Bailey06

Smokey and I returned from furlough without incident, but while we were killing time in the bar at Union Station in Los Angeles waiting for our train to San Diego, we met an elderly man who wanted to buy us a drink. During the course of the evening he suggested we come with him to meet some of his friends. We had a lot of time before our train, so we agreed. We piled into his car and drove up into the Hollywood hills to a rather palatial residence, pulled into the driveway and he said, "Come on in. I want you to meet my wife." We went in and he introduced us to his wife as his "cousins."

Later that evening she told me he goes to the station every day after work and buys drinks for servicemen, brings them home, has her feed them and introduces them as his cousins. He and his son, who was 52, were the owners of a large sheet-metal firm and they were making a lot of money from war contracts. Later on his son came by with a carload of young girls, who we found out worked at Lockheed. This was the beginning of a fine relationship. We went to LA every chance we got.

Time was being compressed, and there weren't too many days when training was conducted as it had been in the old days, but there was a lot of activity. Our section was busy studying what few reports we were getting from the Pacific. Most of the news was bad. Then one day we got a report that the First Division had landed on Guadalcanal. It was the 6th of August — the 7th on the other side of the International Date Line where the landing took place.

Slowly the news came in, while everyone in camp wanted to leave now to get in on the fight. August 7th — exactly eight months after Pearl Harbor — we were going to take it to them. Thousands of miles from the action this all sounded great, but as we were to find out, our forces had a slim toehold and nothing more. Millions of words have been written about Guadalcanal, the first American land offensive of WW II, and there is nothing I can add. Suffice it to say that we wanted to be a part of it.

Shortly after this news arrived I was told to start packing my gear because I was being transferred to the Fleet Marine Force Training Center as an instructor. Like hell! That meant I wouldn't be going with the division. Six days later I was in the Training Center. I didn't have any duties yet so I spent the time pulling strings. One day when I was talking to Freeberg in the division sergeant major's office, I said there has to be a place — anything.

"I've been a part of this darn division since its formation, except for Iceland, and if I have to go to war I'm going with the Second Division. I don't care what it takes to do it."

Freeberg and the sergeant major kept telling me that the division had its full compliment of men and there were no openings that they knew of, and no requests for personnel. One of the clerks in the office turned around and said, "How about that one in H&S Six?" I said I don't care what it is, I'll take it.

Four days later I reported to the first sergeant of Headquarters Company and found out my duties were that of assistant to the chaplain. Ohhhhhh Boy! I had never known a chaplain except Commander Mansfield, and then just to say hello to. This day I needed help, so I went to see him and explained my predicament. He was a balding, red-headed guy with a smile like a sunrise.

He said, "You can do a great service, corporal." I wasn't sure how he meant "service," but he went on to explain that he knew who the new chaplain was going to be and that he was a regular guy named Gordon V. Tollefsen from Idaho. My mind was racing and I finally decided things could be worse, but I didn't know how. At least I still had my BAR and maybe I could put it to good use somehow.

In a few days I met Lieutenant Tollefsen. Everything Chaplain Mansfield said about him checked out. He was Norwegian, Lutheran, had a butch hair cut, was married and had an infant son. He had just been called to duty and arrived in San Diego a day or two before. He knew nothing of the service life or protocol. I decided this was a case of the fox guarding the chickens and I made up my mind to stay. Within two weeks we were aboard the Matsonia, the flagship of the Matson Lines, getting ready to leave.

Prior to departure, however, I had one last chance to get to LA and do the town. Dick Watson from K Company and Bud Heller from L Company and I headed for the big city. We met some of the girls that we had just met a few weeks before and gave them the sad story that we were leaving to win the war and all the rest of that BS. Somewhere along the way we lost Heller, but Dick and I ended up walking arm-in-arm, each trying to hold up the other up as we staggered toward the train station.

I don't remember arriving at San Diego, but I woke in a bunk on the Matsonia just as she started to pull out to of the harbor. I found out that we were on Colonel Holmes's staff and we had the second largest cabin on the ship, his being the largest. Problem was — we had 22 men in our two-room cabin while he was alone in his two-room suite.

We left San Diego and, because of the ship's speed, headed straight for New Zealand without need to zigzag so as to avoid enemy submarines. When we got there we pulled into Auckland — "Sorry fellas, you should be in Wellington." The next day we were. We unloaded the ship, then were trucked about 20 miles out of town to our camp, a former NZ army camp known to us as McKays Crossing. We were there about six to eight weeks before boarding ships known as the "Unholy Four" (the President Hayes, Jackson, Adams and the Crescent City) for our trip to the "Canal." The First Marine Division had begun to be reinforced in October '42, and now we were to add to that reinforcement and permit them to be relieved from the island.

My duties in New Zealand consisted mainly of handling the athletic programs and supervising the movies that were shown in an old shack that we found on the property. Now I wasn't sure where I would fit in, but I had been lugging my BAR wherever I went and I still had it. We went ashore and camped at Kukum the first two nights, then we moved up along the beach to near the Matanikau River and dug in. I took my BAR and went looking for K Company. I had only two clips and had to get some more somehow, or this thing would never be effective at anything. I found them and surreptitiously joined my old squad. They were happy to see me, but afraid that if I got caught I'd get in real trouble (Ha!).

Things were quiet for a day or two, but then we did nearly get ambushed by a Japanese patrol and things were hot and heavy for a while. We didn't lose anyone, but there were a few wounded. I volunteered to help them back to the forward aid station, which turned out to be a mistake. When we arrived the chaplain was there and, although he was still a rookie, he read me the riot act real well. He ordered me not to disappear again under any circumstances. He had been such a nice guy up to this point that I thought I'd give it a try. We also had a Catholic chaplain by the name of Patrick J. O'Neil from New York. He had an assistant also, so the four of us borrowed a six-man tent from the Army and we erected it near the aid station and we four slept in it when possible.

Soon there began a steady flow of wounded coming into the aid station. There was a "Doc" English from Hollywood, California in charge of the aid station. My heart went out to him as I never saw that man when he didn't have blood on him somewhere, but he did a hell of a job. Just a day or two after we set up our tent the colonel came by for inspection and Doc English told him that we didn't have transportation to take people and bodies to the rear. We needed something.

That afternoon the motor transport battalion brought over a truck that became my responsibility. Officially our job was called Graves Registration, but we did not have anything to do with the cemetery or registration of casualties. Our job was the transportation of dead and wounded from wherever we found them to the rear for decent burial or for treatment.

The first man killed was an officer, Lt. Hunt, who received a burst of machinegun fire across his chest. He was a big, athletic man and had helped me with the athletic program in NZ. We got word that this had happened and the chaplain and I went to get him. We found him at a forward position and wrapped him in a poncho (there were no body bags in those days) and put him in the bed of the truck on a stretcher. He was so tall — about 6ft 3in — that his booted feet hung over the rear of the stretcher. We didn't have anything to cover him with so we took off in hopes that we'd find something to use.

The road was no road at all but a series of unrelated ruts, so the truck was slipping and sliding in the mud and bumping over the ruts. We got back near the rear when all of a sudden we heard a shout.

"Stop that truck! Stop that truck!"

I stopped and looked around to see a full colonel coming toward us, looking mad as hell. When he got alongside the truck he said,

"Cover that man's feet! What the hell's the matter with you? Give him the respect he deserves!"

I had stepped down from the truck and saluted and now, with a crack in my voice, I said.

"Colonel, this man was my friend, I would never disrespect him or do anything to strip him of his dignity, even in death."

I had a hard time controlling myself and the chaplain just sat in the truck. The colonel looked into my eyes and said, "Take it easy, son. Just wait here; I'll get my poncho." He did and we covered Lt. Hunt's feet and drove to the cemetery.

About two days later we got a call to pick up another body. We were told it was at K Company, and had just come off the line. I was apprehensive, but we had no idea who it was. It turned out to be Dick Watson, who had been bringing cans of water in a machinegun cart up to the line, and he was gut shot. After being hit he was in such a position that no one could get to him without exposing himself, so Dick slowly bled to death. He had drunk all the water in his canteens — and even put the caps back on the canteens before he died.

I lost it when I saw him and went over to talk to him. He had been my friend for a long time. You may recall my comments in Chapter 5, where I mentioned Dick and I had made our last liberty together in LA before shipping out for Guadalcanal. I reminded him about that.

"Damn it! Dick, we'll never be able to do that again. What's it going to be like without you?" I had to get it out of my system.

Things never got easier after that. Probably just the reverse, but I had developed a hard attitude toward it all. It was a job that had to be done and be done with compassion. The chaplain and I did it that way.

One morning I was walking toward the aid station when I noticed a body lying under a poncho on a stretcher. I went over and lifted the poncho, but could not see any wounds or marks, so I completely lifted the poncho and noticed that, in addition to being one of the finest looking young men I had ever seen, he was a curly-headed blonde with beautiful skin. Then I looked at his right leg. Midway between the knee and the ankle it had been severed as if by a machete, at a slight angle. He had either died of shock or bled to death. Whichever it was, I think that was the day I became a pacifist.

That day orders came to move up and while that was taking place I heard from one of the walking-wounded that my friend Ken Kreamer had been severely wounded and was at the field hospital. I jumped in

the truck and drove to the hospital in the rear, only to find

out that his left leg had been so severely shattered that they

had radioed the hospital ship to turn around and come back

to pick him up, so he could get immediate attention beyond

what could be given at Guadalcanal. I felt bad that I hadn't

seen him before he was evacuated. It was 51 years before I

saw him again.

We had been lucky — we weren't on the Canal very long.

However, during that time the Sixth lost about 55 men and

we buried them all, Chaplain Tollefsen, Father O'Neil, his

assistant and I. When we got back to New Zealand,

Chaplain Tollefsen and I typed individual letters to the