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stood there and looked at me. "Sergeant, do you deliberately disobey orders?" "Oh,
no, Sir", I told him. He said, "Sergeant, you haven't moved." I said, "But I told 'em",
I said, "Remember when you told me aboard ship to tell them to take prisoners, and
asked me if I had anything to add?" "Yeah." I said, "I added that!" He said, "Oh"
and had a sheepish look on his face.
I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit now, have to back-track just about a day and
a half: when we got in from the beach that afternoon late - hot - tropics. I drank
my whole canteen of water, cause you get thirsty! Well, he came around and said,
"How did everything go, Sergeant?" I said, "I've got the line all lined up here,
everything is okay." "Well, good" and he said, "Whew! Boy!" He was red-headed,
had freckles; his face was red as fire, "Whew! I'm thirsty!" Well, just about fifteen
minutes before he came up, I found a cistern. You're not supposed to drink any
water out of their cistern. All they've got is cisterns over there. So I dipped down
in and got a canteen full of water out of that cistern and I took a pill and put it in
and shook it for a few minutes, whatever time you're supposed to, then I drank half
a canteen, cause I was hot, too, then I refilled it. I had a gunny sack that I sewed
around my canteen cause I could dip it in water and hang it up and it would keep
cool if it got a shadow and a breeze. Anyway, I had that on my hip when he said he
was thirsty, and I said, "You haven't got any water? Where's your water?" "I drank
it all." I said, "WHAT? You drank it all?" I said, "Lieutenant, didn't they teach you
water discipline back in the States?" "Well, no." "Well, my God!" I said, "I make
sure my men all have that water discipline. That canteen holds a quart. You're
supposed to take two baths out of that, and" I kept a straight face, "And drink on it
for a week after taking two baths out of it. And you drank all yours in half a day."
I said, "Here" and I took mine, popped it open, "Help yourself." "I don't want to
drink your water." "Well, it's full, got a lot of it." So he took a swallow and I said,
"Take a couple of swallows", so he did. He had three and I capped it up. "Aren't
you going to take any, Sergeant?" I said, "No" and he said, "Sergeant, where did you
get that water?" "Come over here, and I'll show you." So I took him over to that
cistern only ten, fifteen feet away. "Right out of there." "Did you know it could be
poison?" I said, "I'll know in about a half hour, won't I?" [laughter]. He just about
swore, he never did swear, but he just about did, and then I told him, "Lieutenant,"
I said, "I've already got my belly full of that water. It ain't going to harm you. Just
think, we come here to move these Japs off this island - annihilate them - get 'em
done with - and they're going to make sure we don't! In order to do that, they've
got to make sure their water's all right. If they poison all their water, they wouldn't
have any; it don't make sense." He said, "Oh". Anyway, the poor guy, when we were
on the front line moving through short brush and stuff, he'd get ahead of the line and
I'd have to chew him out. "Lieutenant, what on earth do you think you're doing?
Trying to convince these guys that you're not chicken or something? You don't need
to do that. What you're doing, you're jeopardizing them because that's the reason
we have a skirmish line. One man over here, another up that way, another back over
there; then if there's a Jap out ahead and he sees that he's aiming at some guy, these
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other guys could probably see him and get him before he shoots one of our men.
That's the object. You stay in the front line. You don't run 50 yards ahead of the
line." And he did that a couple more times, and then we got to that 500 foot cliff -
end of the island, Saipan. Of course, the 4th Marines were coming around the
bottom. We could look down there and see the Japs behind the big boulders, brush
and that, and the first thing he does, he said, "There's five of them right down there."
I said, "Don't you shoot!" cause they were looking to where the 4th Marines were
coming up on them, and he takes a hand grenade out. I said, "DON'T you throw a
HAND GRENADE DOWN THERE! That would be the stupidest thing in the
world!" but he didn't listen to me; when I turned my back, he threw the hand
grenade down. I heard that BOOM. I said, "You threw a hand grenade down there.
Now we've got problems, Lieutenant, we've really got problems, because now the 4th
Marines are going to say, 'Hey, somebody's throwing stuff down from up on that hill.'
Artillery is going to line in on us now. We'd better get the heck out of here!" I told
the men, "Move back! Get back over!" and we were moving back when the shells
started hitting it; just like buckets in an acre of ground, and he stands there, "Don't
retreat! Don't retreat!" I said, "We're NOT RETREATING, we're just getting a
better position" and he got a piece of shrapnel about that time. Didn't hurt him
much, went into his shoulder or something. I told him, "Lieutenant, couldn't you tell
which way that stuff was coming from, that it's ours?" I said, "The way it came down
in bucketfuls, you ought to know that." Course he had never been in combat before,
but anyway, I said, "Now you really fouled things up. I've got to take two men to
take you back to battalion sick bay!" So I had him taken back. Of course, it was a
good thing we were up at the head of the cliff, front line. There was nothing ahead
of us. Couple of hours he was back again. They patched him up. I said, "What the
hell are you doing back up here?" "Well", he said, "I figured I should be up here."
"OK", so that secured that.
We moved back to a perimeter defense around the battalion cause there's still lots
of Japs on the island, but they are dispersed and we're in a big field. Of course, my,
the 3rd Platoon had part of a circular defense at the face where the cliff jumped off,
about 300 yards from us, where the cliff was. In the morning, some of the people in
the line seen some Japs going into a little ridge; grass on both side, tall grass. Little
ridge of lava rock; it was a little hump and it had jungle on it; was only about 75 feet
across, maybe a 100. So my platoon was designated to go up there, they seen a
bunch go in there, to get them out of there. We came up around from the side --
no, the other side. We came up behind and the Flesher, the guy that looked like
Victor Mature, was his first combat. Some Jap woman came out of that side up
about 150 feet from me. There was quite a bit of shooting going on, fighting in that
field. And she had a little baby strapped to her back, and I saw Flesher walking up
to her to reach up, and I hollered "DON'T YOU TOUCH THAT - GET AWAY
FROM HER FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!" as loud as I could - so much shooting going
on. Some of the guys near me heard me. They all went down (it was a Jap). She
just sucked him up there and the Jap shot; the top his head was just a bucket - a
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