University of Virginia Library

XV
Island-Hopping Across the Pacific

Because of their imperialistic dreams and the imperative needs of
their then embarrased Axis partner Germany, the Japanese struck at
Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The devastation wrought there
included ten ships sunk, six damaged, most of the Army and Navy
planes destroyed, 2,117 men killed, 1,272 wounded, and 960 missing.
Among those killed were Staff Sergeant James Merritt Barksdale of
Crozet, Corporal Emmett Edlee Morris of Charlottesville, and Chief
Petty Officer Alwyn Berry Norvelle of Covesville. Barksdale, who
had served in the Army Air Corps since 1936, lost his life when
Wheeler Field was bombed. Morris, who had been in the Army six
years, died at Hickam Field. Norvelle, who had been in the Navy
thirteen years, was attached to the USS Nevada.[1]

After the last wave of bombers from the Land of the Rising Sun
flew over Pearl Harbor, American Army and Navy officers dispatched
fliers to seek out the enemy carriers and attack them. Among those fliers
was Phillip Hansen, son of the sculptor Oskar Hansen of “Pantops.”
Hansen discovered units of the Japanese fleet, though no mention was
ever made of it in the communiques. The planes flew low and
dropped their bombs, but Japanese antiaircraft knocked out one of
Hansen's motors and the plane crashed. Together with four of the
crew Hansen managed to climb aboard one of the damaged wings
which, thanks to an empty fuel tank, sustained their weight. For
nine interminable days they floated in the water until a Navy patrol
plane picked them up and took them to Pago Pago. They arrived
there during a Japanese attack but landed safely in spite of the fact
that their plane was hit. When it was found impossible to make
necessary repairs at the place where the plane landed, her crew taxied
on the surface of the ocean to another port. Hansen's father, who
had seen service with the French Foreign Legion as well as action in
World War I, observed, “That is really living life. That is the way
I have lived and now the boy is surpassing his dad.”[2]

Ensign E. H. Parrot. a former Charlottesville boy, was aboard a
torpedo boat at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked. Then a

Machinist's Mate, his first assignment in the war was to pursue a
two-man submarine which had stolen into the harbor.[3]

In salvage operations at Pearl Harbor Gunner's Mate Third Class
Richard L. Haley of Charlottesville made numerous dives inside and
alongside damaged and submerged vessels under difficult and hazardous
conditions. For his courage and skill he was commended by
Rear Admiral William R. Furlong.[4]

On the other side of the Pacific the Japanese attacked the Philippines,
where General Douglas MacArthur's small force was from the
beginning doomed to fight a losing battle. Prior to the war Commander
Joseph L. Yon of the Naval Medical Corps had been stationed
at the Naval Hospital at Cavite. His wife, a daughter of Dr. W. Dan
Haden of Charlottesville, and his children were evacuated from the
Philippines in 1940. When war broke out Commander Yon, then a
lieutenant, was attached to the tanker Pecos. She was bombed continuously
as she left burning Manila and headed for Java. In Java,
already under attack from the Japanese, Lieutenant Yon assisted the
famous Dr. Corydon M. Wassell in caring for injured from the cruisers
USS Marblehead and USS Houston. Some of these injured were
evacuated from the besieged island and taken aboard the Pecos, which
again set out to sea. It was not long before the survivors of the old
USS Langley were sighted and taken aboard. Some miles south of
Java these ill-fated men again met with disaster. The Pecos was
torpedoed and sunk. Those who were able kept afloat for eight hours
until the arrival of a destroyer gave them new hope. Trailed by
enemy submarines, she was unable to stop to pick up the survivors,
but landing nets were hung from her sides and the men of the Pecos
were told to grasp the nets and try to save themselves as best they
could. Only a few succeeded in taking advantage of this difficult
means of escape. Lieutenant Yon was fortunate enough to be one of
them. There was no doctor aboard the destroyer, so Lieutenant Yon
assumed entire responsibility of caring for the wounded. With untiring
perseverence he ministered to them until the destroyer reached
Australia.[5]

When MacArthur departed from the Philippines, Major General
Jonathan M. Wainwright assumed command. Then came the last
desperate defense of Corregidor, which withstood the combined fire
from land, sea, and air until May 6, 1942. With the final surrender
large numbers of Americans became prisoners of the Japanese, among
them Lieutenant Arthur L. Derby, Jr., of Eastham, who had served
with the Philippine Scouts in the defense of Luzon. Lieutenant
Derby survived the Death March from Bataan to San Fernando and
imprisonment at Bilabid. He perished on December 31, 1944, when
the Japanese prison ship on which he was being evacuated from the
Philippines was sunk north of Formosa by American planes, which
had bombed it twice before. Major Carter Berkeley Simpson of

Charlottesville was also lost aboard the same ship. As a junior
officer with the Fourth Marines, Major Simpson had fought throughout
the entire Philippines campaign. In the defense of Longoswayan
Point he had isolated and destroyed an enemy force. For his gallantry
and “outstanding qualities of leadership” on Bataan he was awarded
the Navy Cross.[6]

Bombed on December 8, 1941, for the first time, Singapore, the
great island fortress of the British in the Far East, was dangerously
exposed by the sinking of the battleship Prince of Wales and the
cruiser Repulse on December 10. Protection by sea was no longer
adequate, and because of its dependence on drinking water from the
mainland, Singapore had always been vulnerable to a land attack. On
January 3 this dreaded attack began, the Japs thronging into the
Malay States. By the end of the month the British had withdrawn
from the mainland to the island. In February the reservoirs were
captured and the city surrendered. The American Consul General at
Singapore was Kenneth S. Patton, brother of Mrs. J. Callan Brooks
of Charlottesville. Patton and members of his staff escaped in a
“sheep” boat on February 12. As they left, the city was in flames.
After ten days the little boat reached an Australian port. Meanwhile
Patton's wife had been evacuated to Batavia. She and her husband
finally met aboard a ship somewhere in the area of the Dutch East
Indies and sailed back to the United States. The following July
Patton was appointed Consul General at Calcutta, the great port of
India, through which supplies to China were to flow during the war.[7]

In handling these supplies the United States Army required a
sizable establishment in India. Sergeant Merril Carter of Scottsville
was stationed at a hospital there. In October, 1942, he wrote friends:

“I am OK and feeling fine, but am afraid this extremely hot weather
(Oct. 12) is going to get me down. It has been awful the last ten
days. If it wasn't for the cool nights I don't know what we
would do.

“The trip across was quite an experience but was glad when it was
over with. I just want to take one more boat ride—and that is the
one back. Think that will do me for quite a while. Made four stops
and was allowed shore leave at two of them.

“Our living quarters here are not so bad. We have barracks something
like the ones back in the states, and most of them have electric
lights and fans. They do not have running water but a place with
showers and a place to shave, etc.

“The food is very good considering most of it comes out of cans,
although we do get some fresh fruit and vegetables. We also get
fresh beef, fish, shrimps & chicken. ...

“We have free outdoor moving pictures here at the hospital every
Sunday night and several times a week at the main post exchange.

There is a theatre on the post and several in town. They all show
American pictures but they are quite old when they get here. Busses
for U. S. troops run between here and town every afternoon. A
certain per cent are allowed passes after five o'clock every day, so we
get to go quite often if we want to.”[8]

During the early part of the sea war in the Pacific, the Virginiabuilt
19,900-ton aircraft carrier USS Yorktown played a leading role.
The ship was commanded by Captain Elliott Buckmaster, son of Dr.
Augustus H. Buckmaster, formerly a member of the medical faculty
of the University of Virginia. Captain Buckmaster had spent his
childhood in Charlottesville, which he always considered his home.

Vice-Admiral William F. Halsey, an alumnus of the University of
Virginia, was busily engaged in strafing the Gilbert and Marshall
Islands in January of 1942, and the Yorktown's first battle action
of the war took place on January 31 when her planes bombed Makin.
The next attack was on March 10 when her planes raided Salamaua
and Lae, after which followed a tedious period of cruising for sixty-three
days in tropical seas guarding the United States' life line to Australia.
On May 4 Japanese ships in the harbor of Tulagi were sunk by
her planes, and the next day she joined forces with the carrier USS
Lexington in the Battle of the Coral Sea.

A month later, when the Japanese fleet was on its way to Hawaii
to crush the United States Navy once and for all, our knowledge of
their code made it possible for Rear Admiral Raymond A. Spruance
to assemble every ship, plane, and submarine available to intercept
the attack at Midway. Planes together with submarines did all the
work, for, like the Battle of the Coral Sea, this engagement was a
twentieth century affair in which surface ships' fire played no part.
The Yorktown's planes were in the fight at Midway even after their
ship had received three serious hits in the first attack of dive bombers.
A second time the Japanese came on the Yorktown with torpedo
bombers. Now she was hit forward to port; now amidships: at last
she listed and water rolled over her decks. After a conference it was
decided that nothing could be done, and the crew climbed down
ropes into the water, while the wounded were let down in wire
stretchers. But the Yorktown did not sink. Efforts were made
to salvage her. Men from the destroyer USS Hamman were making
good progress and had reduced her list about four degrees when
suddenly the Japanese struck again: two torpedoes from submarines
hit the Hamman and it went down, its depth charges killing the
men who had abandoned ship. The following day at dawn Captain
Buckmaster gazed at the ghostly hulk of the Yorktown still
afloat. “Her flight deck was in the water. Her battle flags were
still flying. We hadn't taken them down,” the captain said. At
7 A. M. on June 7, as taps sounded across the water from nearby

destroyers, the Yorktown sank, six months to the hour after Pearl
Harbor.[9]

Also at Midway was the submarine of Commander Howard W.
Gilmore on which Lieutenant Landon L. Davis, Jr., of Charlottesville,
was diving officer. As Davis puts it, while “we were in a hot
enough spot, nothing came our way.” Soon, however, better hunting
was ahead. The Japs had occupied the islands of Kiska and Attuin
the Aleutians. On July 4, under cover of fog, the submarine
crept into the harbor of Kiska and discovered three Jap destroyers
riding at anchor. Torpedoes were fired against all three before they
could get under way. Almost immediately two went down and
the third, when last seen, was a fiercely burning wreck. Before the
submarine could get away, it was subjected to an aerial bombing
attack but escaped with minor damage. Early in 1943 Commander
Gilmore, who hailed from Selma, Alabama, led his submarine, already
credited with sinking 26,000 tons of Jap shipping, in an
attack against some Japanese ships. While on the surface, he was
spotted by a gunboat which attempted to ram the submarine. Avoiding
the attack. Gilmore then maneuvered so as to ram the gunboat.
As the submarine separated from the gunboat, machinegun fire swept
the deck where Gilmore stood. Mortally wounded and unwilling to
subject his crew to further danger, he sealed his own fate by ordering
Lieutenant Davis to “take her down.” Obeying, Davis dived and
brought the submarine safely out of the engagement. Commander
Gilmore was awarded the Medal of Honor and Lieutenant Davis
the Silver Star for this exploit.[10]

From the very beginning of the war Captain H. Maynard (“Bull”)
Harlow was in the thick of the fight in the Pacific. In the spring of
1942 as co-pilot he made a bombing raid on Rabaul, New Britain.
Fleeing from Japanese fighter planes, his plane ran out of gas and
made a crash landing in the New Guinea jungle. What appeared
to be a grassy field was chosen for the landing, but it proved to be a
swamp. In order to get out, the nine crew members had to cut the
thick grass every inch of the way. For four nights and three days
they wandered in the jungle before they came upon some natives
who took them in a canoe to Buna, which was then still in the hands
of the Australians. Five weeks later they reached the Allied base
at Port Moresby. In November malaria, which all the crew members
had contracted while in the jungle, forced Captain Harlow
to return to the United States.[11]

The invasion of the Solomons in August, 1942, was the first
American offensive of the war. It was, however, primarily designed
to protect the supply line to Australia, for, from their air base on
Guadalcanal, the Japanese were in excellent position to attack the
New Hebrides and New Caledonia area, thus endangering American
ships in the Coral Sea.

In the words of Major General Alexander Archer Vandegrift who
led the campaign, “The planning for the Tulagi-Guadalcanal operation
was hurried. When the enemy was discovered building airfields
in the lower Solomons, the decision to undertake a land offensive
came much earlier than those who were to carry it out had
anticipated. Our preparations were made with what we had, not
what we had expected to get. Marine aerial reconnaissance consisted
of one flight over the theatre of operations by two officers in a B-17.
Above Guadalcanal they were attacked by three Zeros, but escaped.
There was no appreciable softening up of the objective prior to
D-Day.”[12]

Vandegrift was born in Charlottesville on March 13, 1887, the
son of Sarah Archer and William Thomas Vandegrift, one of the
leading architects and contractors of Virginia. His grandfather,
R. Carson Vandegrift, fought as a captain under Longstreet in the
Confederate Army, took part in Pickett's charge at Gettysburg, and
was at Appomattox when Lee surrendered. He communicated his
admiration for the fighting-Christian qualities of “Stonewall” Jackson
to his grandson, for General Vandegrift at Guadalcanal took
Jackson as his model when he himself was “to do so much with so
little.”

Vandegrift graduated from the Charlottesville High School and
attended the University of Virginia from 1906 to 1908. At the age
of twenty-two he was appointed to the Marine Corps as a second
lieutenant. The following year, he married Mildred Strode of
Lynchburg, the mother of his only son, Archer, Jr., who became a
lieutenant colonel in the Fourth Marine Division which fought so
magnificently in the Pacific campaigns.

At Parris Island, South Carolina, Vandegrift “learned his trade.”
Soon afterward he saw action in the Caribbean—1912 in Nicaragua.
1914 at Vera Cruz, and 1915 in Haiti with General Smedley D.
Butler, the famed soldier-orator who nicknamed Vandegrift “Sunny
Jim.” From 1916 to 1918 and later, from 1919 to 1923, he served
with the Haitian gendarmerie. In 1927 began his first period of service
in the Orient. For two years in China he was Butler's operations
and training officer, first in Shanghai and later at Tientsin. In the
course of these years spent in the East, the more he saw of the Japanese,
the better he liked the Chinese. Repeated spying of the Japanese
on fleet maneuvers off the China coast near Shanghai in 1927
gave Vandegrift his first taste of Japanese arrogance and hypocrisy.
His first adverse impression was confirmed and strengthened by later
experience. Back in the United States for a five-year interlude, he
was assigned to the Budget Bureau in Washington and afterwards
served as assistant chief of staff of the Fleet Marine Force at Quantico,
Virginia. Then in 1935 he was again sent to China, this time as

executive officer of the Marine detachment assigned to the American
Embassy in Peiping.

When Vandegrift and his wife returned to the United States in
April of 1937, they traveled via the Soviet Union. He had long
been curious about Russia; the similarity of our geographical and
military problems was striking to him, and he was one of the few
American officers to predict so early that Russia would be our ally
in World War II.

From June of 1937 to November of 1941 Vandegrift was on duty
at Marine Corps Headquarters, first as secretary to the commandant,
Major General Thomas Holcomb, and then as General Holcomb's
assistant, with the rank of brigadier general. The First Marine
Division was training at New River, North Carolina, in the spring of
1942, and Major General Philip H. Torrey, its commandant, asked
for Vandegrift as assistant division commander. By March he had
fallen heir to the command of the division with the rank of major
general.[13]

Long years in foreign lands had little affected qualities in Vandegrift's
character inherited from his Virginia family or acquired during
his childhood in the city of Charlottesville, so rich in traditions.
It would seem evident that the fighting-Christian faith of Carson
Vandegrift was reborn, though in a somewhat different form, in his
grandson. During the struggle for Guadalcanal he displayed a remarkable
confidence which he was able to communicate to his men.
John Hersey wrote of him after a visit to Guadalcanal in October,
1942, “General Vandegrift, who can be seen in the evenings stretched
out meditatively in a canvas deck chair in front of his heavily fly-sprayed
cabin, has been cool, soft-spoken, crafty, hard and wonderfully
cheerful.”[14]

In numerous instances he showed the respect he felt for each individual
Marine serving under his command. Once, during the
November fighting, he discussed the type of warfare that was going
on. “We could do this a lot faster if we wanted to lose the men,
but I don't intend to do it. Whenever it is possible we will not
attack without artillery preparation, no matter what element of
surprise we lose, and we will storm no enemy strong point that possibly
can be leveled or softened up by shells.”[15]

A series of letters written by Vandegrift during the Guadalcanal
campaign and later published in Life magazine constitutes one of
the most valuable revelations of American war history. Without
violating security regulations, he gave his wife a vivid picture of those
aspects of the campaign he chose to describe. On August 6 he wrote,
“Tomorrow morning at dawn we land in the first major offensive
of this war. Our plans have been made and God grant that our
judgment has been sound. We have rehearsed the plans. The officers

and men are keen and ready to go. Way before you read this
you will have heard of it. Whatever happens you will know that
I did my best. Let us hope that best will be enough.”

After a three-hour bombardment by a surface task force and Army
and Navy planes, Vandegrift made landings with the First Marine
Division and part of the Second on Guadalcanal, August 7, 1942.

“The show opened before dawn and we got in without their
knowing it,” he wrote the next day. “At first it was exciting but
then came the anxious hours of waiting to hear how things turned
out on all sides. It went as planned. I deeply regret the men lost
and the wounded, but we had to expect that and it was less than
expected.”

In one day the air strip, later known as Henderson Field, was captured.
Then began a series of Japanese attacks to dislodge the Marines
from their positions. With the air strip bereft of planes, no coastal
artillery, and few supplies during the first days, the task of defending
the foothold on the island was not an easy one. The Marines
held a three-by-eight mile stretch of jungle with a patch of meadow
and a coconut grove. The Japanese prowled and lurked in the jungle,
practicing every conceivable form of deceptive cunning in their fighting.
On occasion they would attack in mass, screaming wildly. The
Marines held on and gained ground. In a letter dated August 17,
Vandegrift made the modest claim: “We had a little ceremony
when we raised the flag over this place.”[16]

A shack on top of a hill was Vandegrift's quarters. When the
Japanese warships shelled the island, this shack served as a convenient
target. Finally his men built another bungalow somewhat protected
by the conformation of the land, and persuaded the general to move.
“The very next day,” in the words of Admiral John S. McCain,
“three fourteen-inch shells carried the old shack away.”[17]

Concerning the attack of August 20 when a Japanese battalion
tried to force the Tenaru River. Vandegrift wrote, “The Japs made
a grievous error the other night. ... They tried to take this place
by raid with about 800 men and they were practically annihilated.
The radio said 670 killed, but since then about 120 have washed
ashore. We lost 28 men and all of their 800 were not worth one
of them. These young men, or really boys,” he continued, “are restless
when there is nothing going on but when there is a job to do.
they fight like young demons. They are doing it in the best Marine
tradition and I could add nothing to it.” Enormously admiring his
men, he continually referred to their bravery in such terms as,
“The Marines were wonderful. I'm awfully proud.”

“There is a lull in the work so I'll drop you a note. We are now
all right and you must not worry. This afternoon Roy (Colonel
Hunt) brought up six large bass which Bill Whaling (Colonel)
caught in the river and we will have them for supper. The flies

“They are doing it in the best Marine tradition,” Vandegrift
wrote, “and I could add nothing to it.”

around here are pests and they bite like the devil. Some of the men
are so dark they look like natives. Our days are a good deal alike.
Tell Archer, Jr., to keep himself in good physical condition if he's
coming this way for the jungle is the toughest thing in these parts.”

“The Resident Commissioner of the Solomons came in last night
to set up the civil government again,” Vandegrift observed in his
letter of September 3. “We are having more visitors, so the darn
place must be getting safer. We have just heard over the radio that
one of the bases to the north from which we have been receiving
'visitors' has been completely knocked out by bombers. I hope so.
The Resident Commissioner has been living out in the jungle since
May and is literally coming out of the seat of his pants. Seems an
awfully nice person and enjoys being with white people again.” A
Naval communique of September 3 announced that “eighteen Japanese
bombers escorted by fighters, attacked our installations at Guadalcanal.”
These were the “visitors” to which Vandegrift referred.[18]

A member of the Keswick Hunt Club and well known throughout
Albemarle County, Corporal Thomas A. Watson of “Logan
Farm” near Gordonsville had enlisted in March, 1942, as a private
in the Marine Corps. On the night of September 13, as a forward
observer at Lunga Hill, key to the defense of Henderson Field, Corporal
Watson with courage “directed artillery fire while exposed to
enemy rifle, machinegun, grenade, and mortar fire.” For his coolness
and efficiency he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the
field. “I've never been more proud in all my life,” said Admiral
Halsey sometime later to Watson and twelve other men lined up
beneath rain-sodden trees to receive Navy Crosses. “You are very
courageous, splendid men.” In November Lieutenant Watson also
won the Silver Star. Disregarding their own safety, he and another
officer formed a forward observer liaison team for a battalion and
maintained observation and communication under almost constant
fire.[19]

Efforts by the Japanese to reinforce their troops on Guadalcanal
brought on sharp naval engagements. In October the carrier USS
Hornet was torpedoed in the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands and subsequently
lost. Chief Boatswain's Mate Robert H. Trice of Howardsville
spent several hours in the water before he was rescued. Two
years later he was again a survivor when the carrier USS Princeton
was sunk in the Second Battle of the Philippine Sea.[20]

On the destroyer USS Grayson Lieutenant Rosser Jackson Eastham
of Charlottesville spent sixty-five successive days ranging up and
down the South Pacific. His ship dodged Jap torpedoes and repelled
fifteen air attacks in the Solomons area between August and October,
1942. Though men were shot down all around him Lieutenant
Eastham kept his guns in action. On one occasion he was kept at

his battle station for forty-eight hours straight with only half an
hour's sleep. While the Grayson was in the Sealark Channel off
Guadalcanal, Lieutenant Eastham had to take a Marine officer ashore.
Before he could return, the red signal went up, notice of a Jap air
raid. As thirty-odd Japanese bombers appeared, the Grayson weighed
anchor and steamed away. Trapped on the beach Lieutenant Eastham
and his companion dived into a nearby fox hole from which they
watched the two-hour dog fight in which eighteen Japanese planes
were shot down at a cost of only two American planes. Later the
Grayson returned to pick up Lieutenant Eastham.[21]

In the Solomon Islands naval operations Lieutenant George S.
Hamm of Charlottesville aboard the destroyer USS Monssen played
a gallant part. “We were sunk,” wrote he, “in the big night battle
off Guadalcanal on November 13th, [1942]. We ran into a large
missing Jap force and [engaged] in a point blank battle which
was so close that we were shooting at a Jap battleship with machineguns.
We were caught between several Jap ships and received a
terrific pounding, which left us completely demolished and burning.”
With the fire-fighting system ruptured and only hand extinguishers
available for combating the flames, Lieutenant Hamm directed fire-fighting
and damage control parties. Refusing to go over the side
when ordered to abandon ship, he sought out the wounded and administered
first aid. He then directed the evacuation of survivors on
rafts. Not until warned that the ship's magazines would soon explode
did he leave. “Only a small number of our crew got off alive,”
wrote Lieutenant Hamm. “Ensign Little and I were the only two
uninjured officers and as the senior survivor to the Captain I was the
last off the Monssen before she went down. After about six hours
in the water we were picked up by the Marines and taken to Guadalcanal,
where we remained for thirteen days until we could get started
on the first lap of the journey back to the States.” For his heroic
conduct Lieutenant Hamm was awarded the Silver Star, and in
November he was assigned to command the new destroyer USS
Monssen, then under construction.[22]

In December the Army under command of Major General Alexander
M. Patch of Staunton took over operations on Guadalcanal
from the Marines. General Vandegrift's last order to his troops,
dated December 7, 1942, was titled a “Letter of Appreciation for
Loyal Service.” In it he said:

“In relinquishing command in the Guadalcanal area I hope that
in some small measure I can convey to you my feelings of pride in
your magnificent achievement and my thanks for the unbounded
loyalty, limitless self-sacrifice and high courage which have made
these accomplishments possible.

“To the soldiers and marines who have faced the enemy in the

fierceness of night combat; to the pilots, Army, Navy, and Marine,
whose unbelievable achievements have made the name 'Guadalcanal'
a synonym for death and disaster in the language of the enemy; to
those who have labored and sweated within the lines at all manner
of prodigious and vital tasks; to the men of the torpedo boat squadrons
slashing at the enemy in night sorties; to our small band of devoted
Allies who have contributed so vastly in proportion to their numbers;
to the surface forces of the Navy associated with us in signal
triumphs of their own; I say that at all times you have faced without
flinching the worst the enemy could do to us and have thrown back
the best that he could send against us.

“It may well be that this modest operation, begun four months
ago today has, through your efforts, been successful in thwarting the
larger aims of our enemy in the Pacific. The fight for the Solomons
is not yet won but 'tide what you may' I know that you, as brave
men and men of good-will, will hold your heads high and prevail
in the future as you have in the past.”[23]

For his services in the South Pacific, General Vandegrift was
awarded the Medal of Honor, which was presented to him personally
by President Roosevelt at the White House on February 4, 1943,
with the following citation:

On July 30, 1943, it was announced that Vandegrift, who had
been Commanding General of the First Marine Amphibious Corps,
was promoted to lieutenant general. The command of the Amphibious
Corps passed to Major General Charles D. Barrett, when
President Roosevelt appointed Vandegrift commandant of the entire

Marine Corps, to succeed Lieutenant General Thomas Holcomb, who
was retiring because of age. On his way to the States to accept
the appointment, Vandegrift received news in Honolulu of the sudden
death of General Barrett. Ordered back to the Solomons to resume
command, Vandegrift led the Marines in the invasion of Bougainville
on November 1. After this new beachhead had been consolidated,
he relinquished command and returned to the United States to become
on January 1, 1944, the eighteenth Commandant of the Marine
Corps. In recognition of his outstanding service and ability Vandegrift
was made in the spring of 1945 the first full general in the
history of the Corps.[25]

Captain John G. Hundley of Charlottesville was stationed on one
of the islands in the Pacific during the first year of the war. Christmas
day, 1942, a letter from General George C. Marshall was posted
on the bulletin board. In part it read as follows: “Our men in
lonely watch towers of the Himalayas, on small island bases in the
Pacific and the fog bound Aleutians, on bases in the Caribbean and
South America, have been denied the thrill and glory of the battlefield.
Yet their role is no less important to the tremendous task
which we are facing.”

A year later Captain Hundley repeated these words by heart in an
interview with a reporter of The Daily Progress. He told of his
experiences and explained how important General Marshall's words
were to him and others like him. “You see, I got into the war early.
I graduated from Lane High in 1936, went to V.M.I., and in June,
1940, was commissioned a second lieutenant in Field Artillery. Soon
I was assigned to a field artillery battery and I learned a lot about
men and mules. ...

“In January, 1942, just a month after Pearl Harbor, I got a
chance to go overseas with a pack artillery battery, minus the mules.
We didn't know where we were going, only that it was tropical
service, and we had an idea it was to be landing operations. We
got to an island that's been written up a bit. ... Our task, we found,
was to turn the island into a Naval fuel base. That was all, just
hard work on an island in the Pacific, a piece of land five miles long
and two wide, with a lot of good natured Polynesian natives and not
a sign of a Jap.

“There we stayed for seventeen months. We loaded ships. We
built roads. Labor details dragged out big rocks by hand, with ropes,
for at first we had almost no machinery. We built water tanks and
mains. We built a dock. We did everything but fight, and all the
while the men on Guadalcanal and with MacArthur in New Guinea
were holding back the enemy. We would have been a front line position
if those others hadn't held, but they did the job.” Then, reverting
to the drudgery and seeming futility of the assigned duty,

he added, “But Marshall's letter fixed a lot of that for me, for all
of us.”[26]

In 1943 the Australians and Americans on New Guinea continued
to attack. On March 4 as a crew member of a bomber, Staff Sergeant
Charles Hunter Maupin of Crozet participated in a coordinated attack
against a Japanese convoy of twenty-two ships in Huon Gulf,
east of Salamaua. Despite heavy antiaircraft fire, the plane attacked
an enemy transport and scored two direct hits on the ship, which
was left in a sinking condition. On the same day the crew also
scored a direct hit on a destroyer.[27]

Meanwhile the Allied forces in the Pacific area were everywhere
being strengthened. Lieutenant Charles William Smith of Charlottesville
wrote home during the summer, “I can tell you folks now
that when we first arrived in the South Pacific we were stationed in
the Fiji Islands. We were the first large group of American forces
there and did a great part of the work of setting up the U. S. Ground
Force base there.” It was a nice place to be. The camp site was
good and the Fiji Islanders were fine, friendly fellows. Luckier than
some in the early days, each man in Smith's company got a real egg
for breakfast from time to time.[28]

Lieutenant William G. Schauffler, III, Army Air Corps, whose
mother and wife lived in Charlottesville, exhibited great courage
and untiring energy while participating in sustained combat operational
missions in June and July, 1943. On July 20 he sighted near
the Solomon Islands a large enemy cruiser and attacked immediately
at masthead level. “Despite a terrific barrage of automatic weapons
fire from at least 30 battle stations aboard the ship, he dropped three
500-pound bombs. The first was short, but the second was a direct
hit causing a huge explosion followed by billows of black smoke.”
Within two minutes the cruiser sank, few if any of the crew escaping.
The attack was executed with disregard of personal safety, and his
B-25 bomber crashed. Enlisted personnel of Lieutenant Schauffler's
crew were thrown clear and ultimately rescued, but they were unable
to throw any light upon his fate. He was first listed as missing
and then later officially declared to have been killed in action. For
his gallant action he was awarded the Silver Star posthumously.[29]

Water Tender Second Class Manuel E. Perry of Charlottesville
with the Seabees in the New Hebrides Islands ran across a few cannibal
tribes. “They were very sullen and ugly,” he wrote. “They
haven't bothered any white people for about eight or ten years, but
still cook up a native tribal enemy when they fight.” In July, 1943,
he wrote, “We are now working day and night to bring the enemy
down to his knees. The work is hard but we try to do it with
a smile... I would like to trade my place here for those back home
who are beefing about the rationing, sitting on front porches, while
we get Spam and powdered eggs. Our food is good as far it goes

but you don't get the green things that you have back home.” Later
Perry moved on to the Admiralty Islands and then to the Philippines.[30]

On the night of August 1, 1943, accompanied by other torpedo
boats, Ensign William C. (“Bill”) Battle, son of Senator and Mrs.
John S. Battle of Charlottesville, in charge of a motor torpedo boat,
engaged five enemy destroyers in Vella Gulf in the Solomon Islands.
Five or six probable hits were scored. Soon promoted to lieutenant
junior grade, in the following months he participated in numerous
engagements with enemy landing craft, ships, and shore installations.
He saw action at Bougainville and in New Britain and New Ireland.
He took part in the torpedo boat raid into the harbor of Rabaul. For
his leadership, tactical ability, and loyal devotion he was awarded
the Silver Star by Admiral Halsey.[31]

Second Lieutenant Daniel B. Owen, Jr., of Crozet was shot down
following a raid on the enemy airdrome at Boram, near Wewak,
New Guinea, on August 29, 1943. He was flying a B-24, part
of a formation of six planes, and had begun a bombing run when
three Zeros concentrated their fire on his plane, shooting out one engine
and setting the plane afire, but all bombs were dropped on the
target. In the running fight which ensued, the crew destroyed one
Zero and possibly two. A short distance beyond the target the
bomber burst into flames. Lieutenant Owen remained with his aircraft,
keeping it in level flight so that as many of the crew as possible
could escape. His Distinguished Flying Cross was posthumously
presented to his parents.[32]

Following a “mix-up with a grenade” at Salamaua which cost
him his left hand, Captain William Ray Woodard of Charlottesville
was flown from New Guinea to Brisbane, Australia, where he was
put aboard a ship bound for San Francisco. “Had a helluva trip
back,” he wrote. “Got into a fight with a Jap raider. Being a
bed patient I couldn't help much. The excitement and the following
lack of attention just about cooked my goose. I have had so
many transfusions that I don't believe I have any of my own blood
left.” The Silver Star was awarded Captain Woodard “for conspicuous
gallantry and intrepidity in action against the Japanese
forces.”[33]

In order to secure an advanced naval base and airfields within
fighter range of enemy concentrations at Rabaul, New Britain, the
First Marine Amphibious Corps under Lieutenant General Alexander
Archer Vandegrift landed on November 1, 1943, at Empress Augusta
Bay in western Bougainville. A beachhead was secured, and on the
next day, while the Marines were still battling the Japs, Chief
Machinist's Mate Elmer Irving Carruthers, Jr., of Charlottesville
landed with the Seabees to begin construction of the base. In many instances

during the next three weeks the Seabees actually led the
Marines through the swamps and jungles. On November 20 a
trail was under construction five hundred yards beyond the front lines
and only a few hundred yards from the Japanese positions in the
jungle. “A party had been working in the area the previous day
but the men were jittery about returning,” said Major General Roy
E. Geiger, who succeeded Vandegrift. “Carruthers volunteered to
lead them and was killed by a bursting mortar shell a few hours
later. All of the party might have been killed but Carruthers ordered
the others behind the blade of the bulldozer they were using
to clear a path. There was not room enough for Carruthers.” Mortally
wounded, he insisted that the uninjured men attend other comrades
whom he considered more severely wounded than himself and,
as a result of this unselfish action, he died before reaching an aid
station.

A day or two later Lieutenant Commander Thomas M. Carruthers,
who was in the area and had not heard from his brother recently,
made inquiries and was told of his death and burial in the cemetery at
Piva, a little village on Bougainville Island. The gallantry of Chief
Machinist's Mate Carruthers won the admiration of his buddies,
who erected at each end of a bridge simple signs on white boards with
black lettering which read: “Carruthers Bridge, dedicated to Eddie
Carruthers who gave his life blazing this trail.” In recognition of
“his heroic spirit of self-sacrifice and unswerving devotion to duty”
the Silver Star was awarded to him posthumously.[34]

The invasion of Tarawa, the main air base of the Japanese in
the Gilbert Islands, inaugurated a series of great oceanborne offensives.
Commanding the supply route to Australia and defending
the road to Japan, Tarawa was of enormous strategic value. Its
elaborate, recently constructed defenses were meticulously concealed
in the coral island. On November 21, 1943, the Second Marine
Division landed. On a destroyer, which was “up front” throughout
the battle, Ship's Cook Second Class Glynn W. Amiss of Charlottesville
watched the battle. Declared he, “Folks back home will never
realize the extent of the terrible massacre of Marines and Sailors at
Tarawa. Words cannot describe the scene I witnessed and unless
the Navy Department releases uncensored pictures of the battle the
public will never know what a real battle is like. ... It was too horrible
to think about, and I am sorry that I can never forget it.”
The loss of American life reached its height when many landing
barges became stranded on coral reefs offshore, leaving the men practically
helpless in the face of terrific machinegun fire from the Japanese
shore installations. When the fighting had subsided, shell-torn
bodies could be seen floating in the water as far away as five miles
from the scene of battle. “If the folks back home could have seen

what I witnessed,” continued Amiss, “or even see the motion pictures,
I am sure there would be no strikes in defense plants.”[35]

From New Guinea, Private Lewis W. Wingfield of Charlottesville
wrote his parents of a very important but in no wise unfriendly
battle there in December, 1943. “Well, we have a big baseball game
this Sunday,” he wrote on Wednesday the fifteenth. “From what
I hear we are playing a team composed of former major and minor
league baseball stars. This team just won the championship of
Australia. We have a very good team, and we expect to give them a
good game.” Sunday evening he fairly shouted, “We won the baseball
championship of the Southwest Pacific. We beat the team that
was the former champ, by the score of nine to six. I played third
base.” The thought of spending Christmas away from home cast
a shadow, however, and three days later he added, “I hear we get
a bottle of beer for Christmas. I doubt it, we haven't had any since
we have been over here. This doesn't worry me, though. All I
am asking for is to be home for next Christmas.”[36]

During 1944 MacArthur continued to advance from east to west
along the north coast of New Guinea. At the same time other forces
drove from the Gilbert Islands through the Marshalls and on to the
Marianas. Each step was preceded by bombing raids. Some planes
did not return from these attacks, and others limped home bringing
their dead. A flight surgeon, convinced that many fliers could have
been saved if blood plasma had been administered shortly after they
were wounded, trained the members of crews to give transfusions in
the cramped quarters of a B-25. During a flight over a Japanese
base in the Marshalls, Sergeant Robert V. (“Bobby”) Smith of
Charlottesville, the engineer-gunner, and Lieutenant Andrew A.
Doyle, the bombardier-navigator, of a Mitchell bomber were
wounded. Lieutenant Doyle, whose legs were injured, was in danger
of dying from loss of blood and shock. In spite of his own injury
Sergeant Smith assisted the co-pilot in administering blood plasma
which was credited with saving Lieutenant Doyle's life. This first
successful transfusion opened the way to general use of transfusion
equipment on medium bombers.[37]

Second Lieutenant Bernard C. Harlow of Charlottesville was the
third of three brothers to win laurels in the Army Air Force. In
the Central Pacific he was a crew member on one of a fleet of
bombers which so effectively combed the area that a huge Navy task
force landed troops at Kwajalein on January 31, 1944, unmolested
by enemy planes. On April 4 Lieutenant Harlow was a crew
member of a B-24 Liberator which took part in the bombing of
Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands. His plane was last seen going
down in flames just before the bombers broke formation to make the
attack.[38]

In February, 1944, Staff Sergeant Gilmer M. Hall of Charlottesville

whose Air Force unit received a Presidential Citation, wrote
his mother. “I'll bet I was certainly funny when I was in Australia
on furlough—I was walking down the crowded street one day when
an automobile backfired, and I immediately fell to the ground as I
always do when the air-raid signal is given. Everyone stared at me
as if I were crazy or something, but it's just natural to 'hit the dirt'
whenever anything like this is heard. ... One morning, I was awakened
by the noise of a low-flying airplane with its gun shooting. I
thought it sounded different from ours, and turned in bed to look.
When I did I saw some Jap 'Zeroes' coming over the tree tops and then
realized we were being strafed. Needless to say, speed records were
broken going to my trench! By the time I was fully awake, I
thought it was a lot of fun. One time he passed directly over, not
more than fifty feet above me, and take my word for it, those big
red dots on the wings are the biggest things that you've ever seen in
your life!”[39]

But the Japs also got strafed. Commenting on a tree-top run
over Wewak, New Guinea, Technical Sergeant Robert C. Walker of
Charlottesville, a B-25 radio-gunner in a crack unit, said, “We had
sneaked in on the Jap 'drome over a small range of hills in back
of Wewak. When we reached the field I began strafing with the
waist guns of our Mitchell medium bomber and the Japs strafed right
back. One of their shells hit my gun and exploded. I figured I
was the luckiest little boy that ever lived. If the gun hadn't been
there I wouldn't have my head now. I didn't know right then that
15 of the shell fragments had cut me up. So when we got safely
away from the 'drome and the pilot asked if everybody was all right.
I said I was OK. I had to take it back a little later when I noticed
I was bleeding, and the navigator sprinkled sulpha on my arm.”[40]

With a quartermaster company stationed in New Guinea, Private
Edward E. Michtom of Charlottesville wrote his uncle, I. D. Levy.
in the summer of 1944. “I thought I had toughened up—I've been
through a hell of a lot since you heard from me, Boy! I mean
WAR IS HELL—but just now a long, deadly poisonous snake came
crawling through my tent, and I got out of there in a hurry! Scared
the hell right out of me. ...

“The going was plenty rough for a while. The Nips were trying
to sneak their planes in to knock us off. Six of them came over
one day, strafing to beat all hell. I was so shocked I stood there
for a second as if in a daze, bullets screaming all around me. Then,
like a flash, I was in my beloved fox-hole. Looking up, I could see
them directly overhead. Having had enough experience by now to
understand the not too comfortable situation, I knew that since they
were right overhead, they could neither strafe in my vicinity or if
they should drop a bomb, it would be pretty far off. (You can see
bombs falling, anyway.)

“About that time, the Nips got the surprise of their lives—our
ack ack cut loose with a barrage that literally filled the sky with
flaming tracers. Up on the edge of our foxholes, we were cheering
and yelling like mad, 'Git 'em, git the B—.' Suddenly, we saw
a Nip burst into flames and hurtle to the sea. The ack ack blew a
second Nip to pieces in mid-air, coming down not 200 yards away.
What a thrill! Meanwhile, the remaining four are zooming around.
All of a sudden, all four of them simultaneously burst into flame and
began falling into the sea. Perfect score, six for six! Boy, I'll
never forget it. ...

“The thing that tickles me about these air raids is the slow bobbing
up of heads all around. One by one you see them pop up, when
they feel secure enough for the moment to watch the show. What a
hubbub when it's over. Every man has his own version of the panorama.
You should hear them all chattering at the same time, each
man with a different viewpoint on the subject. It happens every
time. ...

“Things have quieted down now. Once in a long while, some
stray Jap may come buzzing over and wake you up out of a deep
sleep, but even those futile attempts are becoming more and more
infrequent. Occasionally, one can hear the roar of our mortars as
they reach their target. Once in a while, one can hear a Jap 'woodpecker'
(Jap machinegun that sounds like that bird) peck away,
but it is soon silenced. All in all, the place has become very quiet
and peaceful.”[41]

On June 15, 1944, the Marines attacked the Marianas Islands,
landing on Saipan. The next day when a Japanese artillery battery
held up the advance, Major Roger Greville Brooke Broome, III, of
Charlottesville organized an attack so that the 37-millimeter gun
platoon of his 24th Regimental Weapons Company outflanked and
captured the enemy position. On July 5 he personally took a 75-millimeter
self-propelled gun into a narrow defile against heavy
enemy fire and blasted the Japanese concealed in caves which could
not be reached by other weapons. Three days later he made a reconnaissance
in front of the American lines and located strong enemy
positions. While disposing his weapons for an assault, he received
serious wounds from which he died the following January. Major
Broome's Navy Cross was presented to his son.[42]

On Saipan Corporal Claude S. (“Billy”) Haggard of Charlottesville
was also fatally wounded. An officer who served with him
wrote Haggard's wife. “I was near Claude when he was hit. It
was early in the morning of July 8th and we had been catching hell
for about three hours. I did not actually see him receive his wounds
as I had just had my radio shot out of my hand and was attempting
to get reorganized. I did see and talk with him a short time later,

and from our conversation I gathered he was not in a great deal of
pain.

“He received these wounds while trying to remove one of his
wounded buddies from enemy machinegun fire. On July 9th he
died from these wounds. His conduct in this action was above
and beyond the call of duty and to me that makes him a great
soldier. He is buried in the Second Marine Division Cemetery, Saipan
Island. I have visited the cemetery and when all the work is completed
it will be a fine and beautiful memorial to those boys that rest
there.” Haggard's widow received the Silver Star awarded him for
conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity.[43]

Although a demolition expert with plenty of Japs to his credit,
Private First Class Thomas E. Branham of Eastham won the admiration
of his comrades by his rescues of the wounded on Saipan.
This he had done before at Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands. where
he braved a hail of death from an exploding ammunition dump to
administer aid. On Saipan in the bloody battle for Hill 500, he
advanced across an open field and returned with a wounded Marine.
A closer call came later on Tinian, however, where he was trapped
between a burning tank and a cliff full of snipers. Private First
Class Branham was killed by a sniper on Iwo Jima while he was
removing a mine from a road so that tanks could advance.[44]

On July 21, 1944, the assault on nearby Guam began. The
Marine First Provisional Brigade was led ashore on Agat Point on
the south coast by Brigadier General Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr., of
Charlottesville. Fighting against heavy opposition, it pushed on to
capture the Orote Peninsula.[45]

During the invasion of Guam First Lieutenant David W. Schumaker
of Scottsville was engaged in clearing “blue” beach and the
area behind it of Japanese land mines and unexploded projectiles. He
was often under Japanese artillery, mortar, and rifle fire while doing
this dangerous work, but he and his men soon made it possible for
vehicles to operate on the beach. Later he also helped clear the
causeway to Cabras Island of mines.[46]

When the American flag had been raised again over the old
Marine Barracks of Apra Harbor, Marine Major Ross S. Mickey
of Charlottesville, in a Grumman Hellcat fighter plane, led the first
of four combat squadrons onto the hard-won air field. Especially
equipped for night fighting, his squadron helped keep Japanese raiders
away from Guam.[47]

From Saipan on July 19, 1944, Captain Harry Hubbard Cowles
of Charlottesville wrote his parents. “We had some fireworks here
for about a month. Things went from bad to worse, then back to
bad. I finally turned up all right, which is as brief a description as
I can give you up to this point. Things are now quiet. We are

eating, sleeping and cleaning up generally. That's about all the
news from here. I imagine you know more about this affair, from
reading the papers, than I do. I get a pretty small perspective. This
fighting out here has a long ways to go yet, and if my luck holds
out I hope to see you in a year or so. I hope you've got that farm
picked out. I'm all set to settle down when the time comes.”[48]

Five days later Captain Cowles was among those who invaded
Tinian. Caught in a machinegun cross fire, he was instantly killed.
One of his friends said of him: “He was one of the finest and bravest
of officers in the Corps. He was a machinegun specialist and it was
his bravery and thoughts of his men that caused his death.”[49]

During his first night on Tinian nineteen-year-old Private Thomas
D. Hopkins of Charlottesville and six other Marines with “Old
Slugger,” a 50-caliber machinegun, wiped out 106 Japanese in a
sugar cane field without the loss or injury of a single Marine. “It
was one of the most outstanding feats of the entire Marianas campaign,”
wrote a Marine combat correspondent. “The Japs never
got close enough to use their hand grenades or dynamite packs; their
rifle fire was sporadic and wild, and they failed in repeated attempts
to set up three .30 caliber machineguns they carried with them.”[50]

When the Japs had at last been cleared out, great bases were set
up and many of the comforts of civilization brought in. A year
later Marine combat correspondent Sergeant Phillip Joachim of
Cobham landed on Agrihan in the Marianas and found it “an island
paradise in the Pacific replete with beautiful native women and luscious
tropical fruits.” The friendly Kanakas, who had been mistreated
by the Japanese plantation overseers, greeted the Americans with pineapples,
lemons, limes, watermelons, coconuts, and bananas.[51]

The ports of China were already under Japanese control, as were
the Malay States and Singapore, when the Nipponese in 1942 pushed
the British out of Burma and closed the Burma Road over which
supplies had been going to China. Thereafter such supplies as reached
China from the United States were flown over the Himalayan Hump
from Assam, India, to Western China by American pilots. Among
them Captain Robert E. Carter, III, of Charlottesville made the trip
many times, helping the India-China air transport command to make
a spectacular record in supplying the fighting forces in China despite
high mountains and adverse weather. In March, 1944, he was with
the famous Rescue Squadron which aided fliers forced down in their
flights across the “hump”. Members of the squadron made regular
surveys in search of crews and passengers of lost and crippled planes.
When survivors were located the squadron kept constant contact with
them, dropping food and other necessities until rescue was made.[52]

Late in 1943 Allied forces under Lord Louis Mountbatten began
the drive to reestablish overland communication with China by driving

the Japs out of Burma. A specially trained American infantry
combat team, later known as “Merrill's Marauders” after Brigadier
General Frank D. Merrill, its leader, was prominent in the fighting.
With this Group was a scout and flame thrower, Technician Fifth
Grade Howard Carter, Jr., of Charlottesville. Between December,
1943, and May, 1944, his regiment marched 1,120 miles through
the Burma jungle and penetrated to within eighteen miles of Teng
Chung, China. Though he escaped the Japanese bullets, Carter was
finally knocked out by typhus and spent months in the hospital.[53]

Also with Merrill's Maurauders was Private William H. Hughes
of Scottsville, who served as a scout and engaged in many skirmishes
with the Japs. Once a bullet missed his head by a bare inch and
struck the tree against which he was leaning. The Jap who fired
the shot fell before a burst from Hughes' tommygun. At Nhapun
Ga his battalion was surprised by the Japanese. For fourteen days
the battle raged. “Despite the fact that we were surrounded and
outnumbered,” he recalled, “Jap casualties were very much greater
than our own. They kept coming against our lines and we kept
knocking them off as fast as they came. However, things might
have become pretty bad for us if one of our battalions hadn't been
able to reach us and blast open an escape gap with artillery fire.”[54]

The climax of the campaign was the attack on Myitkyina, where
an all-weather airdrome south of the city was captured on May 17,
1944, and held against savage counterattacks while American reinforcements
came in by air from India. According to a CBI Roundup
correspondent, First Lieutenant Henri G. (“Ricky”) Carter of
Charlottesville and four companions “distinguished themselves by
doing the risky job of flying all of the gas used by fighters, bombers,
and transports in the battle for Myitkyina.” Not the smallest of
Lieutenant Carter's feats was taking a C-46 on to the Myitkyina
air strip, the dimensions of which would ordinarily preclude the landing
of the giant plane. Among other things the C-46 brought in
the large central casting of a half-yard shovel for the engineers. He
was the only one to perform this bit of aviation gymnastics. Forced
to make landings in the face of enemy fire during the early days, he
and his crew would race for foxholes as soon as the plane stopped.[55]

Four days after the airborne troops came to the support of Merrill's
Marauders, Master Sergeant John Cooke Wyllie of Charlottesvilled
landed at the bloody Myitkyina air strip. Known to the men
of his squadron as “Uncle John,” he moved southward through
Burma with the infantry. He was in the thick of the Myitkyina-Mogaung
campaign as communications chief of a Tenth Air Force
squadron. He and his six-man team provided directions to bombers
and fighters in close support attacks on the Japs. Sometimes bombs
were dropped as close as fifty yards to his radio team in the front
lines. In January, 1945, during the action at Pinwe, Wyllie was

commissioned a second lieutenant in the field for outstanding work
with his combat unit. Soon afterwards he was transferred to China.
Here he served with various Chinese units, controlling the American
air strikes in support of the Chinese advance. During the Battle of
Junkow, near Poaching, Lieutenant Wyllie was promoted. He was
awarded the Chinese Order of Yun Hui.[56]

A preliminary step in the reconquest of the Philippine Islands was
the capture of the Palau Islands. Landings were made by Marines
on Peleliu at eight in the morning of September 15, 1944, Corporal
James N. Kardos of Charlottesville was one of eight Marines in
an amphibious tank which was knocked out about fifty yards from
shore during the initial landing. The group dashed ashore and took
cover from Jap machinegun fire in a ditch about seven feet deep.
Describing the landing, Kardos wrote: “We got caught in a tank
trap but me and fifteen of the other boys got out of the trap and
was trying to take a ridge that the Japs were on. We ran into a lot
of pill boxes and a cross fire from Jap machineguns and snipers. In
about a minute there were only three of us left. Then the Japs let
loose a mortar barrage on us and the two boys that were with me
were hit by a sniper as they were trying to get better cover. I
dragged the one that was wounded the worst into a hole and then
started for the other one. I just got my hands on him and was going
to drag him back when a second shot killed him.”

Kardos remained until dusk with the wounded man. When his
comrade died, he made his way back to the tank trap. As he dashed
for the trench, the Japs opened up with everything they had. “I
got into the trap and some of the boys were still alive back there,”
he continued. “They were so glad to see me that they almost
kissed me.”

Because of the many wounded needing attention, the group made
its way in the dark to the aid station on the beach. Then Kardos
started back to join his company. “It was about ten at night and
very dark,” he wrote. “I took the wrong turn and ended up out in
front of the lines where I ran into a Jap machinegun and spent the
rest of the night there fighting them by myself. When it got light,
they stopped firing. I don't know if the reason they stopped was
because I had killed them or they had left. I didn't go out any
farther to find out.”[57]

A veteran of the Solomons, Cape Gloucester, and New Britain,
Staff Sergeant Warren Mowbray of Charlottesville, who hit the
beach at nine-thirty on the very first day, thought Peleliu the toughest
campaign he had been through, much worse than Guadalcanal. “The
only Japs that we found that were not fanatical were the Koreans,”
he said, “and we don't call them Japs.” Altogether his division took
only about a hundred Japanese prisoners, although many Koreans
were taken and used as laborers. He recalled that after experiencing

the kind treatment of the Americans, the Koreans would stomp and
yell with delight when a Jap plane was shot down in a dogfight.[58]

After a thundering naval and air bombardment, General MacArthur
returned to the Philippines. First Lieutenant Ralph Erskine
Conrad of Charlottesville with Troop F of the 7th Cavalry landed
October 20, 1944, six miles south of Tacloban on the island of
Leyte. “I was the first guy to land in the Philippines,” he wrote to his
mother. “My boat was no. eleven which means first boat first wave,
and since I was the platoon leader I was the first off. We killed six
Japs right on the beach.” Colonel Walter Finnegan of Charlottesville,
commander of the 7th Cavalry, led his soldiers into Tacloban,
where the gaily dressed Filipinos lined the street to welcome the
soldiers. Many trudged along happily with cases of beer and saki
on their heads. These came from the stocks abandoned by the Japanese
and were offered to the victorious Americans.[59]

After the beachhead and port had been secured by the initial success,
hard fighting ensued as the Japanese and Americans struggled,
each seeking to expel the other from the island. For twenty-one
exhausting days Lieutenant Conrad took part in the advance across
rugged and inhospitable terrain to the west coast. There were frequent,
fierce skirmishes with the Japanese. Outside Villaba, shortly
before dark on December 29, 1944, F Troop, which Lieutenant
Conrad now commanded, encountered determined enemy resistance.
It was important that the town be taken that evening. Lieutenant
Conrad made a personal reconnaissance and then issued orders for
the assault on Villaba. Shortly afterwards he was instantly killed.
but the town was successfully occupied. The Silver Star was awarded
him posthumously and presented to his mother, Mrs. Janet E.
Conrad.[60]

During the fighting for the Philippines a soldier heard a voice near
his foxhole. “Are you Mr. George Gentry's son, and is your name
Cushman?”

“Yes, I'm Cushman Gentry.”

“Man, am I glad to see you.”

Thousands of miles from home Ollie T. Woodfolk had found a
friend from Albemarle. Writing home about the meeting Gentry
commented that the Negro soldier had had a close call that day
from Jap planes.[61]

On December 14, 1944, Ensign James Witt Robinson of Charlottesville,
a member of Fighting Squadron Twenty, attached to the
USS Lexington, flew his first mission over enemy territory to photograph
Japanese air fields in the Clark Field area of Central Luzon
in the Philippines. Several fighters from the carrier went along to
protect him from enemy planes while he took his pictures. Of the
mission Commander F. E. Bakutis, his commanding officer, wrote,
“Without regard for his personal safety, Jim was making his runs

through heavy antiaircraft fire. Suddenly, several bursts were seen
close by his plane and that of [Ensign George William] McJimsey,
and both of them began falling. One of the pilots, believed to have
been McJimsey, was seen to parachute and appeared to be unconscious
in his chute. Both planes crashed among the enemy installations.”
First listed as missing, Ensign Robinson on January 16,
1945, was reported killed in action. Two days later he was reported
safe. Actually, McJimsey was killed, and it was Robinson
who had been seen to parachute.

Like the hero in a movie serial, Robinson had been spared by a
combination of fortuitous circumstances. A direct hit on the left
wing of his plane near the cockpit threw the plane into a spin.
There was a blinding explosion and Robinson lost consciousness.

“The last thing I remember is going into a spin—all I had on
my mind was to get out, but I don't remember bailing out nor opening
the 'chute,” he recalled. “I was too weak to bail out. The
only thing that I can figure is that the explosion blew the canopy
off the plane and I tumbled out. Somehow the 'chute yanked open.”

When he came to, Robinson was lying in a rice paddy surrounded
by Filipinos. His ribs were dislocated and his wrist and arm injured.
Using his first aid packet, he treated his wounds. A Filipino
doctor later dressed his arm and put a splint on his wrist. That
night he was turned over to one of the traveling guerrilla bands,
which, because Robinson was too weak to walk, provided a two-wheel
cart drawn by a carabao in which he rode for the next week.

“We were on the move every night,” he recalled. “We'd travel
from one barrio, as the natives called the villages, to another, and
were fed and hidden by the civilians during the day. We stayed
outside the towns, since there were usually several thousand Japanese
in the large centers.”

With Filipino guides Robinson and several other American airmen
made their way to the foothills above Clark Field where the guerrilla
forces had a stronghold.

“In order to get there, we had to cross the Jap lines,” he said.
“It took us five days to go 15 miles through the Jap lines and across
a main highway. We traveled by daylight, which was dangerous,
because if the Japanese saw a band of unidentified men moving
around, they would conclude that they were guerrillas, and either
strafe or ambush them.”

Robinson remained in the foothills camp until a week after the
Americans landed on Lingayen Gulf, then he started north covering
the forty miles to Camiling in a day and a half. Here he rejoined
the American forces on the day that city was occupied, returning,
as it were, from the dead a month after he had been shot down.[62]

The Sixth Army had landed on the beaches of Lingayen Gulf
on January 9, 1945, and put 68,000 troops ashore to secure a

fifteen-mile beachhead the first day. The next day First Lieutenant
George Cleveland Doner of Charlottesville with the 20th Infantry
of the 6th Division wrote:

“We were the assault troops and the first to land. I came in in
the fifth wave about 12 minutes after the initial waves. To our
surprise there was no resistance whatsoever. The Navy and Air
Corps had previously given the beach a good working over but there
were no Japs. We will, naturally, run into them soon but landing
and getting organized has been a great asset. This is the second
day and we've moved about five miles and have seen no Japs. The
natives were overjoyed in our coming and have been most helpful
in every way. They are extremely friendly and grateful of everything
done for them and their homeland. One asked if Roosevelt
was still president. They are far more intelligent than I had expected.
It is a great relief after the New Guinea type of inhabitants.
You'll never know how grand it was to hit land and proceed inland
to a coconut grove. I saw the grass and just lay down and rolled
in it. The highways, houses, and railroads were the first we'd
seen in over a year.

“Our trip up here was exciting and one day a Jap dived his plane
into our transport. There were a few deaths and injuries but not
as bad as it could have been.”

Lieutenant Doner fought throughout the Luzon campaign. Six
months later, on July 8, he wrote, “We have been sitting still for
the past two weeks taking a little rest. Patrols are sent out every
day but other than that, things have been very quiet. Quite a few
prisoners have been taken in lately and one in particular ... was
of special interest. He was an officer with 17 years of education,
which is a lot as compared with most of the others. He spoke
perfect English and gave an opinion of the average thoughts ...
in the minds of the Japanese. He expressed his desire that some
day he may be able to go to England to further his education. As
he expressed it, he is strictly anglophilic. I had to look that one up.
He is married with four children whom he loves very dearly but
he had no desire to return to Japan because he knows that under
the present government, he will be ostracised. He also said that
the average Japanese knew that they were fighting a losing battle
but they had no leader who had the power and fortitude to lead
the people.”

On August 12, 1945, only a day before the announcement of
Japanese intention to surrender, Lieutenant Doner wrote again.
“I am writing this somewhat near the front lines. I was sent up
to the forward ammunition dump to consolidate and manage same.
... This is really rough country and roads are impassable because
of the rain and high mountains. Naturally we are 'sweating out'
the answer from Japan and at a point like this a bit of emphasis

can be put on the 'sweating out'. It seems strange being here and
listening to only an occasional gun shot. Yes, all firing (except air
strikes and artillery) has ceased except when only necessary. The
attitude of the more forward elements is, naturally, one of joking
and plans for the future. ... Hope they'll let us out by the first-in-first-out
system. That seems to be the concensus of opinion, and
one of the biggest questions is whether or not the Japs up here will
give up even after the armistice. Then, 'midst all the joking,
laughter, and impatient waiting, is some tragedy. Two boys were
killed last night.”[63]

The code name “Hot Rock” for the invasion of Iwo Jima was
well chosen, for the volcanic island emits steam and sulphur fumes.
Though it was heavily bombarded in preparation for the attack, its
fortifications were still intact when the Marines landed on February
19, 1945. In the ensuing hours and days the defending Japs took
a heavy toll of the attacking Americans. During a heavy enemy
mortar barrage which had seriously reduced his platoon, Second
Lieutenant Nathaniel F. Mann of Charlottesville inspired the remaining
members to hold their positions by walking through the
deadly hail calmly giving personal encouragement to each man.
“After the barrage had lifted but while exposed to intense and
accurate rifle fire, he led a platoon of reinforcements into position.
Although the enemy continued to inflict severe casualties in his
platoon, Lieutenant Mann voluntarily worked his way across a draw
under observation to gain contact with the unit on his left, and
that night was directly responsible for closing a dangerous gap in
the front line by leading two more platoons into position across
the draw.” For his courageous conduct Lieutenant Mann was
awarded the Silver Star.[64]

Private First Class Harold E. Roberts of Charlottesville was one
of the replacements moved up to the front lines on Iwo Jima to
relieve a unit which had been “pretty badly cut up.” A bullet
grazed his left cheek, inflicting a minor wound, but he refused to
go back to an aid station and stayed in his foxhole awaiting orders
to advance.

“We'd been pinned down all morning, and when we finally got
ready to move out, I threw my leg up over the hole, only to fall
back with a bullet wound in it,” he recalled. For eight long hours
Roberts waited while things were so “hot” in his area that the
medical corpsmen could not get forward to the wounded, but later
he dismissed the experience. “That sort of thing doesn't hurt, you
know, there's just a hole in your leg, but no feeling.”[65]

Pharmacist's Mate Second Class Eugene Hoover wrote his parents
describing the battle of Iwo Jima.

“That was sure one of the hottest places I have even seen and
for 27 days we were kept awfully busy most all the time. For a

while, I was in the front line as first-aid man with the boys. You
can't realize what it's like here night and day or what awful
ground we had to go over. ... Japs lived like ground hogs and
had to be smoked, burned and blown out.

“I have some souvenirs. Two sabers—two big Jap swords, one
was burned some and had no handle so I sold it for $30, but the
other one is very beautiful and I still have it—a small automatic
pistol, a bayonet and a pocket knife. ...

“We were given new clothes and good chow after leaving Iwo
Jima and the boys feel lots better after washing and shaving. This
we really needed.”[66]

In March, 1945, the USS Trigger was lost while on war patrol
in the Ryukyu Islands. The executive officer of the submarine,
Lieutenant Commander John Eldon Shepherd, III, of Charlottesville,
had been with the Trigger ever since January 31, 1942, when it
was commissioned. He had finished his regular number of patrols
the previous December, but he volunteered for two extra patrols.
On the second of these the submarine was lost. The Trigger had
made one of the most outstanding records of the war. For outstanding
performance in combat during her fifth, sixth, and seventh
war patrols she received the Presidential Unit Citation. During
this time Shepherd personally earned the Navy Cross and the Silver
Star.[67]

The offensive on the Ryukyus began March 26, 1945, when
Lieutenant General Simon B. Buckner's Tenth Army landed on
Kerama Retto. On April 1 landings were made on Okinawa, the
main island. The Sixth Marine Division under the command of
Major General Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr., of Charlottesville landed
with other troops on the west coast and turned left to clear the
northern part of the island. Later after that job was done they
returned south to assault the chief city of Naha. By May 17 patrols
of Major General Shepherd's division had crossed the muddy Asato
estuary and entered the rubble-strewn capital of Okinawa. It was
the largest city ever captured by the Marine Corps. After a hard
campaign of eighty-two days the island was completely in American
hands.[68]

Air attacks on American vessels were frequent during the Ryukyus
campaign. The destroyer USS Newcomb was attacked near the
island of Ie Shima on April 6, 1945, by four Kamikaze planes.
Fireman First Class Franklin B. Giles of Charlottesville was wounded
when the third suicide plane tore into his ship. “The four planes
all struck our ship within a few minutes of each other,” said Giles,
who was on duty below a five-inch gun. “The Japs had been
flying around all day, but our planes had been successful in fighting
them off. The first two planes hit with terrific explosions. The
metal decking rolled up like a carpet. Looking up from my position,

I saw flames. I yelled at the gunner, telling him his gun
was afire. He yelled back and said so was the rest of the ship!
Then the third plane hit. Our room was torn by concussion and
the air was filled with flying shrapnel and pieces of metal.” Severely
crippled, the Newcomb with her wounded was towed to a repair
base.[69]

Ensign Horace Walker Heath of Charlottesville was an ace pilot
with Fighting Squadron 10, the “Grim Reaper Squadron,” attached
to the USS Intrepid during the Okinawa offensive. “Tuck,”
as he was called by his friends, was with the “Ripper Five” division.
During four months' duty in the Pacific Heath accounted in part
for the destruction of fourteen planes on the ground and damaged
ten others. He made many flights in support of the advance on
Okinawa. On one occasion he shot down two enemy fighters and
then a few days later shot down three more. Several months later,
July 8, 1945, he was taking part in practice maneuvers off Pearl
Harbor. As he dived making a dummy pass at the carrier, the
tail and wing tops came off his plane and it started spinning with
its body parallel to the water. As the plane hit the water, it disintegrated
leaving no wreckage. A bronze tablet in memory of
Ensign Heath was unveiled on January 19, 1947, in the chapel of
St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Charlottesville.[70]

Off Swatow, China, on March 13, 1945, First Lieutenant Vincent
dePaul Jammé, Jr., of Earlysville flew as a pilot in a formation
of four B-25 aircraft on a minimum altitude bombing and strafing
mission against enemy shipping along the China coast. When a
destroyer and a freighter were sighted, he led his wingman in an
attack on the destroyer. Though the left engine of his plane was
set on fire and a propeller blade was shot off during the approach,
he continued the run, strafing and bombing the vessel. Lifted out
of the water by four or more bomb hits, it sank in seventy-five
seconds. Forced to land on the water near the target, Lieutenant
Jammé and his crew were lost. The Silver Star was awarded him
posthumously.[71]

Airplanes were meanwhile carrying the war to the Japanese
homeland. Ensign James C. Funsten of Charlottesville, flying a
Navy Hellcat fighter from a carrier, escorted bombers on a smashing
raid on Japan. He strafed hangars and destroyed a two-engine
bomber on an enemy airdrome. An Oscar fighter came up to intercept,
and Funsten got first crack at him.

“I swung out wide in a downward turn and gave the Jap fighter
a long burst of 50 caliber fire,” he said. “The Oscar rolled over
on its back and went straight down, smoking. I didn't wait around
to see him crash.”[72]

From bases in the Marianas Islands B-29's made regular raids
on Japan. Brigadier General Lauris Norstad of Charlottesville was

chief of staff of the 20th Air Force, which had its headquarters on
Guam and directed these operations.[73]

With the 314th Bombardment Wing, First Lieutenant (later
Captain) Charles W. Lucas of Charlottesville piloted a Superfortress,
which his crew voted to name “City of Charlottesville” in honor
of his home town. The name was painted on a flag drawn with
its staff planted at Charlottesville's location on a map of North
America painted on the nose of the plane. During the air assault
on Japan the bomber made a record of forty-one missions. Each
flight was around three thousand miles and took approximately
fifteen hours. During most of these flights Lucas was at the controls.
His performance of this duty earned him the Distinguished
Flying Cross.[74]

Charlottesville also had a warship to bear her name. While
the band played “Carry Me Back To Old Virginny,” the USS
Charlottesville, a Coast Guard frigate, slid down the ways of the
Walter Butler Shipbuilding Company at Superior, Wisconsin, on
July 30, 1943. It was a good ship, three hundred six feet long
and thirty-seven feet, six inches, in the beam, which Mrs. J. Emmett
Gleason, the wife of Charlottesville's mayor, christened with the
usual bottle of champagne. Miss Anne Nash, the maid of honor,
Alvin T. Dulaney, and Mayor Gleason watched as the ship took
to the water. Then was presented Charlottesville's gift to the
vessel—two handsome photographs, one of Monticello and one of
the Rotunda. Later the PF-25, as she was designated in Navy
records, was taken down the Mississippi River to New Orleans,
where she was commissioned in April, 1944. One of ninety-six
such vessels built to battle U-boats and protect American convoys,
the Charlottesville had a crew of one hundred ninety-six
enlisted men and twelve commissioned officers under Lieutenant
Commander W. F. Cass, her captain. After the commissioning
ceremony Dr. H. D. Ecker of the Marine Hospital at New Orleans,
a graduate of the University of Virginia Medical School whose
wife was formerly an Albemarle County girl, wrote Mayor Gleason:

“She was tied up at a slip not far from the hospital, with all
her signal flags flying from the yardarms in a colorful display to
supply as festive an air as could be expected to surround a fighting
ship. The railings on the dock leading to the gangway were strung
with red, white and blue bunting; the watch were uniformed in
white, standing smartly at attention; and the deck was crowded
with highranking officers of the Coast Guard. ... For the most
part, she appears as all the other vessels of the 'frigate' class—
amply supplied with fire-power and speed, and neat, compact integration
of the complicated machinery of a modern fighting ship.
I, naturally, was especially interested in the sick bay, which is
small but adequately designed and equipped for almost any emergency.

Mrs. J. Emmett Gleason makes a hit as she christens the
USS Charlottesville.

With all her signal flags flying, the USS Charlottesville takes
her first dip.

The officers' quarters are small but appear comfortable.
My main interest, however, centered in the officers' wardroom where
are hung two large, lovely pictures which occupy most of the forward
bulkhead—one of the Rotunda, and one of Monticello. They
also have hung in the wardroom a portrait of Jefferson. Lieutenant
Commander Cass and several of the other officers told me that both
officers and crew were most appreciative of the library sent the ship
from Charlottesville. Unfortunately, the bookcase could not be
accommodated, so a brass plate is being secured to the steel bookcase
indicating that the library is a gift from the city of which
the ship is namesake.”[75]

When the ship put into Norfolk in July so many of her crew
wanted liberty to visit Charlottesville that Commander Cass had
the applicants cut cards. Those who drew the five highest cards
made the trip. As guests of the city on the first anniversary of the
launching, the five sailors were shown the town. The Monticello
Hotel made good on its standing offer of berths to visiting crew
members. Mayor and Mrs. Gleason entertained the boys at luncheon,
together with five charming hostesses. Afterward the group visited
Monticello. That evening, before catching the train back to Norfolk,
the visitors had dinner at the Albemarle Hotel.

Just before Christmas Mrs. Gleason got a letter from one of the
sailors who visited Charlottesville. He told how the Charlottesville
had taken part in recent invasion operations in the Pacific.
Although bombed for several days by enemy planes, she came
through safely, to display proudly a reproduction of a Japanese
flag and one plane as evidence that her gunners had blasted an
enemy out of the sky.

At the same time Ensign James R. Lewis of Charlottesville, serving
aboard the USS O'Bannon, a destroyer, also wrote Mrs. Gleason
about the Charlottesville, “Not so long ago, I saw her—very neat and
very trim, indeed.” He described an unusual incident in which his
proud destroyer was forced to take orders from the frigate which
bore Charlottesville's name. Of this paradox he wrote, “To me it
was nothing more or less than my home town again exerting itself
as being just a little better than the next one. Yes, she seems to be
doing all right for herself.”[76]

The Pacific war reached a climax when atomic bombs were dropped
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by Superforts during the first two weeks
of August, 1945. At seven o'clock on the evening of August 14
radio listeners throughout Charlottesville and Albemarle County
heard the joyous news that Japan had capitulated. The formal signing
of the surrender took place in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945,
according to the calendar there; but in the time zones of the United
States the date was September 1, six years to the very day after the
war had begun with the German invasion of Poland.