With the Old Breed_ At Peleliu and Okinawa - E. B. Sledge [15]
So it went. None of us had the slightest idea what he was talking about.
One day we fell in and were told to separate into groups according to which weapon we wanted to train with. If our first choice was filled, we made a second selection. The mere fact that we had a choice amazed me. Apparently the idea was that a man would be more effective on a weapon he had picked rather than one to which he had been assigned. I chose 60mm mortars.
The first morning, those in 60mm mortars marched behind a warehouse where several light tanks were parked. Our mortar instructor, a sergeant, told us to sit down and listen to what he had to say. He was a clean-cut, handsome blond man wearing neat khakis faded to just that right shade that indicated a “salty” uniform. His bearing oozed calm self-confidence. There was no arrogance or bluster about him, yet he was obviously a man who knew himself and his job and would put up with no nonsense from anybody. He had an intangible air of subdued, quiet detachment, a quality possessed by so many of the combat veterans of the Pacific campaigns whom I met at that time. Sometimes his mind seemed a million miles away, as though lost in some sort of melancholy reverie. It was a genuine attribute, unrehearsed and sponta-neous. In short, it couldn't be imitated consciously. I noted this carefully in my early days in the Marine Corps but never understood it until I observed the same thing in my buddies after Peleliu.
One man raised his hand, and the sergeant said, “OK, what's your question?”
The man began with, “Sir.” The sergeant laughed and said, “Address me as sergeant, not sir.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Look, you guys are U.S. Marines now. You are not in boot camp anymore. Just relax, work hard, and do your job right, and you won't have any trouble. You'll have a better chance of getting through the war.” He won our respect and admiration instantly.
“My job is to train you people to be 60mm mortarmen. The 60mm mortar is an effective and important infantry weapon. You can break up enemy attacks on your company's front with this weapon, and you can soften enemy defenses with it. You will be firing over the heads of your own buddies at the enemy a short distance away, so you've got to know exactly what you're doing. Otherwise there'll be short rounds and you'll kill and wound your own men. I was a 60mm mortar-man on Guadalcanal and saw how effective this weapon was against the Japs there. Any questions?”
On the chilly January morning of our first lesson in mortars, we sat on the deck under a bright sky and listened attentively to our instructor.
“The 60mm mortar is a smoothbore, muzzle-loaded, high-angle-fire weapon. The assembled gun weighs approximately forty-five pounds and consists of the tube—or barrel—bipod, and base plate. Two or sometimes three 60mm mortars are in each rifle company. Mortars have a high angle of fire and are particularly effective against enemy troops taking cover in defilades or behind ridges where they are protected from our artillery. The Japs have mortars and know how to use 'em, too. They will be particularly anxious to knock out our mortars and machine guns because of the damage these weapons can inflict on their troops.”
The sergeant then went over the nomenclature of the gun.He demonstrated the movements of gun drill, during which the bipod was unstrapped and unfolded from carrying position, the base plate set firmly on the deck, the bipod leg spikes pressed into the deck, and the sight snapped into place on the gun. We were divided into five-man squads and practiced these evolutions until each man could perform them smoothly. During subsequent lessons he instructed us in the intricacies of the sight with its cross-level and longitudinal-level bubbles and on how to lay the gun and sight it on an aiming stake lined up with a target. We spent hours learning how to take a compass reading on a target area, then place a stake in front of the gun to correspond to that reading.
Each squad competed fiercely to be the fastest and most precise in gun drill.