With the Old Breed_ At Peleliu and Okinawa - E. B. Sledge [166]
Someone else suggested I insist not only that he come to see me at once, but that he stay and be my replacement if he wanted to be a true friend. I never answered the letter.
A small patrol from the 7th Marines came by, and we talked with an old buddy. He said his regiment had been in terrible fighting for the several days it had been on Kunishi Ridge. Then we sat silently, ruefully watching a group of Marines far over to the right get shelled by large-caliber Japanese artillery. Word came along the line about the death earlier in the day of the U.S. Tenth commander, General Buckner.*
Not long after we were relieved on Kunishi Ridge (in the afternoon of 18 June), I asked Gy. Sgt. Hank Boyes how many men we had lost fighting on Yuza-Dake and Kunishi. He told me Company K had lost forty-nine enlisted men and one officer, half of our number of the previous day. Almost all the newly arrived replacements were among the casualties. Now the company consisted of a mere remnant, twenty-one percent of its normal strength of two hundred and thirty-five men. We had been attached to ⅖ for only twenty-two hours and had been on Kunishi Ridge for less time than that.
*Dake means “hill” in Japanese.
*Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, USA, had come up to the front lines to watch the 8th Marine Regiment, 2d Marine Division, in its first combat action on Okinawa. He was observing from between two coral boulders when six Japanese 47mm artillery rounds struck the base of the rocks. Hit in the chest, he died shortly thereafter. Lt. Gen. Roy S. Geiger, USMC, III Amphibious Corps commander, took command of the Tenth Army and carried through to the end of the fighting a few days later. To this date in 1981, Geiger remains the only Marine officer to command a force of army size.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
End of the Agony
From 11 to 18 June the fierce battle for the Kunishi–Yuza-Yaeju escarpment cost the 1st Marine Division 1,150 casualties. The fight marked the end of organized Japanese resistance on Okinawa.
The battle for the Kunishi escarpment was unforgettable. It reminded many of us of Peleliu's ridges, and we still weren't used to the fact that night attacks by Marines had played a significant role in capturing the difficult objective. Among my friends in the ranks, the biggest surprise was the poor state of readiness and training of our newest Marine replacements, as compared to the more efficient replacements who had come into the company earlier in the campaign (they had received some combat training in the rear areas before joining us). But most of the new men who joined us just before Kunishi Ridge had come straight from the States. Some of them told us they had had only a few weeks training or less after boot camp.
It's no wonder they were so confused and ineffective when first exposed to intense enemy fire. When we had to evacuate a casualty under fire, some of the new men were reluctant to take the chances necessary to save the wounded Marine. This reticence infuriated the veterans, who made such threats against them that the new men finally did their share. They were motivated by greater fear of the veteran Marines than of the Japanese. This isn't to reflect on their bravery; they simply weren't trained and conditioned properly to cope with the shock, violence, and hellish conditions into which they were thrown. The rank and file, usually sympathetic toward new replacements, simply referred to them “as fouled up as Hogan's goat,” or some other more profound but profane description.
With a feeling of intense relief, we came down off Kunishi Ridge late in the day of 18 June. After rejoining the other companies of ⅗, we moved in column on a road cut through the ridge. As we wound south, we talked with men of the 8th Marines who were moving along the road with us. We were glad to see a veteran Marine regiment come in to spearhead the final push south. We were exhausted.
The veterans in our ranks scrutinized the men of the 8th Marines with that hard professional stare of old salts sizing up another outfit. Everything