With the Old Breed_ At Peleliu and Okinawa - E. B. Sledge [123]
The Japanese 24th Infantry Division concentrated its frontal attack on the boundary between the American army's 7th and 77th Infantry divisions. The enemy planned to send a separate brigade through the gap in the American lines created by the 24th Division's attack, swing it to the left behind the 1st Marine Division, and hit the Marines as the Japanese 62d Infantry Division attacked the 1st Marine Division s front.
If the plan succeeded, the enemy would isolate and destroy the 1st Marine Division. It failed when the two American army divisions stopped the frontal assault, except for a few minor penetrations, with more than 6,000 Japanese dead counted. At the same time, the 1st Marines (on the right of the 1st Marine Division) discovered the enemy landing on the west coast. They killed over 300 enemy in the water and on the beach.
* The 27th Infantry Division had been in action since 15 April. It had suffered heavily in the attacks of 19 April in capturing Kakazu Ridge, Machinato Airfield, and the surrounding area. After the 1st Marine Division relieved it, the 27th Infantry Division went north for patrolling and guard duty.
*Gy. Sgt. Henry A. Boyes was a former dairy farmer from Trinidad, California. He fought with K/⅗ at Cape Gloucester and landed on Peleliu as a squad leader. He won a Silver Star there and became a platoon sergeant after the assault on Ngesebus. Wounded during the fighting around the Five Sisters, he was evacuated, but returned in time for the landing on Okinawa. Wounded early in May he refused evacuation and became first sergeant of Company K. After the company commander, 1st Lt. Stumpy Stanley, was evacuated in late May with malaria, Boyes shared the primary leadership role with 1st Lt. George Loveday A powerfully built man, Hank Boyes was stern but compassionate. No matter how low morale got, he was always there inspiring like some inexhaustible dynamo. Today he and his family run a successful logging and cattle business in Australia.
* At some time during the attack, Burgin ran out and exposed himself to heavy machine-gun fire from a weapon that no one could locate. He called back a fire mission to the mortars after he spotted the machine gun. Our mortar fire hit on target and knocked out the gun. Burgin won a Bronze Star for his actions.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Of Shock and Shells
Heavy rains began on 6 May and lasted through 8 May, a preview of the nightmare of mud we would endure from the end of the second week of May until the end of the month. Our division had reached the banks of the Asato Gawa at a cost of 1,409 casualties (killed and wounded). I knew losses had been heavy during the first week of May because of the large number of casualties I saw in just the small area we were operating in.
On 8 May Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally. We were told this momentous news, but considering our own peril and misery, no one cared much. “So what” was typical of the remarks I heard around me. We were resigned only to the fact that the Japanese would fight to total extinction on Okinawa, as they had elsewhere, and that Japan would have to be invaded with the same gruesome prospects. Nazi Germany might as well have been on the moon.
The main thing that impressed us about V-E Day was a terrific, thundering artillery and naval gunfire barrage that went swishing, roaring, and rumbling toward the Japanese. I thought it was in preparation for the next day's attack. Years later I read that the barrage had been fired on enemy targets at noon for its destructive effect on them but also as a salute to V-E Day.
The 6th Marine Division moved into the line on our right, and our division shifted toward the left somewhat.