American Valor Quarterly Issue 15 - Summer 2016 | Page 10

Our commanding officer Donald Beck had lost most of his officers . Of the six guys I had in my unit , three were either wounded or killed ; I didn ’ t know which . Our first sergeant told me I needed to go to a meeting with the commanding offers , which was surprising to me since I wasn ’ t an officer at the time . But I went with him and there we were , gathered in a huge shell crater so we wouldn ’ t get hit with grazing fire . During that meeting , the commanding officer asked if I could do something with the flamethrower about these pill boxes because we had tried and tried to break through with our artillery , but we just couldn ’ t do it .
He gave me four Marines : two riflemen and two automatic riflemen . Their job was to provide protective fire at whatever pillbox I selected that I was going to try and burn out . I strapped on the flamethrower and went to work . What happened afterwards is somewhat of a blur . But during the course of four hours , I eliminated seven of those pillboxes . Getting rid of those pillboxes gave us an opening so we could get through their line . Once we got past the pillboxes , then we had the advantage instead of them . They could come out of the pillboxes and try and shoot us but they didn ’ t have that defense anymore .
We were the first group to reach the northern shore of the island . That was five miles from where we started . When we hit the beach , we had about 278 of us in C Company . On March 5th , we were down to 17 . The next day new Marines came ashore . Many of them didn ’ t know anything and never had any combat experience at all . But we got some replacements and the next morning we were ordered back into the attacking lines . We hadn ’ t been on the
move very long before I got wounded . A piece of shrapnel caught up with me and the corpsman came . He took out the shrapnel , patched me up , and put a tag on me . We were told that if a corpsman tags you , he is the final authority . He ’ s there to save your life .
You don ’ t question him . And we ’ d been told that when he tags you , and tells you that must leave combat , you have to listen .
I was worried though because of the new Marines and the fact that there were so few of us left that knew what we were doing . I told him I wasn ’ t leaving ; that I wouldn ’ t go back . Of course , he called me a few choice names and reminded me that his opinion was the one that mattered Well , I wasn ’ t going to be persuaded and so I reached up , pulled off the tag and said , “ I ’ m not going to leave . There isn ’ t a tag on me .” I ’ d made up my mind . So I reentered combat and just a short time after that my flamethrower assistant came running by me — we didn ’ t have flamethrowers at that time , just rifles — but he came running by me and mortar fire hit him right in the back of the head , killing him instantly .
It was at that moment that I lost the best friend I ever had in my life . We were much closer than I was to anyone else because our lives depended entirely on each other and we knew that . He and I had made a pact several months before . I had a ring that my wife to be , the lady I was engaged to , had given me before I left for the service . Her name was Ruby and she had given me a ruby ring . His parents had given him a ring and we made a pact that if anything should happen to him , I ’ d return the ring to his father , and if anything happened to me , he ’ d get my ring back to Ruby . Then we shook hands .
When I got to him that day , he was stretched out on the ground and I could see the ring on his hand . It ’ s a court-martial offense to take anything off a Marine ’ s body . We were told this in no uncertain terms , but I ’ d made that pact with him . If they court-martialed me , so be it , but I got the ring . I put it in my pocket and kept it with me and after the combat I wrote to his folks that I had the ring and that I ’ d get it back to them . I didn ’ t want to mail it out of fear that someone would find it and take it . So when I got home in November , 1945 , my wife and I drove all the way to Floyd , Montana , up by the Canadian border . It was one of the most emotional experiences I ’ ve ever had in my life , but it was a promise
kept .
AVQ
10 AMERICAN VALOR QUARTERLY