BATTLE NARRATIVE
“We Had To Bury Those Dead." Namur Occupation: 3 to 12 February 1944
Dawn on 3 February 1944 found the 4th Marine Division in complete control of northern Kwajalein.
Fires still flickered in bombed-out blockhouses. Smoke still poured from burning buildings. The hum of bullets was replaced by the buzz of huge green and purple flies. The breeze that stirred the little flag atop its ad-hoc pole brought the scent of diesel oil and human sweat, excrement, and rotting flesh. Thousands of living men awoke, shaved, and breakfasted in the company of thousands of dead men. Months of bombing, days of shelling, and thirty-six hours of ground fighting turned the twin islands of Roi and Namur into a blackened charnel house.
“Namur must once have been a lovely spot,” wrote 1Lt. Philip E. Wood, Jr., but now “there is nothing tropical or lovely left. It looks as though someone with an imagination of his own had tried to make a Hollywood set for Journey’s End.” As he looked around, Wood saw “a dry, hot, fetid version of the worst section of No Man’s Land that France ever had to offer. No living green thing, blasted tree trunks, huge gaping shell holes, disemboweled trucks, heaps of concrete and lumber that were once fortifications.”[1]
USMC photos.
Roi-Namur was a wasteland, but could not remain so. The objective of Operation Flintlock was more than the destruction of buildings and the slaughter of a garrison – it was the capture and rebuilding of an air base. Engineering units were already landing their equipment. The tanks that roared through Namur’s undergrowth were replaced by bulldozers clearing new roads. Surveying teams staked out the cratered runways on Roi, and naval Construction Battalions – the Seabees – hustled to build new heads and galleys.[2] So many support troops were coming ashore that battalions of assault troops moved to ships offshore to make room.[3] Within three days, the 15th Defense Battalion emplaced heavy weapons in new positions; within ten days, a damaged bomber could land for repairs; within a month, Marine dive-bombers would roar overhead as the 95th Naval Construction Battalion leveled the last of the damaged Japanese structures and begin building the base that stands on Roi-Namur today.
Retrieval & Burial: American Dead
“My buddy." A Marine looks over the bodies of two comrades who died on Roi-Namur. USMC photos.
After the Division commander and his dignitaries presided over the mass commemoration on 2 February, a steady stream of trucks bearing the bodies of dead Marines arrived at the little spit between Roi and Namur. The arrival of Graves Registration personnel on 3 February brought an additional degree of order to the chaos. When the sun went down, burial parties fired up floodlights and kept digging.[6] By the end of 5 February, when two plots contained the majority of the 172 Division personnel killed in Operation Flintlock, the cemetery was declared complete.[7] Thirty-one of the graves were occupied by former members of the First Battalion, 24th Marines – from the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Aquilla “Jimmie” Dyess (Plot 1, Row 1, Grave 16) to eighteen-year-old Private Jay Stephenson (Plot 2, Row 6, Grave 137).
PFC Giustino Parente of B/1/24, service number 451942, was killed in action on 2 February 1944.
This marker, captured by a film camera, stood over Grave 66, Row 3, Plot 2 of the Pauline Point cemetery.
Out in the lagoon, more burials were taking place. A wounded man’s chances for survival improved dramatically if he lived long enough to reach a ship’s sick bay; the arrival of the hospital ship USS Solace saved many more lives, as the worst cases were transferred to her expert care starting on 3 February. For a few men even the best medical help was too little, too late. First Lieutenant Theodore K. Johnson (C/1/24) and PFC Stephen P. Hopkins (A/1/24) were among those 4th Marine Division personnel who were laid to rest in the waters of Kwajalein.
PFC Frank Schur, a nineteen-year-old rifleman serving with B/1/24th Marines, hit Beach Green One with his company on the afternoon of 1 February 1944. Within a very short time – minutes, or perhaps an hour or two – he was wounded multiple times: a bullet in his chest, additional holes in his right shoulder and his neck. He was triaged, carried to the beach, and placed on a boat bound for the USS Sheridan. The ship’s medical personnel did their best to treat his severe injuries as the sick bay filled with wounded Marines.
On 3 February, Sheridan made ready to transfer some of her wounded to the Solace. “Only those too seriously wounded to be moved, and those with wounds of such a slight nature as to be completely healed within two weeks were retained on board,” noted the ship’s War Diary. PFC Schur fit neither criteria: he died of his wounds that day. Rather than send his body ashore for burial, the Sheridan officers elected to hold a burial at sea. Noting the “slightly choppy” sea, the ship moved to 167° 27′ E / 9° 19′ N – just outside the lagoon – and dropped anchor. A loudspeaker announced, “All hands stand by to bury the dead.”
As the gravediggers smoothed pathways and straightened painted headboards, combat Marines came to visit the cemetery. They poked along the lines, helmets off and heads down, scanning the rows for certain names. They looked for squadmates, for hometown pals, for buddies who had been as close as family, and in at least two cases, for blood relatives. One can only imagine the thoughts of 44-year-old Corporal Earl Brown of Item Company as he stood over 19-year-old PFC Jack Brown’s grave. When Jack joined up, Earl decided he must serve as well – he was a Great War veteran and Jack, after all, was his son. The two tried every trick to serve together and were finally successful, but Jack took sick just before the sailing date for Flintlock. Undaunted, the younger Brown went AWOL and stowed away aboard his father’s ship, declaring they would fight side by side. Jack died in the banzai attack that hit the left flank early on the morning of 2 February 1944. “Pop” Brown, the war correspondents said, visited “the boy’s grave” and vowed to fight on.
If any American in the Marshall Islands could appreciate Earl Brown’s grief, it must have been Private Howard Junior Cooper of D/1/24. Howard and his older brother, Carl Edward Cooper, joined the Marines together on 24 August 1942: they were even assigned sequential service numbers. The Coopers trained and served together – while “Junior’s” adventures (or misadventures) tended to land him in hack, calm capable Carl kept the younger brother in check. In the estimation of 1Lt. Alexander Santilli, Carl Cooper was “quiet and very efficient… well liked by his fellow Marines. I took a liking to him from the start. We had many long talks together…. I not only considered Carl as one of my men, but also as a close friend…. a good Marine and a perfect gentleman.”
The Cooper brothers were both wounded on Namur. Howard was only slightly bruised, but Carl was shot in the head and killed on 2 February 1944. “[Carl] was a fighter,” said Lieutenant Santilli, “and that was the way he went.”
“I find it awfully lonesome without Carl,” Junior admitted to their sister Sarita. “I am getting along fairly good, but I know I’m going to miss him more as time goes on.”[9]
Several months later, Brigadier General Robert Denig traveled to Namur with an armful of flowers. He “stepped up to the grave, one of many in the Marine cemetery…. Quietly and carefully, the Marine general hung Hawaiian leis on the white cross. Through the flowery folds you could read the inscription: ‘Captain James L. Denig, USMC. Killed in action.’ The general, a veteran of the first war, cried. So would almost any American father who was visiting the grave of a son of whom he had been very fond and proud.”[10]
Retrieval & Burial: Japanese & Korean Dead
Much ink was spilled on the subject of “battlefield sanitation” on Roi and Namur; it was the preeminent concern as soon as the firing stopped.[11] “The largest sanitary problem confronting the victor is unquestionably the speedy and effective disposal of the dead,” opined the 4th Marine Division’s surgeon. “Particularly enemy dead.”[12] It is telling that the “disposal” of Japanese and Korean bodies was strictly considered an issue of sanitation – the removal of offensive refuse, rather than the burial of a human being.
The officers who planned the Marshall Islands operation drew much of their inspiration from lessons learned at Tarawa – up to and including how to deal with thousands of corpses on a very small land mass. To that end, the invasion force organized a “body disposal group,” consisting of Marine epidemic control specialists, Navy men from ACORN 21, and a large number of volunteers. Equipped with knapsack sprayers and drums of disinfectant, they were to handle the removal of all enemy dead and prevent the spread of diseases.[13] The work was grisly, to say the least.
Of course, not everything went as planned. The knapsack sprayers were faulty and often leaked; the resultant arsenic burns and dermatitis were described as “minor” but had an uncomfortable tendency to affect the scrotal region.[16] Specialized equipment allocated to ACORN 21 was not delivered until late in the operation. Proper gloves could not be located; fifty pairs of cargo loading gloves were found and issued, but were deemed utterly inadequate. The volunteer nature of the unit meant that many men were unfamiliar with the duties at hand. For example, three officers and 150 men volunteered from a carrier aircraft service unit (CASU-20), and had no discernible qualifications aside from their enthusiasm.[17] They were “eager but untrained,” commented Colonel Jones of the 23rd Marines. “They established no readily contacted headquarters and in their haste to do everything at once were seldom available to notify when new bodies were discovered.” Jones’ own men stepped in and “gathered and stacked about 300 bodies.”[18] Heavy equipment operators complained of being shanghaied into digging burial trenches and bemoaned the lack of “command discipline” that delayed unloading.[19]
Progress was slow but sure. By February 4, C. W. Hussey of the SS Young America reported “three trenches each approximately 50 yards long, 15 feet wide, and 8 feet deep half filled with dead Japs, and two others that had been covered over with a sign ‘279 JAPS BURIED HERE.’ I saw one water-filled bomb crater and counted 15 Japs and 1 pig floating in the bloody water. I saw small fragments of dead bodies being swept from the floor of 1 blockhouse which the Navy was making ready for [a] headquarters site.”[20] Although fewer bodies were found on Roi, the island’s much-needed runways and construction-ready terrain made it the first priority for the limited equipment and manpower. Cleaning up Namur, a monumental mess of scattered buildings, shattered trees, trenches, bunkers, and craters, posed a far greater challenge. And only one source of manpower was available to deal with the situation.
The controversial decision to use combat troops as cleanup crews was regarded as anything from a temporary inconvenience to a flagrant abuse of authority. At the division staff level, it was “regretted, but… considered to have been absolutely necessary under the circumstances.”[21] The division surgeon, without a trace of irony, declared it “a very grave problem” and took umbrage that “men who were combat troops… felt that this type of a job was somewhat of an imposition.”[22] Farther down the command chain, the regimental surgeon of the 24th Marines spoke up for the “officers, doctors, corpsmen, bandsmen and assault troops that had just completed two days arduous fighting” who were put at serious risk of infection, and commented that “this entire procedure was bad for morale.”[23] Battalion officers were even more direct. “Assault troops should not have to gather dead Japs after battle,” stated the new 1/24 commander Major Maynard Schultz. His quartermaster, Second Lieutenant George Wheeland, added “the men who did the fighting… should not be required on working parties for unloading or beach work. And absolutely not in removing the dead.”[24]
Of course, the men who did the dirty work had the strongest reactions of all. When PFC Howard M. Kerr balked at the task, an officer quipped “You guys gotta stay here because the Army won’t come in unless you clean ‘em up.”[25] PFC Alva R. Perry, Jr. was revolted by the sight of dead men “who had been allowed to lie in the hot sun for days. Their bodies were rotten. Purple flies covered their wounds and… would fly into our mouths if they were open. The smell was beyond comparison.” Perry put on a gas mask but the smell made him sick; after cleaning the vomit out of the mask, he determined to “just hold my breath as long as I could.”[26]
PFC John Pope and his buddies went about their work “with much bitching and retching,” he said. “Some of those enemy guys had been killed by naval shelling before we landed and had been laying there in the hot sun for several days. The odor and green flies and maggots made it a little hard to eat our rations.”[27] For every body lying obligingly in the open, there were others tucked into dark corners of pillboxes, wedged under trees, crushed by falling buildings or hidden in trenches. Danger was added to disgust: dark corners hid living Japanese on the watch for incautious Marines. (In fact, the battalion did report one casualty on 5 February – PFC Glen H. Knisley of C Company, shot in the shoulder.)
In this series by Sergeant William H. Feen, members of the 24th Marines haul Japanese bodies from a fortification and load them onto a makeshift stretcher.
One by one, the bodies which “lay like broken wax dolls in shell holes, near ammunition dumps, and in the ruins of buildings” were dragged out and – theoretically, at least – carried to designated burial sites. Bulldozers on Roi cleared several mass graves, but no heavy machinery was available on Namur. The traffic snarl at the damaged causeway made hauling bodies by truck impractical – and no Marine was about to walk all the way with a stretcher full of putrid flesh.[28] Convenience dictated action. “We would roll one or more rotting bodies onto a poncho, drag them to the nearest shell hole and dump them in,” said John Pope. “When the hole was full they were doused with diesel fuel and set on fire. The smell of human flesh burning is nauseating all by itself. They were then sprinkled with lime and covered over.”[29] After a few such unsanctioned pyres, officers designated three large craters as central burial points.
Kerr, Perry, and Pope all reported using Japanese trucks to speed up the process, but even this expedient was not without its horrors. Perry’s team tried tossing bodies up to the truck bed, but repeatedly lost their grip on the slimy flesh and hit the tailgate instead. Pope lit upon the idea of rolling bodies in ponchos “and on the count of three two guys would swing it sailing up onto the truck.” PFC Jim Rainey lost his breakfast at the “unbelievable” odor and was steadying himself against the truck when another corpse was tossed atop the truck and came slithering back down the pile.
Perry and company balancing atop the reeking pile as the truck shuddered and swayed across the island to the crater. A corpsman dragooned into the burial detail reached into his supply bag and doled out small bottles of peach brandy. By the end of the day, the group was “feeling no pain” and went splashing in the ocean “to get the goop off and reduce the stench.” Exhausted, they passed out on the beach. Perry recalled this detail as “my worst experience on the island, one I will never forget.”[31] At least one Marine declared that if he’d known he’d have to bury his enemies, he wouldn’t have killed so many.
Help came from unexpected quarters. A group of 34 Marshall Islanders “reported and offered their services” on 3 February.[32]These residents of Roi and Namur, displaced by Japanese occupation or American bombing, waited out the battle on the atoll’s tiny islands. Marines obligingly boated them from their refuges to temporary camps; the 25th Marines noted “the natives appeared most friendly and were apparently glad to see Americans in the Islands.”[33] They were understandably keen to clean up their devastated homes, and were put to work hauling bodies and rotting food from Japanese stores. The Marines saw to it that their helpers were compensated for their efforts – with American currency.
Less enthusiastic assistance came from a handful of Japanese and Korean POWs, compelled to dispose of their dead friends and comrades. But even the most reluctant prisoner showed more initiative than the Marines’ own rear echelon troops who, it was claimed, “took little or no part in the cleaning up of the battle area.”[34] The sight of “gold-bricking” non-combatants “wandering over the area, collecting souvenirs and sight-seeing” was so obnoxious that Colonel Franklin Hart ordered them arrested and put to work.[35] Additional body disposal teams began to arrive from Roi late on February 4, but by that time the bulk of the dirty work was done, and an estimated 1,200 enemy dead were committed to their questionable rest in Namur’s craters.
Prisoners and Souvenirs
In the hellscape of death and destruction, any living thing quickly drew attention. Correspondent Alva Dopking was fascinated by a chicken “which seemed unconcerned…. It walked around serenely calm in the murderous crossfire.”[36] The Japanese garrison kept hogs, some of which survived the battle. PFC Dominick Santomero of the divisional MP company took a “web-footed raven” under his wing; the bird was “in a state of nervous collapse” and Santomero intended to nurse it back to health.[37]
A little English bulldog attached himself to a squad from A/1/24. “He’s a perfect Marine mascot,” gushed Phil Wood. “Very friendly, loves to go on hikes…. He’s battle-wise too, naturally, and as soon as he hears firing he calmly crawls into a hole.” The dog responded to “Mike,” suggesting that his original name was a similar-sounding Japanese word, but Able Company quickly dubbed him “Tojo.” Tojo accompanied Able Company to Camp Maui, where he was duly enlisted into the Corps and promoted to Private First Class “since he’d seen action.”[38]
Humans appeared from the rubble, too. Marshallese civilians – the original inhabitants of Roi-Namur, displaced by Japanese occupation – were anxious to return and rebuild their homes. Many pitched in to help haul debris and bodies, much to the relief of the combat troops. A doughty couple weathered the storm on Namur itself, taking shelter in a deep hole and emerging on 5 February. After receiving food and water, the male islander proudly showed off his souvenir collection and bestowed presents upon his benefactors.
USMC photos by Sergeant Andrew Zurick, dated 5 February 1944.
An estimated 100 Japanese troops remained at large after 3 February. They hid out alone or in pairs, mustering up the courage to surrender or to die. Several were caught while trying to steal food at night, while others took potshots at passing Marines. These remnants never caused any serious damage but they did keep the garrison troops on their toes, especially those who had not taken part in the battle – the 24th Marines blamed “promiscuous ‘trigger happy’ unintelligent firing” by their own rear echelon for one death and several wounds. When cornered, Japanese military personnel frequently preferred suicide to capture.[39] “We found some evidence of hari-kari and a few tried to surrender – unsuccessfully – but on the whole they fought to the last, trying to attack whenever they could,” noted Phil Wood. After a few such “fanatical attacks,” the Marines were disinclined to distinguish between hardened rikusentai and the Korean laborers and civilians who earnestly wanted to surrender.[40]
Clemency was awarded to precious few. The 24th Marines intelligence (R-2) section tallied 21 prisoners; more might have been taken but for the animosity and mistrust between the combatants. “Funny about the surrendering business,” continued Wood. “They seldom try it because they’re afraid they will be tortured by us, and we’re fearful of their tricks and don’t like to take chances. So we don’t take any. Our Battalion didn’t take a [prisoner], though at least fifty offered themselves.”[41] Wood believed the Marines “aren’t bloodthirsty – just absolutely cold-blooded…. I imagine it’s simply because they don’t want to take unnecessary chances.”[42]
We captured one of them and he said, "You may have captured the Marshall Islands, but you'll never get Pearl Harbor back." The boys really laughed at him. Why, [one] of the Japs even thought they were in California. That shows you what they are told and what they know.
One large blockhouse became the center of a drama spanning several days. It was clearly occupied – the heavy iron doors were barred from the inside – but after the earth-shattering detonation that nearly sank the island on 1 February, nobody wanted to breach the walls with explosives. Guards smoked cigarettes and watched the door while a plan was devised. Infiltration was the key – a page from the Japanese playbook – and Private Dwyer Duncan of HQ/1/24 was the man to carry it out. Armed only with a pistol, Duncan wriggled through a tiny opening beneath the blockhouse and disappeared inside.
A few rapid pistol shots broke the ominous silence. Much to the relief of the waiting Marines, Duncan emerged unharmed and with pleasing news. There was nobody left alive in the blockhouse, he said. Every man and woman who took refuge within its walls was dead from self-inflicted grenade wounds. His sudden appearance startled a pig; the animal charged, but was no match for a pistol. Duncan produced an armful of Japanese documents, which interested the R-2 men, and a gore-splattered canteen, which did not.[43]
However, Duncan had missed something in the blockhouse. A muffled blast from within blew the heavy doors open and, amazingly, a loincloth-clad man emerged, his hands held high. Surprise kept the sentries from shooting immediately; as they moved to cover the man, they noticed a second man emerging from the rubble. The Marines moved quickly, and more prisoners were “either smoked out or persuaded to come out by an interpreter.” Soon seven dazed men were in captivity, mumbling to the interpreters while corpsmen checked over their injuries. (Six of the seven were wounded, and two of these would later die.) Further exploration uncovered more than fifty dead bodies – and five hundred tons of aerial bombs. Had the Marines gone in guns blazing – or had the Japanese succeeded in setting off the explosives, as they evidently tried to do – the blast would have rivaled the eruption of the torpedo stockpile. It took Marine truckers three days to remove all of the stored ordnance.[44]
Dwyer Duncan recalled another blockhouse that did not go down as quietly. “The only American tank that I saw on Namur came in and fired point blank at the steel door,” he said. “The door broke and the tank filled the block house with a flamethrower. Burning men ran out and we mercifully shot them.”[45]
These photos by Corporal John Fabian show the fall of the blockhouse “thirty-six hours after Namur Island was secured... A Jap soldier stumbled through and three more were found inside. There had been 20 Japs inside before the explosion."
Souvenir hunting reached epidemic proportions, despite official orders prohibiting the practice. Marines and sailors developed a burning desire for flags, pistols, money, helmets and swords – anything of Japanese origin that would serve as a memento of their first battle, or could be traded to a Seabee or a coxswain for good food or whiskey. Bartering was commonplace, and at times Namur felt more like a flea market or swap meet than a debris-filled battlefield.
Rear-echelon troops and transport sailors were particularly keen on souvenirs, and went to great lengths to get what the assault troops missed. A shore party from the USS Doyen went ashore to deliver hot breakfast and did not return until dark. “Their boat looked like a backyard junk pile,” commented a Doyen sailor. “Machine guns, swords, helmets, rifles, and shell casings littered the deck. Only its extreme size had prevented [them] from bringing aboard the wing section of a Zero.”
Several sailors went to great lengths to find their prizes. “We noticed that most of the Jap bodies had their pockets cut away,” commented Gunner’s Mate Ace Parker of the Doyen. “If they were lying on their faces, their rear pockets were gone. If they were on their backs, their shirt pockets were gone. We thought for a while we weren’t going to get anything. Then Crawford got a good idea. He took a stick and turned one of the bastards over. Sure enough, the Marines hadn’t taken the time to do a complete job.”[46]
Anything and everything unusual or of foreign make could become a souvenier. Members of the 23rd Marines hacked Japanese planes with Ka-Bar knives, slicing off strips of aluminum to bend into bracelets. Photographers captured cocky teenaged Marines happily displaying the yosegaki hinomaru that failed to bring luck to their original owners. A few ghouls burrowed in the piles of dead, hunting for gold teeth. Officers were not immune to the collector’s call; Phil Wood picked up a flag, a handful of stamps, and a silk kimono.
From Battlefield to Base
The new Kwajalein atoll commander, Rear Admiral Alva D. Bernhard, arrived on February 3; Naval luminaries including Secretary James Forrestal and Vice Admiral Raymond Spruance paid visits. Construction crews began clearing and repairing the first of Roi’s runways on February 4. Tents replaced foxholes, prefab heads replaced slit trenches, and distillers began turning out fresh water – though not enough to meet the demand. Engineers strengthened the bomb-damaged causeway linking Roi and Namur. Admiral Nimitz made an inspection tour on February 6, and three holdout snipers were flushed out of hiding and killed. Blackout conditions were enforced, garrison troops landed, and the advance echelon of Marine Air Group 31 arrived to observe their new base. And the last Japanese were buried in their mass graves. One estimate placed the total number of Japanese and Korean dead at 2,879.[49]
As the garrison arrived, work slowed for the combat troops still stationed on Namur. Mail was received and V-Mail was written. Some enterprising newshounds started a newsletter titled The 24th Word. Transport galleys sent hot meals ashore. Those who tired of searching for souvenirs went to the beach instead, hunting for pretty shells along the shoreline. A few decided to seek out some natural beauty in the former paradise. The water is all shades; bright green, robin’s-egg blue, a deep, satisfying cobalt blue,” remarked Phil Wood. “You can walk, hip deep, from one island to another and I went to four or five and they were idyllic. Soft rich brown earth, mangoes, breadfruit and coconut crowding each other for a chance at the sunshine, forming glades of shade roofed over by the vivid green leaves. The steady breeze keeps it always cool – no mosquitoes – the only sound being the hissing of the surf.”[50]
Swimming was popular as a way to stay clean, fit, and entertained. Marines were expected to qualify as swimmers before leaving the United States, but training in a pool did not prepare one for “that damn sea – beautiful but dangerous and treacherous.” As a rubber boat battalion, 1/24 had plenty of experience swimming in surf, but even they ran into trouble. After his trip to the adjoining islands, Phil Wood joined three buddies for a dip off Nadine Point. It was nearly their last.
We were sucked out to where the enormous waves rolled in and smashed onto the reef – thrown in and sucked out for what seemed to be an eternity – way over our head most of the time – gasping for air and getting only foam and water – thrashing and twisting in an infinity of dazzling white pure clean foam, tossed about like a chip by a vast impersonal malevolent force – finally too weak to fight any longer, just trying to breathe and thinking that it was all over, what a silly way to die, of home and you, but over and over again, "what a silly, pointless way to die!" And finally when the ocean was through with us, one enormous wave picked us up and vomited us into the shallow water, washed clean of any strength or thought or feeling – the four of us held on to each other and staggered in and collapsed on the sharp but dry coral rock. Three of us passed out.
It was a horrible experience, one which I will never forget.[51]
Wood and his friends were lucky. Several men did drown; one unfortunate PFC from the 25th Marines was swept out to sea and never seen again.
By 10 February 1944, the transition from battlefield to naval air station was nearly complete. Lt. Col. Austin Brunelli’s BLT 3-24 gathered gear and souvenirs and filed down to the beach for embarkation on the SS Young America. As the last combat unit stationed on Namur, Major Schultz’s BLT 1-24 had a ringside seat for the first major drama on Roi. A massive B-24 Liberator roared overhead, her inboard starboard engine dead and fuselage full of holes. She banked, settled, and dropped to the tarmac, rolling to a stop at the very end of the airstrip. The Marines cheered as mechanics and medics swarmed over the damaged bomber – the first American aircraft to land safely in the Marshall Islands.[52]
On D+11, as Major General Harry Schmidt, USMC, ceded command of Roi-Namur to Captain E. C. Ewen, USN, the men of 1/24 were picking up their belongings and preparing to leave the Marshall Islands for good. Platoon by platoon, they waded out to the waiting Higgins boats. The big doors winched shut, the coxswains gunned their engines, and the flat-nosed bows swung out towards the sea. They motored back through the fleet, passing other little craft en route to the beach, loaded down with more garrison troops, more supplies, more equipment. The boats stopped alongside the SS Robin Wentley and, squad by squad, 1/24 climbed the nets, swung over the rail, and disappeared to their quarters below decks.
They were spectators to the final act of violence on Roi-Namur. The Wentley sounded general quarters at 0209, awakening her crew and most of her passengers. As the sailors raced to their stations, some curious Marines wandered out onto the deck. Small boats zipped about laying smoke. Searchlights stabbed up from Roi, followed by the barking reports of antiaircraft fire from land and sea. Then the sky was lit by a tremendous explosion. Japanese bombers had found the brand-new fuel and ammo dump. The airfield was in flames. Supplies were burning. Men were dying. And 1/24 watched with a newfound sense of detachment. Two weeks ago, this spectacle would have horrified them. Now, the cataclysm reminded Phil Wood of watching the Boston fireworks from a boat along the sound.[53]
PFC Joe Parrish was watching the conflagration when a civilian sailor tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, what’s going on?”
“They’re bombing the island.”
“Oh, that’s good!” grinned the sailor. “That’s another $500 in my pocket.” He went on about his business as Parrish stared after him, thinking that’s a hell of a way to fight a war.[54]
[1] Philip E. Wood, Jr. to Margaretta and Gretchen Wood, 13 February 1944.
[2] Major General Harry Schmidt, Final Report on FLINTLOCK Operation (17 March 1944), 9. Hereafter “Division Commander’s Report.” These troops were mostly from the 20th Marines, an engineering regiment whose third battalion was composed entirely of Naval construction personnel.
[3] Division Commander’s Report, 8. The first two battalions to leave were the hard-hit 2/24 and 3/23 on 3 February; the remainder of the 23rd Marines and parts of the 14th embarked the following day.
[4] Wood, letter of 13 February.
[5] John R. Henry, “Life on Roi, Namur Islands Softens Up for Weary Yanks,” The Palladium-Item and Sun-Telegram (Richmond, IN: 18 February, 1944), 4.
[6] Colonel Louis Jones, “Report on CT 23 Participation In FLINTLOCK Operation” (4 March 1944), enclosure D to Division Commander’s Report, 78. This caused some confusion (and some concern) about blackout restrictions.
[7] Called “Aqua Pura Cemetery,” “Pauline Point Cemetery,” “Navy and Marine Cemetery,” or simply “Division Cemetery,” this location was primarily the resting place for those killed on the islands of Roi and Namur themselves. The few dozen men who died on the outlying islands were buried in auxiliary cemeteries. Later in the year, all remains were consolidated into the Ivan Island Cemetery.
[8] D. E. Hogan, “War Diary, USS Doyen” month of February, 1944, 2. Doyen also buried three POWs at sea that afternoon, presumably with less ceremony.
[9] Personal correspondence of Carl and Howard Cooper, courtesy of Carl Caldwell.
[10] Mac R. Johnson, “General Decorates Grave of Son,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Vol. 17, No. 262 (1 June 1944), 1.
[11] Division Commander’s Report, 9.
[12] Commander William C. Baty, “Division Surgeon’s Report – Flintlock Operation” (undated), enclosure I to Division Commander’s Report, 174.
[13] Captain E. C. Ewen, “War Diary, Roi and Namur Islands” (January – March 1944), 1.
[14] Ibid., 2.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Baty, “Division Surgeon’s Report,” 175.
[17] H. W. Fish, “History of Combat Aircraft Service Unit Twenty, From November 1 1943 to July 1 1945,” 3.
[18] Jones, “Report on CT 23,” 78.
[19] Author unknown, “Shore Party Report,” (undated), enclosure I to Division Commander’s Report, 141.
[20] C. W. Hussey, “Observations At Burlesque And Camouflage (Roi Island) Kwajalein Atoll, M. I., February 1944,” transcription by Alfred Samper, http://jasco295.tripod.com/
[21] Division Commander’s Report, 9.
[22] Baty, “Division Surgeon’s Report,” 176.
[23] “Medical Report,” enclosure (C) to Colonel Franklin A. Hart, “Combat Team Twenty-Four Report on FLINTLOCK Operation” (10 March 1944), in Schmidt, 118.
[24] 2Lt George P. Wheeland, enclosure (E) to Major Maynard C. Schultz, “Brief report of operations in Namur action” (8 February 1944), in Memorandum to D-3, Fourth Marine Division (10 February 1944), 2.
[25] Howard Matthew Kerr Collection (AFC/2001/001/65492), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress. Oral history interview.
[26] Alva R. Perry, Jr., “A Personal History of the Fourth Marine Division in WWII,” 2011.
[27] John C. Pope, Angel On My Shoulder, Kindle edition (2013), location 794.
[28] On Roi, “Bulldozers dug five trenches five hundred feet long, eight feet wide and six feet deep in the triangular area north of the intersection of runways Able and Charlie…. These trenches accommodated upwards of 400 bodies each. Large bomb craters were also used.” Ewen, “War Diary,” 2.
[29] Pope, location 804.
[30] Ibid.
[31] Alva Perry, “Personal History.”
[32] Baty, “Division Surgeon’s Report,” 176.
[33] Colonel Samuel C. Cumming, “Report on the Twenty-Fifth Marines (Reinforced) in the FLINTLOCK operation” (16 March 1944), in Schmidt, Final Report on FLINTLOCK Operation (17 March, 1944), 149.
[34] Colonel Franklin A. Hart, “Combat Team Twenty-Four Report on FLINTLOCK Operation” (10 March 1944), in Schmidt, Final Report on FLINTLOCK Operation (17 March, 1944), 97. Hereafter “RCT Commander’s Report.”
[35] Ibid., 98.
[36] Alva Dopking, “Former Miami Writer Describes Invasion,” The Miami Daily News-Record Vol. 41, No. 187 (3 February 1944), 1.
[37] Anonymous, “Web-Footed Raven Dies of Shellshock,” The Marine Corps Chevron Vol. 3, No. 11 (18 March 1944), 4. The bird, named “Namur,” died a few days after leaving her island. A heartbroken Santomero buried her at sea.
[38] Philip E. Wood, Jr. to Margaretta and Gretchen Wood, 5 April 1944.
[39] RCT Commander’s Report, 107.
[40] “Specific cases are known where our men were killed or wounded in this way.” “Intelligence Report,” enclosure (F) to Colonel Franklin A. Hart, “Combat Team Twenty-Four Report on FLINTLOCK Operation” (10 March 1944), in Schmidt, 132. Hereafter R-2 Report.
[41] Philip E. Wood, Jr. to Katherine Billings Wood, 30 March 1944
[42] In a later letter, Wood shows remorse for this action, feeling horror at Marine “cruelty, not in extinguishing a dangerous enemy, but in killing those who tried to surrender, nude with their hands up, because you had no time to handle prisoners.” On Saipan, he would take one such chance, and lose his life in an attempt to rescue surrendering civilians.
[43] Dwyer Duncan, “Military Career – Dwyer’s Memories.” Posted May 16, 2013; recorded 1995. The pig caught the usually unflappable Duncan by surprise; it was the first living thing he killed in combat.
[44] R-2 Report, 133.
[45] Dwyer’s Memories. While Dwyer’s recollections of sneaking underneath a blockhouse are backed up by the R-2 report (“the section concentrated its efforts on cleaning out the area under the concrete floor of the building”) his mention of the flamethrower tank suggest this may be a separate incident. According to the RCT-24 report, flamethrower tanks were used only once in the operation, and that was during the mop up. However, the blockhouse that appears in the R-2 photographs does not show the effects of a flamethrower, and the doors have been blown outwards rather than inwards.
[46] Lawrence A. Marsden, Attack Transport: The Story of the USS Doyen (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1946), 74.
[47] The intelligence men, at least, recognized their role in this problem; the 24th Marines’ R-2 section complained “something must be done by higher authority to clarify the return of non-essential material to those who turn it in.” When preparing for the Saipan operation, the importance of returning souvenirs to retain the trust (and avoid the ire) of the front line Marines was heavily emphasized.
[48] Ewen, “War Diary,” 4.
[49] Ibid., 6.
[50] Wood, letter of 13 February.
[51] Ibid.
[52] This B-24, nicknamed “Sugar,” belonged to the 7th Air Force. She was damaged in a raid over Wotje; Japanese aircraft shot out her engine and hydraulics while wounding her tail gunner. CASU-21 mechanics had her back in the air within three days – a feat made more amazing by the fact that “Sugar” landed four days before the airstrip was supposed to be functional.
[53] Philip E. Wood, Jr. to Margaretta and Gretchen Wood, 2 April 1944.
[54] Gail Chatfield, “Sgt. Maj. Joe Parrish, USMC (Ret.)” in By Dammit, We’re Marines! (San Diego:Methvin, 2008), 206.
Nice website with a lot of interesting information and photos.
My great-uncle James R. Zarillo was KIA 2/1/44 on Namur. He was 3rd Battalion, Company M.