9/4/2023 0 Comments Desmond doss japanese gun jamBut while operations had gone to plan in the north, the same could not be said of the fighting in the south. Operations in the north of the island had been wrapped up by the third week of April, 1945, and the 6th Marine Division were left to carry out mopping-up patrols and to pick up a few souvenirs of their 20-day battle, silk kimonos being a favourite. The Japanese pushed the civilians out in front of them. So we let go with the canister, and in the morning there were 80 women and children lying there and just a few Japs. “We could see about 100 people advancing,” Bill recalled, ‘so we asked what we should do. Sure enough, that night the flares were triggered, hissing into the night and lighting up the valley with an eerie phosphorescence. In front, they also set up a number of trip flares. But after taking some hits from sniper fire, the marines spread out across the valley beneath the hills, their 37mm guns spaced out in a line. They eventually ran into some Japanese dug in at the foot of the steep, rocky, and wooded slopes of a series of hills known as Yae Take on the Motobu Peninsula. From there, the army units had headed south, while the marines had been sent into the more mountainous north. The invasion force had landed roughly in the middle of the island on the west coast. Pierce then told me about his first action. All Pierce knew about Okinawa was what they’d been told in the briefing: that it was an island some 70 miles long, and because of its relative proximity to mainland Japan itself, it would be an important staging post for the ongoing aerial assault of the last of the Axis powers. None of them had much idea what to expect, however. The shoreline itself was shrouded in smoke from exploding shells, but along the landing beaches it seemed calmer, with hundreds of landing craft already moored at the water’s edge. He and his buddies stood up on the side of the boat, their arms on the railings so they could see where they were heading. Overhead, naval shells whistled through the sky. Part of a five-man, 37mm anti-tank gun crew, he was in the Weapons Company of the 29th Marine Regiment and by mid-morning he and his crew were heading towards the shore. Pierce reckoned he was as ready as he was ever going to be, but that didn't stop the nerves. He had waited nearly two years for this moment two years of training, first in the United States, and then, for the past ten months, on the island of Guadalcanal in the Pacific. ![]() In the deep blue waters around the island were more than 1,457 ships and landing craft, crammed with more than half a million men, and including a joint US Army and Marine Corps landing force of around 182,000 troops.Īmong those taking part in the landings and bracing himself for his first taste of action was 20-year-old Bill Pierce, a New Yorker and part of the US 6th Marine Division. ![]() With the world so set on tearing itself apart, it doesn't seem like such a bad thing to me to wanna put a little bit of it back together.Ap– April Fool’s Day, Easter Sunday, and ‘L-Day’ for the invasion of Okinawa, Japan. while everybody else taking life, I'm going to be saving it. I need to serve, I've got the energy and the passion to serve as a medic, right in the middle with the other guys, no less danger, just. It isn't right that other men should fight and die, that I would just be sitting at home safe. Why, I had a job in a defense plant and I could've taken a deferment, but that ain't right. There were two men in my hometown declared 4-F unfit, they killed themselves cause they couldn't serve. Everyone I knew was on fire to join up, including me. Why are you contesting it, then? Why is it so important to you, given your refusal to even touch a weapon to serve in a combat unit?īecause when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, I took it personal. There is only one question that any military court need ask of the accused: do you deny disobeying Col. Then I shall henceforth call you "Chief" as a sign of great respect to your people. What is your animal spirit? Are you a garter snake? I believe you must have Cherokee or Shawnee blood in you.Īre you contradicting me, you wagon-burning son of a b*tch? I am heartened by the knowledge you did not place it there with intention. ![]() Is it your hair? Is it the wrinkle in your trousers? There's something off in your presentation, Private.
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