Phil Wood's Letters
Letter #36
A Series Of Headaches
To Margretta & Gretchen
2 November 1943
Camp Pendleton, Cal.
November 2, 1943
Dear girls,
This last week was again a pretty tough one. Amphibious operations, three two-day problems, each of them starting with a landing – and while the days are still pretty warm here, take-off-your-shirt warmth, the nights are getting damned chilly, especially for sleeping on the beach under one blanket.[1] So cold that I went on patrol all night rather than hit the sack.
The rubber boat exercises at Aliso Beach were universally hated, feared, or both.
Panel on right from the 24th Marines "Red Book." Photos on right from the George A. Smith collection.
Several days ago we had at least two days of rain, and immediately the hills started to get green again. A couple more rains and this country will again look like the paradise it was when we first came – lush green fields, velvety hills dusted with acres of nodding wildflowers.
I’ve been having a series of headaches with my platoon all of a sudden. I had a wonderful record so far as they were concerned. Ever since I first got them, not a man AOL or AWOL. In almost a year, only one man had to come up before the Captain for reprimand; almost a perfect score, which was amazing. But about a week ago, one of my steadiest and most dependable men – [PFC Frank B.] Gosiewski, the man who waited on table, Mother, at the Officer’s Mess, decided to go on liberty for the first time in three months–got blind drunk, got picked up for disorderly conduct, resisted arrest and knocked down an MP–and he got off comparatively lightly.[2]
Then my very best NCO, my pride and joy – Corporal [John R.] Svoboda, section leader of the mortars – got all fouled up in his personal life. His girl married somebody else, so he went AWOL back to Utah for four days to tell her what he thought of her, and had to be broken [in rank]. Now a PFC, and as such I have had to put him back in a squad, under the men he was commanding. A bad situation.[3]
Then one of my squad leaders, a new man in the platoon just back from overseas, refused to jump from the 33 foot tower in the swimming course. In the rubber boat training, trying to launch a rubber boat against a very heavy surf [and] seeing a big wave coming, he jumped out of the boat, deserted his squad, swam in and walked up to the Captain and told him that he “just couldn’t take it.” I don’t know when I’ve been so furious. I immediately relieved him of his squad, and am sending him out of the company as soon as possible.[4]
And to top it off, my new second in command, Platoon Sergeant [Jay E.] Lohff and I don’t hit it off. He babies himself and bullies the men. If he hasn’t got blisters on his feet, then his legs ache; and if his legs don’t ache, it’s his stomach. I don’t like him, and neither do the men, yet he’s smart enough not to make any open mistake.[5]
And there won’t be enough furloughs to go around to let all the men get home again before we shove off; one squad leader has an incurable Samoan disease; a section leader is having his tonsils out; one man has chronic appendicitis; another has bad flat feet and can’t march; another has a trick knee that was ruined on maneuvers; and another has painful shin splints.[6]
All this has caused wholesale re-juggling of the squads, which is also bad.
I just didn’t realize how lucky I had been for a year. I just wish all this had happened long ago instead of at the last minute.
Oh, well. With all of this, I’ve still got a swell bunch of boys, who I know will be a credit to me when the chips are down.
Wrote to Weyer a while ago.[7] Have been dating some Navy nurses (ensigns, if you please) here at the Santa Margarita Hospital.[8] Got a letter from Ed Keyes the other day, and he is very happy – landed in the First Marine Raider Battalion, which just got back from Rendova, and will surely go out again very soon.[9]
Spent a very pleasant day yesterday, which we had off, back up in the hills, hunting with another lieutenant and a jeep. Strange to say we were successful, we got a deer. Successful in a way, that is, for while the chase was very exciting and all that, both of us were overcome with pity when we found out what we had killed – worse yet, it was a very pretty little doe – neither of us had any desire to eat it, so we rather sadly buried it. And I’m quite sure that I will never go deer hunting again. It’s got to be something that can fight back, like a great big ferocious grizzly bear – that is, if anything at all. Didn’t exactly feel like great big rugged Marines when we were through, either.
Write soon. Keep writing all the time.
Love,
Phil
Footnotes
[1] Amphibious exercises were held at Aliso Beach in Laguna, where 1/24 was designated as the regiment’s “Rubber Boat Battalion.” The intensive training, a holdover from the original Separate Battalion concept of studying Raider tactics, was unpopular and dangerous; “fortunately we never used the boats in combat, we would have been slaughtered” said George Smith.
[2] For “being under the influence of intoxicants, using profane and obscene language and striking an MP in Oceanside, CA,” PFC Goseiwski was restricted to base for 30 days.
[3] Battalion muster rolls note that Corporal John R. Svoboda was absent without leave from 21-26 October 1943. He was reduced to Private First Class on 28 October.
[4] The identity of this NCO, and whether Phil succeeded in having him transferred, is not known.
[5] Platoon Sergeant Lohff, a recent transfer from the 4th Tank Battalion, had nearly ten years in the Corps at this time, including China service and a stretch at Parris Island as a drill instructor. As a general rule, “old salt” Marines like Lohff and Sergeant John Yaniga did not mesh well with the young enlisted men of Phil’s rather high-spirited platoon. Lohff held on to this position until after the battle of Namur; he was then promoted to gunnery sergeant and assigned to the 81mm mortar section.
[6] The “incurable Samoan disease” afflicted Corporal Arthur B. Ervin, transferred from the Third Raider Battalion; his filariasis gave him the nickname “MuMu.” Sergeant Frank A. Tucker was in Santa Margarita Hospital having his tonsils out from 27-31 October. PFC George L. Hall was nicknamed “Flatfoot” for the severe leg pains he suffered on marches; it was not flat feet but polio, and he would die from it shortly after the war.
[7] “Weyer” is unknown; possibly a school friend.
[8] This was a convenient setup: US Naval Hospital Santa Margarita (now Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton) was on the grounds of the Fourth Marine Division’s training camp. Phil appears to have given up on the Pomona College coeds for the time being.
[9] Second Lieutenant Edwin Keyes, Phil’s former best buddy in A/1/24, became a Raider platoon leader. When the Raider battalions were reorganized into the (new) 4th Marines, Keys was assigned to G/2/4 and saw combat on Guam and Okinawa. He was painfully wounded in the arm in the latter battle, which led to his discharge from the service.
Less than a year before this letter, Phil Wood complained about a lack of seasoned NCOs in his platoon. Now with a full complement of them, he has his hands full trying to meld his leadership style with theirs.
It is interesting to note that most of the men with whom Wood has difficulty are either: regular Marines of long service (Lohff); men with combat experience (Svoboda); older than he (Gosiewski); or some combination thereof. There is, potentially, more to be said about a young officer’s opinion of what constitutes good leadership than Phil would want to admit. At the end of the day, however, he was the platoon leader – and his assessment was shared by many of the younger, reserve Marines under his command.
George Smith had his share of scrapes with “old salts,” including a standing rivalry with Sergeant Yaniga. The “old horse Marine” pronounced Smith with a Pennsylvania Dutch inflection – “Schmidt” – and when George invariably yelled back “SMITH!” he was ordered to run around the motor pool. (“I had the best damn legs in the company,” he said.) While his opinion of Lohff was unfavorable (“never did fit in, starting the day he arrived; I know Phil prevented him from having some of us disciplined”), he reserved special vitriol for the “sergeant from overseas.”
It wasn’t the [swimming] tower thing. I was up there a long time before I jumped. It was the rubber boat incident, which was at night. I think what really made Phil go off was the fact that during an attempt to get our boat passed the breakers, that bastard bailed out on us. I think Phil would have taken that coward that night if he could have gotten to him.
Despite these issues, most of the men Phil mentions in this complaint will prove their worth in battle. Two of them, Ervin and Tucker, would be highly decorated in combat; Phil and Ervin developed a particularly strong bond.