At about.
0930, one of them men said, "Here they come.. He was
referring to a battalion of the 503d Parachute Regiment which was to
jump onto the high ground and thus take the pressure off us as we landed
at South Dock. On the left flank of the beach was the High Ground, on
the right flank was Malinta Hill. Colonel Postlethwait, our Battalion
Commander, told us at our briefing that we were not to stop for wounded.
That unless we managed to get off the beach and take the high ground at
Malinta Hill we
would be sitting ducks on the beach.
We stared in
awe as the troopers spilled out of their plans and fell a short distance
before their chutes opened. That is the lucky ones had their chutes
open. Some of the chutes were streamers.
While this
was taking place, the navy continued to rake the Island with fire from
its heavy guns. Simultaneously, aircraft hit the island with rockets,
bombs, and napalm. I observed an LST equipped with rockets turn parallel
to the beach and fire a broadside from its rocket launches. A section of
the beach at least the size of a football field turned black as the
rockets exploded. The vessel reversed its course and repeated the
devastating salvo.
At about
this time, someone noticed that some of the paratroopers overshooting
the drop zone and appearing to fall into the sea. That were
problem was corrected when the transport planes began to drop seven
rather than ten men on each pass.
On the
western tip of the Island, there was a small spit of land on which the
Japs had placed some sort of anti
aircraft weapon. It was delivering heavy fire on the transport planes as
they flew overhead. One of our destroyers slowly approached the spit of
land and from a distance of 500 yards or
so fired three rounds. When the smoke cleared there was no longer
a gun, nor a spit of land.
I felt my
boat straighten out and begin its run for the beach. I gave the command
to lock and load. As the boats approached the beach, they increased
their speed. There was no sound other than the roar of the motor, none
spoke. The men crouched low, fearful that we might take fire from the
shore. I began to yawn and
was unable to stop, no matter what I did. I was not tired. Far from it,
my adrenalin was surging but the yawning persisted.
I overheard
one of the men
say to another, "Look at the Lt., he's bored". I felt it better to leave
him with his mistaken impression
rather than tell him exactly how I felt at the time. (Years
later in a psychology course, I learned that some individuals yawn when
frightened - as I was never frightened, I must have been under some sort
of stress.)
The sailor
in charge of the boat yelled "hold on" and the boat ground to a halt,
the ramp dropped away and we ran like hell to get off the beach. A short
distance from the water I found myself approaching a mess of live shells
that were strewn all
over the ground. I suspect a Jap ammo dump had been hit and the shells
were thrown about. My choice was between running straight through the
mess, trying not to kick one of the shells or to try to run around
them. I chose to run straight through them, praying all the way. I was
lucky.