I'm not the only one following Able Company!
Danielle Girdano's grandfather, Daniel Girdano, served with Able Company on Iwo Jima. She bought him a vial of sand from Iwo for christmas in 2003, and the result was turned into a touring memorial.
Whole story here.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Bernard Elissagaray Papers
To be ordered on Monday: nine albums of photographs and souvenirs. Seven are for Elissagaray's two decades in the Merchant Marines - the other two are from Able Company!
Album #1:
- Marine Corps enlistment orders, dated 29 September,1943.
- Map of Australia and Oceania
- Map of California
- Boot Camp photo of 932nd Platoon
- Facsimile San Francisco newspaper announcing BE's enlistment
- Telegram & letter from Navy informing BE's mother of his being wounded on Tinian, 24 July, 1944.
- Purple Heart citation
- Photo of BE in hospital
- BE's "Ancient Order of the Deep" membership card
- Copy of Presidential Unit Citation awarded the Fourth Marine Division
- BE's commendation letter
- BE's commendation citation
- BE's Honorable Discharge certificate
- 41 misc. photos of BE in servie
- 9.5 x 12 inches red sun w/ Japanese script cloth flag labeled: "About the 23rd day on Saipan I Captured a Jap nurse that had been wounded, from her I took he battle flag."
- Photo of 2 marines holding a Japanese flag
- Six photographs and three postcards labeled: "On the next two pages are photos of the immediate families of Jap Soldiers who of their own free will chose to die."
- Four hand-sewn cloth "Jap Emblems" (probably insignias from uniforms.)
- 16 "Jap Postes" (postcards)
Album #2
Typed notice at the front of this album reads:
The Souvenirs and Photographs on the following pages were taken on Saipan in the Marianas Islands. The Campaign took place in June of 1944, the Second & Fourth Marine Divisions assaulted and took not only Saipan but also Tinian which lies three miles away. I belonged to the Twenty-fourth Regiment A Co. of the Fourth Marine Division. My principle duties are classified as a rifleman.
- 55 photographs mounted on 10 pages. 3.5 x 4.5 inch black & white photographs of battle action & aftermath.
- 13 postcards with Japanese writing.
- 7 misc. printed documents in Japanese with some manuscript notes. (Pay vouchers, or scrip?)
- Printed map "Saipan Island Bech Diagram No. 5". 20 x 20 inches, folded.
- 2 copies printed sheet "4th Division Landing Information Sheet". Printed at top: "Restricted. Not to be taken ashore on D-Day." Map on verso.
- 6 misc. Japanese documents, labeled "War Bonds".
- 3 manuscript letters in Japanese.
- 3 unknown documents printed in Japanese.
- Printed map "Saipan Beach Diagram No. 2". 19 x 20 inches, folded.
- 3 manuscript letters w/ envelopes, in Japanese.
- 5 samples of Japanese money.
- Printed map "Saipan Beach Diagram No. 1". 19 x 16.5 inches, folded.
- Color map of the Mariana Islands. 8 x 11 inches, text in Japanese.
- Printed sheet of "Combat Phrases" with phonetic translations in Japanese. 6 x 8 inches.
- Map of region. 6 x 8 inches
- Aerial photograph of the beaches on Saipan. 15 x 20 inches, folded.
- 11 samples of Japanese money.
- 58 "War Photographs of various campaigns of Pacific War." 3.5 x 4.5 inches, black & white, labeled in the print.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Raymond Davis, 1921 - 2009
Camp Pendleton, 1943.Raymond E. Davis, of Youngstown, Ohio, served as Able Company's carpenter from 1943 through February, 1944. He was hit in the chest during the night of February 1, and was deemed lucky to survive. He was evacuated to the USS Bolivar, where he watched his comrade Steve Hopkins die and be buried at sea.
Davis never returned to the company; his wounds were too severe. He stayed in touch with his friends from his Marine days for many years.
Earlier this month, George received word that Raymond had died. He would have been eighty-eight this October.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Memorial Day
"These men would be legendary characters if history could absorb them - unnoticed people who, for the first time in their lives, heard the call of greatness and glory, and recognized it when it came.... Stories will never be written about most of them. There are too many, and what they do has come to be taken for granted." - Sgt. Gil Bailey, 1945
Remember to thank a veteran today; it is the least we can do.
Website Update: it has been a crazy month, with work and my sister's graduation, but I have acquired a copy of Dreamweaver and am slowly learning how to use it. Much of the initial work for the website is done, just needs to be streamlined and plugged into the new software. Reminds me of all the Information Architects that we screened at my last job.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Corporal Williams
Thus far, I haven't received any letters back. Several have been returned by the postal service, but a few are still out there - so I'm staying hopeful.
I did, however, get a phone call from Bob Williams. After a few missed starts, we finally connected and he was gracious enough to give me about forty five minutes of his time.
Williams enlisted at the age of seventeen, just two weeks after he graduated from high school. After graduating from boot camp, he stayed on at Parris Island as an instructor on the rifle course. Eventually, he received orders to report to New River, where he would join the newly formed First Separate Battalion. Williams, along with thirteen other instructors (including Bill Linkins), traveled to North Carolina, where they were met by Lieutenant Harry Reynolds. They prepared for the influx of fresh Marines, who had just finished their own time on the Island, and by November 1942, Company A was being formed around this core of experienced NCOs.
Williams became close friends with fellow instructor Bill Linkins, as well as the newly arrived Ken Gray. He remembered returning to his barracks one day in December to find the bunk above his suddenly occupied. Gray had just reenlisted in the regular Corps - in his previous tour, he had been a field music.
When a personal tragedy befell Ken Gray, Bob Williams was there to help. Back home, Grey's wife Velma had given birth to twins. The happy occasion unexpectedly took a turn for the worse - the twins had been born unhealthy, and one died while the other barely clung to life. Clearly, Grey needed to be with his wife, and while the Corps allowed him an emergency leave of absence, he could not afford the voyage back to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Williams selflessly gave Grey the money, and cemented their friendship.
In February, 1944, Bob Williams was carrying a BAR in Lt. Osgood's platoon. He fought through the battle of Namur.
When the Marines returned to Maui, the company faced more tough training, as well as receiving replacements, promotions, and changing duties. Osgood was sent to battalion HQ, and Williams was transferred to Roy Wood's Third Platoon. He was also promoted, and assigned the position of Demolitons Corporal. This meant that he led a squad of selected men - Williams doesn't remember on what basis they were chosen - as one of the company's three assault squads. One squad was picked from each company, and in combat stood ready to use bazookas, flamethrowers, or explosives. In addition to his regular equipment, Williams carried a supply of TNT charges for breaching Japanese pillboxes.
Bob Williams' memories of Saipan are scattered and painful - the result of weeks of strain, thirst, noise, stress, and pain.
One day, Roy Wood sent his demolitions corporal off to secure a flank position on his own. Williams obeyed, and in his absence, the company advanced a distance up the next hill. Rightly scared and infuriated about being left behind, Williams scrambled after them, catching up with them at the crest of the hill. His lieutenant was overseeing the position of the platoon for the night, apparently completely unaware that anyone was missing. Williams was steamed. In his best Parris Island instructor fashion, he tore into his lieutenant, cussing him up, down, and sideways. He had just finished his diatribe when he felt someone behind him. Williams turned, and was startled to see his skipper, Buck Schechter, standing behind him. Buck had heard the entire speech, and was regarding both the corporal and the lieutenant.
Williams fully expected a royal dressing-down. He had committed the nigh-unforgivable sin of chewing out a senior officer - worse, he had done it publically, in front of the rest of the platoon. He braced himself for the captain's rage, but Buck simply looked hard at him, harder at the lieutenant, and walked away, effectively closing the matter. Williams felt indescribably relieved. Roy Wood, cowed by the rain of invective from the corporal and the silent rebuke from the captain, said nothing. Williams left him standing there and set about making his own preparations for the coming night.
Later that afternoon, Able Company was setting up a defensive perimeter - the Marines would always stop their advances early in order to save time for preparing their night positions - and Williams was dug in near some of the company machine gunners. A Japanese Nambu machine gun, unnoticed by the Marines, suddenly cut loose and sprayed the line with a furious fusilade. Williams saw most of the machine gunners go down, and remembered David Spohn as being one of the wounded.
[If Williams is correct here, this occured on the second day of Saipan. David Spohn was wounded that day, and it's likely the machine gunners who were hit were the unlucky ones on Pramberger's team].
He also remembers being wounded. Williams was shot in the hand on the Fourth of July. A corpsman found him a short distance behind the lines, and told him, "You gotta go back to the battalion aid station if you want a Purple Heart." Williams brushed away the sailor's concern. "I don't want a Purple Heart," he protested. "Just patch me up and send me back."
The next day, July 5, was the day of Lt. Phil Wood's unlucky patrol. Williams wasn't directly involved, and while he remembered the aftermath, he wasn't clear on the exact day. Later on the same day, Williams was again preparing his section of the nighttime perimeter. A Japanese soldier jumped up from his concealment, appearing as a blur in the corporal's line of vision, and pitched a grenade. Williams snapped off a shot at the enemy, hit the deck - and saw that the Japanese grenade was lying next to his leg, fuse sputtering. Without stopping to think, he dove for a nearby shell crater just as the grenade went off.
Luckily, most of the blast had missed Bob Williams, but several pieces of shrapnel tore into his arm, badly mangling it. His adrenaline was running so high that he scarecely noticed that he was bleeding; it wasn't until nearby comrades yelled at him to get to the aid station that he even suspected something was wrong.
Bob Williams was evacuated from the front line, and spent the next year in a succession of hospitals. By mid 1945, he was fit to be released but not for further duty in the Marines. He was discharged, and after the war moved from job to job until eventually going into business for himself.
I was so caught up in listening to Bob talk that my limited phone decorum disintegrated entirely into breathless questions questing for long-forgotten details. When asked about Linkins and Gray - both of whom died in combat - his voice took on that certain tremolo as he said "I think I'm going to have to cut this short." True comradeship - the kind that those who have never been in combat can never really understand - never dies, nor does it fade away.
I did, however, get a phone call from Bob Williams. After a few missed starts, we finally connected and he was gracious enough to give me about forty five minutes of his time.
Williams enlisted at the age of seventeen, just two weeks after he graduated from high school. After graduating from boot camp, he stayed on at Parris Island as an instructor on the rifle course. Eventually, he received orders to report to New River, where he would join the newly formed First Separate Battalion. Williams, along with thirteen other instructors (including Bill Linkins), traveled to North Carolina, where they were met by Lieutenant Harry Reynolds. They prepared for the influx of fresh Marines, who had just finished their own time on the Island, and by November 1942, Company A was being formed around this core of experienced NCOs.
Williams became close friends with fellow instructor Bill Linkins, as well as the newly arrived Ken Gray. He remembered returning to his barracks one day in December to find the bunk above his suddenly occupied. Gray had just reenlisted in the regular Corps - in his previous tour, he had been a field music.
When a personal tragedy befell Ken Gray, Bob Williams was there to help. Back home, Grey's wife Velma had given birth to twins. The happy occasion unexpectedly took a turn for the worse - the twins had been born unhealthy, and one died while the other barely clung to life. Clearly, Grey needed to be with his wife, and while the Corps allowed him an emergency leave of absence, he could not afford the voyage back to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Williams selflessly gave Grey the money, and cemented their friendship.
In February, 1944, Bob Williams was carrying a BAR in Lt. Osgood's platoon. He fought through the battle of Namur.
When the Marines returned to Maui, the company faced more tough training, as well as receiving replacements, promotions, and changing duties. Osgood was sent to battalion HQ, and Williams was transferred to Roy Wood's Third Platoon. He was also promoted, and assigned the position of Demolitons Corporal. This meant that he led a squad of selected men - Williams doesn't remember on what basis they were chosen - as one of the company's three assault squads. One squad was picked from each company, and in combat stood ready to use bazookas, flamethrowers, or explosives. In addition to his regular equipment, Williams carried a supply of TNT charges for breaching Japanese pillboxes.
Bob Williams' memories of Saipan are scattered and painful - the result of weeks of strain, thirst, noise, stress, and pain.
One day, Roy Wood sent his demolitions corporal off to secure a flank position on his own. Williams obeyed, and in his absence, the company advanced a distance up the next hill. Rightly scared and infuriated about being left behind, Williams scrambled after them, catching up with them at the crest of the hill. His lieutenant was overseeing the position of the platoon for the night, apparently completely unaware that anyone was missing. Williams was steamed. In his best Parris Island instructor fashion, he tore into his lieutenant, cussing him up, down, and sideways. He had just finished his diatribe when he felt someone behind him. Williams turned, and was startled to see his skipper, Buck Schechter, standing behind him. Buck had heard the entire speech, and was regarding both the corporal and the lieutenant.
Williams fully expected a royal dressing-down. He had committed the nigh-unforgivable sin of chewing out a senior officer - worse, he had done it publically, in front of the rest of the platoon. He braced himself for the captain's rage, but Buck simply looked hard at him, harder at the lieutenant, and walked away, effectively closing the matter. Williams felt indescribably relieved. Roy Wood, cowed by the rain of invective from the corporal and the silent rebuke from the captain, said nothing. Williams left him standing there and set about making his own preparations for the coming night.
Later that afternoon, Able Company was setting up a defensive perimeter - the Marines would always stop their advances early in order to save time for preparing their night positions - and Williams was dug in near some of the company machine gunners. A Japanese Nambu machine gun, unnoticed by the Marines, suddenly cut loose and sprayed the line with a furious fusilade. Williams saw most of the machine gunners go down, and remembered David Spohn as being one of the wounded.
[If Williams is correct here, this occured on the second day of Saipan. David Spohn was wounded that day, and it's likely the machine gunners who were hit were the unlucky ones on Pramberger's team].
He also remembers being wounded. Williams was shot in the hand on the Fourth of July. A corpsman found him a short distance behind the lines, and told him, "You gotta go back to the battalion aid station if you want a Purple Heart." Williams brushed away the sailor's concern. "I don't want a Purple Heart," he protested. "Just patch me up and send me back."
The next day, July 5, was the day of Lt. Phil Wood's unlucky patrol. Williams wasn't directly involved, and while he remembered the aftermath, he wasn't clear on the exact day. Later on the same day, Williams was again preparing his section of the nighttime perimeter. A Japanese soldier jumped up from his concealment, appearing as a blur in the corporal's line of vision, and pitched a grenade. Williams snapped off a shot at the enemy, hit the deck - and saw that the Japanese grenade was lying next to his leg, fuse sputtering. Without stopping to think, he dove for a nearby shell crater just as the grenade went off.
Luckily, most of the blast had missed Bob Williams, but several pieces of shrapnel tore into his arm, badly mangling it. His adrenaline was running so high that he scarecely noticed that he was bleeding; it wasn't until nearby comrades yelled at him to get to the aid station that he even suspected something was wrong.
Bob Williams was evacuated from the front line, and spent the next year in a succession of hospitals. By mid 1945, he was fit to be released but not for further duty in the Marines. He was discharged, and after the war moved from job to job until eventually going into business for himself.
I was so caught up in listening to Bob talk that my limited phone decorum disintegrated entirely into breathless questions questing for long-forgotten details. When asked about Linkins and Gray - both of whom died in combat - his voice took on that certain tremolo as he said "I think I'm going to have to cut this short." True comradeship - the kind that those who have never been in combat can never really understand - never dies, nor does it fade away.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Why do I rave so about this island?
Rest Camp in the Pacific
April 6, 1944
Dear girls,
Why do I rave so about this island?
I’ll tell you of a typical day here – typical, that is, if you were a civilian, instead of military rules – the Captain and I, and the jeep driver, had to go out and find a laundry that would do all our khaki for the Battalion. We was the rest of the stuff, but have no irons with which to do up khaki – and as the regular laundries are all full of servicemen’s orders, we knew we would have to go to some out-of-the-way place. We went 60 miles, by a long and torturous, but good road to the other side of the island. To a little town, spread out along the coast, cut off by a mountain range from the rest of the world. Sleepy and quiet – hound dogs sleeping in the street in front of the one hotel – in the center of town the biggest banyan tree in the whole island – covering a whole block and a half, but never more that 25 feet tall – little native kids diving for coins that you throw off the wharf – they seem to be half fish, live in the water and sun all day, and clothes are quite optional for boys or girls until they are ten or twelve.
Outrigger canoes moored to the coconut palms that lean out over the sea – the town Tong Society clubhouse, hung all over the outside with bright mandarin red boards, painted with yellow characters, and venerable old Chinese men sitting and smoking on the porch.
The whole spirit of the place is warm and friendly – the people we see about laundry, though they can’t take it, are willing to sit down and laugh and joke with us indefinitely. We finally found Mr. Rodriguez – we were told before we saw him to pronounce it Rodericks, because he liked to have it sound American – he’s the personnel manager of the plantation, which is the main business of the town. He looks the part – leather riding boots, starched khaki, jodhpurs, snow white shirt, and a big straw sombrero – deeply tanned face.
When we told him our problem, he said that he might be able to get the “women at the camp” – whose husbands work in the fields, to do it for us – break it up into a half-dozen lots – but it would take time to arrange. The Captain wisely offered the bait that of course we would take him around in our jeep – a child-like gleam in Mr. Rodriguez’s eye, and he gaily hopped in.
He’s Portuguese, but he also speaks Jap, Chinese, Filipino, and English – they all think he’s wonderful. We went to one Jap household, a little old Jap lady and her husband were sitting cross-legged on a grass mat on the floor having tea – we went in, sat down and had tea with them. And half the time gestures and smiles obviated the need for Mr. R’s interpreting.
We went to a Filipino household, and finally the mother agreed to take the laundry – but only after much palaver. Her three young daughters chatted gaily with us. The eldest was getting married in a few days – we happened to have liberty then, so she invited us to the party.
When we got there, it had already been going on for twelve hours – her family had built a shack – just a frame with a floor out in the middle of what in New England would be the town common – didn’t look much like one – a stretch of bare brown earth, packed hard by the hordes of barefooted children, and shaded by varieties of these fantastic flowering trees.
The shack was shingled with palm leaves that glowed green fire when the sunlight hit them – the pillars inside were twined with orchids and ropes of flowers that looked like tiger lilies. 50 or 60 people were inside, dancing to the native orchestra – sometimes the native dance, and sometimes “Melican style.” We hadn’t entered the door before the bridegoom’s brother grabbed us, piloted us over to a table, and heaped our plates with Filipino food – some of it delicious – like all foreigners they do wonderful things with crisp vegetables and sauces – but some of it was highly spiced with a curry-like substance that I didn’t like. There were drinks – some sort of punch, but it must have been mild, for no one was drunk.
There seemed to be hundreds of children underfoot – everybody was dressed up for the occasion – the bride in an appropriate peach-colored frock – she looked like a full blown little peach herself – everything about her fairly popping with ripeness – all four foot ten of her. Almost none of their heads reached my chest, so dancing was a bit of a problem.
We didn’t stay more than a few hours, but the party went on. Apparently they eat, then dance, then eat until everybody is exhausted and goes home – and the poor bride and groom have to stay until the last wedding guest has been sped on his way. We left just at dark, as the moon was beginning to rise – the heavy scent of the night – blooming cereus filled the air – we didn’t say much during the long jeep ride back to camp.
You must see it, girls – if I have fallen this much in love with it, homesick as I am, you can imagine what it would be like on a vacation with nothing to do but appreciate it. Of course, part of it is the tremendous thrill of seeing the sights that you’ve read about for so long – but the natural beauty is the mainstay of its appeal – partly the feeling of richness and fertility, and partly the grandeur of the mountains and the sea.
All my love,
Phil
April 6, 1944
Dear girls,
Why do I rave so about this island?
I’ll tell you of a typical day here – typical, that is, if you were a civilian, instead of military rules – the Captain and I, and the jeep driver, had to go out and find a laundry that would do all our khaki for the Battalion. We was the rest of the stuff, but have no irons with which to do up khaki – and as the regular laundries are all full of servicemen’s orders, we knew we would have to go to some out-of-the-way place. We went 60 miles, by a long and torturous, but good road to the other side of the island. To a little town, spread out along the coast, cut off by a mountain range from the rest of the world. Sleepy and quiet – hound dogs sleeping in the street in front of the one hotel – in the center of town the biggest banyan tree in the whole island – covering a whole block and a half, but never more that 25 feet tall – little native kids diving for coins that you throw off the wharf – they seem to be half fish, live in the water and sun all day, and clothes are quite optional for boys or girls until they are ten or twelve.
Outrigger canoes moored to the coconut palms that lean out over the sea – the town Tong Society clubhouse, hung all over the outside with bright mandarin red boards, painted with yellow characters, and venerable old Chinese men sitting and smoking on the porch.
The whole spirit of the place is warm and friendly – the people we see about laundry, though they can’t take it, are willing to sit down and laugh and joke with us indefinitely. We finally found Mr. Rodriguez – we were told before we saw him to pronounce it Rodericks, because he liked to have it sound American – he’s the personnel manager of the plantation, which is the main business of the town. He looks the part – leather riding boots, starched khaki, jodhpurs, snow white shirt, and a big straw sombrero – deeply tanned face.
When we told him our problem, he said that he might be able to get the “women at the camp” – whose husbands work in the fields, to do it for us – break it up into a half-dozen lots – but it would take time to arrange. The Captain wisely offered the bait that of course we would take him around in our jeep – a child-like gleam in Mr. Rodriguez’s eye, and he gaily hopped in.
He’s Portuguese, but he also speaks Jap, Chinese, Filipino, and English – they all think he’s wonderful. We went to one Jap household, a little old Jap lady and her husband were sitting cross-legged on a grass mat on the floor having tea – we went in, sat down and had tea with them. And half the time gestures and smiles obviated the need for Mr. R’s interpreting.
We went to a Filipino household, and finally the mother agreed to take the laundry – but only after much palaver. Her three young daughters chatted gaily with us. The eldest was getting married in a few days – we happened to have liberty then, so she invited us to the party.
When we got there, it had already been going on for twelve hours – her family had built a shack – just a frame with a floor out in the middle of what in New England would be the town common – didn’t look much like one – a stretch of bare brown earth, packed hard by the hordes of barefooted children, and shaded by varieties of these fantastic flowering trees.
The shack was shingled with palm leaves that glowed green fire when the sunlight hit them – the pillars inside were twined with orchids and ropes of flowers that looked like tiger lilies. 50 or 60 people were inside, dancing to the native orchestra – sometimes the native dance, and sometimes “Melican style.” We hadn’t entered the door before the bridegoom’s brother grabbed us, piloted us over to a table, and heaped our plates with Filipino food – some of it delicious – like all foreigners they do wonderful things with crisp vegetables and sauces – but some of it was highly spiced with a curry-like substance that I didn’t like. There were drinks – some sort of punch, but it must have been mild, for no one was drunk.
There seemed to be hundreds of children underfoot – everybody was dressed up for the occasion – the bride in an appropriate peach-colored frock – she looked like a full blown little peach herself – everything about her fairly popping with ripeness – all four foot ten of her. Almost none of their heads reached my chest, so dancing was a bit of a problem.
We didn’t stay more than a few hours, but the party went on. Apparently they eat, then dance, then eat until everybody is exhausted and goes home – and the poor bride and groom have to stay until the last wedding guest has been sped on his way. We left just at dark, as the moon was beginning to rise – the heavy scent of the night – blooming cereus filled the air – we didn’t say much during the long jeep ride back to camp.
You must see it, girls – if I have fallen this much in love with it, homesick as I am, you can imagine what it would be like on a vacation with nothing to do but appreciate it. Of course, part of it is the tremendous thrill of seeing the sights that you’ve read about for so long – but the natural beauty is the mainstay of its appeal – partly the feeling of richness and fertility, and partly the grandeur of the mountains and the sea.
All my love,
Phil
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