With the Old Breed_ At Peleliu and Okinawa - E. B. Sledge [44]
“Is that theirs or ours, Snafu?” I asked each time a shell went over.
There was nothing subtle or intimate about the approach and explosion of an artillery shell. When I heard the whistle of an approaching one in the distance, every muscle in my body contracted. I braced myself in a puny effort to keep from being swept away. I felt utterly helpless.
As the fiendish whistle grew louder, my teeth ground against each other, my heart pounded, my mouth dried, my eyes narrowed, sweat poured over me, my breath came in short irregular gasps, and I was afraid to swallow lest I choke. I always prayed, sometimes out loud.
Under certain conditions of range and terrain, I could hear the shell approaching from a considerable distance, thus prolonging the suspense into seemingly unending torture. At the instant the voice of the shell grew the loudest, it terminated in a flash and a deafening explosion similar to the crash of a loud clap of thunder. The ground shook and the concussion hurt my ears. Shell fragments tore the air apart as they rushed out, whirring and ripping. Rocks and dirt clattered onto the deck as smoke of the exploded shell dissipated.
To be under a barrage of prolonged shelling simply magnified all the terrible physical and emotional effects of one shell. To me, artillery was an invention of hell. The onrushing whistle and scream of the big steel package of destruction was the pinnacle of violent fury and the embodiment of pent-up evil. It was the essence of violence and of man's inhumanity to man. I developed a passionate hatred for shells. To be killed by a bullet seemed so clean and surgical. But shells would not only tear and rip the body, they tortured one's mind almost beyond the brink of sanity. After each shell I was wrung out, limp and exhausted.
During prolonged shelling, I often had to restrain myself and fight back a wild, inexorable urge to scream, to sob, and to cry. As Peleliu dragged on, I feared that if I ever lost control of myself under shell fire my mind would be shattered. I hated shells as much for their damage to the mind as to the body. To be under heavy shell fire was to me by far the most terrifying of combat experiences. Each time it left me feeling more forlorn and helpless, more fatalistic, and with less confidence that I could escape the dreadful law of averages that inexorably reduced our numbers. Fear is many-faceted and has many subtle nuances, but the terror and desperation endured under heavy shelling are by far the most unbearable.
The night wore on endlessly, and I was hardly able to catch even so much as a catnap. Toward the predawn hours, numerous enemy artillery pieces concentrated their fire on the areaof scrub jungle from which Lt. Col. Lewis Walt had brought us. The shells screeched and whined over us and crashed beyond in the scrub.
“Whoo, boy, listen to them Nip gunners plaster that area,” said a buddy in the next hole.
“Yeah,” Snafu said, “they must think we're still out there and I betcha they'll counterattack right across through that place, too.”
“Thank God we are here and not out there,” our buddy said.
The barrage increased in tempo as the Japanese gave the vacant scrub jungle a real pounding. When the barrage finally subsided, I heard someone say with a chuckle, “Aw, don't knock it off now, you bastards. Fire all your goddamn shells out there in the wrong place.”
“Don't worry, knucklehead, they'll have plenty left to fire in the right place, which is going to be where they see us when daylight comes,” another voice said.
Supplies had been slow in keeping up with the needs of the 5th Marines’ infantry companies on D day. The Japanese kept heavy artillery, mortar, and machine-gun fire on the entire regimental beach throughout the day; enemy artillery and mortar observers called down their fire on amphibian vehicles as soon as they reached the beach. This made it difficult to get the critical supplies ashore and the wounded evacuated. All of Peleliu was a front line on D day. No one but the dead was out