The Bloody Battle for Suribachi by Richard Wheeler

Author:Richard Wheeler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2011-01-27T00:00:00+00:00

BACK TO THE OPEN SAND

The gray arc of dawn was a beautiful sight. It signaled us the glad news that we had survived the night and would shortly be able to see again. Though the enemy would still have the powerful advantage of his fortifications, we would at least know where he was. He wouldn’t be able to materialize suddenly out of a shadow at our elbow.

It was barely light before men started to stir all along our defense line. Voices that had been held to a whisper through the night became once more audible, and some of the men even reverted to their usual unrestrained profanity.

As soon as it was light enough to move safely, Sergeant Hank Hansen, our platoon guide, approached our squad to talk with Howard Snyder.

“God, what a long night!” he said with a wincing shake of his head. “What was that commotion over here?”

Snyder explained, and he and Hansen went out in front of the line to make a check, feeling that the Japanese, after all, might be lying out there dead or wounded. They found nothing, but word came up the line from the left that there was a dead Japanese officer a few yards in front of the unit next to us—and the body hadn’t been noticed the preceding evening. This may or may not have been the man with whom we’d had our encounter.

I myself hadn’t fired at the fleeing Japanese. On the training field I had made up my mind that I wasn’t going to be “trigger happy” in combat, that I wouldn’t fire unless I saw something to fire at. But perhaps a certain amount of wild shooting is a necessary part of battle. In the case of the firing my friends had done, even if it hadn’t hit its intended target, it certainly must have helped to discourage other lurking Japanese from considering an attack on our section of the line.

With the coming of full daylight the reduced artillery bunker became the scene of a second incident. The 1st Battalion men who had assaulted the structure approached it out of curiosity and a wish to look for souvenirs, and they flushed another Japanese from its dark interior. As the unarmed man began to run for his life the Marine who had gone berserk at the death of his friend whipped out his combat knife and bounded into pursuit.

“Get him! Get the bastard!” his comrades cried.

As he overtook the Japanese the Marine seized him by the shoulder and drove the knife home savagely, first into his neck and then into his side. Spurting blood from the neck wound, the man dropped limply. His death was at least quick.

On every battlefield there are men who fight with a barbarian hatred. I once heard a medal-winning Marine say: “I wasn’t trying to be a hero. I just hate Japs!” He doubtless thought he was being modest, but I would have preferred to believe he had been aspiring to heroism.

One of the things that caused many Marines to hate the Japanese was that they sometimes tortured their prisoners.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.