I said. “Christ, if I had been a Jap, you’d be dead right now.”
He stayed where he was, scared shitless. I shook my head and moved on, muttering to myself. If he was not going to fight, he should at least tell the officers, so that they could put him in a rear job or something, and replace him. Otherwise, just lying there put both of us at risk of getting killed. It was not like I did not sympathize with the guy, because I really did. I understood fear. It was normal to be frightened on the line, but to be a good combat soldier, you had to recognize that fear and still function under those scary conditions. I’d rather have 10 riflemen who can shoot (groundhog hunters, as I called them), instead of 40 guys who don’t know if they wanted to be there.
This guy was in my mind, depriving the unit out of his support, cheating other guys who might be killed if he did not doing their job. If he couldn’t help us, he had no business being there for the guys who needed him. He was just a drag to the unit. Still, I did feel sorry for him, even as I was grumbling.1
I think in most ways, Peleliu was my worst combat operation of the war. It was just a slaughter ground, based on one set of screw-ups after another. I mean, from the navy bigwigs on down to our own division commander. And we riflemen were the ones that suffered the worst. The 1st Marines at Peleliu went on record as the regiment that took the highest percentage of casualties ever in Marine Corps history. And of the three battalions, mine, the 3rd, had taken the worst of it. A lot of the Old Breed died those first few days.
I know that I was often scared to the point where I sometimes shivered with fright. Today though, having gone through all of that, I can say that I have had every damn experience that you can have. I remember when the Pinkney began sailing away from Peleliu, I swore that I would never to go back to that damn island of hell again.
Many times in the last few decades I have been asked why I never returned. I wouldn’t go back, not even to pay homage to my buddies who had died there. I mean, what for? The reason for not going is in my mind, simple. In the years since, Peleliu has gone back to being a tropical island. And I hear it’s real nice now, a type of tourist resort. That shoreline that we had been evacuated from in early October, Purple Beach, is a good example. It is now called “Honeymoon Beach.”2 You would probably see couples vacationing, walking along the sand holding hands, sitting under some umbrella sipping tropical rum drinks. There would be some native girls dancing in their lavalava skirts with pretty smiles, waving their arms to the music, gazing at you with dreamy eyes, with the gentle sea behind them.
Me, I figure that I would look right next to where the tourists were sitting and imagine seeing bodies lying in the sand, or rolling around in the surf. Tourists would hear soft Polynesian music; me, I’d hear mortar shells echoing in my head. The vacationers would see the beauty of a tropical island, and I would just see shattered mangroves, burnt amtracs, craters, and corpses—lifeless friends lying face down in the wet sand.
One time, a friend of mine sent me a small plastic tube with some sand inside that had come from Peleliu. I looked at the tube and almost pitched it. No, I guess I think differently on this than most veterans do …
I sometimes think back to that second morning when I was sitting in that crater, frightened, shells landing everywhere, and I had turned to God for help. When nothing visibly happened right away and I was still lying there, mortar rounds continuing to come down around me, I mentally gave up on Him and went on, hoping that I would not get blown to bits. Looking back on it now with hindsight, I guess He was riding shotgun with me all along, and I had just been too damned stupid to realize it. How else could I have gone through some 24 months of combat, seen so many of my comrades getting killed, and never even get a scratch?
On Okinawa, I went through a different type of hell. The fighting was not quite as vicious and deadly as it had been on Peleliu, and the enemy fire most of the time was not nearly as intense. On the other hand, Peleliu for us was only a couple of weeks long before we were relieved. Okinawa on the other hand had been almost seven months long, of which eight weeks had been in rigorous combat.
I can say one thing with pride. I never did anything in combat that I was ashamed of. I saw some brutal, savage stuff happen, most of it by the enemy, but some of it by us. I was never happy about it, but I never lost sleep over it. That is how real war is: vicious, no matter who you are.
The only regret that I have in that regard was not being there when my close buddy died on Okinawa. Henry Vastine Rucker. Yeah, I miss old Henry …
I was not any kind of a gunfighter, but I like to think that I was thorough, cold-blooded killer when I had to be. I know that I was an efficient shooter. I don’t know how many Japs I killed or had killed, but I know there were many. And I would kill them any way I could. I think that the instincts I picked up in my early life outdoors did a great deal to help me survive the island campaigns. And my Marine training helped even more.
Like one of my drill instructors at Parris Island once told me: “Ya gotta be like a cattail in a swamp and bend with the wind. And you gotta be able to creep like a baby and crawl like a snake.”
On November 9, 2009, I was lucky enough to be inducted into the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame. I was told that it was recognition for my service to the country and my contributions to fellow veterans. I was quite humbled by that.
In December 2015, I was given an honorary trip to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. Along with a few dozen other veterans, we were honored as a part of the unveiling of its new Pacific Theater wing. I myself had my own kiosk there, featuring an audio recording of mine on Okinawa. I had several occasions to talk to co-founder Gary Sinise, and all us old veterans had a great time.
Perhaps just as satisfying to me was that fact that my son George Lee came down with me. Both of us are stubborn cusses, and we had from time to time had some head butting. We were not at odds in life, but over the years, we could have had a better relationship. This trip helped us a lot. And I think George Lee got a better idea of what I did. When we returned to Columbus, he told me that he was proud of me for what I did during the war. That went a long way with me. It meant a lot.
For almost 40 years, I rarely talked much about my experiences in World War II, except of course with my friends at our reunions. All that changed though, a half century after the war ended.
1995 was to be our mortar platoon’s 50-year reunion. We decided to hold it where it the whole Marine experience began for us: Parris Island, South Carolina. We planned as a part of the reunion to attend a boot camp graduation, something none of us had been given when we had gone through. In those days before the war, when you finished boot, you were just given your orders and that was that. Now they have a whole day of ceremony and stuff for these guys.3
The training command was thrilled for us to want to come, and so we planned accordingly. We would have our actual reunion in nearby Savannah, and the base would make transportation arrangements to get us out there.
George Peto, along with about 40 other World War II veterans, is honored at the opening ceremony for the new Pacific wing of the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, December 11, 2015. Standing second to his left is Gary Sinise, who played Vietnam veteran “Lieutenant Dan” in the award-winning movie Forrest Gump. Mr. Sinise is a major sponsor of the museum and founder of the Gary Sinise Foundation for Veterans. George’s oral account of the Hill 55 attack on May 13, 1945 featured in the Okinawa section of the new wing. (Photo courtesy of George Peto Jr.)
We all arrived separately, about 21 of us, and the first night of our reunion (as you can imagine) was a roaring success. The next day, the recruit training center sent a bus, and we traveled out to Parris Island. From the moment we arrived, we were given the red carpet treatment. As guests, several officers there gave us the rare opportunity to actually see some of the activities that the new recruits were going through. We saw some exercises in personal combat. Another interesting exercise was the hand grenade training. For safety (and probably because of liability), when they started throwing those grenades, we had to observe behind bulletproof glass, which we veterans found amusing, seeing how we had thrown hundreds of the damn things in the war. However, the grenades these kids threw were different than ours. These grenades were round, where our olive-green pineapples had been more oblong. And it surprised me how much louder these exploded than ours had. They made a horrendous noise, even though these suckers were much smaller than the ones we used.4
We watched the graduation and really enjoyed it. After the main ceremony ended, we were supposed to have our picture taken with the ranking officer present, the colonel of the graduating class. Somehow, the base commander, General Klimp,5 got the word that there was a platoon of old World War II veterans there, and he decided he was going to have his picture taken with us as well.
A week or two after I got back home, I got a personal letter from the general. Since I was one of the organizers of our reunions, the letter had been sent to me. In it, General Klimp asked for our reunion organization to assist the Corps in spreading the word about how great the Marines were, and about my experiences in it. In essence, he wanted us to be a sort of recruiting tool, and to give the Marine Corps recruiters a hand as such. According to the general, the recruiters were having trouble filling their enlistment billets. I never did get around to writing back to the general, but I did think about what he had written, and I finally decided that the least I could do was tell folks about my experiences and to indirectly make a pitch for the Corps.
Having made the decision, I started to get involved. I put the word out to a couple schools that I would be willing to show up with some props and tell the kids of my exploits. What the hell, I liked to talk to people anyway, and I had no problems speaking to a group. I was surprised that a couple high schools responded to my invitation. So I started speaking at them on veteran holidays. I soon got my buddy Joe Dodge to start coming to these show-and-tells with me, and for about ten years, we were quite popular. We spoke at high schools, middle schools, veteran organizations like the VFW and the American Legion, the Wooster and Urbana Historical Societies, and even to some junior colleges. I have been doing these presentations ever since. I find it fun, and the kids are amazed at some of the stuff we did on those islands.
Two items that George showed to school children when he is a guest speaker. At bottom the compass he carried in all four Pacific campaigns to calculate coordinates as a forward observer for 3rd Battalion’s 81mm mortars. Above it is the small notebook that, located in his left front pocket, absorbed shrapnel from a mortar blast on Okinawa, May 11, 1945, saving his life. A couple pieces are still embedded in the notebook, although most have fallen out over the years from the notebook being handled. (Author’s collection)
Besides the gratification that I get from these guest appearances (often with a free meal, even if it is only pizza), I occasionally see other benefits. Like for instance, just before Veterans Day in 2013, I went to Thomas Worthington High School, about three miles away from where I live in Columbus. Just before I was scheduled to speak, I met a Marine recruiter in his dress blues. He came up to me with a big grin, introduced himself, and shook my hand. We stood there and he started talking about the occasion, recruiting, and other stuff.
I finally smiled at him and asked, “Well, what’s your story? How’d you get into the Marine Corps?”
He told me that he had joined the Corps because as a teenager, he had become captivated with the idea of becoming a Marine.
“Really,” I said. “What got you fired up to be a Marine?”
He looked at me and cracked a big-assed grin. “From listening to you tell them sea stories.”
I looked at him surprised. “Huh?”
He smiled again and spread his hands out as he looked around us. “I graduated from here,” he said. “I listened to you, and you’re the one that talked me into going.”
I was stunned, and all I could say was “Wow.” He had attended Thomas Worthington and had joined the Marines because of hearing the things that I had said. I had actually recruited what was now a recruiter. General Klimp would be proud. Maybe I was doing some good after all.
Over the decades, I have seen nearly all of my buddies—those that survived the war—pass away from one thing or another. I have attended so many of their funerals, and yet for some reason I still go on. I have been asked a number of times how I feel at one of these funerals, and to be honest, I feel kind of numb. I think to myself that it must have been his time to go, and I let it go at that. I was though, really messed up when I lost Juanita on March 9, 2013, at the age of 92. We had been happily married 65 years.
George with some of his artifacts, talking to students of Fairbanks Middle School on May 4, 2016, about his experiences in World War II. (Author’s collection)
I continue to support local veteran groups. I’m a member of the VFW and the American Legion. But I try to attend every monthly meeting of my local detachment of the Marine Corps League.6 I suppose that doing stuff for the Corps will always be in my blood. I may be retired, but what the hell. I’ll always be a Marine.
Semper Fi.
1 After the war, perhaps out of shame, he never attended any of the unit reunions.
2 Peleliu, today known as the Palau state of Bliliou, remains a point of visitation for many Marines. Nearby Angaur Island is today the island state of Ngeaur.
3 Today, the end of boot camp at Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) is indeed capped off at the end of the last week with a formal graduation ceremony. Thursday of that week is considered Family Day, and those graduating are granted on-base liberty to visit with friends and relatives who attend. Friday is Graduation Day. The day consists of a parade and formal ceremony on the parade field, with friends and family in attendance.
4 George’s unit used the famous 1½ lb. Mark 2 fragmentation grenade, affectionately nicknamed the “pineapple” because of the cast-iron-groove pattern’s resemblance to the fruit. The recruits were probably using the Mark 67 grenade, which although some 12 ounces lighter, packs a more powerful explosive. Its shape is round and much shorter.
5 Lt. General Jack W. Klimp, now retired. He served as the Parris Island commander from June 1993 until July 1995.
6 Belleau Wood Detachment #508, Columbus, Ohio.
