Our commanding officer Donald Beck had lost most of his officers. Of the six guys I had in my unit, three were either wounded or killed; I didn’ t know which. Our first sergeant told me I needed to go to a meeting with the commanding offers, which was surprising to me since I wasn’ t an officer at the time. But I went with him and there we were, gathered in a huge shell crater so we wouldn’ t get hit with grazing fire. During that meeting, the commanding officer asked if I could do something with the flamethrower about these pill boxes because we had tried and tried to break through with our artillery, but we just couldn’ t do it.
He gave me four Marines: two riflemen and two automatic riflemen. Their job was to provide protective fire at whatever pillbox I selected that I was going to try and burn out. I strapped on the flamethrower and went to work. What happened afterwards is somewhat of a blur. But during the course of four hours, I eliminated seven of those pillboxes. Getting rid of those pillboxes gave us an opening so we could get through their line. Once we got past the pillboxes, then we had the advantage instead of them. They could come out of the pillboxes and try and shoot us but they didn’ t have that defense anymore.
We were the first group to reach the northern shore of the island. That was five miles from where we started. When we hit the beach, we had about 278 of us in C Company. On March 5th, we were down to 17. The next day new Marines came ashore. Many of them didn’ t know anything and never had any combat experience at all. But we got some replacements and the next morning we were ordered back into the attacking lines. We hadn’ t been on the
move very long before I got wounded. A piece of shrapnel caught up with me and the corpsman came. He took out the shrapnel, patched me up, and put a tag on me. We were told that if a corpsman tags you, he is the final authority. He’ s there to save your life.
You don’ t question him. And we’ d been told that when he tags you, and tells you that must leave combat, you have to listen.
I was worried though because of the new Marines and the fact that there were so few of us left that knew what we were doing. I told him I wasn’ t leaving; that I wouldn’ t go back. Of course, he called me a few choice names and reminded me that his opinion was the one that mattered Well, I wasn’ t going to be persuaded and so I reached up, pulled off the tag and said,“ I’ m not going to leave. There isn’ t a tag on me.” I’ d made up my mind. So I reentered combat and just a short time after that my flamethrower assistant came running by me— we didn’ t have flamethrowers at that time, just rifles— but he came running by me and mortar fire hit him right in the back of the head, killing him instantly.
It was at that moment that I lost the best friend I ever had in my life. We were much closer than I was to anyone else because our lives depended entirely on each other and we knew that. He and I had made a pact several months before. I had a ring that my wife to be, the lady I was engaged to, had given me before I left for the service. Her name was Ruby and she had given me a ruby ring. His parents had given him a ring and we made a pact that if anything should happen to him, I’ d return the ring to his father, and if anything happened to me, he’ d get my ring back to Ruby. Then we shook hands.
When I got to him that day, he was stretched out on the ground and I could see the ring on his hand. It’ s a court-martial offense to take anything off a Marine’ s body. We were told this in no uncertain terms, but I’ d made that pact with him. If they court-martialed me, so be it, but I got the ring. I put it in my pocket and kept it with me and after the combat I wrote to his folks that I had the ring and that I’ d get it back to them. I didn’ t want to mail it out of fear that someone would find it and take it. So when I got home in November, 1945, my wife and I drove all the way to Floyd, Montana, up by the Canadian border. It was one of the most emotional experiences I’ ve ever had in my life, but it was a promise
kept.
AVQ
10 AMERICAN VALOR QUARTERLY