With the Old Breed_ At Peleliu and Okinawa - E. B. Sledge [114]
About mid-April the 11th Marines, the 1st Marine Division s artillery regiment, had moved south to add the weight of its firepower to the army's offensive. On 19 April the 27th Infantry Division launched a disastrous tank-infantry attack against Kakazu Ridge. Thirty army tanks became separated from their infantry support. The Japanese knocked out twenty-two of them in the ensuing fight. The 1st Marine Division s tank battalion offered the closest replacements for the tanks lost by the army.
Lt. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, Tenth Army commander, ordered Maj. Gen. Roy S. Geiger, III Amphibious Corps commander, to send the 1st Tank Battalion south to join the 27th Infantry Division. Geiger objected to the piecemeal employment of his Marines, so Buckner changed his orders and sent the entire 1st Marine Division south to relieve the 27th Infantry Division on the extreme right of the line just north of Machinato Airfield.
During the last days of April, some of our officers and NCOs made a trip down south to examine the positions on the line that we were to move into. They briefed us thoroughly on what they saw, and it didn't sound promising.
“The stuff has hit the fan down there, boys. The Nips are pouring on the artillery and mortars and everything they've got,” said a veteran sergeant. “Boys, they're firing knee mortars as thick and fast as we fire M1s.”
We were given instructions, issued ammo and rations, and told to square away our gear. We rolled up our shelter halves (I wished I could crawl into mine and hibernate) and packed our gear to be left behind with the battalion quartermaster.
The first of May dawned cloudy and chilly. A few of us mortarmen built a small fire next to a niche in the side of the ridge to warm ourselves. The dismal weather and our impending move south made us gloomy. We stood around the fire eating our last chow before heading south. The fire crackled cheerily, and the coffee smelled good. I was nervous and hated to leave our little valley. We tossed our last ration cartons and wrappers onto the fire—the area must be left cleaner than when we arrived—and a few of the men drifted away to pick up their gear.
“Grenade!” yelled Mac as we heard the pop of a grenade primer cap.
I saw him toss a fragmentation grenade over the fire into the niche. The grenade exploded with a weak bang. Fragments zipped out past my legs, scattering sparks and sticks from the fire. We all looked astonished, Mac not the least so. No one was hit. I narrowly missed the million-dollar wound (it would have been a blessing in view of what lay ahead of us). The men who had just moved away from the fire undoubtedly would have been hit if they hadn't moved, because they had been standing directly in front of the niche.
All eyes turned on our intrepid lieutenant. He blushed and mumbled awkwardly about making a mistake. Before we moved to board the trucks, Mac had thought it would be funny to play a practical joke on us. So he staged the well-known trick of pouring out the explosive charge from a fragmentation grenade, screwing the detonation mechanism back on the empty “pineapple,” and pitching it into the middle of a group of people. When the primer cap went “pop,” the perpetrator of the joke could watch with sadistic delight as everyone scrambled for cover expecting the fuse to burn down and the grenade to explode.
By his own admission, however, Mac had been careless. Most of the explosive charge remained in the grenade; he had poured out only part of it. Consequently, the grenade exploded with considerable force and threw out its fragments. Luckily, Mac threw the grenade into the niche in the ridge. If he had thrown it into the open, most of the Company K mortar section would have been put out of action by its own lieutenant before we ever got down south. Fortunately for Mac, the company commander didn't see his foolish joke. We regretted he hadn't.
What a way to start our next fight!
CHAPTER TEN
Into the Abyss
We boarded trucks and headed south over dusty roads. In this central portion of Okinawa we first