AS I’VE INDICATED, I was both a participant and an observer. I talked to soldiers returning from stomach- churning patrols and interviewed other platoon leaders for their accounts. I listened to company and battalion commanders, who added up their combat losses and who pointed out the successes and failures of their assigned missions. Some of these interviews were my military assignments, and others, my writer’s curiosity, and some a little of both duty and inquisitiveness.
Once a battle was over, whether I had been a participant or observer, it was my duty to write to the next of kin of the soldiers in my company who were killed in action. It was also my job to draft recommendations for awards for the men, living and dead, whose heroic actions would be recognized by medals ranging from the bronze star all the way to the consummate soldier’s recognition, the Congressional Medal of Honor.
If I had to slice out just one piece of World War II action in which I was a participant I would choose the one in New Georgia– our first serious action. It came after a few weeks of innocuous mop- up in Guadalcanal, where the Marines and the Army had finally stopped the Japanese incursion down the Solomon Islands chain. New Georgia was one step above Guadalcanal.
The Japanese had a small airfield at the southern tip, called Munda, from which they bombed, ineffectively, nearby islands held by the U. S. forces. Our Division assignment was to capture the islands and take over the airfield, from which we could then start air action over the more northward islands like Bougainville, and eventually the Philippines. I had entitled this piece ‘‘ Not so Silent Night, ’’ but when it was to be published by The Saturday Evening Post in 1943 the editor had thought that title was too soft and religious, so it was changed to ‘‘ Every Night We Die. ’’ Not bad. Not inaccurate. And not subtle. Whatever the title, the writing reflects my deep involvement, my keenly felt personal experience.
The platoon leader has been stewing and fretting since noon. Sergeant Kincaid’s squad left two hours ago to knock out a pillbox blocking the path of the platoon, and, as yet, Kincaid hasn’t reported back. The platoon’s two remaining squads were pinned down by the pair of machine guns which the sergeant was supposed to destroy. The guns snapped out bullets occasionally– at every gust of wind rustling the grass and at each American helmet scraping against undergrowth. Those babies have plenty of ammunition, it seems. The lieutenant’s belly is raw from crawling to and from his squad leaders, trying to outguess the Japanese threat. The crack- crack of the weapons, however, bowled over the logic of his tactics. Nothing worked.
Thank God, Kincaid reports back. He is grimy, scratched and uncertain. Mission unsuccessful. He has outflanked the pillbox up ahead, and then he had discovered two more pillboxes directly behind that one. Pillboxes leapfrogged. Of course.
The lieutenant should have known. One squad can’t lick three leapfrogged emplacements. ‘‘ How many men did you lose, Kincaid? ’’ None. Saw the other guns just in time to get out of the field of fire. Had to go mighty slow and careful- like coming back. Good boy. The next move is obvious. The lieutenant sends his runner out to bring the two other squad leaders to him. Meanwhile, he mulls over a plan to commit the whole platoon to wind up this dirty business.
The 37th’s Path Through the Solomons
A messenger from the company commander arrives before the squad leaders can assemble, ‘‘ Four o’clock, sir, and the captain says to drop back to high ground and keep the Japanese off while the company digs in for the night. ’’ The platoon leader nods disgustedly. Damn little done today. At this rate, we’ll be here another year. His platoon has been chosen as security for the company. Its mission now is purely defensive; like the boxer’s left jab, pushed out there in front of the main body to keep the opponent away and off balance. This is one plan for making the Japanese impotent during the night. The plan starts at four on the dot. It ends at dawn the next morning.
During the day, the Japanese is just an ordinary fighting man, deadly only when behind logs, in high jungle growth or inside concrete pillboxes. He exhibits an extreme reluctance to chance a bayonet, knife or knuckle duel with our boys, and he will press the inevitable hand grenade to honorable stomach rather than be confronted by a Yank tommy- gunner at shakinghands range.
At night, he’s lethal. Tricky. Deceptive. The jungle blackouts embellish his sneak tactics. The hideous fear of the dark which most of us tossed off years back has been rekindled by just one night in a Japanese- infested bush. Thus, the need for a simple, workable plan. Our scheme is: quit fighting early and get set for them.
The security platoon creeps and crawls to high ground, fans out in a semicircle facing the enemy, and just watches. Danger is over, until dark. A tired sniper might risk a try at one of the sweaty, broad backs lying below him, but he’s a punk shot. If he tries to fire more than once every hour, he is quickly spotted and cut into quarters with the ‘‘ fixer, ’’ the Browning automatic rifle (BAR). Two hundred yards behind the platoon, the company digs in furiously. Must be dug in, fed and bedded down by dark. Our jungle army shuts up shop at nightfall.
The company commander surveys the diggings. Four- man foxholes are scooped out of the coral earth with hand tools, sticks, dog tags and fingernails. The holes are shaped like a cross. Expediency, not religion. Each of the four arms of the cross is deep enough, wide enough and long enough to permit a man to lie down below ground. No space to spare. His head is always toward the outside of the cross. In dead center, eight muddy shoes touch. When one man spots danger, he alerts the others by kicking sharply. Night signals are noiseless. Our company perimeter defense is self- sufficient; we are responsible for our own protection, but we must tie in our defenses with the companies on the left. We also must help keep our brothers out of harm’s way.
At six, the security platoon is relieved in order to dig its holes on the inner perimeter and to pour down some cold meat and beans. These men will not be on the rim of the circle tonight. The extra hours of watchful waiting as a security unit earn them a concession. They’ll sleep a lot better. It’s a warm feeling to know that between you and the enemy are some of your own boys. At dusk, each soldier automatically crawls into his hole, places his rifle in an accessible cranny, folds his raincoat underneath him and his shelter half over him. He lies on his back with his jungle knife, unsheathed, in his clenched fist. The Yank sleeps but his killer instinct is wide awake.
The CO and the platoon leader race around the perimeter for a final check. No sense dallying. There are Japanese out there. Our boys know the rules of this game. The good discipline we have indoctrinated into them during those days of buttoned pockets, shined shoes and hand salutes is our insurance now. Or so we hope. And pray. The rules? Only the men on the outer rim of the perimeter will fire their pieces. They will shoot at 100 per- centfoolproof Japanese. Monkeys, coconuts and ghosts are not to be molested. Men on the inside of the perimeter will never squeeze their triggers during the night. They defend themselves with knives, bayonets, fists, rifle butts, teeth and religion. No one is to leave his hole. A moving object above ground is presumed to be an enemy. Knife him first and identify the corpse afterward. No talking or whispering. No smoking. No crying.
The Japanese are out to make us fire in their direction. Make the Americans start shooting. Scare them into blasting away at shadows, twigs, each other. Lie back and shoot wherever you see the flash of muzzle blast. Make them so trigger- happy they’ll be murdering one another. We’ll move in later and finish off the wounded. Drive them crazy by night and pick off the neurotics by day. Panic. Panic.
And on our side: Keep cool. Stay put. If you see the whites of their eyes, don’t shoot; jab a bayonet into those eyes. They will scream and whistle and even call your name. They will fling firecrackers at you and chant, ‘‘ American, you die. ’’ But make them come in after you. When they crawl around the ledge of your foxhole, they’ll silhouette themselves against the sky. Then’s the time to lunge upward with that jungle knife. Keep plunging and withdrawing the hilt until the flesh is death- cold. The Japanese can’t see any better than you at night. If they can’t panic you, they are bewildered, beaten. When they crawl to your hole asking for it, men, give it to them. Not before.
You remember the night a slick creature crept up to the CO’s hole. In good English, he whispered, ‘‘ Slip me a hand grenade, buddy. ’’ No one had ever addressed Capt. Orville Wendt as ‘‘ buddy’’ before, and this Clyde, Ohio, national guardsman pressed the trigger of his tommy gun and cut the Japanese in half. One minute later, a sweet- smelling companion creeps to his dead comrade. You can hear him breathe heavily in anger as he discovers that his fellow animal is dead. It’s still too dark to see, but, vindictive, he feels for the hole of the man who murdered his friend. Suddenly, those fingers are on the edge of the captain’s hole and the Japanese is on his knees, ready to spring. But he is uncertain. Maybe the thing in this hole isn’t the murderer. Maybe the contents are garbage. He rocks over the hole, peering down into it intently. He rocks back and forth several times, indecisive. The third lean does it. Wendt presses the trigger of his tommy gun. One shot rings out and the gun jams. The Japanese jumps or falls into the hole on top of the captain, who, without any ado, beats the Japanese’s head to a smashed tomato with the butt of his jammed gun, and tosses the Japanese outside. The next morning, the Japanese was examined. The one bullet had done the trick. Through the head. The bashing was so much lost motion. Besides, the captain shouldn’t have fired at night. But the men disobey these rules, too, under similar circumstances. Our discipline is good, not perfect.
You’ll never forget the incessant, nerve- racking boom- boomboom of the artillery. All night the 105’s and 155’s artillery deposit their shells around our lines to fend off the concentration of enemy troops. These guns are aimed at some distance beyond our front lines to allow a margin of safety for the inevitable short shots. From bitter experience, the Japanese learn of this umbrella, and at night, at the first boom, the Japanese crawl in close to our lines, whooping and hollering as the shells pass over us and them. Americans won’t come out of holes and fight at night. So they revel in their superiority. They jabber like dope fiends, and sometimes, when you imagine they are crawling closer to your hole, you grab a hand grenade and jerk out the pin. You can’t throw the grenade right away. It takes five seconds for the thing to blow– plenty of time for the alert Japanese to pick it up and throw it back. So you suck in your wind, count as slowly as your nerves allow, but faster than you should, ‘‘ One dead Japanese, two dead Japanese, three dead Japanese, ’’ and then you arch the little pineapple into the center of the Japanese circle. You hear screams and warnings as the little men go after the grenade to toss it back, and the split second between that grabbing for the thing and its explosion seems like forever.
You laugh when you recall your orderly, a Tennessee hillbilly who manned a mean BAR. Back in those training days at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, this lanky son of the hills was either drunk or AWOL. Just a no good. Out here, when the chips were down, you’d rather have him along on this mission than the brightest boy in the class. A grenade had finally blown up inside a Japanese pillbox and a piece of what was left inside cried in broken English, ‘‘ Kill me! Kill me! ’’ Old Tennessee trained his BAR on the slit in the front of the box and called out in that Bob Burns drawl: ‘‘ Just raise yo’ haid, buddy. ’’
You remember with a twitch the night that the screamers– G. I. for dysentery– had caught half the company. Spoiled meat in the daily ration. The men lie in their holes, gurgling, gasping, bawling. Their stomachs knot up and they undergo backbreaking contortions trying to make a toilet out of their helmets and still remain below the level of the earth. One kid whispers, ‘‘ To hell with it, ’’ and jumps out of his hole and squats. Zing. A bullet from our own area grazes his nose, and he leaps back to the safety of his trench like a frightened kangaroo. This shot is answered by one from the Japanese side of the perimeter. Suddenly, the tension and the misery are all relieved in an orgy of blind, wild shooting. Vampires and branches, birds and boulders all catch hell in this session of crazy, erratic firing. It lasts one hour and then stops. All night we hear a kid crying in the next hole. Next morning, we take count. This kid has been shot in the groin. No other casualties, saints be praised. A .30- caliber bullet did it. Our own. The captain blows his top, raves, threatens court- martial and violence for anyone who breaks the no- shooting rule again. He need not rave. That kid we wounded sobers up all of us.
You can’t forget the mouthy guy from Auburn who was on guard in the perimeter hole and noticed the bushes wiggle. He lets go with a burst from his tommy gun, and a bleeding Japanese falls out of the bushes. In his hand is clutched a pistol, probably a German Luger. Precious souvenir. Only twenty yards away. The jerks in the next hole also spy the pistol. They are fifteen yards away. The mouthy kid thinks: ‘‘ Those jerks will jump out at dawn and get my souvenir. ’’ He deliberates: ‘‘ Won’t be dawn for another hour. No officers around. I’ll sneak out and get it now. ’’ He jumps out of his hole and doesn’t bother to duck as he twists the Luger out of the Japanese’s hand. Suddenly, one cappistol shot. The mouthy kid turns slowly, straightens up a bit, looks at those ‘‘ jerks’’ fifteen yards away, tries to gesture apologetically with his hands, drops the pistol, collapses on top of the Japanese and dies. Some sneaking son of heaven had lain in those same bushes for an hour, waiting for a sucker to come out and claim his precious souvenir.
Those ugly, repulsive land crabs– animals about the size of a volleyball, that inspired more indignation than the Japanese. You recall that first night when your unit went into the front lines, fed full of weird stories about Japanese jumping into foxholes and slitting throats with devilish ease. You imagine you hear noises. You know you hear noises. A scratching sound comes nearer and nearer. It’s a Japanese for sure. You kick the others and all are suddenly tense. Closer and closer comes this scratching, until you see a tiny shadow edging its way over the side. The Japanese’s hand! You squeeze the handle of your knife and your body is full of moisture and pain and electricity. You wait resolutely for that next second in which you pit your knife against the Japanese bayonet or stiletto or club. Then– plop– this volleyball crab falls onto your chest and, in shock, you jump two feet off the ground. You fling the damn thing out and you lie there quivering for hours while the three other foxhole mates snicker. The next time you don’t frighten so easily or imagine so blithely, but you are never sure. Is it a Japanese this time or just another miserable, harmless crab? This occurs six or seven times each night. You get to despise the crabs, and during the day, if you can drag one of them from his lair, you wreak a sadist’s revenge by cutting off its claws one by one and then repeatedly plunging a knife into its hard, hideous body.
Above all, you remember a bit of heroism at night which revives your faith in man’s humanity to man in this stink of war. You fall asleep in your hole this night because the day has been a rough one. You are awakened by a piercing scream and a ghastly, gurgling sound.
Suddenly one of your boys bleats pitifully, ‘‘ Sergeant Paul’s been slashed in the throat by a Japanese! He’s bleeding to death! Someone come out and help, for God’s sake! ’’
No one moves. Sergeant Paul will die in another three minutes. He was a good squad leader.
‘‘ For God’s sake, he’s dying! Can’t you understand, medics? Save him! ’’
Even the insuperable valor of the medics cannot be expected to rise to this: risk your life ten different ways. Get out of your hole and be plugged by your own men before you move ten feet. Or if you wiggle out to Paul’s perimeter position, get shot by a Japanese sniper attracted by the crying. Or, once in the hole with him, die a thousand deaths as Japanese crawl by, all night long, looking for you.
Dr. Isbin (Pappy) Giddens, from Millen, Georgia, crawls gently out of his underground aid station. ‘‘ Hold your fire, boys, for just a second and let me get out theah. ’’
He moves fast, but not like a coward. He goes to this dying boy standing up, with an unruffled dignity. He leans forward over the sergeant and sees that the jugular vein is severed. Quickly now, he sutures the vein together, but he knows that the darkness has made the job an unsure one. So he lies on top of this boy all night, his own body above ground level, holding the sutured vein in his fingers. It breaks once, but he deftly sutures it again. No Japanese comes near Pappy tonight. Don’t ask us why. The next morning, Paul is given ten doses of blood plasma, is sent back to the clearing company, to the field hospital, to another island. This very hour, Sergeant Paul is leading a platoon in other jungles. Doc Giddens is still a battalion surgeon. Only two minor changes: Sergeant Paul has a deep scar in his neck, and Doc Giddens’ hair is snow white.