My father is a Marine. When the Second World War began, he was 18 years old and was in college. He finished his freshman year and then joined the Marine Corps. The following excerpt is from his war memoirs.
Setting scene: It was February 1944. The invasion of Eniwetok Atoll. Eniwetok followed the invasion of Kwajalein Atoll. He was part of the invasion force on Engby Island, the easternmost point of the atoll.
This photo is of my father in San Francisco on December 4, 1945. My father is on the left. He is also from 6day Marines. You might recognize him. His name is Robert Weber. Mr. Weber is a role actor who appeared in many movies in the 1950s and 1960s, the most famous may be “Twelve Angry Men” and “Twelve Evil Men”. They have just returned from three years of war and have “out of the city”.
“On the side, follow the Net of Life and enter the landing craft. When it was full, our boat sailed to the assembly point. We signaled and went to Engibi. The landing craft hit the sand at the southern end of the island. The ramp went down and we ran to look for us. Any cover that can be found. The bullet sprinted past us. I hit the sand, looking for the source of the fire, and then stood up to look for cover. When a Marine from my company was sitting on my landing craft, I Looking for a better position. Plop. The bullet seemed to hit his blind spot. He fell like a bag of potatoes. I stopped and called a soldier. Eventually a soldier took over and I walked to a hole or something. To hide behind. I rolled into a bullet hole.
The god of death was about to say hello again. Although it seemed eternal, we only stayed on the beach for a moment. Guys hopped between the cannonball holes. When we were fired by machine guns, our company commander, Captain Blood (yes, his real name) was next to me. The blood captain was directly hit and died on the spot.
Later, when the battle was over and the grave details were preparing to take Captain Blood’s body back to the ship or bury it, I asked the Marines if they could look at his wallet. Captain Blood swallowed one last breath next to me. I want to learn more about him. There is a photo in his wallet. Looking back at me is his beautiful wife and two children. I was crushed. What flashed in my mind was that a wife would never see her husband again. The children can no longer feel the touch of their father. That photo was deeply burned in my memory. It still exists.
The smell of the Pacific War is unique. This is the smell of sea water, smoke, diesel exhaust and blood.
When the war is over, everything is over. I never thought I had “post-traumatic stress disorder”. During the war, it was called “combat fatigue”. For me, this is just a necessary thing I was ordered to do. I did not have nightmares or flashbacks. The people I killed didn’t bother me. Decades later, my wife and I went to the movie “Saving Private Ryan”. The movie begins with a landing on Omaha Beach in Normandy. D day. Suddenly, all this rushed back. I was there—on the beach, smelling of diesel, and screaming for help and death. I can really smell those smells. I broke down and started sobbing. My wife has never seen me become a wreck. We had to leave the theater.
Where there is death, there is life. A chicken with almost no feathers ran on the beach in a daze. Apparently, his feathers were blown off during the bombing. This is strange. The chicken is still alive. My captain is dead. I said: “Someone wants to eat that bird for dinner!”.
