Everett Schafer's Letters
Letter #12
The Ocean Was Red With Blood
To LaFehrn Koller
19 July 1944
(forwarded with note to Etta Belch, 27 July 1944)
Note: This letter survives as a typewritten copy sent from LaFerhn to her mother in late July 1944, and includes a pre- and post-script.
July 27, 1944
Dear Mother
Yesterday I worked at Veteran’s and today at Good Samaritan and when I got home this afternoon there was a lovely long letter from Everett Ells. waiting, which I thought was awful nice. By the way, before I go any farther, I want to tell you that I’m feeling much better and that my spirits are much higher. Maybe I shouldn’t have written you how I felt but I felt better have I told you as a person usually does feel better when they tell their feelings to someone else. Dutch isn’t much good when it comes to wanting him to share your trouble or feelings or whatever you want to call it.
I guess you know that the 2nd and 4th Marines (probably including Waddy) are on Tinian now fighting and I just wrote Everett Ells. a very long letter and I just had to tell him again how we knew he was safe and would always be safe. Well, following is his letter and you will agree with me I’m sure, that it is as I told him, one of the most interesting he has written. I’ve told him that I usually write you when we have heard from him, so if there are any things in it that he didn’t write you, you will know why.
Dear LaFerhn & Dutch
I just finished chow and it was fairly good. Had hash, peas, stewed apples, bread, butter, and coffee, and not overdoing it not over two million small and large flies and no kidding. You see the filthy Japs imported flies to counteract a bug on their sugar cane, now there are millions and they are really persistent.[1] They go with hot climate and it’s plenty hot but rains most every night.
I hope you received my first V-Mail from here. I mentioned that the island was secured and we killed lots of Japs.
I’ll go into a bit more detail. We landed D-Day June 15, and we weren’t on the island two hours when we were caught in an artillery barrage. A little later a machine gun and couple snipers found us. Next day we made a big push for high ground and they threw plenty antiaircraft flak which burst over our heads. (This damn pen isn’t so good, it is or was a Jap’s. My good one is in my sea bag and too hard to get at.) Well anyway we kept pushing them back and getting more US ground. Finally after twenty six days of fighting, sweating, losing sleep, and eating K and C rations we got the slant eyes backed up to the ocean. There was a point four hundred yards at its widest point and ocean all around it.[2] There were approximately five hundred of them soldiers and [can’t make out the word – LaF.] About two hundred preferred to surrender and the rest is a sight I’ll never forget. We had a P. A. system set up on the bluff trying to persuade the civilians to come on up. To tell you of Jap fanatics. There were about three points jetting out in the ocean, and each had from fifty to a hundred and fifty on them, men, women, and babies. The babies are strapped to the mothers backs. All of a sudden they started a fibber fabber song and raised their flag. A few of the soldiers among them threw and held hand grenades among them and all started just walking off into the ocean. We put the flag down in short order and just watched the mass hari-kari. The ocean was red with blood and the bodies were thick.[3] The men that were pushing them off and went in later themselves, we shot in the water.[4] Later a company of our men went down there and we sat there watching Jap soldiers in trenches blow themselves up. Plenty did that for they are really cracked. There were three some who were left sitting after the Marines were about twenty yards beyond them mopping, the women got up, walked over to the beach, washed their faces and combed their hair, walked over to the edge, tied their hands together and stepped off.[5] How about that? I’ve never seen anything to compare with these animals. They are filthier than any race I’ve ever seen. It’s really too much for me.
Well, back to more pleasant things. I received the lighter and it’s mighty handy, thanks a lot. Also received your letter written at Carp Lake. I agree the McClures are swell people. Did you see the girl in Elliot’s Bakery that made the cake? I forgot her first name. I played a lot of tennis across the street from there, in fact that’s how we met her, knocking balls over there. We had a wonderful time up there and know the bunch of you did. It’s getting too dark to write so will get this off in the morning.
Have eaten chow and ready to finish this up. The sun is well up and it’s plenty hot. Now for your important question. The picture you saw and cut out I’m sorry to say isn’t me. It is a couple of corpsmen giving blood plasma to a Marine, and I recognize the corpsmen as First Bn. men. I can’t think of their names but I’ve seen them around plenty.[6]
You mentioned that if I’d request the Readers Digest you would sent it. I, Sgt. E. E. Schafer, do request that the Readers Digest be sent to me.
I’m receiving my Time and it really gives good reading dope. The Digest is also good reading. I’d like to have it, and I’m a thanking you dear sister.
LaFerhn I can’t tell you how much it means to me to know how you work for me. Your confidence in me, knowing I’ll come back as well as when I left, and your letters that always say just the right things. It really makes a guy feel good inside and I want you to know it, you and Dutch, I always consider the time I spent living with you and Dutch the best part of my life.[7] I gained things that will always be of value to me. Whenever I get the time, which isn’t much in combat, I write you. I hope this thing is over soon so I can get back and every other guy and all live normal lives again. I’m really getting low on things to write about so will close for now. I’ll write when I can, so don’t worry too much.
Your loving brother,
Waddy
It was written on the19th of July and this being only the 27th, I think it got here quite fast don’t you?
I think the reason he enjoyed living with us, was because he had so much fun with the boys and had a car and a job. We were over at McClures Sunday evening and about all they talked about were the fellows. They were over there quite a bit and they knew them much better than we did.[8]
Well, I can’t think of much else to write, but I did want you to know that we had heard from Everett Ells. and thought you would like to know what he had written. If he wrote you anything different, let us know.
Until next time, lots of love to you and the rest.
Your loving daughter
LaFerhn
Footnotes
1. It is unlikely that the Japanese actively imported flies to Saipan – the pests multiplied with extraordinary rapidity thanks to dead bodies, rotting food, and other detritus of battle.
2. Everett is referring to Marpi Point, the northernmost tip of Saipan.
3. This is not an exaggeration; the phenomenon was reported by other members of the battalion including Frederic Stott (“The exploding grenades cut up the mob into patches of dead, dying, and wounded, and for the first time we actually saw water that ran red with human blood“) and Mike Mervosh (“That blue sea in no time at all became the red sea”).
4. Marines deliberately targeted Japanese military personnel and tried not to hit civilians.
5. The three women were also remarked upon by Platoon Sergeant John “Pappy Meeks of Baker Company and correspondent Robert Sherrod in his book “On To Westward.”
6. Unfortunately, the source of this photograph isn’t known.
7. Everett lived with LaFerhn and Dutch before the war, and would go back to live with them in Dayton after his discharge.
8. The McClures are the family of Bob McClure, mentioned by Everett in his letter on 26 April 1944.