A SMALL PIECE OF WAR Robert W. Armstrong Few of us who were seniors at Dartmouth College in 1940 were much concerned about war. That was something on the other side of the Atlantic. Germany had attacked Poland and France and England. It had little to do with us. There was no television and our only sources of information were radio and newspapers. We were involved with our studies and sports and looking forward to graduation in June and finding a job. Because I had majored in English and spent a summer as a cub reporter for The Greenwich Time in Connecticut I looked first for a writing position, starting with Life magazine, where I talked with the editor. He seemed more interested in what was going on in Europe than in American affairs. He did not offer me a job. Next I tried the Associated Press and, for reasons I have forgotten, didn't take the job offered. Eventually I went to work in my home town of Worcester as a sales engineering trainee for the Norton Co,a large manufacturer of grinding machines and grinding wheels. For $75 a week, good pay then, I spent time in each department, learning the manufacturing process, and writing a report on what I had learned. Early fall merged into winter. I spent some free time skiing on a nearby hill and very little time wondering about either my career or events in Europe. That changed in early 1941. The nation had passed a draft law and on March 1, I reported to a large building, along with several hundred other young men. We stripped and lined up for physical examinations. I remember being somewhat shocked at the poor appearance of many of my fellow draftees. They didn't look like athletes — and they were not. Some were skinny, some a bit twisted, some unhealthy looking. They were of several nationalities, as one would expect in New England; lots of Italians and middle-eastern countries. Maybe that was why one of the doctors examining me said, "Boy, you're in the army." One doctor did find a defect in my body. He remarked to another that I had ‘pes planus moderatus’. Thanks to four years of Latin I knew he said I had slightly flat feet. A few days later those of us who had passed the examination boarded a train for Camp Edwards on Cape Cod. Four of us who thought we were superior specimens of young manhood sat together
and played bridge, hiding our fears and uncertainty behind jokes and idle talk. When we pulled into the camp we were greeted by shouting soldiers who hurried us into some form of order and marched us off to draw uniforms and be assigned to barracks. I remember that one of my fellow draftees asked why the soldiers had to yell angrily at us to get us in formation. We found out later; that was the army. Perhaps 40 or 50 of us were assigned to Service Co., joining regular National Guard soldiers who had been mobilized some months earlier. This was a new world, one of discipline and commands and learning, everything from how to make a bed to close order drill. For the first three months we were free of regular duties like kitchen police and the driving of trucks. We were learning to be soldiers, days and days of rifle instruction, dry firing, basic sanitation, close order drill, long marches. A never-ending series of new experiences. Perhaps because I was one of the few recent college graduates among my fellow draftees I was sometimes called upon for special activities. I was one of a small group taking classes in military intelligence. In preparation for the regiment's eventual travel somewhere, I gave a slide lecture on the loading of vehicles on railroad cars -- a subject about which I knew only what I read in a manual. I even found myself an acting noncom, marching small groups to functions or directing skirmish training, again something about which I knew little. Came the fall of 1941. Our basic training was over. We were doing all the normal jobs in the company -- driving trucks, dumping garbage, delivering supplies. Our leaders even made me the company guidon bearer, a function performed only in parade and requiring only the ability to hold aloft a small flag and dip it when required. Even so, I must have done something wrong, because shortly after a regimental parade, my captain was chewed out by the colonel. Since he was a kindly gentleman, he never told me the nature of my error. Now came serious military training. The 26th (Yankee) Division traveled to North Carolina for large-scale maneuvers. I remember little about them. As an unofficial noncom I was responsible for getting kitchen trucks to the right locations in time to feed the troops of the 181st Infantry. We spent hours upon hours moving from one place to another, never knowing why or where. During one day of idleness I was summoned to regimental headquarters. It appeared that Massachusetts Governor Saltonstall was visiting the regiment and had asked about me. By the time I got to headquarters he had moved on. I guess he made the gesture as a favor to my father, then
the emergency commissioner of public welfare for the state. In any event, this high-ranking interest in a lowly private did nothing to ease my burdens or enhance my standing. I was still a truck driver. Then the mock war ended and we began the long drive back to our base on Cape Cod, arriving in early December. Then it all got serious. On Sunday, December 7, some of us were sitting in the barracks, talking and joking and cleaning our rifles. We had a radio. We heard the voice of President Roosevelt. He said the Japanese bad attacked Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands, "a day that shall live in infamy." One of the guys put on his helmet, shouldered a rifle and marched out the door, declaring death to the Japs. It looked like we would be in the service of Uncle Sam for a long, long time. A few weeks later I applied for admission to the army's Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia. My appearance before the screening committee was uneventful except that I failed to identify the squad as the basic infantry unit. They approved my candidacy anyway and in early March I arrived at Fort Benning. There followed three months of training, much of it similar to the basic training I had undergone as a draftee. We did get more chances to fire on the rifle range and to practice with bayonets and to improve our ability to read maps. Then, of course, there was a lot of spit and polish and, believe it, instruction in the giving of commands. All through these three months we could see the tall steel towers in the distance where would-be paratroopers took their training. A few of us decided that was what we wanted, not just because of the presumed glory of it, but also because of the extra $100 a month officers received for the risk. So, about the time we graduated as second lieutenants, about 100 of us lined up for interviews. Not all got accepted. I was mildly surprised to be one of the 25-or-so lucky ones. Officer school graduates were granted ten days leave before reporting to their next duty station, I went home to Worcester to see my fiancée, a girl named Mary Kneass. Way back when I was a lowly GI, I had proposed and she had accepted. On a weekend visit from Camp Edwards I spoke to her father -- in a sort of roundabout way asking for his permission to many Mary. He called for his wife and called for a drink, so I knew it was OK. Parachute school was rough. The curriculum, if one could call it that, was divided into four one-week sessions. The first week
consisted of mornings spent in agonizing physical training and afternoons in learning to pack a parachute. The second week was even worse, more of the same. I can remember doing deep-knee bends until I fell on my face at the bottom of each bend. This was the weeks were introduced to the plumber's nightmare, a giant jungle gym on which were required to act like monkeys. We also did some exercises in a gymnasium. One of the requirements for continuing was to climb a 30-foot rope. I failed the first few times; got close, but ran out of gas. Finally, on the last day, I made it to the top and hung there until the achievement was recognized. A minor torture was a suspended parachute harness. This consisted primarily in repeated chin-ups while holding on to risers. The instructor in this bit of self-torture was a beefy sergeant who could chin himself while holding on to the straps with nothing but thumb and forefinger. And then there was the 40-foot tower, a spindly structure with a hut-like box at the top. You climbed a ladder to get there and were greeted by an instructor who handed you a parachute harness and told you to stand in the doorway cut into one side. A cable ran from the harness to another, long, inclined cable outside. When you jumped out the door, you fell 15 feet or so, were caught by the inclined cable and slid to the earth. When we assembled around the base of this new test the instructor asked for someone to volunteer to go first. No one spoke up. Since my name began with A, I knew that with no volunteer I would be ordered to go. So, I volunteered. When I stood in the door it looked like a long drop to the ground. I was frightened, but when the instructor yelled "Go!" I went — and there was nothing to it. Others followed, not all successfully. One broke his arm when it was struck by a snapping-tight harness riser. An instructor on the ground made notes on each jump. When all were through I asked him how I did. He had made the notation "QF" by my name I asked what it meant. "Quite frightened," he said. And he was right. Was it the third week when things got a bit easier? This was when we were introduced to the steel jump towers. Actually, they were fun. Parachutes were held open by clips attached to wires running from earth to the top of the tower. You stood under the chute in your harness and were hauled 200 feet into the air. At the top the chute was released and you floated back to earth, guided by the vertical wires. That was the easy part. The tough part was what I called the no-chute test. You lay on your belly on the ground in your parachute harness. The harness was attached to a cable at your back. There was no chute. At a signal you were pulled 150-feet into the air, still horizontal. There you hung until an instructor with a megaphone yelled up, "Pull!" At which command you pulled the rip cord at your chest and you began to fall. The harness tightened
after 15 feet and you were once again vertical, jerking up and down like a rag doll. Then you were lowered to the ground and another student took your place. The purpose of all this testing of body and mind, I later realized, was to weed out those of us who would not or could not endure it. The fourth and final week was the easiest of all. All you had to do was make five parachute jumps from a couple of thousand feet from a plane flying over a field. If you balked or got badly hurt you were out. By this time some of us had already been dismissed. You jumped one at a time, a tough sergeant standing behind you to make sure you went out the door as ordered. You didn't have to do anything, just jump. A 40-foot static line running from a wire in the plane to the back of your harness pulled out the chute from its pack as it broke away. But it was both fun and exciting and at the end you got your wings and were a qualified paratrooper, ready for assignment to a fighting unit. I don't know where most of my fellow graduates went, but Guy Campbell and I were sent to the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. We were ordered to report to the commander of Headquarters Co., Battalion, for assignment. After a few questions the captain realized we had practically no experience in combat units. He assigned Guy to the light machine gun platoon and me to the 81mm mortar platoon. Because the army expected a high casualty rate for paratroopers, each platoon had two officers. My leader was a Lieutenant Fickle (Fickel?), a man I soon came to like and respect. A mortar is a cumbersome weapon, consisting of a steel tube through which to fire the shells, a bipod to support the top end and hold the sighting mechanism, and a heavy steel base plate to hold the bottom of the tube. Each part is heavy and awkward to carry, the base plate especially. We learned that the hard way, because we carried our four mortars with us on every march and tactical exercise. I grew fond of those mortars. Awkward and heavy they might be, but they could throw a seven pound shell almost 3,000 yards, flying high over any obstacles and exploding effectively on impact. They were simple to use and had no moving parts to break down. All you had to do was set the sight for distance and aim and drop a shell down the tube. Then you made adjustments to cover your target. That's an oversimplification, of course, but it's basically what we did. When we went on a tactical exercise, the mortars were disassembled and rolled into heavy fabric bundles, along with the
ammunition. Each bundle had its own parachute. In flight we stacked two bundles in the open doors of each of our planes, pushed them out at the drop point and jumped after them. That was the fun part. Most training hours were spent in marches, dry firing exercises, platoon tactics, and the like. One day the whole first battalion stripped to shorts and shoes, ran two miles to a lake for a brief swim, and ran back to barracks. This went on week after week. And then we began to wonder how long it would last and when we would be shipped out to a theater of war. With that came the realization that I might lose my intended if I was gone for long. So, I wrote to Mary and asked her to come down to Fayetteville and marry me. She must have had similar fears, because she wrote with the same idea and our letters crossed in the mail. I managed to rent the ground floor of a small house in the town and arranged for the wedding to be held in the Episcopal Church on August 8, 1942. Meanwhile, I visited regimental headquarters, talked my way by a stuffy staff officer, and invited the colonel to attend. I also invited a few of my buddies. Both sets of parents, plus my two brothers, arrived in time to witness the ceremony. That was followed by a small, very brief party. And we were married. The following morning I hoisted Mary over my shoulder and went out on the front porch to greet our families. Just hours later, they were gone, on their way back to Massachusetts, and married life began. Mary couldn't cook very well, but we had a lot of Charlotte Russe, which she could cook. And once in a while, we would be joined for dinner by a friend from the regiment. Meanwhile, our training went on. But not for long. Somewhere near the middle of October we got orders to ship out and the regiment assembled at the nearby railroad track, where we said goodbye to friends and family, and boarded the train for a long, long trip to San Francisco. Most thought we would end up in Europe. If not, why did they issue us long underwear? The train was slow and all window shades had to be pulled. It was boring, boring, but I did learn to play redeye and lost a few dollars in the process. In about seven days we arrived in San Francisco and were taken to a nearby camp. I don't remember how long we were there, perhaps a night or two, and then were driven to the harbor, where we boarded a Dutch freighter, the Poelau Laut, which would be our home for the next 44 days. We did not know where we were going, but we were certain it would not be Europe. Instead of heading straight across the Pacific, we sailed to the Panama Canal, where we were boarded by what was to be our second battalion, some 600 men who had been training there in jungle warfare. Then we sailed again, one small ship all alone in the vast Pacific. No escort. The Poelau Laut was not a large ship and it was jammed to the railings with the 503d
Parachute Infantry. No room for training beyond exercises and lectures. Each night the vessel would make a large circle and one of the ship's officers would yell out over a loudspeaker, "You can doomp the garbitch now." That left a huge circle of garbage behind the vessel so no enemy ship could follow our trail through the waters. One day when I had no duties I stood by a railing on an upper deck near the ship's officers cabins. There I was joined by an elderly man who introduced himself as M. Visser, chief engineer of the Poelau Laut. He asked lots of questions about my background and then invited me to his cabin where we continued our talk and a Javanese boy served me a glass of beer. As the trip progressed I thanked God for Mr. Visser. He had a sizable library of paperbacks and I could repair to his cabin whenever I got another kind of cabin fever. By comparison to the crowded quarters offered our officers his cabin was luxurious and, of course, way beyond comparison with the holds where our troops slung their hammocks. Weeks went by. Then one day we steamed into the harbor at Brisbane, Australia, where we came closer to disaster than at any other time during the crossing. Another ship suddenly moved to cross our bows. It looked for a moment as a collision was inevitable. Bells rang, saxons blew, men shouted. The two captains yelled imprecations at one another like motorists. But we didn't hit and we dropped anchor in the middle of the harbor. The ship had barely stopped before a crowd of our men jumped over the side and into the water, laughing and yelling and thrashing. No wonder. There was no water aboard for showers. But the sailors were not amused. They screamed at the men to come back aboard; there were sharks in those waters! As it turned out, Brisbane was not our destination. We upped anchor and headed North, finally arriving at the town of Cairns in Queensland and debarking there. There was a small delay, though. Australian dockworkers were on strike and there were none available to unload our ship. No problem. Among our troops were men who had operated cranes and done construction work in civilian life. Soon enough all our equipment and supplies were ashore. The then little town of Gordonvale lies about 12 miles inland from Cairns and just a couple of more miles more were open woods beside a road. That was where we set up our base camp and where we spent some months in training for our eventual entry into combat. The training was rough. We made grueling hikes through the mountainous country nearby. We made parachute jumps. On one or two occasions we engaged in mock warfare with Australian troops. This, too, was the place where I made my first and only free jump. I was working with my platoon when I got a message to report to
headquarters. I had, it seemed, "volunteered" to join some other officers in a free parachute jump. So, we boarded a plane at the nearby strip and began circling over a field not far from the camp. One by one we jumped and I noticed that one lieutenant told others to precede him. Finally, only he and I were left. He told me to go and I went, remembering that I had no static line to pull open my chute and that I had to pull the rip cord handle. Since we had been flying at around 3,000 feet I had plenty of time to enjoy the drop and managed to land close to a small group of officers waiting below. It was fun, but I wondered about the man who told others to go ahead. So far as I know he never jumped and I still wonder what happened to him. That was the only break in training I recall. On one exercise troops were loaded into a single plane, flown up high near the tableland and told to march back to camp. Because of a problem with the plane my platoon and I were the last to fly. I did not even have a map, so we just started hiking down the mountainside in the dark to where we thought the rest of the troops would be. We were lucky. We found them, sitting around a fire and roasting a pig they'd bought from some farmer. On another day the whole regiment marched from camp up into the nearby mountains. Hours went by and the miles fell slowly behind us. Once, when we had stopped for a short break, the colonel walked by us on the narrow trail and asked, "How are you doing, Armstrong?" "Fine, sir," I said, although my feet were swollen and sore, but what else could I say? Not so diplomatic was one of my men. "Fuck you, colonel," he said, fortunately not loud enough for the colonel to hear. He knew, as we all did, that the colonel had not accompanied us on the march. He'd ridden in a jeep. When dawn broke the next day my feet were so swollen I doubted I would be able to walk. Fortunately, we were met by trucks and carried back to camp. Three days of that mountain hiking and stream crossing was enough. Back to small unit exercises. I had taken my platoon away from camp and up on the side of a small mountain , where we set up the mortars and practiced firing -- with no ammunition -- at some other mountains far away. In order to get better vision on the target, I climbed a tree... Disaster. The branch I stood on broke off and I fell, impaling a thigh on another stub as I dropped. Someone got an ambulance; I don't know how, and I was carried to the little aid station in Gordonvale, where I spent three or four days recovering from my first "wound." One day a few of my men visited me in the hospital and I have never felt so honored.
Some two thousand American soldiers encamped just a couple of miles away could be a problem for the little town of Gordonvale. So our leaders set up a protection program called an interior guard. We erected a tent on the little common in the center of town and our units took turns operating what was, in effect, a military police station. Our turn came and my platoon and I took up temporary station in the town. My men walked patrols in the evening to make sure nothing happened. But something did. A soldier from another company was picked up for throwing rocks at streetlights (and Gordonvale didn't have many of those,) being drunk and disorderly, out of camp without a pass, and out of uniform. Two of my men brought him to me in the guard tent. He was obviously very drunk and very combative. Before I could say very much he began insulting me and yelling to all my men that he was going to beat the shit out of me. Up until that point I could have had him escorted back to camp and turned over to his own officers for company punishment. But not now. If he got away with that behavior, what effect would that have on the discipline of my own men? So, guards took him back to camp and turned him in at the stockade, a kind of regimental jail. A few days later I preferred charges and he was sentenced to six months in the stockade and the loss of twothirds of his pay. Several months later I ran into him again. We were on leave and had traveled to the city of Townsville for what the army calls rest and recreation. Again he was drunk and followed me into the restroom of our hotel and once more offered to beat the shit out of me. But this time and this situation were different. I ignored it and him and I never saw him again. But I have always been grateful that he was not in my company or my platoon. Fortunately, I never had any problems like that with my own men. Indeed sometimes they went out of their way to avoid trouble. On one exercise we marched for hours in the hot Australian sun, loaded with full equipment. One man, a short fellow named Tallent, was carrying, in addition to his regular stuff, a mortar vest. This consisted of a piece of canvas with a hole for the head and three deep pockets front and back. Each pocket held a large cardboard tube containing a mortar shell. Total weight, some 43 pounds. As we pounded along through the dust and the heat I could see that Tallent was struggling with his load and I became concerned. So I offered to carry the mortar vest for a while. “Oh, no thanks, lieutenant, I can handle it.” After several similar exchanges I gave up, knowing that nothing less than a direct order would force him to surrender the load. It wasn't until the next day that that I learned all those cardboard tubes were empty -- no shells! No wonder he didn't want to give me the vest.
When did we finally leave Australia for New Guinea? I don't remember. But I do remember that was the beginning of my greatest adventure in the service. We set up camp near Port Moresby, then the only place in New Guinea with any pretensions of civilization - - and not many of them I think there was only one, permanent building in the place and that was the governor's mansion. We lived in tents, of course, and carried on with the same kinds of training we had in Australia, lots of tactical exercises and climbs up nearby mountains and some live firing exercises. This went on until the day I was summoned to regimental headquarters. There I was introduced to a very well set-up Australian lieutenant who greeted me with the words, "So this is the body basher!" He knew more than I about the purpose of the introduction. The field officer who introduced us explained that the Aussie was an artillery man and I had about two weeks to teach him and his 28-or-so soldiers how to jump out of airplanes and figure out how to drop their two 25-pounder guns to the ground. Every morning thereafter a truck delivered my Aussies to camp for training. Fortunately, I had two excellent sergeants to help me. The conditions were pretty primitive and so was the equipment. We built a small platform under a tree and hung a parachute from a branch above. Of course, we tortured our students with physical exercises and speed marches, hoping primarily to build strength in the legs to withstand landings. Then we hung them in the parachute harness and taught them how to maneuver by pulling on the risers. Meanwhile, our riggers were figuring out ways to bundle the cannon so they could be parachuted. The Aussies were tough and willing and I soon became good friends with their leader and his two or three fellow officers. It seemed that we had hardly started the training when I was informed that they were to make a practice jump. By this time they all knew how to don a parachute and all were equipped with American steel helmets. Australian helmets, with their sharp brims, were not suitable. They all had made jumps off the low platform we had built and practiced limited maneuvering while suspended in the harness. Ready or not, we had our orders. I'm sure they were scared, but all faced the jump with considerable courage. We emplaned at a nearby field and took off. To my surprise we were accompanied by a few high ranking officers, including a General Vasey of the Australian army. It was apparent that higher ups in both armies regarded this as an important experiment. Once over the designated target, a cleared strip in the jungle, I stood my Aussies, ordered them to hook up to the cable and stand in the door. Then the command to “Go!” Every man flew out
the door and all but one landed safely. The exception was a lieutenant who broke his leg on landing. The big guns were dropped from a following plane, but not with perfect results. One was damaged enough so that it could not be moved around. Nonetheless, the operation was a success. My orders were clear. When we went into combat, it would be my job to get these men safely on the ground. Not long after the trial run we faced the reality of a mission. The target was a place in the jungle called Nadzab. It was about 20 miles inland of Lae, a major Japanese facility. September 5, 1943. Plane after plane filled with paratroopers took off from airstrips near Moresby. In one of those planes were my Aussie artillerymen, four officers and 28 men. I learned later that Generals Kenney and MacArthur flew overhead in B-17s to witness the operation, and the number of planes in the air set a record. I was supposed to drop the Aussies about an hour after the regiment landed, so my planes stopped for a while at a place called Dobodura. I hadn't been told that was a scheduled part of the operation, so I fussed and steamed until we were finally permitted to take off. We arrived at the drop zone, a huge field of grass, and our pilots dropped down to somewhere between 400 and 600 feet. I had no exact idea of our destination, but as we neared the end of the field and the green light was on, I gave the command to go. Nothing to it. Every man leaped from the plane and the 25-pounders were dropped from the following C-47. I did not jump -- not then. I had chores, consisting of circling around the field and throwing out equipment needed by our troopers and Australian engineering troops below. The engineers had marched overland to the site and it would be their job to restore the long-abandoned airstrip in the field so Australian infantry could be flown in. When I finally jumped, as close to my artillerymen as I could, I found myself in a sea of kunai grass, sharp-edged grass six or seven feet high. Or maybe more. I found that I could get through it only by falling forward and pressing it down with my body. Eventually I reached my Aussies, happily sitting around in the shade of jungle trees at the end of the field, their cannon already recovered. How they managed that I never found out. I had received no orders to rejoin my own company, so I spend the next 11 days or so loafing around with the artillery. Actually, we had nothing to do. There were no Japs in the area; hence, no fighting. Some units of the 503d did run into firefights, but nowhere near our location. The only injury received by the Aussies was a skinned nose. A last-
minute replacement for the officer who had broken his leg in the practice jump had been equipped with an ill-fitting American helmet which tilted forward with the opening shock and peeled a bit of skin off his nose. With nothing to do, I became impatient and one day walked off alone down a trail toward the coast, passing one of our outlying guard posts on the way. After a mile or two I became uncertain of my safety and turned back. Within moments I heard the roar of engines and an American bomber passed close over my head, raining down 50-caliber cartridge casings from its guns as it swept the area with fire. It took a moment to realize that those were casings and not bullets and I was not a target. For me the operation was over. I read later that more planes were in the air the day of our jump than ever before. We were very well protected. And I was never in any serious danger. Two books published after the war briefly covered my own part in the operation, not because of the danger, but because this was the first time any Australians made a combat parachute jump.(The books were Paratrooper, by Gerard M. Devlin, St. Martin's Press, 1979, pages 260 and 264, and Geronimo, by William B. Breuer, St. Martin's Press, 1989, page 104.) It was time to leave. Planes loaded with paratroopers were taking off from the newly restored strip. John, my Aussie friend, had found a motorcycle somewhere and drove me to the strip. I was in greater danger then than at any time during the mission, bouncing around on the rear fender as we careened over potholes and ruts, my rifle and equipment flying wildly in the air. I think that was one of the last planes to leave. My Aussies rejoined their 7th Australian Division and proceeded up the coast; I was sorry to leave them; they were a great bunch of men. Back at our base camp in Australia things went on much as before. Those of us who had joined the outfit back in America found ourselves promoted to first lieutenant. Many went on leave and I was able to make a brief visit to Sydney, the nation's biggest city. I regret to say that I did not frequent any museums or other cultural attractions, but I did get to know some of the better watering holes. Meanwhile, we learned that our commanding officer, Colonel Kinsler, committed suicide. The regiment had been visited by the Inspector General and he received many complaints about the outfit. Perhaps the colonel received serious criticism about some aspect or aspects of his performance as commanding officer. We never knew.
Before we left for our second visit to New Guinea, I got sick with a very painful bladder infection. It got worse and by the time we reached the island I had to go to a hospital, where I spent a few weeks of mainly ineffective treatment. But I did begin to improve and eventually rejoined the outfit, which by this time was engaging in clean-up actions along the coast. I was still sickly and did not participate. Within a few weeks it was time to go back to work. Our mission this time was to jump on a sandy airstrip on the coast of an island named Noemfoor. Our job: reinforce an infantry outfit already in place and bogged down by Japanese resistance. This jump was not as easy as the one at Nadzab. Our train of planes circled in from the sea and flew down beach. But they flew too low and many were the injuries and broken legs from rough landings. Many jumped as low as 200 feet and their chutes did not have time to open properly. But we still had a job to do and we began it with a series of patrols and probes into the surrounding jungle. This was the first time that many us actually faced enemy fire. My mortars were not of much use; we had no visibility at all on possible targets. Nonetheless, we were ready. Noemfoor was not a large island, perhaps 14 or 15 miles across, all of it rough terrain, forested with almost impenetrable jungle, and heavily populated by poisonous snakes, stinging vines, land crabs, aggressive mosquitos, and other unpleasant inhabitants. Not to mention the heat. Even when it didn't rain, which was not often, our dark green coveralls were almost always soaking wet from sweat. We never wore our fancy polyurethane jump suits. They were totally unfit for this climate. I think the value of the island lay in its possible future use as a base for aircraft which would attack Japan. The enemy themselves had used it for planes and there still were aviation fuel dumps near the former airfield. Indeed, we found some of that gasoline pretty handy for heating coffee and field rations. For a few days my platoon had no serious duties. They had some time to rest. Once, when I had been off on some mission or other I came back to our area to find that my guys had dug a slit trench for me. A slit trench was about the safest place to sleep. Just the same, I always kept my machete and trench knife handy, just in case some overbold Jap crept up in the night. To prevent that very thing we established a ring of sentinels around the camp, two men to a foxhole, there to warn and help stop any incursion. My platoon got the job one night. By this time we had received several replacements, men who were new to us and new
to combat. When I lined up my platoon prior to taking our positions, I went down the ranks, checking each soldier for readiness and equipment. I stopped before one of these new replacements and looked him over. He was armed with a pistol, which he held pointed upward, the proper position for inspection. When I moved to the next man he pointed the pistol down and pulled the trigger. The damn thing was loaded, with a round in the chamber. All hell broke loose, heads popping out of tents all over the area. "Stand fast!" I yelled at my own men and they did. Luckily, no one was hurt. I told the boy — and that was what he was -- to step out of the formation. I never saw him again; perhaps he was assigned to kitchen duty. Perhaps he was a fine young man, but I could not afford to take chances with his inexperience. This was just a minor interruption in the daily patrols into the jungle carried on by our rifle units. Somewhat to my surprise, my platoon was picked for one of these and it was led by our company executive officer. We left our mortars behind and hiked off into the forest armed with our rifles and grenades. Behind the scouts we had out front came the exec and the platoon. I brought up the rear. We had been hiking down a trail for an hour or two when I heard firing break out at the front and rushed forward to see what was happening. We had run smack into a unit of Japanese soldiers coming toward us on the same trail. It was what the military manuals call a "meeting engagement," in short, an accidental encounter. Our lead scout, armed with a tommy gun, had performed beautifully, killing some of the enemy. Unhappily, we lost some of our best men in the first seconds, including a former platoon sergeant and a corporal. A second sergeant was badly wounded. The exec ordered me to take a squad around the left flank, which I did, laying down a fire line when we reached our position. We were at a junction of three trails and the enemy had taken cover in the woods behind one which ran across our front. Firing continued. I could hear Japanese voices, but could see nothing. I stood for a better look and belatedly realized the little twigs and branches falling around my head were caused by bullets. Eventually the firing died away and we departed, stopping only long enough to bury our two dead and make a stretcher for the wounded sergeant. Two or three days later my company commander told me to go back to the scene of the firefight, bring back the bodies of the two men we had buried, and turn them over to graves registration at the beach. Reluctantly, graves registration let us have two stretchers and we set out. Exhuming those two bodies was not fun. Despite being wrapped in ponchos they were already crawling with maggots and the smell was awful.
The scene of our little battle was unchanged. Japanese bodies lay where they had fallen and I was pleased to see that we had killed about 20. Even a few weapons had been left, one of which was a light machine gun. On the way back to the beach we ran into the colonel and some of his aides. He asked me if I had seen any good place for a permanent camp and, not in the most diplomatic of moods, I told him the best place would be near the beach, where the men could at least go for a swim. I also offered the opinion that a truck would be a big help in getting my dead men back to the beach. And surprise, surprise, he radioed for a truck to meet us where the track became a road. And we turned over the bodies to graves registration. Those were good men. One, the former platoon sergeant, was an intelligent but independent minded young man. Whenever I asked him how things were going he would answer, "Mediocre, lieutenant, mediocre." And when I came to him as he lay dying just off the trail and asked how he was, he said "Mediocre, lieutenant." A little later we wrapped him in a poncho and buried him and the corporal who had died in a shallow grave. Sergeant Lassiter, the one wounded man, was placed on a crude stretcher and we carried him back to the shore and medical attention. I never saw him again. That was our fist real firefight. Later, the 503d moved deeper up the coast of Noemfoor, engaging in small actions along the way as we sought to eliminate Japanese resistance. I had been sick again when I rejoined the outfit at some unnamed place on the shore. Half of my platoon had moved further up the coast in support of infantry action and I was told to join them. Unhappily, I was not in time to go in a small landing craft and started hiking the few miles between the two positions. With me were two men of my platoon, both good soldiers. The trail we followed was on top of a ridge lying above surrounding jungle. At one point I called for a short break -- more stomach problems. But at the same time I thought I saw movement in a small clump of grass at the edge of the trail where the ridge descended into heavy growth below, and decided to investigate. Big mistake. Instead of taking my guys with me I told them to stay put and I would check it out. I moved slowly and with caution down into the forest, carbine ready. I didn't have to go far. Just as I bent over, searching the ground ahead, I was hit in the chest. It felt like I had been punched with a red hot iron. But it didn't knock me down and simultaneous with the blow I saw an enemy soldier lying down perhaps a hundred feet further down the slope. Firing from the hip I squeezed off four or five shots and then, the hardest thing in my life, I managed to get my weapon up to my shoulder and gave him three or four aimed rounds.
That was it for me. I yelled for my guys, but I could no longer stand and sank to the ground. Moving cautiously, they checked to make sure my Jap was dead and finally reached me. By this time I was in great pain. Fortunately, we carried individual morphine shots with us and a needle in my arm brought some peace. In truth, it brought moments of unconsciousness. Later, borne on a stretcher, I finished the trip to rejoin half of my platoon and was loaded on a landing craft for the trip around the island to a field hospital. I remember little of that brief voyage except that I was very thirsty most of the time when I was conscious. When I awoke at the hospital, just a collection of tents and cots, I was on an operating table, where I greeted the surgeon and passed out again. The bullet had passed all the way through my body, entering just to the left of my heart, nicking a lung and exiting through a scapula in my back. When I got a bit better they sat me on the edge of my cot and the doctor inserted a long needle in my back and pumped fluid out of a lung. The procedure was repeated later after I had been transferred to a more permanent hospital somewhere else, but this time in a well-equipped operating room. Eventually I recovered enough to walk a little and I boarded a hospital ship for the return to the States. It took a lot less time to return than it did to sail over -- something like ten days as compared to 43. Then followed a train trip to Washington and another hospital, this one Walter Reed. Prior to arrival I had sent telegrams to Mary at every stop, telling her present location and reporting progress. She had found a room at the Willard Hotel and, somewhat to my surprise, hospital authorities said I could go there to meet her. The Willard is a large old hotel, one with long corridors on each floor. I walked down one of these until I came to her room. I stared for a moment at the number on the door, then walked back to the elevator. Not hesitant, not uncertain. I just wanted to savor every second of our reunion. And when I knocked and she came to the door and I held her in my arms for the first time in more than two years, it was all worthwhile . I was home. But all was not perfect. Not for me, at least. The hospital let me travel to Massachusetts for a few days with Mary's family. I was not cured. Once again I suffered from a bladder infection and had to return to Walter Reed in some pain. Eventually, after days of misery in bed, I was given spinal anesthesia and a doctor introduced silver nitrate to my bladder. Once the anesthesia wore off I was again in agony. But it didn't last forever and the army sent me to the Grove Park Inn in North Carolina for ten or so days of rest and recreation. Then we went to another recuperation facility on Long Island.
I was finally returned to duty at Fort Bolting. That did not last long. Came a telegram from Washington ordering my presence at the War Office. There I got my orders; Go to Camp Campbell, Ky., with a few enlisted men with some communications experience and make the surrounding towns and cities offer a hearty welcome to the members of the 5th Division who were returning from Europe. This was the best duty ever. Mary and I lived in quarters for visiting officers and were served great meals at a mess operated by Italian prisoners of war. Once a month I reported progress to my boss in Washington. No one bothered me. My crew and I had little difficulty persuading people to make the troops of the 5th Division feel welcome. Of course it was too good to last. In a phone conversation my boss said he wanted me to go to California to do a similar job for a corps returning from Europe. Uh uh. I wanted out. There soon would be thousands upon thousands of discharged soldiers and sailors who would be looking for jobs. I wanted an early start. By the then-used point system I had enough credits to get a discharge from the army. I got it. So I took my Purple Heart and brand new captain's bars and said goodbye to military service. After some five years in uniform I was a civilian once more. And damn happy to be there. The End Draft completed August 12, 2003 Robert W. Armstrong
DOCUMENT DISPOSITION SHEET 1. SHORT USE TITLE A SMALL PIECE OF WAR 2. TITLE/SUBTITLE 3. AUTHOR OR OFFICE OF ORIGIN ATTRIBUTION 4.ORIGINAL CLASSIFICATION 5. SECURITY CLASS. Robert W. Armstrong Nil Open 6. DATE OF ORIGIN PERIOD 7.PROGRAM ELEMENT OR PROJECT, TASK AREA 12 August 2003 503D PRCR.ORG 8. STORED AS: 9. STORAGE (1) AT A Small Piece of War – Armstrong.docx Heritage Bn Website 10. REFDOC 11. EXTERNAL STORAGE (2) <txt> Googledocs, Scribd 12. DISTRIBUTION 13. WEB ADDRESS Open Not as *.docx 14. NOTES <txt> 15. RELEVANCE Personal Recollection 16. PROVENANCE, SOURCE & INFO KNOWN OR SURMISED Distributed by the author at the 503d reunion, Phoenix AZ, 2009 17. KEY WORDS Dartmouth College, Cape Cod, North Carolina maneuvers, Massachusetts Governor Saltonstall, Officer Candidate School, Fayetteville, Poelau Laut, Panama, Brisbane, Cairns, Gordonvale, Townsville, Port Moresby, New Guinea, Nadzab, Lae, Dobodura, Noemfoor, Willard Hotel. 18. REFERENCES TO MILITARY UNITS OR FACILITIES Camp Edwards, 26th (Yankee) Division; 181st Infantry; Fort Benning, Ga.; 503d Parachute Infantry Regiment; 7th Australian Division; Walter Reed Hospital; Camp Campbell, Ky; 5th Division; 19. REFERENCES TO PERSONS Guy Campbell, Lt. Fickle (Fickel?), M. Visser, Colonel Kinsler, Tallent, General Vasey, General Kenney, General MacArthur 20. ABSTRACT First person personal reminiscence 1940-1945; parachute training at Ft. Benning; Poelau Laut; North Queensland; Training of the 2/4th Artillery Battery (Australian) in support of 503d PIR at Nadzab; Noemfoor; wounded and repatriated. Form: document_disposition.docx
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTEyMDIxMA==