What Would You Do?- Dachau Liberation Reprisals

In late 1940 and early 1941, when it became likely the United States would be drawn into the war already raging in Europe, a number of National Guard units were activated. Among them was the 45th Infantry Division from the Oklahoma Army National Guard. 

Following months of rigorous training at various stateside army posts, the division participated in their first of four amphibious landings, beginning with Sicily on July 19, 1943. In all, the division served 511 days in combat, fighting their way across Sicily, Italy, France, and Germany, suffering 7,791 casualties, including 1,831 killed in action.

By the end of the war, the 45th Infantry Division became highly regarded by both regular army forces and the enemy for their valiant efforts and fighting abilities. There were however, three war crime incidents that should have blackened that reputation had they not been "swept under the rug." The first two incidents occurred during the Italian Campaign.

On July 14, 1943, the division's 180th Infantry Regiment was tasked with capturing the Biscari airfield in southern Sicily. The fighting was intense, but by 10 am, the Regiment had taken a number of prisoners, including 35 Italians and 2 Germans. Ordered to take the prisoners off the road and question them, Sergeant Horace T. West instead marched them a mile away and personally executed all 37 of them.
 
The second incident also occurred that same day at Biscari airport. Captain John T. Compton, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 180th Infantry Regiment, set off and reached the airfield around 11 am. Immediately they began receiving artillery, mortar, and sniper fire. When the battle ended, 36 Italian soldiers surrendered. Without hesitation, Compton assembled an 11 man firing squad, and on his orders that he "didn't want a man left standing when the firing was done," the firing squad began shooting, killing all of the prisoners. 

Known as the "Biscari massacre," troops of the 180th Infantry killed a total of 73 Italian and two German POWs in those two incidents. 

Both Sgt. West and Capt. Compton were charged with premeditated murder. West was stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment. Later in 1944, his sentence was canceled, and he was restored to active duty and received an honorable discharge at the end of the war. Charged with murdering 36 POWs under his charge, Capt. Compton pleaded not guilty, claiming that he was merely following orders of his division's Commanding General in a speech given to the officers. Four months after the murders, a court-martial panel acquitted him. He was transferred to the division's 179th Infantry Regiment and 16 days later killed in action. 

The third incident occurred in late April 1945, when the 42nd Infantry Division, 45th Infantry Division, and the 20th Armored Division were ordered to liberate the Dachau concentration camp in Munich in southern Germany. 

Two days before the Americans arrived at Dachau, Commandant, SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer (Lieutenant Colonel) Wilhelm Eduard Weiter, began the evacuation of the Dachau concentration camp. Jewish prisoners and Russian POWs, who were considered the most dangerous if they were to be released by the Americans, were the first to be evacuated. Left as acting Commandant was SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer (Lieutenant Colonel), Martin Gottfried Weiss. The next day, April 28, 1945, he and most of the regular guards and administrators also abandoned the camp. With all the top layers of the command gone, the duties of acting Commandant fell to SS-Untersturmfuhrer (Second Lieutenant) Heinrich Wicker, who had been in Dachau for only two days.

When an advance party from the 42nd Division arrived in a jeep on the street that borders the south side of the SS complex, they saw Wicker waiting to surrender the camp under a white flag of truce. Wicker was never heard from or seen again after that day. Several photographs apparently show his dead body and that he was later thrown onto a pile of dead prisoners in the camp crematorium, an ironic end for an SS officer.
 
At the same time, Wicker was surrendering, I Company of the 157th Regiment of the 45th Division was arriving at the railroad gate into the SS camp, on the west side of the complex, almost a mile from the prison enclosure.

There they found thirty-nine boxcars contain over two-thousand skeletal corpses. Brain tissue was splattered on the ground from one of the victims found nearby with a crushed skull. The smell of decaying bodies and human excrement and the sight of naked, emaciated bodies horrified the Americans bringing some to tears while others vomited. Few could control their rage. The boxcars were packed with more than 5,000 Hungarian and Polish Jews, children among them. 

Their journey began at Buchenwald Concentration camp four weeks earlier. With few provisions, almost 2,000 inmates died during the circuitous route that took them from Thuringia through Saxony to Czechoslovakia and into Bavaria. Their bodies were left behind in various locations throughout Germany. They had died of hunger, of thirst, of suffocation from too many people in each small boxcar, or being beaten by the guards. There was even evidence of cannibalism. There was also evidence that some of the prisoners had died when the train was strafed by American planes en route to Dachau.
 
Four unfortunate SS men near one of the boxcars surrender to Lt. William Walsh, commander of I Company, 157th Regiment. Walsh shot them dead. Pvt. Albert Pruitt performed the coup de grace. 

When the advance scouts of the 45th Division and other Allied soldiers entered the compound, one of the German SS officers came forward to surrender with what he believed would be the usual military protocol. He emerged in full regalia, wearing all his decorations. He had only recently been billeted to Dachau from the Russian front. He saluted and barked "Heil Hitler." An American officer looked down and around at mounds of rotting corpses, at thousands of prisoners shrouded in their own filth. He hesitated only a moment, then spat in the Nazi's face, snapping out "Schweinehund" (Swine hound) before ordering him taken away. Moments later, a shot rang out, and the American officer was informed that there was no further need for protocol.

When the main body of American soldiers first entered the camp, eight SS men descended from Tower G, the one closest to the gatehouse, and then surrendered with their hands in the air. Near the base of the tower, all were shot and killed.

About seven SS guards in Tower B also surrendered to the American liberators. They lined up a few steps from the tower when, for reasons unknown, an American guard started shooting, and others followed suit.

Upon moving deeper into the camp's prison area, Americans found more bodies. Some had been dead for hours and days before the camp was captured and laid where they had died. Cement structures contained rooms full of hundreds of naked and barely clothed dead bodies piled floor to ceiling. The stench of death was overpowering. 

After Lt. Walsh and his Native American executive officer, Lt. Jack Bushyhead, entered the camp, they segregated the German prisoners into two groups: Wehrmacht soldiers, who were in the regular German army, and Waffen-SS. The sixty or so SS were marched into a coal yard in the SS complex and lined up against a wall, guarded by an I Company machine gun crew. 

Lt. Col. Felix Sparks, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 157th Regiment, which included I Company, observed the guarded German SS prisoners for a minute or two, then turned to head towards the center of the camp where there were SS who had not yet surrendered; he had only gone a short distance when he heard a soldier frantically yelling and then machine gunfire. He immediately ran backfiring his pistol in the air while holding up his arm to signal to stop firing. He then kicked the gunner off the machine gun with his boot, grabbing his by his collar, shouting, "What the hell are you doing?" The gunner, 19-year-old Pvt. William Curtin, cried hysterically, "They were trying to get away." About 12-15 Germans lay dead with several others wounded. Sparks, doubting the story, placed an NCO on the gun before resuming his journey towards the center of the camp. 

Following the freeing of inmates, some U.S. soldiers gave handguns and their implicit blessings as they stood around watching as 25-50 captured Germans were killed in retaliation for their horrific and deadly treatment in the camp. Many of the German soldiers beaten or killed by the inmates were done so with clubs, shovels, stones, and bare fists. Some guards who had changed their uniforms for camp clothing were lynched on the spot along with former Kapos (fellow inmates who collaborated with the SS).

The irony in all this was most of the camp's regular guards had already left the camp with SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Martin Gottfried Weiss the day before. The Waffen-SS men who had outranged the Americans had just been transferred from the Russian front only days before to assist in the surrender of the camp to the western Allies. But they didn't have anything to do with Dachau's horrors and their deaths in an unthinkable bloodlust. Their deaths only served to disgrace their American executioner.

Immediately after Dachau's liberation, U.S. Army authorities and other Allied representatives began treating the sick prisoners, implementing health and sanitary measures to curb the typhus epidemic, and bringing in tons of food to feed the starving prisoners. The local townspeople were brought in to give the dead prisoners a proper burial.

Some of the bodies of the SS soldiers who were killed during the liberation of Dachau are believed to have been buried on the grounds of the SS garrison. Other bodies were burned in the crematorium at Dachau. 

Following the liberation of Dachau, Lt. Col. Joseph Whitaker, the Seventh Army's Assistant Inspector General, was ordered to conduct an investigation of what was now being called the "Dachau massacre." The lengthy investigation resulted in much confusion as eyewitnesses being questioned had seen things from different perspectives and from separate parts of the large camp. While some of the Americans responsible for the killings were identified, most others were not.

The principle among the unanswered question was the exact number of SS guards killed during the liberation of Dachau or by whom. Investigators attributed this to the chaos during the liberation and the enormous euphoria afterward, making it near impossible for those present to give a uniform description of the events. The fact that the accounts of U.S. eyewitnesses differ is apparent in the difference between the 560 victims that Col. Howard A. Buechner, the chief medical officer of the 45th Infantry Division, mentioned and the 30 to 50 according to Lt. Col. Sparks. There is ample evidence that proves that guards were killed, a fact that never was denied by the American soldiers that were involved. However, it was certainly never proved that 560 guards were murdered in cold blood. 

Col. Charles Decker, Acting Deputy Judge Advocate, concluded that while there had probably been a violation of international law wrote: "In light of the conditions which greeting the eyes of the first combat troops, it is not believed that justice or equity demand that the difficult and perhaps impossible task of fixing individual responsibility now be undertaken." He further wrote that many U.S. soldiers may have been set on edge by warnings of potential fake-surrender gambits. He then went off the rails with the discovery of emaciated dead bodies around the place, particularly the 39 boxcar "death train." 

No U.S. soldiers were prosecuted for the war crimes committed at Dachau, including the 3rd Battalion, 157th Regiment Commander, Lt. Col. Sparks, who had been accused of dereliction of duty. The affair had been "swept under the carpet" by General George S. Patton, much in the same way he had tried to do with the war crimes in Sicily in 1943. Certainly, this was not a wise decision, for it contributed to the large controversy around this subject.

One unexpected finding of the investigation had to do with 2nd Lt. Wicker. It was his heroic act in accepting responsibility for surrendering the Dachau camp to the American Army, that the liberation of Dachau could have been even more of a bloody disaster than it was. The Commandant and the regular guards had abandoned the camp the day before. If Wicker had not stayed behind to post his group as replacement guards to keep the prisoners inside until the Americans arrived to take charge, there might have been even more carnage with the prisoners roaming the countryside and taking revenge on innocent German citizens. 

The guards and staff who survived the massacre at the liberation of Dachau were put on trial by the American Military Tribunal held at Dachau. All were convicted of participating in a common design to violate the Laws and Usages of War under the Geneva Convention of 1929. 

SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer (Lieutenant Colonel) Martin Gottfried Weiss was tried during the Dachau Trials beginning November 13, 1945. After being found guilty of "violating the laws and usages of war," he was executed by hanging at Landsberg prison on May 29, 1946. SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Wilhelm Eduard Weiter did not face trial as he fled Dachau immediately before its liberation and made it to Austria, where he died in mysterious circumstances, possibly being killed by a fellow SS member angry at his lack of ideological convictions. 

The investigation report on the slaughter of the German soldiers at Dachau was marked SECRET on June 8, 1945, which has since been made public (1991) and is included in the Appendix of a book written by Col. John H. Linden, the son of Brig. Gen. Henning Linden, who accepted the surrender of the camp.

For a complete summary report on what happened at Dachau on April 29, 1944, please go to:
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/DachauLiberation/SoldiersKilled.html

Battle Chronicles- Midway and Guadalcanal

There is some debate on the turning point of the war in the Pacific Theatre. Some historians believe the Allied victory at the Battle of Midway was the defining moment, followed by aggressive island-hopping all the way to the Japanese homeland. Others view Midway as the tipping point in the war where the initiative hung in the balance only to swing toward the Allies following its major victory in the Guadalcanal campaign. According to many other historians, however, the turning point of the war in the Pacific resulted from the two battles combined. They point out that the Battle of Midway inflicted such permanent damage on the Japanese Navy that when the Battle of Guadalcanal began two months later, they did not have enough resources to hold onto the island or to take it back once the U.S. Marines had landed. Together, these two victories ended major Japanese expansion in the Pacific, allowing the Americans and its allies to take the offensive.

Battle of Midway

In the months following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the Japanese drove the Americans out of the Philippines, Guam and Wake Island; the British out of British Malaya, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Burma; and the Dutch out of the East Indies. 

The Japanese then began to expand into the Western Pacific, occupying many islands in an attempt to build a defensive ring around their conquests and threaten the lines of communication from the United States to Australia and New Zealand. Emboldened by its rapid and successful victories, the Japanese high command prepared to deal one more decisive blow to the U.S. Naval forces in the Pacific by destroying the U.S. aircraft carriers that had escaped the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor and to occupy Midway; a tiny but strategically important island nearly halfway between Asia and North America that was home to a U.S. Naval Air Station. 

The Japanese also intended to occupy Midway as part of an overall plan to extend their defensive perimeter in response to the Doolittle air raid on Tokyo. This operation was also considered preparatory for further attacks against Fiji, Samoa, and Hawaii itself.

Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku, Japanese fleet commander, hoped to draw out the American fleet, calculating that when the United States began its counterattack, the Japanese would eliminate the United States as a strategic power in the Pacific, giving Japan a free hand in establishing its superiority over other Asian races in a program known as the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Japanese also anticipated that another demoralizing defeat would force the U.S. to capitulate in the Pacific War and thus ensure Japanese dominance in the Pacific.

Instead, and unknown to Japanese planners, American intelligence had broken the Japanese fleet codes, enabling Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Chester W. Nimitz to pinpoint the date and location of the attack allowing him to prepare his own ambush by placing available U.S. carriers in position to surprise the unsuspecting Japanese.

On June 3, 1942, the crucial and decisive naval Battle of Midway began and since the two adversaries were never within sight of each other, all attacks were carried out by carrier-based or land-based aircraft. Over the next five days, aircraft launched from Midway Atoll and from carriers of both navies flew hundreds of miles, dropping torpedoes and bombs and fighting one another in the skies. 

By June 7, 1942, victory belonged to the Pacific Fleet which had inflicted devastating damage on the Japanese fleet that proved irreparable, solidly checking Japanese momentum.

The Americans sank four fleet carriers - all part of the six-carrier force that had attacked Pearl Harbor six months earlier. They were the Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, and Hiryu, with 322 aircraft and over five thousand sailors. The Japanese also lost the heavy cruiser Mikuma. At the end of several days of fighting, the Japanese Navy suffered 3,057 deaths. American losses included the sinking of the USS Hornet aircraft carrier, the USS Hamman destroyer and the downing of 147 aircraft resulting in 307 deaths total.

The Allies' overwhelming victory at Midway paved the way for the landings on Guadalcanal just two months later and the prolonged attrition of the Solomon Islands campaign, both of which finally allowed the Allies to take the strategic initiative and move onto the offensive for the rest of the Pacific War. 

Battle of Guadalcanal

Guadalcanal - a 2,500-square-mile speck of jungle in the Solomon Islands - lies to the north-eastern approaches of Australia. Though it is a humid and jungle-covered tropical island, its position made it strategically important for both sides. If the Japanese captured the island, they could cut off the sea route between Australia and America. If the Americans controlled the island, they would be better able to protect Australia from the Japanese invasion and they could also protect the Allied build-up in Australia that would act as a springboard for major assaults against Japanese installations elsewhere in the Pacific.

Although both the Japanese and Americans understood occupying Guadalcanal was critically and strategically important, it was the Japanese that got there first on June 8, 1942. Their goal was to build an airfield at Lunga Point and artillery positions in the hills nearby to protect the airfield. By August, 8,400 Japanese troops were on the island with more arriving each week.

On August 7th, the 1st Marine Division achieved complete tactical surprise when they landed on Guadalcanal, supported by the most powerful amphibious force ever assembled: three carriers providing air support  - the USS Saratoga, USS Wasp, and USS Enterprise. The rest of the task force consisted of the battleship USS North Carolina and 24 other support ships. Five cruisers from America and Australia guarded the actual landing craft that gathered off of Tenaru on Guadalcanal. Expecting major Japanese defense, they found nothing.

As they advanced inland towards Lunga Point where the airfield was being built, the island's hot and humid jungle climate quickly took its toll on Marines carrying heavy equipment. The climate also did a great deal to affect radios and radio communication between those advancing inland and those on the beach. Regardless of these issues, the Americans made no contact with the Japanese and for the first 24 hours, there was no fighting on Guadalcanal.

However, though the first 24 hours on Guadalcanal were relatively painless for the Americans, this was not so for the Marines who landed at nearby islands that lay to the north of Guadalcanal: Tulagi, Gavutu and Tanambogo. The Americans needed to control these as this would allow them to oversee the Nggela Channel that separated Guadalcanal from Florida Island, north of it. The landings were fiercely resisted by the Japanese Navy troops who, outnumbered and outgunned by the Allied forces, fought and died almost to the last man. 

At Tulagi, the landing by 1st Raider Battalion under Lieutenant Colonel Merritt Edson, and the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines was not easy as Japanese resistance was stiff and ferocious from the very beginning. Nevertheless, the Marines fought tenaciously and relentlessly for the next 24 hours and by the end of the day of August 9, they had crushed the last pockets of resistance. The most vicious and brutal part of the Battle of Tulagi was the assault on Hill 280, which took place on August 8. After pounding the Japanese positions on top of Hill 280 with mortar fire, the Americans assaulted the last positions, using improvised explosive charges to kill the Japanese defenders. Marine casualties were 122 killed, 200 wounded at Tulagi. The Japanese suffered 863 killed, 20 taken prisoner - most of who were Korean laborers.

The assault on Gavutu by the U.S. Marine 1st Parachute Battalion's 397 men. As the American naval bombardment had damaged the seaplane ramp, the Marines were forced to land in a more exposed location on a nearby small beach and as soon as they set foot on the beach Japanese machine guns opened fire on them inflicting heavy casualties, killing or wounding one in ten of the landing Marines as they scrambled inland in an attempt to get out of the deadly fire. Moving inland, Marines methodically blew up the caves, explosives destroying most of them. The few surviving Japanese conducted isolated attacks throughout the night, with hand to hand engagements occurring. By noon on August 9, all Japanese resistance had been crushed. In the battle for Gavutu and Tanambogo, 476 Japanese defenders and 70 U.S. Marines or naval personnel were killed in action.

This was a sign of what was to come during the six month Battle of Guadalcanal. 

The Americans arrived at the Japanese airfield under construction on Guadalcanal late on August 8th. Once again, there were no Japanese; they had fled into the jungle. But the Japanese Navy still controlled the sea around Guadalcanal and during the night of August 8/9, a Japanese cruiser force attacked the Allied naval force and forced it to withdraw, leaving the Marines on their own as Japanese ships and aircraft fired on them. In spite of all the firepower coming their way, U.S. Navy Seabees began finishing the airfield begun by the Japanese. It was then named Henderson Field after a Marine aviator killed in combat during the Battle of Midway. Marine, Army, Navy and allied aircraft operated from Henderson Field within a couple of days. Each day they took off bombing and strafing known Japanese positions throughout the island and attacking any Japanese ships that ventured into the vicinity. The photo shows Navy plane that was destroyed by Japanese fire.

During this time, the Marine began patrolling in the Matanikau Valley, engaging in frequent battles and scrimmages with the Japanese with mixed results. In response, Gen. Harukichi Hyakutake, commander of the Japanese 17th Army at Rabaul, began shipping more troops to the island hoping to turn the tide of battle in their favor.

The first of these, under Colonel Kiyonao Ichiki, landed at Taivu Point on August 19, 1942. Advancing west, his forces attacked the Marines early on August 21 and were repulsed with heavy losses at the Battle of the Tenaru. The Japanese directed additional reinforcements to the area which resulted in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Though the battle was a draw, it forced Rear Admiral Raizo Tanaka's reinforcement convoys to turn back. Col. Ichiki, whose shame of defeat was too unbearable, committed Hari Kari to restore his honor in death.

Having built up sufficient strength, Major General Kiyotake Kawaguchi attacked the Allied position at Lunga Ridge, south of Henderson Field, on September 12, 1942. In two nights of brutal fighting, the Marines held, forcing the Japanese to retreat. 

By early October the Marines inflicted heavy losses on the Japanese and delayed their next offensive against the Lunga perimeter.

On October 13, 1942, the 164th Infantry, the first Army unit on Guadalcanal, came ashore to reinforce the Marines and took a 6,600-yard sector at the east end of the American perimeter. On November 4th, they fought 1,500 Japanese troops that landed on the beach at Koli Point. They killed half the Japanese force. The rest escaped into the jungle. 

The ground fighting was fierce but the Allies eventually repelled the Japanese and secured the six miles between the airbase and the shore. However, the Japanese still had a naval advantage and the sea battles were not going well for the Allies.

In mid-November, the U.S. Navy fought the Japanese when they attempted a major reinforcement of troops. In this four-day battle, the U.S. Navy foiled the reinforcement effort, and only 4,000 of 10,000 Japanese troops reached land. 

After this battle, the American troops pushed on in an effort to take Mount Austen. Thrashing through the jungle toward Mount Austen, they faced heavy fire from Japanese troops. Upon reaching Mount Austen they began their two-pronged attack on the stronghold at Gifu, securing most of the Gifu area and the west slopes of the mountain. Overall, between 400 and 500 Japanese troops died, and over 100 American troops died in the effort to take Mount Austen.

By the end of January 1943, the Americans had taken the Japanese headquarters at Kokumbona on the island. With their headquarters fallen and numerous Japanese soldiers taking refuge in the island's jungle, Japan effected a stealth evacuation of the island, completed on February 8, 1943.

While fighting was vicious during the six months of the Battle of Guadalcanal, Japan suffered the most casualties. Of a total of 31,400 soldiers deployed, the Japanese lost 14,800 soldiers killed from fighting and another 9,000 soldiers from tropical diseases. About 1,000 Japanese soldiers were taken prisoner. But by far the most significant loss for the Japanese was the decimation of their elite group of naval aviators. 

The United States lost 1,592 troops killed of the almost 60,000 soldiers deployed, and 4,183 were wounded. Thousands more were disabled by tropical diseases like malaria. 

 Japan after Guadalcanal no longer had a realistic hope of withstanding the counteroffensive of an increasingly powerful the United States funneled to the island as a series of land and sea clashes unfolded, and both sides endured heavy losses to their warship contingents. 

Operationally, the Battle of Guadalcanal was notable for the interrelationship of a series of complex engagements on the ground, at sea, and in the air. Tactically, what stood out was the resolve and resourcefulness of the U.S. Marines, whose tenacious defense of Henderson Field enabled the Americans to secure air superiority.

Strategically, the Allied victory at this battle ended Japanese air and naval superiority in the Pacific and was the first step in what became an unrelenting march against the Japanese. 

Although many bitter battles were still to be fought before the end of the war in August 1945, the Battle of Midway and Guadalcanal became major turning points in the war as it stopped Japanese expansion and opened the way for U.S. victory in the South Pacific. 

As for Guadalcanal and Tulagi, they were developed into major bases supporting the Allied advance further up the Solomon Islands chain. In addition to Henderson Field, two additional fighter runways were constructed at Lunga Point and a bomber airfield was built at Koli Point. 

Extensive naval port and logistics facilities were established at Guadalcanal, Tulagi, and Florida. The anchorage around Tulagi became an important advanced base for Allied warships and transport ships supporting the Solomon Islands campaign, culminating in the often bitter fighting of the Bougainville Campaign, which continued until the end of the war in August 1945 when the last Japanese on the island surrendered.

Battle of Sugar Loaf Hill Okinawa

My uncle James M. Barrett was a World War II Marine. He was born in Nov. 1923 in Minnesota. He had a promising career as a welterweight boxer until his country's call became too loud. On January 18th, 1943, he reported for duty with the United States Marine Corps. He went through recruit training in San Diego, Calif. and on May 1st was sent to Sitka, Alaska, and in October to Attu, Alaska. The Army had finished cleaning the Japanese off the island, and he drew guard duty for the winter. 

The battles in the Pacific had taken their toll, and the Marine Corps needed more men for the fighting. My uncle was sent to Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif. for additional infantry training in May 1944. On December 27th, he, and many others, embarked on a troopship for Guadalcanal, where the Sixth Marine Division was being formed. The replacements were given additional training and assigned to their units. Uncle Jim was assigned to George Co. 22nd Marines. The Division loaded on ships on March 14th, 1945, and sailed to Ulithi Atoll, Caroline Islands. Uncle Jim and George Co. were then moved to USS Brewster County (LST-483) and sailed March 25th to Okinawa Shima, Ryukyu Islands. In the top bunk on the right in this photo is Uncle Jim talking to famed journalist Ernie Pyle.
                            
On April 1st, the division landed on Okinawa, moved across the island to cut it in half, and then moved north. The Marines were assigned to clear the northern part of the island; the Army was assigned to clear the southern part. Their advance moved steadily north, routing the Japanese forces that materialized, but never encountering strong resistance. After twenty days, the Sixth Marine Division was ordered south to "rescue" the Army. Uncle Jim and the Marines of George Company were not happy. They thought they had done their part, but orders were orders, so they headed south.
                     
Moving south toward Naha, the capital city of Okinawa, the 6th Marine Division approached the Asa Kawa River. A 45-man patrol crossed the river and moved up a low ridge when they took increasingly heavy fire. Two men were killed when the patrol leader decided it was time to leave the area. When the combat patrol leader was debriefed at Division headquarters, he let it be known that a frontal assault on such a well-fortified position should not be attempted. When Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, the 10th Army commander, was notified of the delay, he told Marine Division commander, Maj. Gen. Lemuel Shepherd Jr, to continue the advance. Shepherd argued for an amphibious assault to the rear of the Japanese defense line, but his proposal was rejected by Bolivar. That refusal led to a controversy that has continued to this day.

On May 12th, 1945, to the Division's front lay a low, loaf-shaped hill. It looked no different from other hills seized with relative ease over the past few days. But "Sugar Loaf Hill" as it became known, was undeniably different. It was a key point in the Japanese defensive line of a complex of three hills holding the western anchor of General Mitsuru Ushijima's Shuri Line, which stretched from coast to coast across the island. Sugar Loaf Hill was critical to the defense of that line, preventing U.S. forces from turning the Japanese flank. 

George Company, 22nd Marines, were assigned the first assault on the 50 foot high, 300-yard long hill on the morning of May 12th, 1945. The higher-ups did not think the hill would require more than a company of men and a platoon of tanks to secure. The assault was to begin at 0730. Unknown to higher headquarters, however, was Sugar Loaf Hill was defended by a large Japanese force manning 25 sophisticated defenses, supported by heavy firepower in all directions.

Capt. Owen Stebbins was reforming his platoons and evacuating casualties when the jump-off time arrived, but the tanks had not shown up, so he had his scouts moved forward, while waiting for the tanks. At 0807, the tanks arrived, and the men of George Co. moved forward. Lt. Robert Nealon's 2nd Platoon and Lt. Ed Reuss's 1st Platoon (I believe my uncle was in 1st Platoon, but he never spoke of this day, so it is speculation on my part) began taking fire from the Shuri heights to their east. As the men moved forward, more enemy guns opened up. The men used the tanks to silence the machine guns, but casualties were being taken at an alarming rate.
 
As the Marines were moving up the slope, the Japanese began rolling grenades down on them. Lt. Ruess asked Capt. Stebbins for tank support. Some of his men were on the hill but trapped. Lt. Ruess thought his Platoon could move forward with the help of a tank. A little later in the day Lt. Ruess would be hit three times in the legs while drawing machine-gun fire so his men could eliminate enemy positions. He died a couple of days later in the Division's 6th Medical Battalion. Lt. Ruess was awarded the Silver Star (Posthumously). Capt. Stebbins was also hit in the legs during the morning assault. He would survive. George Company would try again later that day. Still, it would take 11 repeated assaults on Sugar Loaf Hill by the 22nd Marine Regiment, the 29th Marine Regiment, and the 4th Marine Regiment before the hill was taken on May 18th, 1945.

Thousands of men were lost to death, wounds, and combat fatigues. My uncle was also shot in the leg that terrible day. He said he was flown to Saipan, where on May 21st, with his leg in increasingly bad condition, it was amputated.

Two days later, the Japanese mounted a tenacious battalion-sized counterattack in an effort to regain their lost position, but the Marines held. 

My uncle went home to Minnesota, married, started a family, and used the G.I. Bill to go to college and become an accountant for a small Company known as Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, or 3M. I always saw him on crutches or hopping around on one leg. He said, he could not stand the fake legs the V.A. tried to give him. In 2003, one of the last times I saw him, he walked up to me and said, "The G*# D*&% V.A. finally came up with a leg I can wear comfortably." He passed in 2005. I do not know if he ever knew the inspiration he was to me, but he was the main reason I joined the United States Marine Corps. 

The information for the facts of this story came from, "Killing Ground on Okinawa, the battle for Sugar Loaf Hill" by James H. Hallas. And some of the things my Uncle Jim related to me over the years. In this emotionally compelling account of the fierce fight, Hallas chronicles the extraordinary courage and tactical skills of the 6th Marine Division's junior officers and enlisted men as they captured a network of sophisticated Japanese defenses on Sugar Loaf Hill while under heavy artillery fire from surrounding hills. 

To give human dimensions to the story, the author draws on his many interviews with participants and skillfully weaves together their individual stories of the sustained close-quarter fighting that claimed more than 2,000 Marine casualties. Pushed to their physical and moral limits during eleven attempts to capture the fifty-foot-high, 300-yard-long hill, the Marines proved their uncommon valor to be a common virtue, and this detailed record of their courage and commitment assures them a permanent place in history.

Battle footage and commentary on the taking of Sugar Loaf Hill:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t19rs7sQvfA

Military Facts and Legends Cathay Williams: Slave to Buffalo Soldier

Tensions between the North and the South over states' rights versus federal authority, westward expansion and slavery were formed early in the nation's history and eventually came to a head in the late 1850s, early 1860s when these smoldering tensions exploded into the American Civil War in early April 1861, becoming America's bloodiest that would determine the survival of the Union or independence for the Confederacy.

For years prior to the outbreak of the war, Union forces occupied many parts of the South as well as states bordering the South. One such border state where Union soldiers were stationed was Missouri, an independent state that sent men, armies, generals, and supplies to both opposing sides, had its star on both flags, had separate governments representing each side, and endured a neighbor-against-neighbor intrastate war within the larger national war. On the issue of slavery, most of the population was in favor of preserving it. But as the war went on, views on slavery in Missouri changed, much as they did in the rest of the country. It became clear that slavery would not survive the war. In the meantime, however, slaves were considered contraband by the Federal forces, and able-bodied ones were pressed into service supporting the U.S. military.

Among the slaves put into service was 17-year-old Cathay Williams, a house servant from a nearby plantation on the outskirts of Jefferson City, Missouri. She traveled with an infantry regiment through many states as cook and washerwoman, and was present at the Battle of Pea Ridge, the Red River Campaign, and served briefly under General Philip Sheridan. She was working at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, when the bloody war ended when Gen. Ulysses S. Grant accepted Gen. Robert E. Lee's surrender at the McLean House in Appomattox, Virginia, on May 9, 1865. The long, painful process of rebuilding a united nation free of slavery began. 

For the freed slaves, however, it introduced a new and unfamiliar crisis: employment opportunities, which were scarce for many African-Americans, especially in the South. Many of them looked to military service, where they could earn not only steady pay but also education, health care, and a pension. Cathay Williams had a cousin and a friend who enlisted, and she decided that in order to earn a living, she would enlist too.

Women were prohibited from serving in the military at that time, so Cathay disguised herself as a man and switched her first and last names, using the pseudonym William Cathay. Cathay was tall at 5'9" and somehow passed the physical exam on November 15, 1866. Apparently, it was superficial, at best since attending physician missed the male appendage necessary for service.

Declared fit for duty, she was assigned to Company A of the 38th Infantry, one of four all-black units newly formed that year. Only her cousin and her friend, who were enlisted in the same regiment, knew her secret. Orders soon came down, transferring the troops to the western war arena, where they would join the Army's fight with the Indians.

Cathay's military career was short-lived. She contracted smallpox soon after enlisting and was frequently hospitalized in the following years. During all these hospitalizations, her gender was never discovered. Finally, in October of 1868 - almost two years after she enlisted -,, the post surgeon discovered she was a woman and informed her commanding officer.

Cathay was immediately given a disability discharge. Her commanding officer, Captain Charles E. Clarke, stated that Cathay was "feeble both physically and mentally, and much of the time unfit for duty. The origin of his infirmities is unknown to me."

At the time, she had been stationed in New Mexico territory, so she went to work as a cook in Fort Union, New Mexico, under her original name. She briefly married, but the Union ended when he stole her money and horses, and she had him arrested. Later she moved to Trinidad, Colorado, where she became known as Kate Williams. She subsisted on odd jobs as a cook, laundress, and seamstress.

Cathay's poor health continued suffering from neuralgia (at the time a catch-all term for various illnesses) and diabetes. She had several toes amputated due to diabetes, forcing her to use a crutch to get around. She also spoke of suffering from rheumatism and deafness. In 1891, at the age of 47, she applied for a disability pension for her military service. After examining her, the doctor decided she didn't qualify for disability payments, and her application was rejected.

It's unknown exactly when Cathay died. She's not listed in the 1900 census for Trinidad, Colorado. Given her poor health and the fact that she was probably having a hard time financially since she applied for a pension, it's probable that she died sometime between 1892 and 1900.

There's no way to know how many women posed as men to enlist during the American Civil War, but it's been estimated in the hundreds. Many were never discovered, and some were found out only because they required hospital treatments. Cathay is one of the very few women whose enlistment was well-documented. She was a woman simply trying to earn a living in a difficult time, never knowing she was making a mark on history as the only documented female Buffalo Soldier, and as the only documented African-American woman who served in the U.S. Army prior to the 1948 law, which officially allowed women to join the Army.

Ode to Freedom

First there was Al-Qaeda;
Their way of life - just wars.
They hide behind their Prophet, 
But really; they're just whores!

Next we charge the 'Baghdad', 
With half a plan in place.
The weapons are less merciful; 
A nightmare we will face!

Not once! Not twice! Not three times!
The soldiers must return!
The chances of survival get less;
They soon will learn.

Our effort won their freedom, 
Now they can freely choose.
But the 'grayheads' needed votes at home;
And pulled the troops too soon.

Now we face the 'ISIS';
Our leaders said "no threat!"
What were the 'grayheads' thinking!? 
"More lives!" the families fret.

It's time to draw the gauntlet! 
It's time to avenge the dead!
It's time to kill the Anti-Christ! 
It's time to crush the head!

This time will it be different? 
When there is no more need;
Will those who fought and sacrificed 
Be hailed for their deed?

To those!

Epilogue:
And millions of Americans
May never understand
How answering your country's call
Could ever leave you damned!

 - Mike Orlando Jr
U.S. Air Force 1963-1967