Iwo 26 charlie, p.12
Iwo, 26 Charlie, page 12
“Monster’s real name is Aristede Guidry,” he began. He was from St. Mary’s Parish, Louisiana. I’d already noticed that Monster was short for a Marine. He was wiry, with a gargoyle’s face under a full cap of spiky black hair, shorn down to Marine standards. His face reminded me of that vampire character portrayed by Bela Lugosi: hatchet-shaped face, elongated bony nose, dramatically arching eyebrows, black eyes, somewhat pointed ears, and ruddy cheeks which contrasted oddly with the rest of his face, which was china white. He was maybe five seven in his boots but with an oversized chest and slightly bowed legs. His hands were unusually long, almost clawlike, and never quite still. He went around with an expression of barely suppressed, hot-eyed anger that made his eyes bulge a little and hinted at a capacity for sudden violence. His voice was scratchy and rather high pitched; his accent was what Goon assured me was “no shit, real” Cajun. He wore a barely visible necklace that he claimed was made from his mother’s own hair, which was something any respectable Voudon priestess would always provide for her children. Every once in a while, he’d tug on that necklace and mutter something, and then expose a one-inch-wide carving of a human skull, complete with glowing red garnet eyes.
Being from Georgia, I’d heard of Cajuns, of course, but this was the first time I’d encountered one. I figured I could understand about a third of what he was saying, not that he talked much. His nickname, Monster, was obviously a play on his small size, especially compared with most of the Marines I’d seen, who were typically six to eight inches taller and twice his bulk. But then Goon explained there was more to that Monster nickname business. He was the team’s forwardmost scout because he, as well as the third member of the team, Twitch, liked to slither soundlessly like a snake out into the darkness, carrying only knives, looking for enemy infiltrators to kill.
Goon told me that one hour before dawn one day on Peleliu, Monster came back to his platoon’s front line with three eyeballs threaded onto a bloody boot string. The squad was suitably amused until Monster pulled the plastic and canvas liner out of his steel helmet and began heating up some diesel oil in the helmet over a small chunk of burning C-4 plastic explosive. Once it was heated, he put the eyeballs in the bubbling oil and asked if anyone had some extra salt and pepper in their ration kit. That kind of cleared the camp, Goon said, chuckling. The platoon’s gunny sergeant had spoken harshly to Monster, who’d defended his arrangements by pointing out he’d missed breakfast, him.
Later that morning, as the unit advanced under the usual hellish fire, they’d come upon three separate corpses whose faces sported one empty eye socket each, while the other socket revealed the sickly white surface of an eyeball that had been removed but then put back, reversed. Many members of his platoon began giving Monster a wide berth once that story got out; he maintained he knew nothing about such a barbarity, him. When pressed, however, he’d given an evil grin and then ’fess up. Sort of. “Like real chewy aigs, them eyes,” he’d said, raising his own eyebrows dramatically. “Cain’t scramble ’em, and such, but hard-boiled, or even better, Cajun fried? They’s a treat and a whole lot better’n gator eyes, ’cause human eyes ain’t as salty, you know. Why I was askin’ for some salt.” I questioned the diesel oil as a cooking oil, and Goon told me not to go spoiling a good story.
Goon explained that the Japanese spent all day shooting at Marines from their concealed positions and spider holes, but at night they sent out their own version of raider-scouts to terrorize the Marines holed up in their front line foxholes. The Marines had an iron rule: if it moves at night, shoot it. If it calls out into the front lines in English, shoot it. If it cries out like a wounded Marine trying to get back inside friendly front lines, shoot it—everyone had been briefed that if you got wounded and separated from your buddies, however bad off you were, do not move or make any sound at night. We’ll find you.
Monster, on the other hand, was the exception. He’d go out in front of his squad’s position, checking out with the sentries as he crept through the perimeter, and wouldn’t come back until false dawn. If the squad later heard screams out there, or the grunting sounds gators made at night, or even strange water-bird calls, where there was, of course, no water, there’d now be murmurs of “Git ’em, Monster” up and down The Line, and they’d grin and nod to one another. Southern-fried eyeballs for breakfast. Hell, yes.
He also liked to take along a small harmonica, Goon continued. Now, enemy soldiers prowling the Marine perimeter at night, he assured me, were nothing to take lightly. They’d come out in the dark, leaving their rifles behind and carrying razor-sharp swords or their hari-kari belly knives. They were really good at night-crawling and they often managed to creep up on a Marine foxhole, where one would throw a knife into the on-guard Marine’s throat, and then the other would roll into the foxhole on top of the sleeping buddy, scream something hideous in Japanese, and then behead the other Marine. They’d quickly throw the head into the nearest foxhole to terrorize the next two Marines, who would instantly start shooting, often hitting other fellow Marines and setting off a general panic. Sometimes the severed head would contain the first casualty’s genitals, stuffed into the gaping mouth, something the Japanese enjoyed doing with any Marine dead they came upon. Reportedly, that’s what had attracted Monster to the fray.
His routine didn’t vary much. He would creep around for a little bit, crawl under a rock like a snake, coil up and take a short nap. Goin’ real quiet, he would tell the others. He’d wake up and then smell the air for a few minutes. He claimed he could differentiate between the smell of live enemy and the stink of carrion that pervaded the entire island. And then he’d blow a few notes on that damned harmonica. Any bad guys on the creep out there would freeze at that bizarre sound, and, of course, any foxhole Marines within hearing range would wake their buddies up immediately.
At that point, Monster’s favorite tactic was to growl and then shriek like some kind of large cat and then go silent and remain very still again. By this time, he’d slithered close enough to the enemy positions that he’d be able to throw something into their foxholes. His favorite was a supple piece of rubber hose from an AMTRAC’s radiator, which, in the darkness, barely illuminated by all those lazily drifting flares, and having been painted to look a lot like a Mamushi snake—the Japanese version of a water moccasin—would clear the foxhole, after which the real snake would use his K-bar to stab any bewildered and frightened soldiers who got close enough to him, usually in the groin. He’d then park an armed grenade under each dead soldier, just like they did with our dead. Then he’d go looking for some more foxholes. He’d use one of their own short swords to probe the ground ahead of him to make sure he wasn’t about to slither over one of their mines. Why it takes so damn long, don’t you see, he’d point out. Good woik takes time, you know, but it’s great fun, if you know how to do it.
Or so he claimed, Goon said, although he, himself, admitted to being a believer. Hell, after just seeing Monster’s face, I was a believer. Especially when I saw every line Marine who encountered Monster step aside—way aside—and avoid direct eye contact. From what I could see, everyone—officers, sergeants, and troops—knew him on sight. Monster, however, wasn’t the only one of them who was famous.
“And Twitch?” I asked.
The third guy on my escort team was named Salvos Chantagras, nicknamed Twitch. I figured that was because he had some kind of facial tic, but that was not the case. Goon told me he was of Balkan extraction, but he looked more like every American kid’s version of a Plains Indian right out of Central Casting: not all that tall but big through the chest and shoulders, with an angular, wedge-cheeked face, big nose, dark, almost slanted eyes, downward curved mouth, oily black, straight back hair which lay on his head like a wet rug, even after the obligatory Marine Corps high and tight haircut. He, like Monster, exhibited a physical presence that proclaimed: don’t mess with me, but less bizarre than our Cajun. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him and his usual physical stance was best described as ready for anything, even when he was squatting down, staring at nothing and silent as a stone. About the only time he did talk was when he had something to offer about their tactical situation. Goon said that if Twitch saw a house on fire, the most you’d get out of him was: Hey—fire.
His nickname had been born the first time he’d gone to the Marine rifle range. Marines were taught the “squeeze” method of firing a rifle. “Pull” the trigger and you pull the rifle off the target; every damn time. They wanted you to grip the rifle hard and then settle the sights on the target before even putting your finger near the trigger. Set and lock the perfectly adjusted sight picture, but then don’t go disturbing that perfect picture by pulling on the trigger. Squ-e-e-e-ze the trigger, while keeping the sight picture with both eyes open. Let the rifle surprise you while it takes care of the business.
Salvos had disagreed. His approach was to set the sight picture just like they told him, but then to place the trigger-finger and just barely twitch. The sergeants weren’t having it: twitch, you’ll move the whole rifle. Salvos shook his head—I hold the rifle so tight, it cannot move. Watch. He then proceeded to fire six perfect strings with his trusty Garand at one hundred yards, two hundred yards, and ultimately, at three hundred yards.
The sergeants, baffled by this performance, challenged him to do it again.
All day long, he’d replied, quietly. Even back then, he wasn’t much of a talker.
Twitch turned out to be true to his word. Through the weeklong competitions at the end of basic training for expert and then some, Salvos smoked his competitors. Then they handed him a National Match 1903 Springfield with an 8x Unertl sniper scope and a five-round magazine. They ran up head silhouettes at two hundred yards, through which he could put the round wherever they requested it. After that his Marine name was Twitch.
On Guadalcanal, the First Marines’ problem hadn’t been shooting individual enemy soldiers. It was dealing with hordes of them thrashing across rivers and running full tilt up the hill in an angry, noisy swarm, propelled by some kind of stimulant pills, all the while trying to overwhelm entrenched Marines who just happened to be defending themselves with water-cooled, tripod mounted, .50 caliber machine guns. The main problem for the Marines was having enough ammo and keeping their barrels cooled. There were so many damned targets they had to assign a mortar gang to keep constant illume in the air to make sure they got them all.
Twitch’s job had been to look behind the screaming, hopped-up berserkers flailing up the slope and locate the colonels and, sometimes, even generals, crouching in their bamboo hides, a radio in each hand and a sword on their hip. He still had that 1903 Springfield rifle with its 8x scope, with which he methodically executed every Japanese officer who appeared in that telescopic sight. By the time the remnants of the assaulting regiment managed to fall back on their own lines, there was not a single officer to welcome them back.
He spent the rest of his time in various hides out around Henderson Field, usually in a wrecked American fighter plane that had been pushed off the runway into the jungle, shooting snipers out of their trees while keeping to the sniper’s basic pattern: shoot and then move; always move. There were plenty of plane carcasses out there. The Japanese were perfectly capable of putting a team in the trees—one to attract the Marine sniper’s attention, the other to shoot back as the first sniper was falling to the ground with a bullet in his head. If a sniper did something that appeared to be goofy, Twitch would look hard for Number Two; shoot him first, and then go after the decoy.
Twitch’s other skill was tracking through cover. He seemed to have a sixth sense when there was something in the jungle, underground, or out among the rocks that didn’t belong there. As to underground—Goon swore that Twitch could detect the presence of metal objects underground, such as land mines. Nobody could explain it, but if ever Twitch stopped and put a finger in the air everyone froze until he got down on the ground and crept close enough to point at it. Every replacement platoon leader, company commander, and staff officer was briefed to listen to Twitch; he rarely spoke, they were told, but when he did, act like it’s a railroad crossing: stop, look, and listen.
On that disastrous first day of the Iwo landings, Twitch had disappeared. He’d gone over the side from one of the landing boats about a hundred yards offshore. He’d then swum down the coast, all alone, around the southern slopes of the volcano to the westernmost foot of Suribachi, and then disappeared into the wet black rocks and tangled kelp beds at the volcano’s base. From there he’d climbed almost to the top, hiding at the edge of the open crater for most of the day. As evening approached, he’d circled back around inside the crater until he could sight down into the open backs of the main enemy heavy artillery emplacements, where he’d be relatively safe from naval gunfire. He’d taken explosive-head .30 caliber ammo for his Springfield and used it to set off ammo piles below. All the credit for those secondary explosions had gone to the naval units who’d been firing everything they had at the island once the true scope of the prepared defenses had become clearer.
He stayed up there for two days and a night until he ran out of visible targets, then slithered down the cinder slopes and back into the sea on the second night, when he swam back north to the landing beaches, keeping about a hundred yards offshore. He then calmly walked out of the sea and reported in to the astonished beachmasters. Later he only smiled when those now famous flag-raisers claimed to have “taken” Suribachi. He’d eventually rejoined Goon and told him what he’d been up to. Goon then told Colonel Sam. I know, the colonel had said—I sent him up there. Good scout, that one. Hang onto him. Name’s Twitch.
We waited some more. I was still trying to get my head around the concept of a three-man special team out among the chaos and out-of-control bloodletting that was Iwo Jima and doing insane things like going up Suribachi on L-Day and not getting caught.
“About as crazy as a Navy loo-tenant leaving a nice warm, safe, and dry battleship for the chance to play with us in this shithole,” Goon observed with a shrug.
“Um,” was about all I could manage as that big mortar started up again and we once again sought cover.
Finally, the Nevada came back up and reported ready for the fire mission. I was willing to bet that my replacement down in Plot wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week.
“Ready, break—fire,” I replied. At this range, the ship would give me the warning that the round was about to land in five seconds. That gave me time to get back to my peephole to watch for the impact.
“This is Peacemaker: Shot.” A pause. Then, almost immediately: “Stand by, out.”
I slid over to my arrow slit just in time to see and hear a colossal explosion erupt behind and above the bunker’s entrance. I went back to the radio.
“Peacemaker, this is Iwo, two-six Charlie. Spots: right one hundred, down one five zero feet, drop three hundred.”
“Spots: right one hundred, down one five zero feet, drop three hundred.” A short pause, then: “Spots applied. Ready, over?”
“Ready, break—fire.”
Another pause. “Shot.” And then another: “Stand by, out.”
This time the round hit within the Quarry, but to the left of the target. Plus, it didn’t explode. When a five-inch does that, I have to go back to the shooter and call “lost.” But a five-inch shell weighs seventy-five pounds. A fourteen-inch high-cap shell weighs 1,700 pounds, so even a dud landing can be both seen and heard. I corrected that shot and called for one more, at which point some big mortar rounds started coming our way as the Japs realized what was going on. Most of the mortars landed behind us and more in the direction of where the platoon was hunkering down. My radioman and I went flat when the first rounds hit, but then I got back up and called in a final spot. We were shooting at a target that was embedded in a sheer rock wall, so I knew it wasn’t going to be like hitting a cluster of tanks, which could move. But if I could collapse that rock wall and possibly bury the entrance, it would improve my platoon’s circumstances a lot.
The final spotting shell did go off, this time right on the rock wall and about eighty feet directly above the bunker’s mouth.
“Peacemaker, this is Iwo, two-six Charlie: target. Three rounds, Main Battery, high-cap, fire for effect.”
That transmission turned Nevada loose to deliver one turret’s worth of huge projectiles on or near that bunker’s exposed face. After the three rounds completely obscured the target in a flashing cloud of flying rock and dirt, there were no more Type 98 mortars coming in. I heard a quiet cheer from down where the guys were hiding. The remains of the platoon down in the ravine couldn’t see anything, of course, but they could surely hear it, which must have been comforting. For the first time since coming ashore, I felt good. Fourteen-inch does that for you. Sixteen-inch is even better.
THIRTEEN
Then I had an idea. Since I had the big stuff at my disposal, I called them back and told them the target was obscured and announced a second fire mission. This time I called for armor-piercing rounds and spotted the impact points back up on the top rim of the Quarry—directly above the bunker, I hoped. I couldn’t know how far underground they’d built that bunker, but if I could make the tunnel’s roof collapse, they’d be permanently out of business. Nevada, using a single turret, fired six more rounds in three-packs, all but one of which landed near or on the overhead line of the tunnel.
One round, the last one, went a bit long, for some odd reason. It took about forty-five seconds between rounds, and I could just envision the turret crew clearing that barrel’s gaping maw and then feeding the next shell and its attending powder bags, slapping on the primer pads, and then hydraulically activating the massive breechblock to swing back up, engage, and then rotate to the locked position.
Nothing happened from when these rounds first hit until the delayed-action fuses fired, by which time I was hoping these even heavier projectiles had penetrated down to where the tunnels and our treacherous enemy lurked. One of those AP rounds apparently found an ammunition storage chamber, because suddenly there came a pillar of flame erupting hundreds of feet into the night air and illuminating the entire middle part of the island with a sustained fiery roar. I knew that if that chamber had been part of the tunnel complex there’d be a similar firestorm pulsing underground throughout every tunnel in that complex that was physically connected to that ammo chamber.
