"It was like hunting rats...."

...the Top woke me up to stand watch for a couple of hours while he slept. He never realized that it was me until the next morning – thought I was some private, though he said that he should have recognized the bony knees and elbows – flares whistling weirdly and painting all things with a ghastly whitewash – occasional bursts of Jap machine gun fire over our heads – red tracer streaks against the sky – the sigh and wash of the sea at our side, and the distinctive, sickeningly sweet odor of Japs – something they eat makes them all smell the same.

At dawn the Captain called to me, and told me that he had checked all night, by radio, and found out that there were no Marines on the beach beyond us, only Japs, so it was safe to fire the mortars. We set a time, and I crawled back to the guns, and sat there with them, cleaned my carbine in the growing light, ate a couple of squares of chocolate – the first food I’d had in 24 hours, but I wasn’t hungry – drank a little water, the first I’d had in almost a day, and smoked my first cigarette with relish, as soon as it was light enough not to show.

- Phil Wood

The 24th Marines had weathered their first night in combat. The soon-to-be-standard warning "Stand by for counterattack" had made its way down the line, and as expected, several Japanese went screaming forward in the darkness, striking in Third Battalion's sector. Company B, attached to that battalion as reinforcements in the same manner that A was to Second Battalion, repulsed the enemy as they poured into a gap between their flank with Company I.

We had been told before we went in to expect it – that no matter how hopeless the situation, the Japs would always counter-attack, to save face and all that. They did it, but it hit our left, in B Company’s sector, before dawn with wild yelling and all the accoutrements – firecrackers, samurai waving officers who shouted commands in English – B Company was pushed back by the sheer violence of the attack, and they suffered pretty heavy casualties; but their 60mm mortars saved the day – they fired at a perilously close range, but succeeded in breaking up the charge. A damned good weapon – my favorite – if I had enough of them and enough men, I think I could pretty near win this war with them alone.

- Phil Wood

Reinforcements were quickly assembled and dispatched to the scene of the action, but it was all over within 35 minutes. Not only were the Japanese repulsed, but an additional 50 yards of ground had been gained.

[The aftermath of the banzai attack against B Company.]

The jump-off time was set for 0900. The units on the left and center had the farthest distance to go - a couple hundred yards still separated them from the beach - but Able Company on the right still faced a troublesome series of defenses around Nut Lane, crowned by a stubborn pillbox that had resisted assaults the day before. They waited for tank support - delayed, ironically, by their success on the day before; it had been anticipated that the tankers would still be deployed on Roi, but the speedy conquest of that island and subsequent movement of the tanks to Namur meant that their supplies of fuel and ammunition were inconveniently far away.

The mortarmen of Able Company were finally able to put their skills to use.

We fired about a hundred rounds, poured them into the dugouts and pillboxes that had given us so much trouble the day before. We heard screams and groans from where they fell, and it was all we could do to keep from cheering – our shelling brought return rifle fire from what was left of the Japs, and a couple of snipers started peppering our positions – but they were damned poor shots, and we finally cut them out of the trees.

- Phil Wood

Finally, at 10.06, the tanks and halftracks arrived and the Marines unleashed hell upon the last remaining enemy in their sector. The commander of First Battalion, Lt. Colonel Aquilla Dyess, led the attack on foot; his red hair neatly complemented by the red bandanna he habitually wore around his neck.

...he was fearless to the point of being foolhardy, refused to take cover – even buck privates were yelling at him to get down, but he’d only wave his Tommy gun at them and say he was a lucky Irishman.

- Phil Wood

The fight was over almost before it began.

That attack broke the back of the resistance – from then on the Japs were disorganized and fleeing. When the mortars went out of action, I went up and helped a couple of my machine gun squads root them out of their dugouts. The mortars had made a slaughterhouse of the area, and then we chased the few remaining, there couldn’t have been more than 25 or 30, up the tank trap, an 8 foot trench that ran around the island just inside the beach.

We raced after them. It was like hunting rats then – they scurried and scrambled, hid among the bodies of their own dead – there were hundreds of dead, killed by the Naval bombing the day before, lying in the trench, horribly twisted and mangled – headless, bodies laid open to the backbone, small pieces of flesh splattered on the ground, and carcasses so thick that at times we had to walk on them to get by. I remember stepping over a Samurai sword, but was too tired to even pick it up. Didn’t care.

- Phil Wood

As the Marines approached the trench that Sergeant Tucker had covered the night before, the one remaining Japanese shoved the barrel of his Arisaka rifle into his mouth, kicked off one of his shoes, and pulled the trigger with his toe. He lay alongside some 38 of his comrades, many of whom had been killed by a single shot between the eyes - testament to Tucker's skill.


Finally, the end was in sight. The Japanese piled into the antitank trench and shot at the Marines with everything they had left - rifles, machine guns, pistols, and grenades. Dyess was still leading, shouting and waving his submachine gun, glorying in the fight. He jumped up on the parapet as several Marine tanks turned the flank of the trench, spraying canister rounds and machine gun fire and piling up Japanese bodies three deep in some places.

One Japanese machine gunner still had some fight left in him.

...Col. Dyess was killed halfway up by a machine gun that they had set up in ambush. Fired at me, I think, but I heard the click of the bolt and hit the deck, and the shots went over me.

- Phil Wood

Captain Schechter was reminded of a strange conversation he had had with Dyess aboard the USS DuPage.

...one day when we were aboard the transports, Colonel Dyess asked to see me in private. We went over to the fantail and he put a hand on my shoulder.

"Buck," he said, "I know you're a lawyer. I also know I'm going to be killed on this operation. I want you to help me make out my will."

"Oh come on, Colonel," I answered, "I'll be glad to help on your will. My fee will be your picking up the check when we have dinner after the war back in the States. You're not going to get killed."

"Thank you, Buck, but I just feel in my bones that I am going to get killed."

And, of course, he did.

- Irving Schechter, 1982 interview quoted in "Semper Fi, Mac" by Henry Berry.

Lt. Colonel Dyess. 1909 - 1944

And then, suddenly, it was over.

...we met the other units coming around the island from the other side – the island was secured – well in hand, I suppose you’d call it, by one or two in the afternoon. We walked back down the beach – that picture that I sent you – and assembled in the center of the island – began to find out who was killed, and I realized that my face was taut and tired, and it was from pulling my lips tight into a set expression so that the sight of those piled bodies wouldn’t show on my face.

- Phil Wood

The last resistance was overcome by 1215. The units that had not been too badly hit during the assault phase were assigned to mop up duty; Able Company was one of those.

We started to clean up – mop up the wooded area for isolated snipers, and my platoon found a couple of cases of Jap beer – we all had a bottle or two – they forced five on me, and I promptly got tight – no food and almost no water.

Helped clean up the last few snipers with a bun on – a funny story for the grandchildren, and historically quite correct – the victors drunk on their spoils, and pillaging if there had been anything left to pillage. Except that I didn’t feel like any part of the grand stream of history. My feelings were all intensely personal, as I remember.

And when the mopping up was over, and the terns were again beginning to show luminous white against the darkening sky, we returned to the spot on the beach where we had spent the night before, and fell exhausted on the ground. Never have I been so weary – so drained of feeling.

- Phil Wood

They began to find out which of their friends were alive, and which had fallen. Phil Wood's "Agony Quartette" had been demolished. "Big Harry" Reynolds had taken a bullet in the leg. Ted Johnson, the Executive Officer of C Company, had also been hit in the leg, but far more seriously. He died aboard a hospital ship and was buried at sea. 1st Lt. Howard "Frank" Shattuck had also been wounded and evacuated.

As Phil Wood would later note, their casualties had been "comparatively light." Yet they were still dear friends wounded and killed. Each man accepted the loss in his own way, for the young lieutenant, "they were simply facts to be noted, not to feel."

That evening, the sky was graced by the most beautiful sunset that any who saw it could remember. The entire sky was painted gold. Even Corporal Ervin, freshly bandaged aboard the USS Solace, was impressed by the natural requiem for Able Company's baptism of fire.

KILLED:
PFC Stephen Peter Hopkins. Washington, DC. Age 18. Died of "cranial avulsions" aboard USS Calvert. Buried at sea.
PFC Cecil Graham Lewis. Bumpus Mills, TN. Age 23. Died of bullet wounds to the chest, reportedly caused by sniper fire. (Lewis succeeded Bill Quinn's squad when the former was wounded).
PFC Paul Glen Southerland. Lawton, OK. Age 22.

WOUNDED:
1st Lt. Harry Dare Reynolds, Jr.
Corporal Arthur B. Ervin, Jr.
PFC John C. Card
PFC Raymond E. Davis
PFC Edward John Horan
PFC William J. Quinn
PFC Leon H. Roquet
PFC Dalton J. Young
Private David C. Henderson
Private Lawrence Elmer Knight
Private Philip Valley

We slept, although it wasn’t sleep that we needed – just a chance to stretch out in the sun, alone, and do and think of nothing at all.

- Phil Wood

Members of Able Company after Namur, displaying some of their trophies. Amedeo Izzo is standing at far right.

For some excellent pictures of the islands as they appear today, see Nowhereatoll. Of particular note is the large blockhouse at Nadine Point, which was one of the obstacles tackled by Able Company - either Ervin's blockhouse, or the one taken on February 2.


Map showing the progress of the campaign, from the USMC Historical Monograph.