With the Old Breed_ At Peleliu and Okinawa - E. B. Sledge [127]
Enemy artillery and mortar shells began coming in as the Japanese tried to disrupt the attack. The replacements looked utterly bewildered amid the bedlam. I remembered my first day in combat and sympathized with them. The sheer mas-siveness of the preattack bombardment was an awesome and frightening thing to witness as a veteran, let alone as a new replacement.
Soon the order came, “Mortar section, stand by.” We took directions from Burgin, who was up on the observation post to spot targets and direct our fire. Although our 60mm shells were small compared to the huge shells rushing overhead, we could fire close-in to the company front where bigger mortars and the artillery couldn't shoot without endangering our own people. This closeness made it doubly critical that we fire skillfully and avoid short rounds.
We had fired only a few rounds when Snafu began cursing the mud. With each round, the recoil pushed the mortar's base plate against the soft soil in the gun pit, and he had trouble re-sighting the leveling bubbles to retain proper alignment of the gun on the aiming stake.
After we completed the first fire mission, we quickly moved the gun a little to one side of the pit onto a harder surface and resighted it. At Peleliu we often had to hold the base plate as well as the bipod feet onto the coral rock to prevent the recoil from making the base plate bounce aside, knocking the mortar's alignment out too far. On Okinawa's wet clay soil, just the opposite happened. The recoil drove the base plate into the ground with each round we fired. This problem got worse as the rains increased during May, and the ground became softer and softer.
The order came to secure the guns and to stand by. The air strike ended, and the artillery and ships’ guns slacked off. The tanks and our riflemen moved out as tank-infantry teams, and we waited tensely. Things went well for a couple of hundred yards during this attack made by ⅗ and 3/7 before heavy fire from Japanese on the left flank stopped the attack. Our OP (observation post) ordered us to fire smoke because heavy enemy fire was coming from our left. We fired phosphorous rapidly to screen the men from the enemy observers.
Our position got a heavy dose of Japanese 90mm mortar counterbattery fire. We had a difficult time keeping up our firing with those big 90mm shells crashing around us. Shell fragments whined through the air, and the big shells slung mud around. But we had to keep up our fire. The riflemen were catching hell from the flank and had to be supported. Our artillery began firing again at the enemy positions to our left to aid the harassed riflemen.
We always knew when we were inflicting losses on the Japanese with our 60mm mortars by the amount of counter-battery mortar and artillery fire they threw back at us. If we weren't doing them any damage, they usually ignored us unless they thought they could inflict a lot of casualties. If the Japanese counterbattery fire was a real indicator of our effectiveness in causing them casualties, we were satisfyingly effective during the Okinawa campaign.
During the attack of 9 May against Awacha, Company K suffered heavy losses. It was the same tragic sight of bloody, dazed, and wounded men benumbed with shock, being carried or walking to the aid station in the rear. There also were the dead, and the usual anxious inquiries about friends. We were all glad when the word came that ⅗ would move into reserve for the 7th Marines—for a couple of days, it turned out. The 7th Marines were fighting to our right against Dakeshi Ridge.
In the path of the 1st Marine Division, from north to south, lay Awacha, Dakeshi Ridge, Dakeshi Village, Wana Ridge, Wana Village, and Wana Draw. South of the latter lay the defenses and the heights of Shuri itself. All these ridges and villages