The Howard Hansen Story of WW2

Page 21

send a man to do anything I wouldn't do, so I always go first. I said, "Now I'm going

to go across and", I said, "I'm going to be zig-zagging and flopping down and moving.

Don't go in a straight line, and be sure you're bent over when you're run-ning!" I gave

them a lecture. Of course, I'd taught them that before; some of the replacements

didn't get too much. Boy! I run and jumped in a hole - something blew up a hole

sometime or another, we shelled the island the day before real heavy.

Then by that time, somebody flopped down side of me - Picklesiemer - my oId

buddy! "What are you doing here? You don't have to be up here." "Where you go,

Sergeant, I go." The next stop we dove into a darned ammunition dump - 50 gallon

barrels full of gas. Airplane gas - and all at once POW - poof. I looked up in one of

the coconut trees and a Jap hiding himself up there amongst the leaves, shooting

down. Kenny said, "Let me shoot." I said, "Hurry up! He's going to set this thing

off." So he shot him. From then on we had to go across more air strip. Had to cross

the main air strip on the main side. The other side of the main air strip was where

all the pill boxes were. They expected us to hit from that side because of the coral

reef on the other side would make it so we couldn't get in - we got in anyway. We

got across the air strip on Tarawa and the main line of pill boxes was there. We

fouled them up by coming in on the back side. We knew they figured we couldn't

come in on the coral, but anyway, we secured it. Got them all wiped out of there.

That afternoon there was only one officer left in the company. Second Lieutenant

Remington was his name. I remember him. Second Platoon leader. He was in

charge of what few men were left, so he got us all together and said, "Each one of

you sergeants take charge of your area - what you've got left", and he said, "Your

place of bivouac for the night is right here on the beach." It was loaded with dead

Japs. We'd only been on there three days. He said, "Hansen, take care of your area

there." So I grabbed one Marine and said, "Come on, Fella, we're going to have to

move these out. Get them down into the water away from where we're at. Get them

under water if you can; they won't smell so bad." They were smelling bad already,

and I reached down and got one of them by the wrist to drag him down there. Had

a-hold of his wrist, right hand. Of course, I could pull him with one had, but my hand

slipped right over his hand - off his wrist over his hand - slippery. His hide came

right off. Oh, my golly! Smelly! Make you sick. Well, I didn't get sick, but I just

about did. My buddy Picklesiemer reached down and did the same thing and he got

sick. We had to go find some wire. We found the wire and tied it around their

wrists and dragged them down with wire. They were so thick we couldn't dig a fox

hole without moving them out of the way. Next morning they got us all together,

best formation the could, wasn't too many guys, but they kinda like a company

formation. Mighty small company. The bulldozers were digging big trenches and

pushing those dead men in there. I think they pushed ours in there, too, cause I

don't think they took any of ours home.

From there we went to Hawaii.

Page 22

M: How long were you on Tarawa?

H: Three days - 72 hours.

M: Was it secured in that time?

H: Yeah. It's only 800 yards across, 2-1/2 miles long.

M: So you drove them all off, or killed them.

H: Killed them. We didn't drive them anyplace. Ain't anyplace to drive them to.

M: They weren't able to escape the island?

H: Nope. No. And that pill box where I got the guy on one end and the Jap on the

other end shot one of our men, and I seen him flopping, they got the bulldozers

around after that and sealed the openings with sand. Shoved it right down in there.

When they got ready to leave, they opened it and got 72 Japs out of there. Of

course, they took a flame thrower poked it down there, too. That killed all the

oxygen in the air; collapsed their lungs.

NOTE from "The Complete History of World War II"

"The Second Marines, in their conquest of Tarawa, wrote with their blood the most

brilliant page in the records of their Division. They wiped out 4,500 Japanese, but

lost 1,026 of their own killed and 2,557 wounded. Betio was a graveyard when the

battle was over. Dead bodies were strewn over the entire island. Marine corpses

hung over the wire offshore; wrecked landing craft littered the waters. Nothing

remained whole above ground except the stout Japanese pill boxes which had

been taken with flame throwers - TNT - and burning gasoline thrust through

apertures. In the midst of this universal destruction, the Seabees performed a

record job on the airfield: planes from escort carriers landed amid wreckage and

flames on the base that was to become the backbone of defense against Japanese

assaults from the Marshalls."

H: We went aboard ship and went to Hawaii for five months recuperating. In that five

months, we got all new replacements and I got a second lieutenant, red-headed

fellow, freckle-faced, and he was really gung ho. He knew he had everything his way.

The way he read the books. Of course, I had these guys who had been on three

campaigns. Some of them left, not many, a few. One day he came to me and said,

"Sergeant, we're going to have to sharpen this platoon up." I said, "Is that right, Sir."

"Yep. Get them out so I can give them a lecture; talking to." So he told them how

he wanted things. When he got done, I told him, "Lieutenant, these few old guys I

have here, no use trying to threaten them. You can threaten them, you can shoot

them, they'll just look at you. They don't care." I said, "They've been through three

of them. They've been through hell as it is."