First-Hand Account, Ebeye Island

Action at the Pigpen

by: Lt.Col. S.L. A. Marshall

While on Ennylobegan Island, Kwajelein Atoll, Marshall Islands, Lt. Col. Albert Hartl, of the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry, received orders that they were to attack Ebeye Island the following day, 2 February 1944

The mile-long 250-yard wide target island was battered throughout the day by naval gunfire and air strikes.  In the afternoon, Major Maynard Weaver reconnoitered it first from the deck of a destroyer and then from a naval observation plane.  He was over the island for 2 hours… Weaver noticed that there were heavy concrete structures and fire trenches still in good condition…

There was no sudden, sharp hail of bullets.  By squads and by little groups, they heard the warning zing-zing-zing overhead or saw something rip through the foliage above them…  Company C, when the men went to the earth, they could not see one another.  No man knew where the next man lay on his right or left.

Ebeye Island being shelled, 1944

Along the lagoon, a half-squad advancing up the beach speeded ahead with no interruption and outdistanced the men on their right.  The other half became echeloned toward the rear as enemy machine-gun fire, came from a blockhouse… they went to the earth just inside the tree-line.  It was a fateful pause, for there the Japanese artillery found them.  These things contributed to the stretching of the line.

The tankers said they were taking orders only from the battalion commander.  The tanks remained in place while there was a hot argument.  During the debate, Privates Gerald Draughn and Edward Hodge, who were handling the bazooka, were ordered to move up to an advanced position and fire at a shelter beyond the blockhouse.  Draughn’s second [rocket] hit fair at the entrance.  He was ready to fire a third when he saw 2 Japs charging him.  He yelled, “Get ’em, Hodge!”

One BAR man, Pvt. James Gatlin, had carried on a one-man mop-up campaign during the 1st phase of fighting, working over every debris pile at close range with his weapon.  As the day wore on past noon, the fires still blazed about the island, but a strong wind from the east was whipping the smoke to the lagoon side.  They were through shooting for the day.

The 2nd Platoon advanced perhaps 125 yards when along the shoulder of the beach they saw a Jap caliber .50 air-cooled gun to the left.  The gun pointed in the direction of the morning landings…  The tank had passed on beyond the gun…  Sgt. Roger Horning crawled up to within about ten feet of the gun and fired one round from his M-1 into the magazine.  The gun blew up.

Kwajalein Atoll

Some of the men covered him as he crawled up to the pit and looked in.  He was face-to-face with a live Jap who blinked at him.  It scared the living hell out of Horning.  He recoiled back into a shell hole while throwing a grenade.  It came back at him.  The grenade was a dud.

[Two BAR men finally took care of the enemy soldier, but this was the beginning of the spider holes on the island.]

That was the way it went.  The holes were everywhere.  Each one had to be searched from up close.  Every spot where a man might be hiding had to be stabbed out.

[After the 3rd Platoon moved up.]  Lt. Blue noticed the men had already started to hit and hole and then skip one.  The man ahead of him stepped across a palm frond patch and kept moving.  Blue yelled: “Godammit, what are you doing!  There may be a Jap in there.”  From underneath, a hand reached up reaching for a rifle.  Blue shot at the hand, hit the knuckles and it blew the man backwards.  Two more slugs went into him.

It was here that SSgt. Pete Deini noticed the men weren’t behaving right.  He could feel it.  He began talking and kept talking as he moved from group to group showing them how it [spider holes] had to be done.  Still, the spider holes confronted the left of the line.  Deini again led the way through them, working 4x harder as any other and talking the entire time.

[On Ennylobegan Island, Deini had accidentally shot a fellow soldier while handling a Japanese pistol.  He was told it was his job to make up for that loss in the unit.  They were to find out later that the Medical Corps was able to save him and he went on to continue fighting.]

Condensed from: Island Victory, published by The Infantry Journal.

Click on images to enlarge.

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Military Humor – 

 

 

 

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Farewell Salutes – 

Pegg Bailey London, ENG; British Women’s Army, WWII

Roscoe Brown – Riverdale, NY; US Army Air Corps, WWII, Tuskegee Cmdr. 100th Fighter Sq/332nd Group

Edward DuBeck – Philadelphia, PA; USMC, WWII, PTO, D & A Co’s/1/24th Marines

Clark McIntire, Jr. – Portland, ME; US Navy, Cuban Missile Crisis, USS Saufley (DD-465)

Kenneth Miller – Ruskin, FL; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, 187th Reg/11th Airborne Division

John Moser – Whitefish Bay, WI; US Navy, WWII & Korea, Cmdr.

Ernesto Santoro Sr. – New Haven, CT; US Navy, WWII, Chief Petty Officer

Morris Turner – Aiken, SC; US Army Air Corps, WWII, ETO, 8th AAC/ Korea, Lt.Col. (Ret. 26 years)

George Whalen – Hillsboro, IL; US Navy, WWII, Chief Metalsmith

Roldan Vigil – San Francisco, CA; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO

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