With the Old Breed_ At Peleliu and Okinawa - E. B. Sledge [45]
We weren't aware of the problems on the beach, being too occupied with our own. We griped, cursed, and prayed that water would get to us. I had used mine more sparingly than some men had, but I finally emptied both of my canteens by the time we finished the gun pit. Dissolving dextrose tablets in my mouth helped a little, but my thirst grew worse through the night. For the first time in my life, I appreciated fully the motion picture cliche of a man on a desert crying, “Water, water.”
Artillery shells still passed back and forth overhead just before dawn, but there wasn't much small-arms fire in our area. Abruptly, there swept over us some of the most intense Japanese machine-gun fire I ever saw concentrated in such a small area. Tracers streaked and bullets cracked not more than a foot over the top of our gun pit. We lay flat on our backs and waited as the burst ended.
The gun cut loose again, joined by a second and possibly a third. Streams of bluish white tracers (American tracers were red) poured thickly overhead, apparently coming from somewhere near the airfield. The cross fire kept up for at least a quarter of an hour. They really poured it on.
Shortly before the machine guns opened fire, we had received word to move out at daylight with the entire 5th Marine regiment in an attack across the airfield. I prayed the machine-gun fire would subside before we had to move out. We were pinned down tightly. To raise anything above the edge of the gun pit would have resulted in its being cut off as though by a giant scythe. After about fifteen minutes, firing ceased abruptly. We sighed in relief.
D PLUS 1
Dawn finally came, and with it the temperature rose rapidly.
“Where the hell is our water?” growled men around me. We had suffered many cases of heat prostration the day before and needed water or we'd all pass out during the attack, I thought.
“Stand by to move out!” came the order. We squared away all of our personal gear. Snafu secured the gun, took it down by folding the bipod and strapping it, while I packed my remaining shells in my ammo bag.
“I've got to get some water or I'm gonna crack up,” I said.
At that moment, a buddy nearby yelled and beckoned to us, “Come on, we've found a well.”
I snatched up my carbine and took off, empty canteens bouncing on my cartridge belt. About twenty-five yards away, a group of Company K men gathered at a hole about fifteen feet in diameter and ten feet deep. I peered over the edge. At the bottom and to one side was a small pool of milky-looking water. Japanese shells were beginning to fall on the airfield, but I was too thirsty to care. One of the men was already in the hole filling canteens and passing them up. The buddy who had called me was drinking from a helmet with its liner removed. He gulped down the milky stuff and said, “It isn't beer, but it's wet.” Helmets and canteens were passed up to those of us waiting.
“Don't bunch up, you guys. We'll draw Jap fire sure as hell,” shouted one man.
The first man who drank the water looked at me and said, “I feel sick.”
A company corpsman came up yelling, “Don't drink that water, you guys. It may be poisoned.” I had just lifted a full helmet to my lips when the man next to me fell, holding his sides and retching violently. I threw down my water, milky with coral dust, and started assisting the corpsman with the man who was ill. He went to the rear, where he recovered. Whether it was poison or pollution we never knew.
“Get your gear on and stand by,” someone yelled.
Frustrated and angry, I headed back to the gun pit. A detail came up about that time with water cans, ammo, and rations. A friend and I helped each other pour water out of a five-gallon can into our canteen cups. Our hands shook, we were so eager to quench our thirst. I was amazed that the water looked brown in my aluminum canteen cup. No matter, I took a big gulp—and almost spit it out despite my terrible