Price for Peace Page #5

I was on one of them.

We took landing craft to the reef.

On the other side of the reef,

we changed to amphibious tractors.

The reason for that was,

here in the lagoon,

as you can see, the water's too shallow

for landing craft.

We went over the side

in about three feet of water.

I had 100 Ibs on my back.

A flame-thrower,

a bedroll and my ammunition.

I remember sinking into the sand 4

or 5 inches as I crossed the beach.

It was a bloody mess.

People were getting blown to pieces.

The beach was full of bodies,

just full of bodies.

Chaos. It looked like

the biggest junkyard in the world.

Bombs being dropped.

Shells being fired.

It was chaos. There were hundreds

of people moving.

One reason we had to

get off the beach was because

people behind us were coming

one after the other, group after group.

Boats from the landing turned upside

down. Bodies floating into the water.

I'd never seen a dead person,

even at a funeral.

As I hit the beach,

I saw bodies and body parts all over.

We started to go up the sand.

We'd go up two feet and fall back one.

We were laying on the beach

and there were bodies all over.

Everywhere you could see,

somebody was dying.

We crossed the beach

as quickly as we could.

It was being raked with 88s,

machine guns and sniper fire.

The only way to deal with it

is look for some cover for your body

by jumping into a hole or digging one.

That's hard because that sand

flows back in as soon as you shovel it.

A young marine, maybe 17 years old,

he was running by and a sniper shot him

in the head right above his left eye.

He was dead and I looked at him.

He had blood running down

and it come down...

I didn't know this kid and

I still remember him... today.

Once we got in combat,

I don't believe we had difficulty

in doing what we had to. I certainly didn't.

The only thing we wanted

was to see the Japanese dead.

I was anxious to see the first Jap

I was gonna kill. That's why I was there.

It was very easy to shoot a Jap,

believe me.

I don't care if it had been

a woman, child, baby, I could shoot.

I wanted to destroy

the whole nation of Japan.

We were immediately up against

these reinforced blockhouse bunkers

that were reinforced concrete.

They were extremely formidable

defensive positions.

This was for an anti-tank,

anti-boat 47 mm.

It's obviously been hit quite a bit.

Against this kind of blockhouse

a flame-thrower was most effective.

The flame-thrower

not only burned them up,

but if it didn't, it sucked all the

oxygen out and they died of suffocation.

It was used directly on the enemy

as well, at times,

because they'd run out

of there partly afire,

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