The Corps 05 - Line of Fire by W. E. B. Griffin

Author:W. E. B. Griffin [Griffin, W. E. B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Unknown
Published: 2011-02-01T20:50:41.343000+00:00

"Machine Gun" McCoy Hero of Bloody RidgeBy Robert McCandless

INS War Correspondent

With The First Marine Division Sept 14 (Delayed) - "What we expected to find was his body, but what we found was Japanese bodies stacked like cordwood in front of his position, and McCoy, despite his wounds, ready to take on the rest of the Japanese Army," said Marine First Lieutenant Jonathan S. Swain, of Butte, Montana, and the 1st Raider Battalion, describing what he found when he led a counterattack to retake positions lost in the early stages of the battle for Bloody Ridge.Staff Sergeant Thomas M. McCoy, 21, of Norristown, Pa., and a veteran of the Marine Raider attack on Makin Island, had been placed in charge of three listening posts in front of the Marine Raider line on Bloody Ridge. Two of the listening posts were wiped out in the first thirty minutes of the Japanese attack, and the two Marines with McCoy in his position were seriously wounded.

This left McCoy in the center of the Japanese attack with a .30 caliber machine gun, plus his personal weapon, a Browning Automatic Rifle.

His orders were to try to fight his way back to the main Marine Raider Line, if it became apparent that he could not hold his position in the face of overwhelming enemy force.

"I couldn't do that," McCoy, a stocky, barrel-chested young man who was a steelworker before becoming a Marine, told this reporter. "Marines don't leave their wounded and run." So he stayed, using brief interludes in the fierce fighting to render what first aid he could to the men with him, and to recharge the magazines of his Browning Automatic Rifle.

"I had plenty of ammo," McCoy reported, "so all I had to worry about was the machine gun getting so hot it would either jam, or cook off rounds." (When a great many rounds are fired through the air-cooled Browning Machine Gun, the weapon becomes hot enough to cause cartridges to fire as soon as they enter the action.) When that happened, McCoy would pick up his Browning Automatic Rifle and fire that until his machine gun cooled enough to fire reliably again.

"There were at least forty Japanese within yards of his position," Lieutenant Swain reported, "There's no telling how many others he killed in the jungle on the other side of the clearing." McCoy was painfully wounded during his ordeal, once when a Japanese rifle bullet grazed his upper right leg, and several times more when he was struck on the face and chest by Japanese mortar and hand grenade fragments. His hands were blistered from the heat of the machine gun, and bloody from his frantic recharging of automatic rifle magazines.

"I had to order him out of his position," Lieutenant Swain said. "He didn't want to leave until he was sure the wounded men with him had made it to safety."

When he finished the story, Jake raised his eyes to General Stewart.

"One hell of a Marine, wouldn't you agree?" the General said.

"Yes, Sir.

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