The Howard Hansen Story of WW2

machine guns. That's where we lost most of our men - out there in the water. I

looked back there and wanted to cuss - sun-of-a-gun! If that was me, I'd have just

my nose sticking out of the water, but they were bent over. They could see all that

"rain"; they knew it wasn't raining! It was bullets. Must have been five inch shells

from a little short barreled howitzer deal that landed within thirty feet of the amtrack

we were in and one of them hit the am-track next to us and got all of them out

of there.

In fact, when I hit the beach, there was a million slugs flying, and Pickleseimer, he

was in a machine gun squad, he was over to my right, and he came over where I was

at - crawled over - and said, "God, isn't this hell?" and I said, "Just about" and about

that time something blew up and fire went 500 feet in the air, 75 feet from us. We

was down off the sea wall; sea wall was about four feet high, and we was keeping

down and I was trying to raise up on my elbows to look over; see what was going on

before that happened, and I said, "My golly, Kenny, this is one way I didn't want to

go out - burned." It looked like that fire was going to come all down on us. But that

went out [snap] just a second -- went out. And here a whole bunch of crud come

down, debris and stuff from the blast. Well, I found out later that just right over the

edge of the airstrip there, there was a 50 gallon drum ammunition dump a shell hit

and blew it up. That's the reason there was so much fire. Of course, when that stuff

was coming down, I was still trying to raise up and there's the fire and the Japs were

doing a lot of shooting. All at once, something came. I was on my left elbow trying

to look up over that sea wall without getting my head blown off and something came

tumbling down; tumbling with that debris was coming down; was over a couple of

feet from my right leg, so I just kind of looked at it and I realized what it was and

I "threw my face" and it went off. It was a hand grenade. That's where I got my

[pointing at eyebrow] my face was all real bloody; bled for quite awhile. And this is

where this came from - piece of shrapnel still in my eyebrow. [We felt and indeed,

it is still there!] Another piece hit me in the arm here, but I pushed it out; didn't go

in very far, but when that thing went off, I got mad. I've never been so mad, "That

sun-of-a-gun just about got me!" That was a hand grenade and I seen where it came

out! So I could see a roof there, and gosh, I just went to the left and up over that

thing and there was a bomb-proof there and it had one doorway in it at one end,

and I took out a hand grenade and normally, when you're close that way, you've got

to take the pin off and throw it. Let the cap go open. Take the pin off, throw the

pin away, '1,001 - 1,002 -1,003' .... cause once that's pulled, it's ready to go, it's on

it's way. '1,003' and I threw it. Course I was a good ball player and I hit that at an

angle in that doorway, and I knew it was going to bounce back in, and it did. As

soon as it bounced in, it exploded. And I was up there when that thing exploded.

There were five Japs in there; there was that little bitty gun on two little wheels that

was shooting them things at us - them five inchers, so I just took my darned weapon

and popped it into each one of them. One of them - his hand was still quivering;

didn't have no meat on it; just bone was quivering. Had a watch on it, didn't even

hurt the watch - and I didn't stop for that watch, either - I went right on through.

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Course, I went back out, waved to the men, "Come on! Make a front line! Let's get

going here!" So that's the way we got going across the wall and on the other side of

was a big shed. Didn't have full sides on it, just sides up about three feet. Torpedo

shed; had a roof on it, one big torpedo in there, looked like a big shell 16 inches

around. I thought, “Oh, my gosh, hope that's not armed to go.” We got down on the

other side of that shed and there was a bunch of lumber, but to the right of that

thing, though, there was another bomb-proof, and I had to climb up on it - the back

side, that way I wouldn't be under fire so much, and we went up there and threw a

bunch of hand grenades down the vent. Well, when we got through the other side

there was a pile of 2 X 4's about a foot high, stacked neatly. Of course, I'm on my

belly then, which you'd better be, all the slugs a-flying, and the guys went on the

other side of that bomb-proof that we dropped the hand grenades in - dozens down

there. Got on the other side and I heard a guy screaming, flopped in front of that

bomb-proof and there was one big stack of lumber just thrown in piles on the other

side of that between the bomb-proof and where these guys were, and I seen him

flopping around, and I looked and there were two doorways on that back side. I could

see a rifle sticking out the one at the other end so I just threw a fast shot and hit the

rifle. I couldn't see any hand but I could see the butt of the rifle, so I thought I'd

hit that and get their attention....and it did. He brought it back in and something

told me there was some guy, Marine from some machine gun outfit had a .45 hand

gun in his hand, and I said “Get rid of that thing. You can't hit nothing with that.

Get you a rifle; there's plenty of them around." Of course I looked after I shot and

that Jap stuck his fat face out to see where that came from and that time I got him

right there [pointing between the eyes]. Sounded like a punkin when it hit. I was

taught in the Marines to be sure when you shoot once; don't shoot from the same

place; get down and move yourself. So I got down right quick; moved over and I

told that Marine, "That'll take care of that character.” He said, “No! You missed."

I said, "Well, you seen him fall out there on his face, didn't you?” “No", he said.

“Look where your head was.” The one on this end lined in on me. If I wouldn't

have dropped I'd have had one right through the eyes - through the eyeballs. He

said, “Oh, you're lucky he missed.” I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Look out

there where your head was.” A bullet made a groove right across where my face was,

just across the top of the wood. So it pays to listen, you know. We got on the other

side of all that loose stuff - that lumber. We stayed there the night.

One of our tanks moved in - Sherman tanks. Them guys in the tanks, they have to

get out during the day, and they get out through the bottom. During the night, one

of them went out through the bottom, and they never said anything to us when they

pulled up there. Of course I knew it was a Sherman tank and so did the Marines.

Something crawled around below it. One of the guys said, "Sergeant, there's a Jap

under that tank." I said, “Oh, don't shoot! Don't shoot!" I hollered, "Give the pass

word!" He gave the pass word all right. It was one of the guys in the tank.

The next move we had to go across the main air strip, so I told the guys I'd never

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