by: Bob Quinn - 3 part series.
Introduction
Part 1
Bob Quinn's Naval ServiceIntroduction
Part 2
Guam RememberedIntroduction
Part 3
Guam Remebered-3
Bob Quinn's Naval Service
By: Bob Quinn
Part 1 of a Three Part Series.
On the 19th of June, the Japanese fleet arrived in the Saipan theater of operations, and the most intensive carrier battle of the war took place. During two days of fighting in the air over Saipan, we lost 130 aircraft. The Japanese losses amounted to 535 land and carrier based planes, in addition to three aircraft carriers. This action was appropriatelycalled the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot". During the second week of July, 1944, the island of Saipan was secured. The Japanese commander committed hari-kari with his ceremonial sword, and his principal officers followed suit. The Japanese dead numbered nearly 24,000. Among the Japanese casualties were hundreds of civilians who had taken refuge on the cliffs of Saipan's northern shore. They ignored our surrender appeals and committed mass suicide by hurling their babies down from the cliffs and then jumping after them. Those who had grenades gathered in small groups and blew themselves up. Our losses were also heavy on Saipan. We incurred more than 16,000 casualties and 3500 dead.
At the time of our final takeover, we were in Eniwetok lamenting the fact that we had only watched as reserves and had not been a part of the action on the beaches. Our longing however, to put into action what we had trained for so long, was soon to be realized.
On July 18th, we sailed away from Eniwetok and back to the Marianas. This time the target was Guam and Tinian. Part of our invasion forces headed for Tinian, which was only a short distance from the big island of Guam. Our unit was destined for Guam.
On the evening prior to our arrival on Guam, the chaplain came on the address system and offered prayers for all.
On July 21st, as the sun again rose over the eastern horizon, we lay to, off the beaches of Guam. To our left was a peninsula by the name of Orote. It was unusually high, perhaps 300 feet, with sheer cliffs that plunged into the ocean below. At the very top of Orote, separated only by 50 feet, was a small piece of land, equally as high as Orote, that appeared to have fallen off the end of the peninsula eons ago. Directly ahead of us lay the broad expanse of beach we were yet to storm, and the small town of Agat.
As in Saipan, the fleet's warships had been laying a heavy barrage of heavy artillery on the beaches and up into the mountains. The town of Agat was only a memory. Hopefully, our Guamanian friends had managed to evacuate before the shelling commenced. Immediately behind Agat was Lamlam Mountain. Its elevation was only a little over 1300 feet; small as mountains go, but a commanding position for the Japanese overlooking the harbor.
It was almost a duplication of Saipan. The noise was horrendous, as the big guns pounded the Japanese positions. Reconnaissance planes were in the air directing our aircraft to targets they had spotted. We had lowered our boats into the water. LV Jones and I, along with Jacquette and the others, were standing away from the ship, waiting to be hailed in by the deck officer to come alongside the cargo net. The rough water, created by all the other boats, caused my boat to rise and fall beside the stationary cargo net. The marines were used to this yo-yo action and I soon had a boatload of marines. They were loaded down with full backpacks and rifles. Some of them had mortars with them, and crates of heavy mortar shells. It was imperative I get my boat up on the beach as far as possible, or the heavy loads would pull them under the water.
We started our circling maneuver and continued until all the boats had created several huge circles. Then a signal from the command boat and two of the circles formed a straight line parallel with the beach. A second signal and the boats all gunned their diesel engines and stormed toward the empty sand beach.
After the first wave had hit the beach, and were backing out, my circle of boats, and the others lined up and formed the second wave. As we sped toward the beach, the returning first wave passed by us on their way back for another load of marines. Their wake stirred the water to the extent that some of the marines started to throw up. They were either seasick, or scared. I didn't blame them if they were either.
There were puffs of smoke hitting all around us and although we could not see the Japanese mortars, we heard muffled explosions as their fire landed in the water beside us.
We all wore kapok life jackets and they protected our torsos, but there were tingling stings on our arms and other exposed areas of our bodies. The marines were all crouched down in the well of the boat. I was the most exposed, having to stand, in a crouched position, over the laterally mounted steering wheel of the boat. LV would raise his head periodically in order to be ready to lower the ramp when I told him to. Premature release of the ramp could be disastrous to the marines if the boat were not placed on the beach sufficiently and properly.
After a lifetime, we finally hit the beach. It was a good landing, and I ordered LV tolower the ramp. The marines stormed out and up onto the beach. As I struggled to keep the boat perpendicular to the beach as its load got lighter, I couldn't but notice, out of my peripheral vision, a number of still forms laying on the beach and a few laying in the shallow beach water. It was easy to recognize the olive green fatigues and backpacks of the still forms. For the first time, a new element entered my mind; a genuine fear I had not felt before. "Christ, these were the guys who had, only yesterday been playing cards on the deck of Clymer" I thought. I screamed at LV to winch the ramp up and started backing out of the small surf while he was still raising it. On our way back to the ship we passed the third wave. The Japanese mortar fire was still dropping around us.
When we returned with our second load of marines, the mortar fire had ceased. The marines had established a beachhead by now and were advancing inland toward the foothills of Mount Lamlam. The mortars had turned their attention to the approaching marines.
We unloaded our second load of marines without mishap. There didn't seem to be anymore casualties than there were before. Farther up on the beach a medical unit had been set up and there were navy corpsmen, with Red Cross arm bands on their sleeves, administering to the wounded.
As I was getting ready to back out of the surf after my third landing, one of the medics ran over and said to our string of boats, "All of you stay put and leave your ramps down, we want you to evacuate casualties back to the ship." As we waited, several teams of stretcher bearers brought the more seriously wounded into the boats and laid them side by side in the bottom of the boat. I could only take eight stretchers, and when I was loaded, one of the corpsmen stayed on board and told me to head for the hospital ship COMFORT in addition to the other designated ships for medical evacuation.
These were the more seriously wounded and needed attention that the beach was unable to provide. Only a couple of the marines were conscious when we backed off the beach. When we arrived alongside the ship, two of the marines had died.
The initial landings had been completed. Only a few more waves were continuing to bring marines into the beach. I was told to return to the beach with the corpsman, along with the other boats, and continue evacuating the seriously wounded back to the ship. I lost count of the trips we made back and forth. After the completion of each trip it was sometimes necessary to splash a bucket of water where some marine had bled profusely.
When evening came, we saw our ship, the Clymer, heading out of the harbor and farther out to sea. When we questioned why our ship had left us, they explained they did not want the ships bunched together in the harbor in the event of an air attack. It made some sense, I guess. It seemed to me the harbor was safer at night than it had been during the day. After all, there had been no Japanese air defense on this D-day, and they had lost most of their planes during the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot".
We continued evacuating wounded well into the night. The harbor would light up with the flashes of the battleships and cruisers' big guns. The mountainside and the beaches presented an eerie sight. There were flares constantly drifting down from the sky, and they lit the whole area. There were boats all around us, and their silhouettes were all you could make out, although you knew there were familiar faces in them, watching the drama unfold.
We were getting tired and needed rest and sleep--if we could manage to get sleep. Around midnight, Jacquette, Larson, Harris, Allen and I lashed our boats together and dropped one anchor in the shallow waters at the foot of Orote peninsula. Tying up in this manner was a maneuver we learned in basic landing craft training. In the event you had to leave in a hurry, only one anchor had to be brought up. We ate some of our K-rations that were supplied in every boat, washing them down with water from the wooden keg "breaker" on board.
Some of us sat on the engine cover of our boats and watched the flares drift slowly down into the mountain jungle. The foot of Orote peninsula, where we were anchored, was close enough to the beach that you could occasionally hear small arms fire coming from the hills.
We awoke before dawn and made ready to head back to Agat beach, as we had been ordered to do. There were larger numbers of casualties sitting and laying in groups along the beach. We left our boats for the first time and went up onto the beach and helped carry some of the wounded into our boats. Some were walking wounded and stretchers were not necessary. When I had a boatload of casualties, I headed back for the ship. Sometimes a corpsman would go with us, but most times at this stage of the evacuation, the corpsmen would stay on the beach where their services were more required. Only when we were carrying seriously wounded men would a corpsman accompany us back to the ship.
We continued the ferrying operation until noon, when Jim Lacy came by and assigned different shifts, or watches, in order for the boat crews to take a break. Our group of boats was relieved at this time and told to report back to the Clymer and to return to the beach at 1800 hours, or 6 p.m.
We tied our boats together alongside the Clymer, and went up to the gangway onto the ship's deck. We were greeted by a number of the ship's company (crew), and
answered their questions about the action on the beach.
We all had minute, little scabs on our arms and on parts of our torsos. It felt like
sandpaper when you ran your hand over it. It was from the mortar explosions on our initial landing. We learned later that the Japanese put in so much picric acid, which is anexplosive used in their mortar shells and grenades, that the missiles would literally burst into powdered metal upon detonation. The roughness on our skin were particles of this powdered metal.
This was not an absolute; many of their mortars would detonate as intended and hurl shrapnel capable of great damage and could kill depending on where you were hit. Red Allen had a piece of shrapnel in his shoulder. He had gone to the medical station when we came aboard, and they dug it out. He showed it to us and it was about the size of a pencil eraser.
We went back to the beach at 1800 hours and continued our ferrying service. The groups of casualties on the beach never seemed to get smaller as more recent wounded would arrive.
We were relieved at midnight and we went back to the foot of Orote peninsula and anchored. Jacquette's boat was the anchor boat this time and I tied onto him, JJ tied onto me, and so on down the line. There were five of us tied together. The Clymer had pulled out and was farther off the beach. Although we knew she was out there, it was too far for us to go aboard for the night.
As before, we watched for awhile and then settled down to get some rest. It must have been around 0300 hours when we were awakened by a whistling noise followed by a "whoosh". The water around our boats spewed into the air as a shell from heavy Japanese artillery exploded near us. It was at least a minute before we grasped what had happened. We were untying from each other when another shell landed. Jacquette's bowhook was pulling up his anchor, and we sped away from Orote toward the open harbor. My boat was even with JJ's boat, but his bowhook, a diesel mechanic by the name of Foerster, was at the wheel. We were close enough that I could see him motioning toward the well of his boat. I pulled as close as I could and was able to hear him yell "JJ's been hit!" I pulled the gunnel of my boat against his, as we maintained our speed. LV crawled into the other boat and disappeared into the boat's well. I motioned to Foerster that I would follow when he pointed to the medical ship that we had been taking the marine casualties to. We yelled up from the gangway when we got to the ship. One of the ship's crew and a medic came down the gangway and carried JJ up onto the ship's deck.
The rest of us tied up to the ship and went aboard to spend the rest of the night. It was difficult to go back to sleep. Dawn was only an hour away by now. We sat on the ship's deck, above where our boats lay tied up below us, and discussed what had happened and worried about JJ. He seemed to be hurt pretty badly.
We were scheduled to relieve the duty boats at 0600, but we took advantage of being aboard the ship and went to the galley around 0500 to get something to eat besidesK-rations. There were never any scheduled mess hours during these operations. The galley was always open and there were certain foods always available, mainly sandwiches and coffee.
We had not gotten word on JJ's condition yet, although we had asked. It came time to leave for the beach and Red Allen said he would stay awhile and see if he could get some word about JJ.
We had been on the beach only a short time when Red joined us. He said JJ had taken a piece of shrapnel in an artery in his stomach. He had died shortly after we got him to the ship.
We were now in D+3, that is, three days after D-day. All the beaches had been secured. Agana, the capital, had been taken and all of the fighting was now inland and on Mount Lamlam. Guam is less than 30 miles long and eight miles wide. In some parts, the island is only four miles wide. So the inland fighting was still not very far away.
On the fourth day after D-day, Commander Hardin told us SLU-30 had been assigned to form a boat pool at Piti. Piti used to be the navy yard prior to the Japanese taking the island from us in December, 1941. It was located on the other side of Orote peninsula in Apra Harbor. We were told to pack all of our gear and prepare to leave that day.
Before we left the ship, Jacquette and I recalled a conversation with a chief on the ship prior to the landing. The subject had been the making of "jack". "Jack" is a brew made from the fermentation of fruit, potatoes, or anything that would ferment into an alcoholic beverage. We had found all the ingredients we needed in the unlocked storage hole below decks. We decided that before we left the ship, we would get the makings we needed to make some "jack". Jacquette, LV and I took a case of raisins for each of our boats. There were four 1-gallon cans of raisins in each case. Raisins were the perfect fruit for "jack," since they were in fact, dried grapes. We also took the other vital ingredients--sugar and yeast. We were able to acquire a total of four 8-gallon water kegs, or breakers as they were commonly known as. These are what we would brew our concoction in. We stowed all of our loot under the stern deck of our boats. Oh yes, I also took a couple of gallons of ripe olives
We left the ship with our boats loaded with all of our unit's gear. There were tents, galley equipment, personnel jackets, everything; we were no longer attached to the Clymer.
We motored, two abreast, across Apra Harbor. There were numerous reefs barely a couple of feet below the surface. We followed the lead boat, which was carefully picking its way down a narrow channel. As we got closer to Piti and left Apra Harbor, the channel acquired banks of land along its waterway. There were several bodies gently bobbing up and down on the water's surface, and a few were laying on both banks. They were all floating face down and the heat, over the past few days, had so swollen their bodies that their uniforms were skin tight. Their pants had burst, so that their bare buttocks were totally exposed. It was easy to determine that they were Japanese by their uniforms. There was a stench in the air, and the absence of any breeze made the odor even more offensive. The farther we went up the channel, the more bodies there were until it became difficult to avoid hitting them with our boats.
To our left was a spit of land called Cabras Island. It was no more than a few hundred yards long and even less than that in width. To the right of the narrow channel was the mainland of Guam. We could go no farther when we came to a narrow dirt causeway that had been constructed to join Cabras Island. The causeway was only about 100 yards long. At the end of the causeway was Piti, or what used to be Piti. There was nothing there. The land was flat and the daily rains had left pools of standing water everywhere.
We pulled our boats alongside the causeway. The LCMs, with the heavy equipment, tied up as far to the right as possible. They were positioned closer to an area of land, perhaps 200 yards off the water, where we would build our camp.
There was a dirt road that continued on up the coast toward Agana, the capital, which was about five miles away. An occasional jeep or medical truck, with a big red cross on its side, would come down this road from Agana. The drivers would wave to us as they continued on their way without stopping.
There were dead Japanese soldiers everywhere, and the stench was unbearable. Even though it would soon be dark and we had not even began to set up our tents, Commander Hardin ordered work details to start gathering the bodies into piles so gasoline could be poured on them and burned. God bless Jim Lacy. He skipped me for this detail and instead sent me with another group to start unloading equipment from the boats. I observed the "burn detail" while I was helping to unload an LCM. They had put cloth masks over their faces and had devised loops in some of our anchor lines so they could drag the bodies into one area.
The next morning two trucks, with open beds, similar to a dirt truck, arrived. It turned out, they were part of a special unit, charged with the responsibility of disposals of this nature as quickly as possible. The bodies were loaded on the trucks and taken to a place, not too distant, where the Seabees had made deep trenches and covered with the dirt that had been pushed to one side. it was to be days before the air cleared from the odor.
Our purpose in the area was to set up a boat pool for ship to shore transportation in Apra Harbor or for any other type of service that required our boats.
While we were in the process of setting up our tents, we were called upon to provide "smoke pot" duty for the ships in the harbor. We were issued two 5-gallon cans that had a chemical agent in it capable of emitting huge quantities of smoke when activated. It was our duty to spend the nights with the ships in the harbor and lay down a smoke screen over the ship in case of an air attack. This was done by activating the smoke pot, and either circling the ship, or if there was a prevailing wind, we would lay to, upwind from the ship, and let the smoke drift over the ship. I don't know if it worked or not. We had never trained, or received any instruction on these smoke pots, and I never had occasion to use the ones we were issued.
The strategy of providing smoke for ships at night was a question I don't believe I ever had answered to my satisfaction. It seemed to me, they already had the protection of the dark. I thought it would make more sense to use this defense in the daytime. I was a lowly seaman however, and men of greater wisdom than i were running this show.
LV's and my first assignment was a minesweeper. Minesweepers are a rather small craft, about the size of a PT boat. They were usually commanded by a full lieutenant and a crew of maybe 10 or 12 men. When we reported for duty in the early evening, the skipper invited us aboard and had us taken to the galley for a warm meal. We visited with the crew for a while before returning to our boat, which was tied up to the minesweeper's stern. We spent the night on the boat. The mosquitos were so bad we had to break out our mosquito netting. We ate breakfast with the crew before reporting back to Piti. On our way back, LV and I conceded that this smoke pot duty was not so bad after all.
We spent the day shaping up things around our tent that we had already erected. There seemed to be mud everywhere we walked. We spent a lot of time scrapping it off our shoes.
There were six of us to a tent. We slept on cots that had four small poles on each corner to place mosquito netting on. It rained nearly every day and the mosquitos were pretty bad.
On the second night, we were assigned to a Dutch ship that had pulled into the harbor. This was to turn out to be the best night I was to spend on smoke pot duty.
View More Pictures from Bob Quinn Bob & Joanne Quinn Introduction to Guam Remembered
by: Bob Quinn
Part 2 of 3 part series