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The next day, we spent our time making preparations,
getting ready for the assault the next morning. I cleaned my grease-gun
as I had done throughout my time in combat. After breaking down
(disassembling) the weapon, I simply took a small patch of clean cloth
and rammed it through the short barrel with the cleaning rod. I repeated
this action until the inside was sufficiently clean. As usual, I
assembled my gear and supplies. Everyone, despite the Colonel’s advice,
was a little nervous with anticipation. I could look out into Manila Bay
from our location in Marivalles, and just barely see Corregidor off in
the distance. We could make out planes flying overhead, but I didn’t
hear or see any bombing.
At 5:00 am, on February 16th, we were awakened, and began
to make final preparations. Our field kitchen had not caught up with us,
so we had a breakfast of cold K rations. I made a last minute check of
my gear. In my pack, I had rations for two days, five pairs of socks,
two changes of underwear, and my extra ammo consisting of five clips for
my grease-gun. As was my standard practice, I had one clip in the
weapon, one in each of the side pockets of my combat jacket, and one in
each of the side pockets of my pants. Altogether, I had a total of 300
rounds, which was the standard amount for entering combat. In addition,
I carried my fully loaded .45 with two extra clips in my pants pocket,
and two full canteens of water on my pistol belt. My trench knife was in
my right combat boot, and I also carried packets of sulfa powder.
The Battalion then loaded onto the LCMs. The companies
were spread out so that if any LCM was hit, it would not completely wipe
out one unit. I happened to be next to my buddy Frank Alvarez. It was a
long trip, taking us several hours to get close to the island. No one
spoke very much. I remember thinking that I would try my usual plan of
running to the extreme left as soon as the ramp fell. As we got closer
to the island, we heard explosions from the bombing and naval gunfire.
All the LCMs assembled, which was SOP (standard operating procedure).
There was the telltale lull in the bombardment that meant we were going
in. I was again in the third wave. Suddenly, heavy machinegun fire
crackled nearby. Then, almost simultaneously, we heard the staccato,
metallic sounds of the bullets striking the side of the LCM, on the
outside, right next to where we stood on the inside. One of the men
said:
“If those fuckers are hitting us now, what’s it going to like on the
beach?”
The machinegun fire continued, and I wondered if we were
going to be dumped into four feet of water again. Then the LCM seemed to
get stuck on a sandbar. Suddenly, the ramp dropped, and an officer
yelled, “Move
out!”
We were closer to the beach this time, in about one or
two feet of water. Everyone poured out of the LCM, running through the
surf in a mad dash toward the beach. I don’t remember what happened
next; it’s mostly all a blank. I have only the vaguest memory of an
explosion. The next thing I knew, I was under a jeep, about thirty yards
off the beach. I looked around and saw the other men on the ground under
cover; they were also looking around like me. Heads started to pop out
here and there, is the way I remember it. Then I heard a voice: “What
the hell are you doing hiding under there?”
It was Frank Alvarez, nearby, and he was laughing. I was still stunned
from whatever had happened, and I asked Frank what was going on. “Well,”
he said, “they
hit the LCM with the water tank, and blew it up, so we don’t have any
water.”
That would be a problem, I thought. I had no memory of what had happened
in the last five or ten minutes — from the time I left the LCM and
started running to the beach, to the time I found myself under the jeep.
In fact, I was stunned, and it took me a while to get back to normal. I
never did find out what occurred until 53 years later when Frank
contacted me. This is what he wrote about the moment the ramp came down
and we ran toward the beach:
“We
knew we needed to get across the beach fast, because we knew the enemy
was sealed in the tunnels and they’d pin us down if we didn’t get to
high ground. But as we were running up the beach, an explosion or
something knocked me to the ground. I shook my head and looked around.
Russ was on the ground beside me. I said, ‘Russ, you all right?’ He
said, ‘Yeah.’ I told him I saw something fly by. There was blood on me.
Russ asked, “Can you move? What about your fingers? Can you wiggle your
toes?’ I was OK, so Russ said, ‘Let’s get out of here!’”
Decades later, Frank related that we had been directly
behind the radio man, Harold Duncan—a nice young man from Englewood, New
Jersey — as we ran up the beach. He was never found, or was never seen
again.* Frank remembers what he thinks was an arm flying by him as he
was knocked down. The only question that I have today is whether it was
a land mine or a mortar shell. In the pause between the time that our
naval gunfire stopped bombarding the beach as we approached, and the
time that we landed, the Japs may very well have re-mined the beach
area. |
