Snippets

November 6, 1945 – Ie Shima, Ryukus

Posted by sdmahaney on November 5, 2015
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[Tuttle shuttled over to visit another island off Okinawa while everyone else packed up for the impending invasion.]

I wanted to visit Ie Shima for a particular, perhaps peculiar, reason. It is a small island with a small mountain and a small airfield, which the Army took with some cost, and many more Japanese died defending it. The same can be said now for many dozens of small islands in the Pacific. Ernie Pyle died here.

If you are reading this column you are probably aware of Ernie Pyle’s enormous legacy. If you are reading this column instead of his, you probably also miss him. I read that Pyle was read in over 700 newspapers by 40 million people. I’ve no way of researching the point right now, but I can’t imagine a writer in the past has ever had so wide a circulation or readership. This was at a time when newspapers may be just past their peak of power, as newsreels and radio broadcasts are taking a growing share of attention. Pyle may go down as the most widely read reporter and one of the most influential men of his day. Pyle would have wanted nothing to do with any such power.

Pyle made his name by learning about everyday Americans and sharing their stories. Tire treads and shoe leather were never spared as he criss-crossed the continent finding the big little stories that make us up. There was really nothing different about doing that on other war-infested continents. The subjects were living in the ground and getting shot at, but they were living just the same, each with an American story to share.

If you’ve ever felt empathy for a dirty cold soldier 5000 miles away, where you could really feel the chill in your bones as you reflexively scrunch your own shoulders to shrink down into a hole in the earth to hide from exploding artillery shells, it was probably because of Ernie Pyle. If you’ve felt the anxiety of an air base ground crew counting their damaged planes coming back from a raid, and the empty gut that comes when the count is short, it was probably because of Ernie Pyle.

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November 5, 1945 – Okinawa, Ryukus

Posted by sdmahaney on November 4, 2015
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[With orders in hand to get packed up and ready to fight, men on Okinawa had many loose ends to tie up and business to wind down before leaving their months-long home.]

A new frenzy of activity swept over many parts of the island. Men ran through lists of chores, most of which could have been completed long before. The sudden imposing deadline exposed all procrastinators. Letters home could be mailed, but would be held until the invasion was landed.

Long lines formed to ship armfuls of belongings back home. Personal effects, trophies, and mementos burdened the slow moving columns of apparent refugees. Some parcels were suspiciously close in size and shape to the more memorable signs and street markers that our engineers perpetually replace across Okinawa.

One fellow I met had only an old pair of tattered boots in hand. They were his first combat boots, veterans of three Mariana islands. He had a one year old son he’d never met. He wanted to be sure the boy had something to remember him by, whatever might happen.

Some of the men shipping out have been on Okinawa for several months. They had two days or less to reduce their personal effects to one duffel bag of material. Whatever homey touches they had accumulated in their tents or barracks had to go, by barter or disposal.

Special trash piles were started and soon were adorned with prints of the least favorite pin-up girls. Only the dearest images would wind up in wallets or combat packs. Hollywood producers might be surprised at which of their carefully promoted personas made the cut.

At night more than a few contraptions were added to the junk piles which might be recognized as liquor stills. They may have been moved discretely because of their prohibited distilling potential, or because most were made of materials pilfered from military stockpiles.

comic v-mail

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October 29, 1945 – Okinawa, Ryukus

Posted by sdmahaney on October 28, 2015
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[Killing time was a popular past time in the weeks before the invasion. There would be plenty of time for killing later.]

I have been spending my time lately with the newly arrived 5th Marine Division. They actually did come ashore in a mock invasion, driving AMTRACs ashore and hauling in a lot of gear. It took a lot of time to repack everything, but the only other thing they have to do is wait for the actual invasion.

A card game broke out last night in one of the enlisted barracks. That happens most nights anyway, but this one had very little to do with gambling. I was sitting in, mostly minding my ante, not wanting to take anyone’s money but not wanting this bit of material to be too expensive (Editors are not fond of reimbursing wagers!).

The guys needed to pass the time thinking about something other than the impending unknown. We still didn’t even know when we were going, nobody did. We had a good guess where, though, and talked about everything but that. Still, people will drift back to what they have in common, and this group from all over a dozen states had only two things in common – the United States Marine Corps and whatever adventure it ordered them on next.

Finally a readily agitated private from Detroit, Dante Iacoboni, spoke up. “They say the Japs spent eight or ten months, twelve tops, digging in around here {Okinawa}. It cost us three months and a giant ass-kicking to kick them out of this [expletive]. How long you think they’ve had to dig in on Japan proper?”

After a pause another veteran Detroiter, Sergeant Ora Inman, answered him quietly. “About a thousand years.”

The senior man on the deck, Sergeant William Barnard, wasn’t even playing, as he fastidiously tended his gear, like he did every evening. But he was listening and spoke up right away.

“Listen up fellahs. I’m not supposed to say anything, but the word is that there’s a ‘surprise’ inspection tomorrow morning. Don’t tell ‘em I said so, but you might want to call it a night here and square away your gear now.”

The players agreed readily that they’d had enough cards anyway. They had a quick round of the usual arguing about who had cheated using the markings on the well-worn deck and went to their respective barracks and tents.

There was no inspection today.

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October 20, 1945 – Okinawa, Ryukus

Posted by sdmahaney on October 19, 2015
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[The whole island prepared for the Fifth Marine Division to arrive, and Tuttle helped out.]

I pitched in on the effort a few of the advance party Marines were making to prep for their buddies. Lieutenant Paul Bernard, Sergeant Thurman Price, Jr., and Corporal Francis Seeley were detached from the motor transport battalion to come here early. Their planning work was long done, so now the job was housing the unit until the final launching date. I wasn’t obligated to offer up my labor, but I wanted to hear what they thought about the move. Tent ropes were drawn tight as the conversation got loose.

Corporal Seeley says he’s been keeping up a tide chart, and watching the moon. He used to sail some off Baja California, the nearest ocean surf to Tucson, Arizona. Near the end of this month would have been perfect he says – high tide in the morning coupled with good moonlight most of the night. We could get ashore easiest and then have light to catch the infamous Japanese nighttime infiltration attacks. He saw the aftermath from many of those on Iwo Jima.

Since he spoke like he knew what he was talking about, we let him talk. He thinks the next decent chance isn’t until mid-November. We would only have the counter-moon tide and less moonlight, but otherwise it’s another three weeks before everything comes around perfect again.

I couldn’t argue with the logic, but I offered up what I knew about the losses our Navy took, and wondered aloud how that might affect things. Many destroyers were banged up or grounded in the storm, but there doesn’t seem to be any shortage of them. We are down three big carriers, which may be back in time, and at least two small carriers which will not. The big gun ships mostly did ok, riding out the storm at sea. But the flat bottom assault boats got roughed up bad. They don’t have any good handling abilities in any rough seas. Eight of them are still unaccounted for, presumed lost. With the thirty-six large and hundred-some small transport ships wrecked or put into drydock here in Buckner Bay, that’s over two divisions worth of boats gone. These Marines didn’t seem too worried about it.

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October 11, 1945 – Okinawa, Ryukus; Typhoon Louise

Posted by sdmahaney on October 11, 2015
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[After helping to stabilize his own camp, Tuttle moved around Okinawa to see what damage Typhoon Louise had done to the rest of the preparations for Operation Olympic.]

Buckner Bay is the new home to several dozen naval monuments. For example, some 50 yards in from the normal waterline sits a full size model of an American Sumner-class destroyer. I am sure it is full size, because it is the actual USS Laffey, DD-724. I found the Laffey with her bow pointed out to sea, and her stern jammed deep into the earth. She was leaned over a few degrees to port. The skin of her starboard side showed a long deep wrinkle, running vertically from mid height right down to the keel…

…other less lucky ships line the beach and shallows. I quit counting at forty-something, with a long way to go. Some are capsized, others broken apart. Anonymous debris thoroughly litters the beach. I picked through some of it, trying to guess what any of it used to be. I stopped to find someone to tell about a body that graves registration hadn’t found yet.

No planes are flying from here. Zero. I can’t say how many planes we have here, but ‘hundreds’ does not cover it. Runways are being cleared of debris, but every single aircraft is grounded until each is inspected for damage. So far every bird has failed inspection, and they are cued up for work ranging from skin patches to engine swaps to outright scrapping.

A plane engine can be heard overhead periodically. I’m told we are flying limited CAP with long range fighters from elsewhere, just in case the Japs try to take advantage of our situation. I can’t imagine what they would find worth bombing.

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October 10, 1945 – Okinawa, Ryukus; Typhoon Louise

Posted by sdmahaney on October 9, 2015
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[Typhoon Louise ripped through Okinawa at its peak on October 9th, severely reducing the preparations made for Operation Olympic, the invasion of the Japanese home islands.]

We were told to expect significant rain two days ago, but it turned into an epic windstorm, much worse than what we saw last month. Whole camps are totally wiped out. Ocean going vessels of many sizes are stranded in mud a hundred feet in from the normal shore line. Many ships were moved out into deep water, and they are still being counted. Some of them will never return.

The Navy weather station here had little to tell me. I didn’t bother them too long, because like many here their office is now mixed into a field of rubble. Some information has come in by radio from Guam, where weather observing B-29s are based. They knew a typhoon was running through to the south of us. But for no reason, perhaps the whim of a bored Greek god, it stopped and turned north, growing stronger by the hour as it was nudged along by that neglected ancient immortal.

Anyone who was living in a tent, without exception so far as I have seen, is now homeless. Torn patches of wet green canvas littered the adjacent hillsides this morning. Now many of the larger pieces are laid out over stacks of junk, in the hope they will dry when the sun comes out again. Men spent all day salvaging personal gear and essential equipment, those who were healthy that is. Medics are scrambling to care for the injured, using what supplies they can scrounge.

Anyone who could not find cover yesterday was subject to abuse from a mad circus of debris. A storm is not dangerous to a person just from its wind and rain. Real damage comes when solid objects are wrested from the earth and mixed into the storm like rocks in a polishing tumbler. Examples are everywhere – a sheet metal bar wrapped around a utility pole, a long shard of wood stuck into the ground like an arrow, or a wrecked vehicle with damage all around from being rolled over the ground a dozen or more times.

The weather guys told me that officially winds got up to 130 miles an hour. They admitted that their instruments only go up to 130 miles an hour, not that I could check them on it as their wooden building is gone and their instrument tower is a twisted wreck.

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October 6, 1945 – Okinawa, Ryukus

Posted by sdmahaney on October 4, 2015
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[Tuttle never mentioned if he volunteered for the last pre-invasion blood drive on Okinawa. He was sure most soldiers had little choice about being ‘volunteers’.]

Good word came around this morning that everyone will be rotated through a few days of rest this week and next. Men started to make plans around it, be it laying around or putting together sporting matches. Moods dampened a bit when actual orders came out.

Tomorrow, after Sunday church services, the first batch of resting units are expected to report for a ‘voluntary’ blood drive. The rest period gained a new meaning, “It’s not like they’d give us two days off just to be nice! No, they just need us to fatten back up after we get pricked.”

Another implication was explained by the combat veterans to new guys and everyone else. Medical staff doesn’t like to keep whole blood around for more than 21 days before it’s used for a transfusion. The veterans presume that combat is expected in no more than three weeks from the first draw of blood.

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September 28, 1945 – Okinawa, Ryukus

Posted by sdmahaney on September 27, 2015
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[Tuttle and Major Lawless watched an engineer team practice installing a temporary bridge.]

At a whistle a gaggle of forty-some marginally uniformed men piled out of two trucks and spread out over the chosen work site. They ranged in age from teenage to forty-something. Another truck held sections of pre-fabricated frame work. One team of men got to work rigging sections to be lifted by a small tractor crane, which was then moving up into position between that truck and the planned span. The officers stood to one side pointing at nearby hills and depressions. The conversation I overheard was about what sort of security they would require to make a bridge here. Engineers are easy targets when up on the front line.

Two teams dug by hand to set the near side footers. Using the crane, the rigging team had laid out and connected the leading two ten foot long bridge sections and were rigging a third when the footer teams got their supports adjusted level with each other. By eye I figured they could cover this span with four sections, plus short on-off ramps. They could set the whole thing with two more lifts of the crane.

But then another whistle blew and everyone stopped to look. One of the officers jogged over to the crane and stepped up to the cab, telling the driver something over the sound of its compact diesel. The engine stopped as the officer stepped back down. The driver stood up, leaning out of the cab, with a dumb grin on his face. “This piece of equipment has been taken out of commission by ‘enemy action’. You fellahs are on your own!” The driver crawled out onto the front deck of his mechanical casualty and sat down to watch the show.

It was a good show. Confusion reigned for just a moment, workmen not sure which tools they should be holding. The officers in this bunch knew what they were doing though, and they jumped straight into the job. All the interconnected pieces were broken down. Every man, officer and enlisted, took hold of a hot steel bar and they walked each piece to the river bank and onto the waiting supports. Beads of sweat and expressions of profanity flowed off the men as they forced their will upon the heavy steel.

There are integrated rollers in this bridge system, so each piece can be rolled out half way, the next piece attached, and the deck extended progressively. The anchor men waded across with their tools to work on the receiving side, coming back several times for more tools and bigger levers. The entire bridge would need to be manhandled once the free end of it got across to the other supports. Eventually two large driftwood logs were commandeered into service as pry bars, and the span was set and ready for a test run.

The young fellows looked overly happy running vehicles across. First one drove an empty jeep and soon groups were riding over on the truck with all their tools. They had completed a satisfying job. I didn’t dare to remind them that their next job would be to come back and break down all those practice bridges.

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September 24, 1945 – Okinawa, Ryukus

Posted by sdmahaney on September 23, 2015
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[Tuttle met an aspiring new writer while waiting out the rain in an Okinawan mess hall.]

By virtue of being in one place for a while, even though they are taxed by regular field exercises, some men have got a good bit of reading and writing done. One regular in our little library came by today looking for me. He wanted to pitch me on a book idea, before he went to the trouble of writing the rest of it.

I suppose that’s a normal thing, getting an advance to write a book, for a known writer. I’m not sure if it will work for Marine Corps Sergeant David Carr. Here all the way from Philadelphia, Sergeant Carr has been getting a taste of home from Raymond Chandler novels. I’m just a newspaper man, working for a newspaper publisher, so I can’t book anybody for a novel.

So here’s what I said I’d do. The knockout intro to his new spy thriller follows. Publishers take note!

I knew she was trouble the minute she came into my office. My office is a tank. Address: Half a barrel of gas from where it was yesterday.

She was Korean, born to Japanese parents. Her father had been a big shot with some big shot company in some big shot business. She was an orphan now – and a spy.

The fighting to get here was fierce. At least they told me it was. We haven’t seen any of it. Our job is to get this little lady to a dot on the map, then ditch her and pull back.

The whole operation, battalion size from the look of it, plus air support and artillery, was just for this little job. There’s not an anthill of terrain in this sector that either side cares about.

We’re in cramped quarters, but it’s not her fault. She’s tiny. The G-2 man with her however is big and loud. It’s too bad he has to come back with us…

That’s all you get for now, dear editors. Should you want rights on the rest, write for Sergeant David Carr, care of the 1st Marine Division. I for one am dying to see how he gets on with the Korean femme fatale, in the future tense.

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September 21, 1945 – Okinawa, Ryukus

Posted by sdmahaney on September 20, 2015
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[Tuttle got to watch a bazooka range session, followed by a demonstration from an expert team.]

Hoots went out and big grins shown all around when the first rockets hit home. Sparks, flame, noise, and not a few flying chunks of former U.S. Army tank, M4A2 Sherman (zero mm gun), met their final resting place. Not every rocket found home, of course, and those shooters who missed risked getting fresh nicknames during the march back.

With the tank put permanently out of action several times over, and each pair having done a live fire drill, the instructors found there were exactly four rounds left. A question was put to the instructees, “How fast do you think a good team can put four aimed rounds on target? When you need to shut up an enemy gun, you need to make sure of it to save your buddies. So how quick can you make it happen?” After some murmuring a few answers rang out, “Three minutes!” to open, then a run down to “60 seconds!” before no one would go any lower.

The senior sergeant took dollar bets on that one minute over/under and told his privates to watch closely as two corporals took those four rockets to the center firing pit. I was volunteered to keep time, as the professional impartial observer. On my mark a martial ballet played out at a startling pace. I don’t think anyone looked at the rounds hitting, as they were watching nonstop action in the gun pit.

The loader danced from tube side to ammo side of the gunner in nonstop motion, putting a firm hand on the gunner’s helmet between each pass as a signal. I stopped my watch at 37 seconds, which was probably a little long as I watched the last round hit and the final bits of hot tank fragment fall back to the ground.

The column of Marines marched back to camp, a little wiser and about twenty dollars poorer.

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