James D. Horan - Out in the Boondocks: Marines in Action in the Pacific: 21 U.S. Marines Tell Their Stories

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Text originally published in 1943 under the same title.

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Publishers Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Authors original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern readers benefit.

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OUT IN THE BOONDOCKS:

MARINES IN ACTION IN THE PACIFIC

21 U.S. MARINES TELL THEIR STORIES

BY

JAMES D. HORAN

AND

GEROLD FRANK

Contents

When the full story of World War II is written, perhaps then we shall be able to assay the importance of the U.S. Marines and their Homeric exploits in the Solomon Islands. Let the military experts gauge the strategic significance of these battles, which began with landings on Guadalcanal, Tulagi, Gavutu and Tanambogo on August 7, and marked the first exclusively American land offensive in the Pacific. It is sufficient to agree now that they stopped the Japanese in their tracks, smashed the myth of Japanese invincibility, and threw the Japanese warlords off a racing stride. Our concern is with the men who took part in these battles, with whom we spoke and to whom we listened hours on end, and whose stories you will find in these pages.

Each of them had death as neighbor. Each of them had undergone a mental and physical ordeal more punishing, in the opinion of medical authorities today, than any combat troops have known in history. They were men who had what it takes. Men? Some were only boys, like eighteen-year-old Billy Harding. Not even the most omniscient dramatist would cast Billy for the role he played. Certainly, by all the rules he seems more suited to be pictured sitting at a drug-store counter sipping a malted milk than strangling a Japanese soldier on the edge of a Guadalcanal fox hole. But they were all Marines, and what they did is the stuff of which the songs and sagas of a people are made. Billy Harding, and twenty-year-old Jimmy Hall, who played possum among the dead while a Japanese mop-up squad nudged him, and turned him over, and stripped him and, miraculously, did not bayonet him to make sure, and all the rest of the boys who went out in the boondocks, would dismiss such characterization as hero business, and be pretty uncomfortable about it. But we who sit behind typewriters and dare only a smudged finger or a twitchy eye have the right to use words about them. We spoke to them in naval hospitals, in the quiet of hotel rooms, in their homes and we know what they are. Hero fits them.

Some of these Marines were part of the Marine Raider Battalion, commanded by Col. Merritt A, Edson. For months before August 7 they trained, both in the United States and on small islands in the South Pacific, for the job they had to do. Your Marine Raider is tough. He makes up the advance guard, the shock-troops, the battering rams, as it were, who hit an objective and soften it up for the troops that follow. Hes a Marine- plus , handpicked for the most dangerous and difficult tasks. He has perfected himself in every possible technique of defense and offensive warfare. He knows amphibious fighting. Hes at home in a rubber boat, in a fox hole or as part of a raiding party assigned to hit, destroyand disappear. Hes a specialist in hand-to-hand fighting, and he knows the skills of gouging, bayonet-ting, strangling and knifing. Hes trained to sweep out of nowhere to strike at an objective, smash air and naval bases, communication centers, ammunition dumps, military stores, defensive installations. On August 7 it was the Raiders who invaded and captured the island of Tulagi, following that up by sweeping over Florida Island and relentlessly pursuing the Japs who had escaped from Tulagi. Meanwhile, the main body of the Marines had landed on Guadalcanal. On September 1 the Raiders joined forces with them on Guadalcanal and helped push the Japanese back into the jungles. On September 11, under Colonel Edson, the Raiders attacked the Japanese village of Tasimbogo. Painted like Sioux Indians, they crept through the jungles and attacked the village at dawn, burned it to the ground and destroyed vital enemy ammunition dumps. The U.S. Marines were thrown into the battle of Lunga Ridge, variously known as Raiders Ridge, Bloody Knoll and Edsons Ridge. That was on the night of September 13, when the Japanese launched a terrific counter-offensive to regain control of Henderson airport. That attack failed. On September 15 replacement companies of marines landed on Guadalcanal to reinforce the marines who had been there since August 7. More battles ensued, among them the historic battles of the Matanikau river.

The boys in this book played their part in history. Here are their stories.

THE AUTHORS

For their kind permission to reprint some of the material in these pages the authors wish to thank the editors of Hillman Publications and The New York Journal-American. They also wish to acknowledge their indebtedness to the men whose stories appear in this book, and to Captain John H. Breiel, Captain Everett C. Callow, Captain Norman H. White, and Sergeant Frank Harrington of the United States Marine Corps for their invaluable co-operation.

JASPER LUCAS is thirty, and hails from Nichols (pop. 300), S. C., a sleepy farming village where they grow their Marines ruddy-faced, slow-spoken, and tough. Stocky, unexcitable, hes seen a lot of action since he signed up with the Marine Corps in Savannah, Ga., three years ago. He was attached to the 9,375 ton U.S.S. Quincy, and was aboard her when she engaged in a hell-and-thunder close-range battle with, a Japanese naval and air force and was sunk in enemy action in the Solomons.

August 7, 1942 . Four A.M. Im on the heavy cruiser U.S.S. Quincy , bearing down on Guadalcanal. The U.S. Marines are to land at 9 A.M.zero hourand our job is to guard their transports and landing boats, cover them as they hit the beach, and take care of whatever Japs show up on sea or in the air. We are thirteen, members of the director crew, charged with plotting the enemys range for our guns below. Captain Fraser is our control officer, a swell egg, red-headed, freckle-faced, and just as steady as can be. Hes wearing headphones and is in direct contact with our five-inch antiaircraft gun batteries, and Smitty, the talker, has his earphones on, too, waiting to relay messages from the chief gunnery officer below.

Five A.M. Were steaming through the darkness. Somewhere up ahead there is Guadalcanal, eighty miles long, twenty-five miles wide, full of jungle and Japs. Were a mite excited. Cant blame us. We dont know if well be met by Jap shore batteries, or what.

Six A.M. Smitty speaks up: Stand by! Thats the order from the main control room. I glue my eyes to my binoculars and wait for Guadalcanal to loom out of the darkness. Then we see it. It looks like the silhouette of a mountain in the distance. Were coming in nearer now, in formation with other ships. Smitty speaks up again, and his voice is a little higher: Open fire!