The Howard Hansen Story of WW2

prisoners. Intelligence wants prisoners so they can find out out what's going on; and

anything off these persons whatever they might have. Who they are, where they're

from, anything like that. So be sure and take prisoners." What else did he say? He

gave them a lecture. Oh yeah, he said, "The Marines say that our own artillery lined

in on them a lot of times, but it isn't. It's the Japs (firing on them)." Well, I can tell

when it's us and when it's theirs.

M: You can tell by the sound?

H: Yeah, and not only that, when the Japs shoot from the jungles, they fire one,

then later another. When the Marines' artillery shoot, they come like flocks of geese

and boy, when they fall around you, you've got problems. Anyway, he said, "Sergeant,

have you got anything to add?" I said, "Yeah, I have, Sir." So he left, and I said,

"For you replacements (that was quite a few) the fellas that's been with me before

know what I'm going to say now. Don't take any prisoners." and I explained why.

"If you take a prisoner, he'll have his pants on and that's about all, and have his

hands up, and there will be another one or two behind him; and he'll flop down on

his knees and there's a machine gun strapped to his back and that guy shoots a

bunch of Marines. That's happened too many times. So don't take any prisoners.

They're not going to be taken prisoner. They've proven that." We hit Saipan. Of

course the order was, before we hit, don't drink any water on the island and don't

eat any of the animals or fowl, cause the water might be poison, this or that stuff.

Well, the first thing we hit, of course he hadn't been in combat before. I had to get

the platoon in position in the front line and all the rest of the platoon - rest of the

company - we were in about 100 yards from the beach. They were shooting those

great big shells, we could see them coming down and landing on the beach (where

we were). If we'd have been on the beach, we'd have been in it, but we fought long

enough to move away from the beach, and they were landing down there. The first

night a bunch of Jap tanks - little ones - came down the gully and were hitting to the

left of our company platoon line. Of course our whole company and the F Company

and the rest of them were the front line, but they hit in front of F Company. I had

these three replacement squad leaders: two sergeants and a corporal; and I had a

bunch of replacements, and I made a deal with the squad leaders so I could sleep.

I had one of them take the first watch, the other the second. Two guys to every

squad - fox hole - one guy on duty, the other one asleep. The guys in the platoon.

Us, the NCO's have our own area and Sergeant Fry, he was off my side and I was

sleeping. Of course, he wasn't about to sleep; the first combat and neither was his

buddy. The other two guys weren't about to sleep either. The first time they'd been

amongst Japs - enemy. I was sound asleep and them tanks came down and they

weren't 100 yards from us. Our anti-tank units, had a couple of them there in F

Company, knocked out these tanks. They were sitting there next morning, eleven

of them, burning, smoking, dead Japs all around. Sgt. Fry said, "Hansen, I can't

believe it. You didn't even know what went on last night." I said, "What do you mean?

What went on?" He said, "Look out there. See those smoking tanks?!" "What did

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you guys do, have a skirmish last night?" "Yeah", he said, "And you slept through it

all." I said, "Hell, yeah! When you've got somebody to guard for you, you sleep."

I don't know where the lieutenant was, back with the company C. P., I guess, during

the night.

So we moved up through where the tanks were, up through a farm; there was a

house there and a little shed. Kinda like a bomb-proof, because one my boys, Krevis,

he threw a - no, Atchattle, one of those New Yorkers, threw a hand grenade in there

and didn't throw the pin off first. He just pulled the pin off and threw it in. He

should have counted 1,001 - 1,002 - 1,003, then throwed it in there. Well, anyway,

the Japs in there threw it right back out - right over by Krevis and his buddy. Well,

Krevis had seen him throw it in there, or thought he saw him throw, and he cussed

him, "You So-and-So, you just throwed a hand grenade at me!" Good thing I

happened to be close enough; I jumped and said, "Wait a minute, he didn't throw

that thing out here, the Japs threw it back out at you." We went around to the front

of the house and there was a tree about that big [using his hands to describe a skinny

tree] around only about 40 feet from the house; 30 feet from the front door. One of the

sergeants in my platoon's brother, Peterson, I swear he wasn't over sixteen, kid,

freckle-faced, red-head, heck of a good kid. This sergeant went up to the door and

looked in and he saw two Jap soldiers with rifles, so he had a carbine and he pulled

the carbine up to shoot and it misfired - wouldn't shoot. He fell down and said, "Get 'm,

Pete!" so Pete right behind him with a M1, bang! bang! he got 'm. Of course they came

tearing out there and the sergeant came to where I was at behind a tree. Of course I got

behind a tree real quick when they fired. Everybody got covered and the lieutenant came

running, "What's this firing going on?" I said, "Lieutenant, we've got a bunch of Japs in

there. Soldiers in there" I said, "I'll take a BAR, 2 BAR men to work up and down

through that house and we'll get them." "No, no!" he said, "We've got to take prisoners!"

I said, "Be my guest!" He gets out in front there, got the little book, said, "Betta coy",

forgot what the other is, "Come on out; we will not harm you" (translation). I don't know

how the hell he made it. A dozen slugs fell around him. Boy! He scurried and got back

behind the tree, and I said, "See, Lieutenant? You told them you wouldn't harm them."

He didn't say nothing. We cleared that out and move on up to a little hill and we had to

stop on this hill; down in front of the hill was a gully and then another gully went up

where it was kind of jungly - thin jungle, and I was sitting there, there was no shooting

going on and I heard somebody say, "E Company is down there on the right; moving up.'

I said, "OK, men, don't shoot down there, because they must have a patrol coming up

through there. So don't shoot across the ravine." Then I got my helmet over my eyes. The

lieutenant, he don't care. He should have been telling them. Anyway, he said, "Sergeant"

this was the next morning after they shot at him. I said, "Yeah?" He said, "Sergeant, tell

the men not take any prisoners." I said, "Yeah, Sir, I hear it." So I just went back to sleep,

dozing. "Sergeant, didn't you hear what I said?" "Yeah, I heard you, Lieutenant, by the

way, what did you say?" He said, "I told you - asked you - ordered you not to take any

prisoners." I said, "OK." I still didn't move. Finally he got up and came over and

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