With the Old Breed_ At Peleliu and Okinawa - E. B. Sledge [38]
I shuddered and choked. A wild desperate feeling of anger, frustration, and pity gripped me. It was an emotion that always would torture my mind when I saw men trapped and was unable to do anything but watch as they were hit. My own plight forgotten momentarily, I felt sickened to the depths of my soul. I asked God, “Why, why, why?” I turned my face away and wished that I were imagining it all. I had tasted the bitterest essence of war, the sight of helpless comrades being slaughtered, and it filled me with disgust.
I got up. Crouching low, I raced up the sloping beach into a defilade. Reaching the inland edge of the sand just beyond the high-water mark, I glanced down and saw the nose of a huge black and yellow bomb protruding from the sand. A metal plate attached to the top served as a pressure trigger. My foot had missed it by only inches.
I hit the deck again just inside the defilade. On the sand immediately in front of me was a dead snake about eighteen inches long. It was colorful, somewhat like American species I had kept as pets when a boy. It was the only snake I saw on Peleliu.
Momentarily I was out of the heavy fire hitting on the beach. A strong smell of chemicals and exploding shells filled the air. Patches of coral and sand around me were yellowed from the powder from shell blasts. A large white post about four feet high stood at the edge of the defilade. Japanese writing was painted on the side facing the beach. To me, it appeared as though a chicken with muddy feet had walked up and down the post. I felt a sense of pride that this was enemy territory and that we were capturing it for our country to help win the war.
One of our NCOs signaled us to move to our right, out of the shallow defilade. I was glad, because the Japanese probably would pour mortar fire into it to prevent it being used for shelter. At the moment, however, the gunners seemed to be concentrating on the beach and the incoming waves of Marines.
I ran over to where one of our veterans stood looking to our front and flopped down at his feet. “You'd better get down,” I yelled as bullets snapped and cracked all around.
“Them slugs are high, they're hittin’ in the leaves, Sledgehammer,” he said nonchalantly without looking at me.
“Leaves, hell! Where are the trees?” I yelled back at him.
Startled, he looked right and left. Down the beach, barely visible, was a shattered palm. Nothing near us stood over knee high. He hit the deck.
“I must be crackin’ up, Sledgehammer. Them slugs sound just like they did in the jungle at Gloucester, and I figured they were hittin’ leaves,” he said with chagrin.
“Somebody gimme a cigarette,” I yelled to my squad mates nearby.
Snafu was jubilant. “I toldja you'd start smokin’, didn't I, Sledgehammer?”
A buddy handed me a smoke, and with trembling hands we got it lit. They really kidded me about going back on all my previous refusals to smoke.
I kept looking to our right, expecting to see men from the3d Battalion, 7th Marines (3/7), which was supposed to be there. But I saw only the familiar faces of Marines from my own company as we moved off the beach. Marines began to come in behind us in increasing numbers, but none were visible on our right flank.
Unfamiliar officers and NCOs yelled and shouted orders, “K Company, first platoon, move over here,” or “K Company, mortar section, over here.” Considerable confusion prevailed for about fifteen minutes as our officers and the leaders from our namesake company in the 7th Marines straightened out the two units.
From left to right along the 2,200-yard beach front, the 1st Marines, the 5th Marines, and the 7th Marines landed abreast.