Pacific Time on Target by Christopher Donner

Author:Christopher Donner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Kent State University Press

CHAPTER 5

April 12 to May 6, 1945

Acting “Exec” for Battery H; FDR’s death; serving as FO alongside F Company of the Army’s 106th Regiment, Twenty-seventh Division, at Hill 58 and Yafusu; Company F is relieved by the First Marines

It was after our hectic return from duty with the Ninety-sixth Division that Colonel Roe made his decision to give all battery officers a turn at the FO duty. From then on, he was no longer a merely unpopular man: he was hated by those who thought of themselves as safe behind the guns. Not one of the officers was actually scared to go up, but they felt that certain consideration was due their previously assigned tasks. We who had been up could foresee a long and welcome “rest.” That night, I crawled into the cot that I had brought from the LST and slumbered exhaustedly, my ears still ringing madly from the mortar blast and my entire arm black and blue where I had had my “vaccination.” We took shelter from long-range artillery only two or three times before morning.

The next eight days were a hodge-podge of activities and changing “dope.” I began now to help Dick Woods “Exec” the battery. Missions were very few and far between because the Army was sitting still, gathering strength for an assault on Kakazu Ridge.

Six of us now dug in a pyramidal tent for shelter: Miller, Haislip, Gibson, Williams, and I. We really enjoyed the nights when we retired early after chow and lay in our sacks, with the light of one or two candles, discussing the Battalion, the campaign, and home—especially the last. President Roosevelt’s death during this week hit everyone.1 The big question was raised in our minds: Would it change the course of the war? Would the latter be any longer or shorter? Two correspondents from Chicago papers visited us there in the tent one night. Someone brought out a bottle, which loosened tongues almost too much, for my fellow officers began the old business of damning the “dogfaces.” The correspondents swallowed that and said little on the subject. Then, they told us that the Navy had called off the plans for hitting another island further north. Forty destroyers put out of action by kamikazes in the first ten days was too discouraging a toll to permit another similar operation. And, besides, it looked as if there might be several more weeks of fighting on Okinawa. Those correspondents looked far more tired than we; they were on the move a lot more, had even less sleep than we, and sometimes were close to hot spots.2

About April 17, I rode a truck northward on the island to the beaches and to the headquarters of the Seventh Marines. Their headquarters were still around the village of Ishikawa, which they had partly burned for no particular reason. And the day we went up, Fox Company had run into a small ambush, which cost them several wounded. We saw no one we knew intimately and

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