The Howard Hansen Story of WW2

out there and I see an Oriental; boy, I went back in and got my rifle right quick!

The Japs had been known to get in the chow lines. I got out there then with my rifle

and it was a CHINAMAN. I didn't know it; they look the same, but he was Chinese.

One of the guys said, "Hey, Marine, what are you doing?" I said, "There's a Jap

there!" and he said, "No! No! No! Chinese!" The Marines didn't have any, but the

Army did, so that came close to be a bad deal right there! They shouldn't ever have

Orientals there in the war zone when you're killing Japs, shooting them.

The last day we went down to the beach just off Henderson Field. Henderson Field

went lengthways with the island, and then there was an auxiliary strip that went into

it on the right and we were just off the end of that auxiliary on the beach. We were

getting ready to go to New Zealand. I woke up real early; we didn't have any work

to do or anything. What woke me up was a motor of a plane. Sounded like a Jap

plane to me, which it was. A two-motor bomber, and he was coming from Tulagi

way. Coming to bomb Henderson Field. He got over the auxiliary runway and he

dropped his two bombs, then he circled around and, my gosh! Why don't we have

some of our fighters here? Fighter pilots...we had a few around here someplace. I

knew we had; we just got some P38's in and they were fast. They had artillery but

he was only about 300 feet high; you couldn't shoot at him with artillery and he

wasn't over artillery yet. Artillery is generally away from the airport aways so that

when they bomb the airport they wouldn't hit the artillery. Anyway, the P38 finally

came up above and I thought, "Wow! Here we go!" and of course, I woke everybody

up so they could see this. That P38 was about 1000 feet above him; he was already

going out across the water toward Tulagi. He hadn't got out there very far when that

plane dove on him and blacked him out with one burst of that 20mm. Anyway, I got

ahead of myself.

We were on what they called '02', a bare hill ten miles from the air strip. That's

where we handled the fighting on that hill. One morning there was 'Condition Red'.

You could hear sirens all over - way down by the airport; then came 28 of those

four-motor bombers - Jap bombers - different groups of them came to bomb the air

strip. That was just before we secured the island and went to New Zealand. At that time

we had ships out in the harbor, too, along with plenty of anti-aircraft to defend the

island, air strip. You know those ships started shooting at them babies, we could

look up like that at them - ack, ack. Half mile below there half mile above them.

"Come on, get into them suckers!!" You know, finally they got into them. Down

come one, then another. They got every one, but one. We could see a long ways;

he was getting down toward the other end of the island, clear past the airstrip. He

didn't get a chance to even drop his bombs, when he angled toward Tulagi to get

away. One of our little fighter planes, Gremlin, they called them -- wildcat! Got

behind him, we could see him from that distance, probably ten miles. I could see it

real clear. You see the little Gremlin come up behind that big thing; he made a

pass; came around to make another pass and that big plane started angling down to

get more speed, but the third burst from that little Gremlin knocked him out into the

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ocean. I tell you, I wish I had a picture of all that like we got nowadays. It was really

something, and that there was what broke the back of the Japs, they said, losing all

those bombers. You know, it's a funny thing, bombing never did bother me, never

shook me up at all, but the shelling. That is treacherous. Boy! They come racking in

there...WHAM! You'll hear a big blast - when the shells come. Like the ones I

heard from a distance like on Guadalcanal and I told the guys, "Here comes another

one here comes another one." You could hear them coming …whew-whew-

whew making a whistling sound, and then just before they hit, there's NOTHING.

No noise at all, then .... B-O-O-O-M!! When they hit 100 feet from you, that's the way

it is. The thing is, they hit, the noise is gone....they've hit it.

NOTE from "The Complete History of World War II"

"The battle for Henderson Field was a grim bloody struggle characterized by

hand-to- hand fighting and deeds of individual and platoon valor that will live in

Marine Corps and Army history. The Marines had spent a record time of five

months without relief on Guadalcanal and, when they left, only 4,000 Japanese

remained on the island. When the Army completed it's work, there were none.

The enemy had lost 40,000 men in a desperate futile attempt to regain the island,

for the Japanese commanders well knew that the fate of the war in the Pacific hung

in the balance. Guadalcanal natives, in two months, built a chapel of thatch and

native wood as a memorial to the fallen Americans. In that chapel rest 1,600

American boys."

H: Now, we'd better get back to New Zealand. Some funny things happened there,

wasn't war. The war was going on, but a couple of funny things happened there.

M: Were you resting?

H: Yeah -- yeah, and we had to get replacements, and recuperate. Called R & R,

I guess. One funny thing was Eleanor Roosevelt came through! Through camp. I'll

never forget it. She was in a limousine - chauffeur - generals in the back with her.

M: Eleanor Roosevelt in those islands in the early part of that war?

H: There was no danger in New Zealand. Anyway, they got all us Marines out there

along the road, then in camp, cause she was coming through. When she came, there

was one big "You Old Biddy" (well, worse than that -- they really cussed her!)

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