No One
Smiled on Leyte
By Deane
E. Marks - HQ2-511th PIR
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These events took place starting early November 1944, on the |
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On November 18, 1944 we went ashore on
Abuyog at a place called Bito
Beach, having departed from Oro Bay, |
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We loafed around the beach area for a day or two getting our equipment
in order and unloading barges and generally just following this order or
that. There were no Japanese in the immediate area. Early one morning the
entire 511th PIR was sent up the road by truck to a town called Burauen, which was located about ten miles due west of
the beach. We took over positions of another unit (the 7th Infantry) which
had been holding the area. At this point it was sort of a phony war, such as
existed on the French-German border in 1939. We had sort of sat around all
day shooting the breeze, eating our “C” rations and improving our fox holes
for better sleeping. Still haven’t seen any Nips, nor
signs of them. Lots of Filipinos wandering around telling tall tales of their
fierce resistance during the Japanese occupation, most of which was “bull
shit.” Everyone was a guerrilla, now that the |
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The equipment we carried amounted to six or seven pair of socks, some handkies, a few sets of shorts and underwear tops and an
extra set of fatigues. We wore jump boots, which we would soon to find them
to be, not so great in the wetness of |
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Then there were the gas masks. I would guess there are no less then
two thousand of those things scattered over the trails from Burauen to Ormoc. Some of the
guys saved the carrying case and used it for a musette
bag, after they had discarded the large “jungle” pack. The jungle pack was
rubberized and heavy. It held a lot, but was just too cumbersome. I cut mine
in half and used only the top portion, which had straps that snapped on to my
web harness shoulder straps. The only other purpose the gas mask served was, that the rubber hose could be cut at a “crinkle”,
with a sharp trench knife or razor blade, to make a rubber ring. You would
then slip the ring over your dog tags to prevent them from jingling as you
walked, ran or crawled. Everyone did this. The other throw away item, which
most later regretted, was the G.I. blanket. It seemed just to
heavy, took up too much room and got wet very easy. Some guys cut their
blankets in half, but that didn’t help either. The most versatile item was
the poncho. It kept you fairly dry from rain, could
be used as a shelter half and also it could be used to make a litter. When
the night weather closed in, and when the temperature dropped, you DID sweat
up the inner side and you would get very cold. You’d get the shivers. Sometimes
my teeth would chatter so much I would have to bite a handkerchief to keep my
fillings from vibrating out, but still the puncho
was indispensable. |
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During the day time, (as we sat in those 7th Infantry positions) when
it would began to rain a little bit, we built little bench-like beds to keep
our fannies dry. Sometimes it worked, other times you would sag into the mud.
I guess it was three or four days when word came down that we were to move
out. We had been under intruder air attacks at night, since we sailed into
the |
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Getting back to our present situation. Rumors started to come down
that our First Battalion, from the 511th PIR, had advanced in a blind draw
and was ambushed with heavy casualties. We heard that a couple troopers were
dropped in from L-4s. Hell! We didn’t even know what our objective was. We
still hadn’t seen a Nip, dead or alive. Then one day, we started up a hill
into the jungle, I don’t know the date, but we were on our way to relieve the
First Battalion, wherever they were. |
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It was still daylight, but raining as we moved along. To keep my old
M-1 rifle dry, I slung it upside down with a condom over the muzzle. We were
relatively dry, our feet were dry, but we stunk, mainly from sweat and
mosquito repellent. The trail was heading up a slight grade, that was muddy
and slippery, but the smokers kept puffing away. Some of the guys were eating
“jungle” tropical chocolate bars from “jungle rations”, issued the day
before. It was still raining. We had no idea of where we were going. Someone
mentioned Ormoc, wherever that was. Now, we heard
that somewhere ahead, part of C-511th was surrounded by the Nips. We didn’t
have any idea of what the hell was going on. After a day or two of walking,
sleeping along the trail at night, we arrive to where C-511th had been. Now,
I see my first dead man. I didn’t know who he was. All I heard was that, he
was a C-511th trooper, just laying along the trail face down in a crawling
position. One pant leg had come out of his boot and his calf was laid open.
Probably from a motar shell. Now, I realize what
was going on. It was real, real real. Somehow, the
mud seemed wetter, the rain colder and the stomach emptier. I felt that
butterfly feeling you get; before the kickoff or before you are asked to make
that speech in school! We saw several C-511th troopers, they looked pale and
tired. I do not know exactly how many casualties they had. We just kept on
tramping up and down on this six or eight foot wide path or trail, or
whatever you want to call it. Up until now we had made an attempt to keep dry
and clean. But after hitting the deck, whenever the lead scout would see
something, or thought he had seen something, you were really covered with mud
from head to toe -- literally. It rained all day. |
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I don’t know the date, but while we were coming up to the crest of a hill,
it was mid-morning and we were tired and wet. All of a sudden a grenade
popped. Everyone hit the dirt. A few seconds later that metallic “blang” rocked the area. Then I heard this sorrowful moan,
not a scream, a moan. It was HQ2 Battalion’s first casualty. Ivan Benderwald, a mortar gunner from Ellendale, ND. Ivan’s hip, was blown away. He had a six inch diameter and four
inch deep hole where his hip once was. He was conscious. I looked at him and
felt he couldn’t possibly survive. A medic scrambled up and poured sulfa
powder into the wound and put a huge pressure-pad bandage on it. While all
this was going on, we just laid around along the side of the trail. I gave up
my poncho to make a litter for Ivan. Six of us picked up Ivan and lugged him
back towards Burauen to an Aid Station. I guess we
carried him a half mile. By that time Ivan had been given plenty of morphine
and was felling no pain. At the aid station, the surgeons, probably Capt.
Matt Platt, operated on Ivan’s hip. Being that he was about 190 pounds plus,
he was to heavy to be evacuated from the field hospital by an L-4, so he had
to lay around for a week or so until he lost a few pounds so the L-4 could
take off with him from a short landing strip. (I found this out years later.)
Anyway, Benderwald was gone and we all felt good
that it wasn’t one of us. To this day, nobody knows where that grenade came
from. There certainly were Nips in the area, as every now and then they would
open up with their “woodpeckers.” (This was the name given the Japanese Nambu 6.5mm light machine gun.) When this would happen,
the only thing you could do was drop to the ground and roll over a time or
two so that when you lifted your head to peek ahead and around, you would not
be in the sights of whoever was shooting at you. Generally, a Nip
“woodpecker” was always protected by infantry. As this Nip was giving us
sporadic bursts, ole Vigbert D. Sharpe, starts
wiggling up the side of the slope to where we were with his M-1. Sharpe was
the LMG. platoon Sgt.. He stopped, peered up ahead,
saw a sniper in a tree, then another, and with two quick shots, using |
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A day or two later, the sun came out. Elmer Trantow
was climbing up the side of a river bank towards a small hut, when all of a
sudden a Nip came flying out of the door toward the
“Tumbler.” (Elmer Trantow was known as “Trantow the Tumbler,” due to his expertise in gymnastics
done in |
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One day we climbed up a very large plateau and moved up the LMG. We
didn’t know why, shucks we never knew WHY we did anything. We just kept
putting out feet in the mucky brown foot print in front of us. Our feet
seemed to be always soggy. About two or three hours after we set up our LMG,
we looked out into this valley and “holy cow” here came this C-47 barreling
at eye level at perhaps a thousand yards to our front. Right in front of us a
slew of red and yellow parapacks dropped and
troopers started jumping out of the plane. We could actually see their little
white faces. They couldn’t have been higher then four or maybe five hundred
feet. This went on for some time. At the time we did not know what unit they
were from, because we knew where the rest of the 511th PIR (the 1st and 3rd Bn.) parachutists were at. We finally figured it out that
they were the 457th Airborne Artillery from the 11th Airborne. Their asses
were soon soaking in the mud like ours. We were glad to see them bring in
their 75mm pack howitzers, but wondered how they were going to move them.
(They probably are still there in the mud.) |
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One day, in the rain and sloppy stinky mud, we went traipsing around
an area called Anonang, looking for a C-47 that went
down in the forest due to engine failure. We found the wreck late in the
afternoon. All aboard were dead, but the Nips had gotten there before and
stole everything of value and/or food to eat. As we headed back to our
perimeter around another place called Lubi, we
heard a number of planes overhead. We looked up to see at least six C-47s
flying at six to eight hundred feet overhead. It was dusk and we could see
the blue exhaust trail from the engines. In a few seconds they were gone. We
assumed they were bringing in planes into the area and that we had a jump
coming up. I found out much later that they were Japanese “Tabbys” (a licensed DC-2 built in |
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Up and down the mountain trails we went. Wet to the bone and being
ambushed just about daily. Bumbling into the Nips here and there. Part of
HQ2-511th got themselves caught in a potato patch
near a place called Mahonag. We lost some good
troopers: McGraw, Fleming and Yeager. We couldn’t get them out during the
firefight. That night Baldy (Baldy was the code name for our C.O., Capt.
Charles Jenkins) took a squad down looking for the three causalities. He went
through the area calling “Dave, Dave.” It was to no avail, they were all
dead. It looked like Yeager may have died from exposure, but the other two
were hit many times. We found it hard to accept, but had to. You didn’t get
any “madder” at the Nips, just hated them a bit more. As we hiked along the
trails, we noted many dead Japanese and also some Filipinos. We passed a
Filipino farmer laying along the trail, with a couple of half dead chickens
tied to him. Laying next to the farmer was a basket
full of the largest bananas. This was a case of someone being in the wrong
place, when the Nips went by or perhaps he was a mortar victim. |
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At about this time, some problems started to make themselves
obvious. Our jump boots weren’t standing up to the wear of
being soaking wet twenty-four hours a day. The tops were fine, but the
soles started to come off. You just had to tie or tape them to your shoe.
Some troopers had real bad problems with their boots, but only a few were
fortunate enough to have them replaced. Socks were also getting scarce. You
would wash them and try to dry them out in your musette
bag, but without the sun, it was a losing battle. Most of the troopers had
two piece coveralls, which kept you a little cleaner in that your top would
not come out of your pants while crawling around in the goop. At this point,
we really begin the smell like a sewer. It was a combination of sweat, mud
and mosquito repellent, the latter we showered ourselves with, to keep the skeeters away. We had mosquito nets, but most of us shied
away from them, as it cut down on hearing what was going on. At night you
needed your ears. Personal sanitation was a chore, with the coveralls. You
had to strip to the knee, when nature called, which meant you had to remove
your web harness to which your musette bag,
canteen, first-aid kit, trench knife (or bayonet) was attached to. This
became a big problem about halfway through the |
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When dusk approached, we generally would halt and start to dig in. The
more time you spent digging, the more secure you felt when it started to get
dark. I mean black dark, there were no shadows, no moon,
no nothing. We usually dug in by two, or in some cases, threes. With
all the rain, there was always a couple of inches of
water at the bottom. Our foxholes were a good four feet deep. We would pose
in the thing, half sitting, half leaning and peering out front into the total
blackness. Dub Westbrook, Dave Bailey and myself
usually shared “watch” out of our foxhole. Dave was a couple years younger
(about 18) than Dub and myself. Dave was a
replacement that came in just before we went overseas. He was very naive and
trusting. The idea of watch at night was to always have someone awake in the
hole. If everyone slept, you had a potential break in security of the
perimeter you were holding. Each guy was supposed to stay awake
two hours: then wake the next guy, sleep four hours, then watch for another
two hours, and so on till day break. We did this by passing a watch, with a
luminous dial, back and forth. I would watch for a period, set the watch
ahead, wake Westbrook, give him the watch and go to
sleep. I later found out that he was doing the same thing. Dave never did
catch on. Perhaps he couldn’t tell time. Maybe that was why he was tired all
the time. |
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Harry Briggs got hit in the thigh today from a sniper. A sniper also
hit Martin Offmiss, a radioman, in his shoulder. We
called then snipers, but I suppose they were just Nips in a good,
well-concealed position near the trail. During this period, Pete Kut, a squad letter was hit badly from a “woodpecker.” He
later died from loss of blood and exposure. When someone was killed, we would
bury them, but some of the dead we never did find. The wounded we carried on
litters. (The troopers that we did bury were exhumed after the campaign and
sent to various military sites. This was done by a special unit of the |
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We established a good size perimeter at a place called Mahonag. This really was not a town or anything like
that. It was a relatively cleared area on a slightly sloped field. I would
guess the area was about 150 to 200 yards long and maybe 100 to 125 yards
wide, at its widest place. It was sort of egg-shaped. The center of the area
was pretty free of activity during the day, because you could get yourself
picked off by snipers that were in trees outside the perimeter. The 2nd Bn. of the 511th was dug in just inside the tree line
around the entire circumference. Our foxholes were 10 to 15 yards apart. Most
of the guys dug in deep enough so they could add a sitting step. Baily, Westbrook and myself dug a three seater with the LMG staked in for night shooting. (Staking
in, meant plotting your field of fire in the day time and pounding a stake in
the ground at the extreme traverse of each side, right and left. Next to this
stake, you drive in another for elevation. This worked well even in the
blackest of the night you could cover your field of fire with the gun next to
you. This type of “staking in” took place around the entire perimeter, making
busting through by the Nips next to impossible.) All the time the rain kept
falling. We are all half damp, not soaked, just damp and cold. After dark,
one’s eyes got as big as saucers. You couldn’t see five feet in front of you
and your imagination would run rampant. You would visualized a Nip right out
in front of you, getting ready to lob a grenade at you. There were Japanese
out there and one consolation was, they were just as
wet, muddy and cold as we were. I always felt that they were “scared” of us.
We certainly were not afraid of them, but felt eager to search them out and
do them in. Sitting in your foxhole at night and waiting to see if they would
try to slip through was something else. You just were full of anxieties and
had the feeling that a particular Nip was out to get you. Anyway, this
particular night, it was raining exceptionally hard and my morale was getting
low. Westbrook and I spent the night playing our “watch” game with Bailey;
but even at that I didn’t sleep at all. I was cold and as I sort off slumped
down, leaning against the sloped rear of our three seated foxhole and
wondered if I’d ever get out of this alive. It was a case of just feeling
sorry for one’s self. The only consolation was, everyone was in the same
boat, although we heard that some of the higher ups had been sleeping under
canvas and on cots. It could have been possible. I even heard rumors of some
guys heating water in their helmets for certain higher ups so they could take
warm baths. I feel that most of these reports, were
just old fashioned “shit house” rumors. |
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Morning finally came, so we dug out our Ks and started thinking about breakfast.
The best way to heat water for coffee (Nescafe Powder) was to start the fire
with the heavily waxed cardboard box that the K-ration came in. These boxes
burned well. The mosquito repellent was also flammable and could be used to
get a good hot fire going. Dry twigs were hard to come by, but once the
K-ration box was going good, small twigs would start to burn. Once you had
the fire going, you could increase the diameter size of the twigs and soon
have a good sized fire. I used to get a canteen cup of water boiling, pop an
envelope of bullion powder in and then put all the saltine crackers into the
boiling bullion, along with whatever meat I had. Sometimes it was chopped
pork with egg yolk added, other times it was spam. The meat came in an O.D. colored
can about the size of a tuna can seen today. It was good and had plenty of
nutrition and would stick to your ribs. For desert, the Ks contained a fruit
bar (dried raisins, apricots, pressed together in a bar about 3/4” square and
3” long) to munch on. Another menu had a Hershey Tropical Chocolate “D” Bar.
A solid chocolate (hard as a rock) lump which you could chomp on or could
melt it in boiling water and you’d end up with a cup of rather flat cocoa.
There were also six little rock hard candy wafers,
about 3/4” square x 3/16” thick that you could suck on. Half of these were
plain dextrose pills and the other three were chocolate flavored. They gave
instant energy, as they were pure sugar. Also, in one of the menus was a
little tuna can of American processed cheese. Dub Westbrook loved this stuff
and always toasted it on the end of his G.I. fork. The cheese menu also had
an envelope of grape powder or lemonade mix. I remember these well as they
were made by “Miles Laboratories” who brings us Alka-Seltzer. You topped all
this off with a stick of Wrigley's gum in an O.D. wrapper, as you sat back
and enjoyed your Luckies or Camels, which were also
included. There were only 4 cigs. in a box, like the
ones we used to get on the airlines. I didn’t smoke, so mine were up for
grabs. Also included, was a little packet of O.D. colored toilet paper, which
you would tuck into your breast pocket for later use. |
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When Kut, McGraw, Yeager and Fleming were
killed (around December ninth or tenth), Captain Jenkins declared a private
war against the Japanese. Patrols were actually like little squirrel or
rabbit hunting trips. He would take a patrol out towards the west to
reconnoiter the trails to Ormoc. There never was
trouble finding the Nips. The forest was full of them. We knew we were better
then they were in offensive movements. It seemed they were good, when hiding
alongside of the trail or in some other kind of ambush position. In a face to
face confrontation, they would beat it into the bush. I remember Dub Westbrook’s
first confrontation with a Nip near Mahonag. All of
a sudden Dub was face to face with one, no warning. The guy just appeared on
the trail. He just looked at Dub in terror. Dub plugged him with his carbine,
firing from the hip. Capt. Jenkins, our C.O. was ecstatic. He, himself must
of bagged a half a dozen during the several “patrols’ he had conducted. |
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All of our wounded at Mahonag were grouped
together under cargo chutes. Most were laying on
litters covered with ponchos. There were some blankets, but not many. Some of
the wounded that could still walk, were gathered, on
one of those numberless days. Capt. Jenkins got a squad to walk them back to
a field hospital at another clearing called Manarawat.
There was a short airstrip (home made) for L-4 and L-5 cubs. Some of the guys
were flown out in special cubs from Manarawat. I
was picked for one squad, where my job was “ass-end Charlie”, the last scout
down the trail to cover any sniping etc. from the rear. We started about nine
in the morning, a two hour walk each way. A lot of the wounded,
understandably, would tire after a few hundred up and down yards. It was
difficult with the mud without being wounded. So one can imagine how tough it
was on the guys that had lost blood or had chunks out of their arms,
shoulders or other parts of their anatomy. Some of the “limpers” had homemade
canes of sorts. The last guy, who was in front of me, had a bad flesh wound
in his left upper thigh. They had cut his fatigues off all the way up, and
when he would stagger or slow down (when we were going uphill) my face was
practically in his bandage. Around noon we arrived at Manarawat
with our wounded. Fearless Fosdick (that was our
nickname for 1st Romain T. Alsbury)
our platoon leader. He got us up on our feet around one o’clock and started
us back to our perimeter, but on a different trail then what we had come in
on. It didn’t make any difference to us, because the rain was coming down and
who cared. It did not take long before our attitude changed and we felt whoever
decided that we should go back another route must have been nuts. We walked
up this side of the mountain, down the other side, up another one etc.. The trail was an ooze of mud and the trees and
vegetation along the sides of the trail, was not as thick as the other one.
This was good in one sense as you could see perhaps twenty-five yards to the
front and both side of you. We had a decent field of fire BUT the Nips did
also. We walked for four hours and had no idea how far we were from Mahonag. Fearless Fosdick kept
saying “it’s coming up.” Now it started to rain harder, and we’re wetter and
“madder” (if there is such a word). It started to get dark. Moving along any
trail in the jungle is scary; because when it starts to get dark, the shadows
play tricks on you. It is plan and simple suicide to walk along any trail at
night. By this time, we had been on the march since one o’clock and now it
was around six or six-thirty. We were dead tired, wet, muddy
and pissed off at Fearless Fosdick. I guess we were
what would be and under strength section (two squads). There was Ray Brehm, Dave Bailey, W.C. Westbrook, Bill Porteous, Red (Pete) Peters, D’Arcy Carolyn, Elmer Burgett, John Sherlock and Jay V. Florey
plus our Fearless Fosdick. Finally Fearless told us
to fall out on one side of the trail for the night. We did not dig in. There
didn’t seem to be any point to do it. Our plans were to continue on the next
morning. Most of the guys rolled up in their ponchos. I half-slumped against
a tree trying to hide under my helmet. As usual, is was
raining. Soon it was pitch black and the rain finally stopped. The jungle at
night is usually very noisy, with the various types of animals, birds and
insects. For some reason, there was none of that this time. It seemed and
felt that someone was around. I froze all night and it was a long night. Just
before dawn and there after, we could periodically hear noises that sounded
like voices. We didn’t eat when we got up, just fell in a single file and
started down and up the trail again. We didn’t walk more then five minutes
when we ran into our Mahonag perimeter. We had
slept about a hundred yards from our line. Live and learn. When we arrived in
our area, Baldy (code name for Capt. Jenkins) was getting a patrol together
to go and try again to bring back McGraw and Fleming (from the potato patch)
where the ambush took place. I was sitting on a log eating a K-ration when
Jenkins came over looking for a couple of guys to go out with him. He said,
“Come on Marks let’s go.” I got up and started to follow him and then for no
reason I could think of, he turned around and said, “Go on back and sit in
your hole and get some rest.” Which is what I did. |
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Along about four o’clock, a day or so later, the battalion set off on
a trail to push through, to where the 3rd Bn. 511th
PIR was positioned. They were located on another hill closer to Ormoc. Evidentially, we were sitting on and blocking the
main Nip supply line for their attack across the island towards Burauen. We route marched up and down the trail till
night fell., then we pulled off to the side of the
trail for the night. It was black, but at least it wasn’t raining. Some idiot
decided that it was time to have a cup of hot coffee or soup so they actually
got a fire going. As soon as the flames shot up, I heard Jim Wentink scream out, “Put that fire out or I’m going to
shoot it out.” The fire WAS put out. As we tried to sleep that night, we
heard L-4s going over but thought nothing of it. The next morning at dawn, we
got up and ate on the move as we headed for |
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Other parts of the Sixth Army had landed at Ormoc
and chased a good portion of a division of Nips back towards us. When we
arrived at Mahonag, we found Nips in the perimeter
we had earlier vacated. D and F-511th pushed them out in a short fire fight
with help from HQ2’s eight-one mm mortars. We flopped back into our holes and
dragged the dead Nips out into the jungle away from the perimeter. The next
day we found out that we did not drag them far enough, the stench was almost
overwhelming. |
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We made an aid station, in a high ground area, in a patch of trees.
Cargo chutes were used to cover the aid shelter. The day we took the walking
wounded back to Manarwat, we carried Sgt. Stewart
(from the mortar squad) back. He was very sick and later they found it was
his appendix. He died from peritonitis at Manarawat.
Being our 2nd battalion was now understrenght, we
pulled our perimeter in by twenty-five or thirty yards. This brought our
foxholes closer together. Naval gunfire and pressure from the |
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The next morning it was pretty quiet along the foxhole line of our
perimeter. About nine in the morning the rain stopped, but then the fog
rolled in very thick. You couldn’t see more than twenty-five yards out into
the jungle. Sometime during that morning, our scouts reported that trails to
the other two 511th PIR battalions were jammed up with Japanese. During the
first week, prior to the morning the artillery got us, most of our supplies,
in fact all of it was dumped in from C-47s. We were able to retrieve most of
our supplies, but a few of the cargo chutes drifted out into the jungle and
the Nips got to them before we did. They, of course couldn’t use our ammo,
but they sure could eat our food. We found evidence of this on some of the
dead ones later on. With the heavy fog, the planes were grounded as far as
supplying the 2nd Bn. of the 511th PIR. We could
hear them droning overhead and they would try drops, but were never
successful. We had on hand about two days of supplies,
this included both food and ammo. The mortars were low on anti-personnel
rounds, but all us troopers had a good solid unit (a unit of fire was 120-150
rounds) of ammo. We had about two thousand rounds for our LMG. That sounds
like a lot, but under heavy defensive fire you could eat it up in a hurry.
The fog hung around for another two days, by this time the K-rations, for the
most part were gone. The “wiser misers” had a can of this or that or a
cracker or two; but for the most part, we were out of food. The potato patch
yielded a few nice sweet potatoes called “camote,”
but soon they were all eaten up. There had been rumors floating around for
years later, that dog was eaten. I don’t think anyone was hungry enough to
eat a dog. No one was any hungrier than I was and I sure as hell count not
eat a dog. We did try some tiny wild red peppers. They did not have much food
value, but it gave us something to chew on. |
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The fog hung on for four or five more days. After about two days of
nothing to eat, the pangs of hunger begin to disappear. We would sit around
and fantasize on what we were going to eat when we got home. Malted milks,
ice cream, T-bone steaks and thousands of those greasy “ |
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There were a lot insects creeping around. If you tried to sleep and
felt something crawling on you, and could not reach it with your hands, you’d
just roll on it until it was crushed or moved on. We never saw any snakes. |
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As quickly as the fog rolled in a few days ago, it dissipated. Within
an hour, C-47s and L-4s started to drop food and ammo into our perimeter.
Many cases of various items came loose from the cargo chutes and plummeted
down into the trees. One person was killed from a falling case of food. We
laid out panels (colored fluorescent plastic strips about a food wide and
10-12 fee long) and from then on, the C-47s and L-4s
hit the drop area much better. |
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We all got sicker then hell from overeating, although we had been
warned not to gobble to much food - there was a lot of
puking and belly aches. The next day we moved west towards Ormoc, to hook up with the 3rd Bn.
of the 511th PIR at |
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During our “siege” at Mahonag, the Nips made
nightly probes into our perimeter, for some reason these movements were by
squads and could be easily repulsed. We even captured on of ‘em and used him to help lug our mortar shells. Had the
Japanese attacked in force, at one particular place, they may have very well
been able to break in. We were only one foxhole deep. From what I saw, the
Nips lost of a lot of men at Mahonag. Between Mahonag, Lubi, Manarawat and later |
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The hike to the 3rd Bn. of the 511th was
about a half day’s march. During our advance, we ran into a Nip perimeter on
one of the hills. It was here, that D-511th, with our LMG squad made the
famous “Rats Ass” banzai attack. (See the “Rats Ass Charge” by Capt. Steve
Cavanaugh on the Dropzone.) We stayed on the trail
that night. It was here that the Nips would holler down at us, shoot
firecrackers and shine flashlights. Some guys would shoot towards the noise
and lights, but within a minute the Nips would start dropping 81mm mortars
shells (their 81mm mortars were identical to ours, our ammo was
interchangeable) into us. Jim Wentink was laying on the side of the hill when an 81 landed about
five feet in front of him. Fortunately for Jim, it was a dud that buried
itself in the mud. Early the next morning our Bn.
Commander, Hacksaw Holcomb wanted a no nonsense attack up towards the 511th
3rd Bn. The Nip small arms and heavy machine gun
fire was very heavy, but not accurate. We were pinned down. We were in one
hell of a fire fight. Out of the blue someone hollers “RATS ASS, who’s with
me? The trooper was John Bittorie from D-511th.
John was from |
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Right in the middle of the trail, in front of our foxhole was a dead
Nip. He had been hit early in this skirmish and fell in the middle of the
very, very muddy trail. The mud was 8 to 10 inches deep. The trail at this
point was at about a 15 degree upward angle. As people would go up and down
the trail, they would step around or over this guy. After a day or two, only
his back was protruding out of the mud. His legs, arms, shoulders and head
were completely covered. The brown uniform and greyish-brown
mud had turned this body into a perfect stepping stone to people going up or
down the trail. We would sit there and watch the look on the faces of people that,
thinking it was a stone, would step on it, thus causing the most sickening
noise you ever heard. This was especially gratifying when we were told to sit
tight and let the 187th Regt. pass through the 511th (About every other
person would step on supposed rock.) and be the first 11th Airborne troops to
get to Ormoc, down by the west coast. |
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The |
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We then moved down the beach to a bivouac area, where we were issued
new fatigues and jungle hammocks that were really neat. They were completely
water and mosquito proof. The first night, in one of them, was better to us
than in a feather bed. We also took a good swim that day. It felt so good to
be clean and alive. Our company left twelve troopers in the jungle, including
our Commanding Officer. There always was that feeling of, “I’m glad it wasn’t
me.” We all felt bad, for a short time, when a buddy was killed, but deep
inside, you were thankful to God that the shrapnel or bullet didn’t take you.
I never saw anyone who was willing to trade places with a corpse. We so tired
and burned out that all we wanted to do was to be left alone. |
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On Christmas, General Swing (the 11th Airborne commander) had them
serve us turkey with all the trimmings and pineapple ice cream, and it was probably
the best Christmas dinner we ever ate. I can’t recall all the names, but
there was Ray Brehm, Merlin Guetzko,
Dub Westbrook, Bill Porteous, Jim Wentnk, Rocky Shuster, Peter Peters, Bill Townsly, Bud Alsbury, Bill Demory, Pete Allisi, D’Arcy
Carolyn, to name a few that walked across Leyte.
Capt. Charles Jenkins, Lt. Robert Norris, Peter E. Kut,
Robert F. Fleming, William A. Yeager, Donald Stewart, David F. McGraw, George
W. Andrews, Walter R. Schmidt, Eugene H. Ladd and Lt. Evan W. Redman did not
make it. James W. Outcalt, Dennis Hogan, Anderson
Peters, Jack L. Hauser, Fred J. Liscum, Norman
Jennings, George A. Spangler and a kid named Leonard R. Miller, who came all
the way across Leyte, only to die on Luzon six
weeks or so later. I will never forget the many friends that took that walk
over |
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Then there were Dr.'s Capt. Matthew Platt and Major Wallace Chambers, that did serious surgery, during the day, night and
in the rain. Sometimes they were shielded by only a poncho, being held by up
by a few guys and the only light being a flashlight. |
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This
sums up the activities that one light machine gun platoon had with the
Japanese (on Leyte Island) during November and
December of 1944. I’ll never forget the agony caused by the rain, mud and
terrain of the Mahonag trail and the troopers who
gave their lives, to an enemy suffering just as much as we were. Official
records showed, that about 45 Japanese were killed for every single 11th
Airborne Division trooper that was KIA on |
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About the Author: He was born, raised and educated in St. Paul,
MN He enlisted in the army at Fort Snelling,
MN. After WWII he settled in |
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Courtesy of "WINDS ALOFT"
Quarterly publication of the 511th PIR Association |