LFKirby's Experience on Guam

(Tia, you asked what I did to be awarded the Silver Star. About ten years ago I wrote this account of an enemy counter-attack on Guam. I am posting it here because there is not enough space allotted for a private communication.)

During the night of July 25, D-day plus four, it rained. We had dug in at the foot of a ridge that ran all along the Force Beachhead Line. The entire division was stretched out along the ridge from one end of the front line to the other. Our Battalion was located in a natural amphitheater formed by a long curving portion of the hill.
Each company had set up listening posts along the military crest of the ridge. Corporal Jonczy and I were manning one of the posts a few hundred feet ahead of and above the company. There was enemy activity along the ridge. Japanese scouts reconnoitering our position meant that the enemy commanders were planning something. All through the night, magnesium parachute flares, ours and theirs, intermittently lit up the area with blinding bright light. Beyond the flares, which in themselves were unnerving, and the Japanese scouts scurrying nearby, all was quiet except for some small arms fire well to our north.
Our defense perimeter, in addition to the listening posts, consisted of long lengths of lightweight, combat telephone wire strung around our area, from which dangled mess gear and tin cans: anything that would clang and rattle if someone tried to slip past in the night. We also had a 30 cal. air-cooled Browning machine gun set up in a draw to our left. The draw was an irregular slice through the ridge created long ago by a stream that coursed down from the mountains. The water in the stream had eroded its way through the ridge and left this narrow cut in the otherwise intact curving hillock.
The stream, as with all shallow, moving waters, probably meandered in another direction on the other side of the hill where it emptied into the Asan River and on into the ocean to the south. It left behind this small gully that became an inviting path providing easy access to both sides of the ridge. The draw was a logical position for the machine gun. Common sense dictated that any attacking force would come down this route rather than to climb up and over the crest of the hill.
It was just before first light when I came down from the listening post. I was wide awake. The blinding flares and the threat of attack had kept everybody awake and on edge. I’m sure very few were able to get back to sleep. I was jittery and had trouble settling down.
I hoped we would have some brandy before we jumped off at full morning light. Sometimes, after a bad night, Billy Hauger, our corpsman, distributed nips of brandy from a little, egg-crate like box. The one-ounce drink usually relaxed me and helped to get the day started.
Funny, but even today, when I drink brandy I think of those damp, dark mornings and the small bottle from Bill Hauger. We were too young to drink in public, but the Marine Corps understood the remedial effect of strong cognac on a jittery and frightened young boy.
It was in the dark just before the dawn when Lieutenant Roberts came to our position and quietly called the names of six of us to go on a patrol with him.
The Japs had overrun the machine gun that was placed in the gully. During the night, between flashes of the erupting star shells, a squad of Japanese scouts infiltrated the gun position and under cover of darkness captured it and killed the crew. We had to take it back. It was essential to the defense of our position. Roberts’ prime concern was to recapture the machine gun and hold the gully. We had to guard against the enemy coming through and hitting us by surprise. An automatic weapon is too powerful and too precious to lose. With that kind of firepower we though we could hold the narrow draw indefinitely.
I was frightened when Mr. Roberts called my name, but I somehow managed to saddle up and follow with the others. We slowly moved up the draw in the semidarkness, four on one side and three on the other. The vegetation was thick and provided solid cover as we inched our way toward the Browning. In the gradually brightening gray overcast we could see that the Japs had turned the gun so it now faced down toward us and was ready to fire into our company position. Now I was really scared. The men below us would be pinned down in their holes. We were on our own and if the Japs saw or heard us we were dead meat. We stayed down low and well hidden as we moved very slowly and noiselessly up the ravine.
The Japanese soldiers manning our thirty caliber had not seen us. Roberts gave hand signals and we stayed down on our bellies and moved at a deliberate and tedious pace so as to reach the gun with a minimum of noise and movement. We slithered our way through the sharp blade grass and we were all soon nicked and bleeding from little cuts and slices on our hands and faces. About ten or twelve yards from the captured gun the lieutenant signaled a halt. We were close enough to attack. I silently cocked the bolt on my piece and checked my grenades. My hands trembled. My breath was so loud in my ears I feared the Japs would hear it.
Roberts was on one side of the draw with three men. Gunny Tover, Harold Boynton and I were on the other side. Roberts gave a signal, then he and Tover stepped out of the brush and heaved grenades into the machine gun emplacement. Other enemy riflemen, hidden in the bush, saw them and fired. Both were hit before they could get back to cover. One round penetrated a satchel charge the lieutenant had slung over his shoulder.
A satchel charge packs enough power to blow a tank off its tracks. Roberts brought it along in case we could not recapture the gun and had to destroy it. He fell with the charge under his body just as it exploded and blew him into small pieces of flesh and bone. Fragments of the satchel charge also tore into Frankie Arsenault, who was about six feet behind the lieutenant. He, too, died instantly.
The tossed grenades erupted and the gun went silent. The enemy crew was dead and the gun was destroyed. Gunny Tover tumbled into the bush beside me. He lay on his side in the fetal position holding his stomach. Blood was gushing through his fingers. He stared at me with panic in his eyes but did not speak. He reached out and held my ankle with his bloody left hand and looked at me—his look was a question mark. I had no answer. His grip suddenly relaxed as he died. I was now shaking with pure terror but my adrenaline was flowing. I knew I had to do something and I had to do it now.
We were unaware at the time but during the night a large Japanese force had moved into position along the other side of ridge. The attack on the 30 cal. was the opening shot of a massive “Banzai” charge. The bush all along the top of the hill resounded with shots. The Japanese were attacking in strength with thousands of enemy soldiers streaming over the ridge and attacking our battalion position on the Force Beachhead Line.
We had landed with but a single division. The plan was to cut a swath across the island from east to west and then we were to divide into two units, with one moving north and the other south. When both units reached the sea at the ends of the island, the campaign would be over and the island would be declared secured. Unfortunately, continuous flanking attempts by the enemy had forced us to expand the front line until it was many thousands of yards long—much too long to be defended by one division. The units on the line were now spread too thin to provide adequate defense of the terrain we had taken.
Enemy scouts had been probing the lines every night. They soon realized our extended situation and reported back to their commanders with details as to the location of weak points. A full-scale counterattack was in order in an attempt to break through the F.B.L. at the point protected by our battalion.
Japanese soldiers, two or three squads, came racing down the gully. We poured fire directly into them and they slowed and took cover. We were terribly outnumbered, but I knew we had to delay them as long as possible.
I will always wonder with great puzzlement why men will take their lives in their hands and hold them out and offer them in exchange for the protection of their friends. Why not just turn and run for safety—who would blame us? We had knocked out the gun. Three men were dead. We were in imminent danger of being killed if we stayed in the ravine.
The full answer still evades me but I knew, as the other men knew, that we had to hold as long as possible so that the rest of our outfit down below would have a better chance to survive the coming onslaught. We knew the Japanese were coming, they did not. They needed time to get ready and the longer we held our ground, the more their chances improved. Although there were only four of us, we knew we had to hold. We had to give the men behind us time to dig in and prepare. It mattered not that we still didn’t know of the breadth or magnitude of the overall “Banzai” charge.
It has often been said the simple foot soldier never grasps the expanse of the battle or the seriousness of his circumstance because he can only see what is happening in his little part of the world. He must form conclusions based on extremely limited information. This was especially true that morning. As far as we were concerned, the counterattack was a small charge made only on our company We had no idea that over three full battalions of enemy troops were attacking all along the ridge in a determined attempt to breach our lines.
With Roberts and Tover gone, being a corporal, I was now in command of the squad. I had Harold with me. Russ Belechek and little Billy Wheaton were on the other side of the draw. I told Harold we would fight a delaying action for as long as we could. He looked scared and I sensed he wanted me to make the decision to run for it. I said we would fall back using an odd/even number move. I also told him I was going to cross the draw to give instructions to the other two guys. If I did not make it, he was to take charge.
Motivation was a subject for discussion later in a quiet place, but I raced across the ten or twelve feet of open space. I heard rounds sing by me and saw the branches and leaves rip off. Puffing from lack of breath, I gave the word to the two men and assigned them numbers one and three. Harold would be two and I would be four. Both men rapid-fired up the draw to cover me as I scampered, rolling back to the other side of the gully.
More Japs, carrying land mines and picric-acid charges around their belts, came running down the draw firing their weapons and throwing grenades. We returned continuous fire. I signaled for a drop back. I looked over and Billy stared at me, eyes wide, pale with fear. I showed one finger and he leaped about two or three yards down the draw and rolled into the cover of the bush. We covered with continuous fire as he moved. Harold went next. I held up three fingers and Russ jumped. Then I dropped back. We covered each other. We’d made it so far. The Japanese coming down the draw were slowed by our fire. There were close calls, but the move was working—at least for now.
Another reason for dropping back was our rapidly depleting supply of ammunition. I carried a Thompson loaded with a 30-round clip and I had two spare clips in a pouch. The other men had M-1’s and bandoliers of eight-round clips.
Things began to happen with terrible speed. Dozens of Japs rushed headlong down the cut. They screamed and ran without care or concern for the gunfire pouring into them. We withdrew down the gully, firing and moving, alternately by number staying just ahead of the on-rushing enemy soldiers. On one move, Russ was hit in the hand and upper body. He was in pain and bleeding badly but he slid along with us the rest of the way.
We finally made it back to our section just as the enemy soldiers came roaring out of the gully into our company area. It was a nightmare of demons. They were screaming in English, “One, two, three—you can’t catch me” and “Marine, you die.” There seemed to be total confusion; people running in all directions. The noise was thunderous. The chatter of rifles and machine guns and the roar of grenades was everywhere. The air filled with smoke and the smell of cordite.
By holding the gully, we gave Able company of the Third Amphibian Tractor Battalion time to finish dismounting its 30 cal. machine guns and set up alongside the our company on the front lines. Further, the delaying action had given the C.O. time to finish bringing up two 105 howitzers from the 12th Marines. The Redlegs rapid-fired muzzle bursts directly into the onrushing Japanese soldiers, just barely clearing the heads of our buddies in their barricaded foxholes.
Of the seven men who went up the draw, Lieutenant Richard Roberts, Arthur Tover and Frankie Arsenault were dead. Russ Belechek lost two fingers from his left hand and Harold Boynton received a minor flesh wound in the thigh. Little Billy Wheaton and I came through intact.
The “Banzai” attack was over in a few hours. About 3500 Japanese bodies were scattered over the Fonte Ridge area. Our total dead numbered about three hundred or so. The enemy attack had pushed some units to within a few hundred yards of the beach. They overran the division hospital and killed men in their beds. They shot doctors and corpsmen as the walking wounded tried to hold them off with rifle fire..
The raid had been a strategic gamble driven by desperation and rage. The hate and resentment built up by our incessant pre-invasion bombardment was a probable motivating factor for the Japanese. I think they also realized that their lack of air support meant that they were doomed. The crucial intent was to breach our lines and divide us into two isolated units. As this tactic failed their thinking became, “If we are going to die, let’s do it in style and take some of those Marine bastards with us.”
Oh, the futility of war.
The next day, we moved over the ridge and down the other side into the rainforest. Dense, wet jungle made the going tough and dangerous. We were quite concerned by the loss of Mr. Roberts. He was one officer who knew his business and he also cared about us. His replacement was a Lieutenant Harold Koenig. Mr. Koenig told me the delaying action in the draw allowed the men in our area to successfully repulse the attack. Our outfit was the only unit along the F.B.L. that was not pushed back by the Banzai attack. Just seven men in the right place at the right time helped to accomplish this. I felt pretty good about myself. I was gratified that I had not given in and run away. I was pleased that I had done what was expected of me and was able to give my friends a better chance at survival. Lieutenant Koenig, with the encouragement of Russ, Harold and Billy, put me in for the Silver Star for taking command of the squad, at the risk of our lives, and leading the delaying action that resulted in some thirty or forty fewer casualties than in the other companies.. Yet, honesty requires me to admit I was most pleased by the selfish realization that I was still alive. Once more, fear, my ever-present adversary, had almost won. I never got over being scared to death in combat, but at least for now I knew I could live with it.
Four days later, while scouting in the rain forest for Lieutenant Koenig, I was wounded by a grenade fragment and evacuated to a hospital ship offshore. The fragment ripped a large flap of flesh from my upper back and I lost a lot of blood, but the injury was neither deep nor life threatening. With the exception of a fever caused by an infection of the wound, I was well enough to return to my outfit in only about a week.. We moved north and continued our advance until we finished the enemy holdouts at Ritidian Point. Once the island was declared secure, we took part in a seven-day mopping-up operation with demolition squads from the 19th Marines.
After all the shooting stopped, we went to visit the Division cemetery. The dedication prayer was spoken by the Chaplain and we then walked along and found the markers of Lt. Roberts, Frankie and Gunny Tover, as well as the other guys from our company who were killed in the campaign. It was a tradition to leave a small memento on each grave site as a remembrance of the man buried there. Gunny Tover had given me a pen when we were aboard ship, and that day I returned it to him. I suppose it seems senseless and silly, but for some unexplained reason leaving a little personal token made it easier to say good-bye. I’ll leave that for the psychiatrists to explain. After all this time, I can easily remember the faces of the dead boys. I guess I always will.

 

awesome story
looking foward to more

 

Wow. I don't know what to say, sir. Other than thank you.

 

Your writing skill is impeccable and your ability to describe, unfathomable. Just amazing.

 

I was scared out of my wits until I realized I had my Dr. Pepper and was safe at my computer desk! Thank you for sharing, and for sacrificing. You may have survived the war, but I feel like you all (vets) gave part of your childhood for our freedom.

 

Thanks for your comment. Actually we gave not our childhood but our youth.- all of it. When you go off to war as a 17 or 18 year old and see death, mutilation and humans at their beastly worst you come back changed, forever. It's not that you cannot live a happy and productive life but all that you do is tempered with the memories and the emotions of those times.
Our purpose was just.
I worry about the long-term effects of war on today's young people in combat. These wars are elective and political thus their purpose does not justify the loss and the horror.