All Original Written
Material copyright 1999, Dan Marsh; all original artwork
copyright 1999 by Louie Marsh. Please use with permission
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2nd Raiders - Makin Part
Two
Ben Carson, who
was with the “center”, was caught by the air raid as he was
withdrawing:
I was dashing from coconut tree to coconut tree as we were
pulling back. . . [when] all of a sudden a Jap torpedo bomber
appeared just above the trees strafing the road which was between me
and the leeward beach. We were told not to fire at the planes. I was
really glad when that plane got past me without hitting anything
with his bullets when all of a sudden the lead was flying again.
There was a machine gunner in the rear of the plane and he was
getting his jollies blasting hell out of the road as the plane was
pulling up.
Howard Young apparently did not get the word when the center
withdrew and rode out the air raid in the target
area:
It was my first experience with planes and I hit the deck
behind a tree and was petrified. After I found I was in one piece
and realized they were just shooting blind, I felt much better. . .
[After the raid]
I kept going up the island looking for further resistance. I didn’t
find any; in fact, I found that I was completely alone. I headed
toward the lagoon and got there in time to see the two planes
coining in to land.
The main body dodged bombs and bullets for an hour and a
quarter and also came through the air raid unscathed, although only
a few of them enjoyed the luxury of taro-bed bomb shelters as had my
group. Instead some spent the time circling palm trees to keep the
thick trunks between themselves and the strafing planes, but at
least one, Jim Faulkner, had to be dragged around. Incapacitated by
three bullet wounds and a canteen of scotch given him by Lieutenant
Lamb, Jim was in no condition to walk.
By 1430 the raid was over, and
the planes departed, except the pontoon plane and Kawanishi flying
boat that landed on the lagoon due north of the command post.
Unconcernedly, as if their pilots thought the island were still
controlled by their own troops, the two planes began to taxi toward
the pier area. Awaiting them, however, was not a line-handling
detail from the Butaritari Detachment of the Special Naval Landing
Force, Imperial Japanese Navy, but a formidable array of weapons
manned by members of the 2d Raider Battalion. U.S. Marine
Corps.
Among the waiting Raiders were
Buck Stidham and Bob Poarche, who had their Boys antitank rifle set
up near the water’s edge, and the antitank-rifle team of Tiny
Carroll and Dean Winters which, together with three Company’ “B”
machine guns (Chapman, Dawson, and Inman), was positioned a few
yards left of and inland from Stidham’s position. In addition to
this heavier weaponry, most riflemen and automatic riflemen on that
side of the island were adjusting their sights for windage and
elevation in anticipation of a shot at the fat ducks that were
swimming into range.
When the smaller
plane was about 1,000 yards away, heading toward the wharf area but
still between the Raiders and the flying boat, which also was
taxiing slowly toward the pier area, the Raiders opened fire. Almost
immediately the pontoon plane burst into flames and soon sank, but
the flying boat slowly came about and in a hail of bullets headed
out into the lagoon, gradually increasing its speed for takeoff. It
finally managed to get airborne; but, as it struggled for altitude,
suddenly nosed down and crashed into the lagoon off King’s
Wharf.
What specifically’ caused the
flying boat to crash is unknown and unknowable, but anyone who fired
at the planes justifiably can share credit in the kills. However,
with two Boys rifles, at least three machine guns, and the Lord only
knows how many M-1s and BARs firing for all they were worth (Howard
Young estimates a dozen BARs and several rifles, his own included.),
no one can honestly say: “My bullet did the job.” It would not be
absolutely inconceivable that the flying boat fell under the sheer
weight of all the lead it absorbed in the fusillade.
More germane, however, than
“Who shot down the Kawanishi?” is “Why was it there?” The only
plausible explanation is that it brought reinforcements, not knowing
that we still occupied the island. Inasmuch as the headquarters on
Emidj heard nothing from the Butaritari garrison after the “We are
now all dying in battle” message around 0615, and there had been no
reaction to the air reconnaissance or the air raid, it would have
been logical for the Japanese to infer that the enemy had already
wiped out the garrison and departed, and it was safe to land. The
almost nonchalant manner in which the two aircraft landed and taxied
toward the wharf area while the others flew away suggests that this
was indeed the case. Available Japanese records make no mention of
any attempt to reinforce the garrison during the battle; however,
that is not at all unusual. Japanese military records of World War
II rarely say anything about failures.
“At about 1430,” Carlson
wrote, “I was informed by natives that the Kawanishi plane had
brought about thirty-five reinforcements for the enemy. Others were
expected to arrive in the next flight.” He does not explain,
however, by what sleight of hand these reinforcements were landed
without a single Raider seeing them—only the natives.
My boat team saw the Kawanishi
crash into the lagoon but saw no survivors. Buck Stidham, who had a
ringside seat for the Kawanishi performance, unequivocally asserts:
“During all this time, I had a clear unhindered view of these
planes, and I did not see anyone . . . disembark from either.”
Howard Young recalls that “The larger plane . . . must have been
like a sieve [and] men spilled out of it. . . . We concentrated [our
fire] on the men in the water until there was no further movement.”
The evidence, therefore, seems to be conclusive: even if the flying
boat brought reinforcements, none made it ashore.
At around 1400, while the air
raid was still in progress, Donovan, my messenger, reached the main
body and reported to Carlson the information on the enemy situation
to the southwest. A few days later, aboard the Nautilus enroute back to
Pearl Harbor, Carlson was to tell me personally that Donovan’s
arrival with the news that most of my group were alive and still
kicking and that there were no Japanese on the southwest end of the
island was for him the “high point” of that first day. But high
point notwithstanding, he seems to have discounted or completely
ignored Donovan’s information on the enemy situation. Instead, he
chose to remain in a defensive posture and made no attempt to link
up with my group, thereby leaving the initiative in the hands of a
few snipers.
Given all of the objective
evidence available to him—that of his own direct observations, that
of his Raiders who had been in contact with the enemy for several
hours, and that provided by Donovan—it is difficult to understand
why Carlson, a seasoned combat commander and an experienced
intelligence officer, was not more aggressive in carrying out his
mission and persisted in overestimating the enemy’s strength or,
even worse, underrating his own. It is more difficult, even
impossible, to understand why he permitted the natives’ highly
questionable reports of reinforcements to influence his decisions to
the degree they seem to have done.
Carlson had seen combat as a
unit commander in the early 1930s in Nicaragua and again in the late
1930s in China as an observer with Mao Zedong’s 8th Route Army in
action against the Japanese. Presumably from these experiences he
would have developed a feeling for the significance of the sounds of
battle and of a count of the enemy dead, however rough, as
in-dicators of residual enemy capabilities. Furthermore, from his
experience in China he would have had more than a passing
acquaintance with Japanese tactics.
As he walked along the battle
line and talked with his Raiders, saw with his own eyes the enemy
dead strewn about the battlefield, and heard with his own ears the
marked diminution in the volume and variety of enemy fire until all
that remained was intermittent sniper fire, Carlson should have
realized long since that the prize was his for the taking. But he
didn’t. Why?
The first explanation that
comes to mind is that he truly believed that he was outnumbered, his
misappreciation of the enemy strength being the result of a
misunderstanding arising from his native informants’ pidgin English
being inadequate to convey a clear distinction between past,
present, and future events. After all, “him bringum” tells nothing
about the when of a
particular event; an ambiguity that could have been present in the
natives’ report of the patrol boat having brought reinforcements as
well as their report on the Kawanishi.
Carlson, however, had served
many years in China, where pidgin was the lingua franca of the
Marines and Chinese in their day-to-day dealings, and should have
been well aware of the treacherous ambiguities lurking in the
syntactical jungle of a hybrid language. Hence it seems unlikely
that his apparent acceptance of the natives’ reports at face value
resulted from a linguistic misunderstanding.
A second possible explanation
is that the intelligence production capability of the landing force
had been crippled by the death of the battalion intelligence
officer, Lieutenant Holtom. That, however, won’t stand close
scrutiny as a causative
factor. In the first place, Carlson was an experienced intelligence
officer and fully capable of evaluating and interpreting information
of the enemy for himself. In the second place, the chief of the
battalion intelligence section, Platoon Sergeant Wade C. McCoy, was
fully qualified to assume Lieutenant Holtom’s intelligence
production duties and did so after Holtom was killed. Thus,
Carlson’s inertia cannot be ascribed to the lack of an
intelligence-production capability.
Finally, it is possible that
Carlson’s seeming operational timidity arose from what he saw as
extremely severe casualties. Until Donovan’s arrival he would have
been faced with the grim reality that he had suffered casualties
exceeding 18 percent; serious enough under the best circumstances,
but almost disastrous when the nearest replacements are more than
2000 miles away. Donovan’s information, therefore, should have had
the effect of an absolute increase in Carlsons strength and a
relative reduction in the enemy’s; however, such was not the case.
This new information apparently did nothing to encourage him to
resume the offensive while he still had time to complete his mission
Instead, he seems to have convinced himself that the enemy was still
strong and, having done so, subconsciously rejected all facts to the
contrary.
But whatever the reason, it
certainly wasn’t a lack of physical courage. That morning on
Butaritari, many Raiders saw Carlson walking upright along the line,
smoking his pipe and seemingly oblivious to the bullets whizzing
past him. And just a little more than a year later he landed on Red
Beach 2 at Tarawa as an observer with then Colonel David Shoup’s
Regimental Combat Team 2. In reply to a question as to Carlson’s
performance, the Medal of Honor winner and future Commandant of the
Marine Corps came back with one of the pithy comments for which he
was well known: “He may be red, but he’s not yellow.”
In any event, once the first
air raid was over no further thought apparently was given to
offensive action, and a sort of holiday air seems to have pervaded
the Raiders in their new defensive position. But unlike the group of
“plinkers” who gave me and Sam Brown the scare of our lives, most
seemed to incline toward less martial forms of amusement. Some
gathered in small groups to chat and sip the milk of coconuts, which
the natives provided in exchange for cigarettes or the like, and one
such gathering was even dubbed “our afternoon coconut-cocktail
party” by Lieutenant Le Francois in his Saturday Evening Post
article.
Some of the men now remembered
(or their stomachs reminded them) that it had been almost 12 hours
since their last meal and, finding unripe coconut meat not to their
palate, sought sustenance from the D-ration chocolate bars they
carried. Most of these, however, had been soaked in salt water
during the landing and were also unpalatable. Other Raiders began to
play the tourist and, breaking out cameras, began clicking shutters
right and left: Government House, native houses, trees, the wounded,
the front lines, and, in the next air raid, enemy aircraft. Mel
Spotts, who had brought along a camera and 10 rolls of film, “had
some good ones of the planes, but they like all the rest were lost
when leaving the island.”
At 1630, enemy planes again
appeared over the island and for the next 30 minutes bombed the area
where earlier the battle had raged. Perhaps they hoped thereby to
exact from the Raiders a measure of vengeance for the loss of their
two planes, but the area they bombed was now occupied only by the
few survivors of their own garrison, as it had been during the
earlier raid. The fragmentation effect from the exploding bombs,
most equipped with super-quick fuzes, must have been devastating for
any snipers still in the trees, further reducing their
numbers.
When the planes departed at
around 1700, Carlson met with some of his officers and men to
discuss the situation and to decide on a future course of action. At
this meeting the Raider commander appeared to waver between the
choices of continuing operations to complete his mission on
Butaritari or of withdrawing to prepare for the raid on Little Makin
the next day. Coyte recalls that it was his and Major Roosevelt’s
opinion that the latter course of action should be adopted, and it
was.
Although the last Japanese
ground offensive action had come before 0700, to Carlson “the enemy
still appeared to be strong in our front, and he was in a position
to receive reinforcements.” In view of this and the limited time
remaining before the scheduled withdrawal hour, his decision was to
“hold my present position and provide for an orderly withdrawal by
stages so as to get away at the appointed
time.”
At 1840, Carlson began to shorten the line by pivoting on his
left flank and swinging his right back to Government House. Crews
were sent to the beach to assemble the boats at the launch site and
prepare them for departure, and by 1900 a covering force of about 20
men was in place on the high ground behind the beach. These Raiders,
most of them members of the Government House detail who had been
designated and trained for this duty at Barber’s Point, were
specifically instructed to remain until the last boat was off the
beach.
At 1915, as scheduled, the boats
began to enter the water, starting with the flanks and working
toward the center, and at about 1930 Carlson and what he thought was
the last of the covering force launched. According to Calvin Inman,
who was in the boat with him, “Carlson was really calm all the time,
telling us to work together on the oars [sic] and even counted for
us.” However, Carlson’s description of the ordeal—probably typical
of boats that tried and failed—is much less
laconic:
The following
hour provided a struggle so intense and so futile that it will
forever remain a ghastly nightmare to those who participated.
. . . We walked the boat out to deep
water and commenced paddling. The motor refused to work. The first
three or four rollers were easy to pass. Then came the battle.
Paddling rhythmically and furiously for all we were worth we would
get over one roller only to be hit and thrown back by the next .
. . The boat filled to the
gunwhales [sic]. We
bailed. We got out and swam while pulling the boat—to no avail. We
jettisoned the motor. Subsequently the boat turned over. We righted
it, less equipment, and continued the battle. All this time I
thought ours was the only boat having his [sic] difficulty, for the others had
left ahead of us. However, after nearly an hour of struggle men swam
up to our stern and reported that their boat had gone back because
the men were exhausted . . . I directed our boat be turned
around and returned to the beach for our men were equally
exhausted.
Back on the beach, Carlson found that more than half of the
boats had failed to make it through the surf, the men were in a
state of extreme exhaustion, and most of their gear had been lost,
although Inman had somehow managed to hang on to his machine gun and
two boxes of ammunition. Unaware that the covering force was still
in position, Carlson established security with Inman’s machine gun
and such other arms as could be scraped together and began to take
stock of his situation.
In the meantime, the members
of the covering force watched helplessly as their friends battled
the surf. Ben Carson describes the ordeal from the viewpoint of the
covering force:
The next five hours have got to be the most harrowing period
of my life. We in the perimeter guard force were to leave the beach
only when we were sure that everyone else had been evacuated . .
.
As we looked toward the surf we could
see boats being turned over backwards by the onrushing waves,
dumping the wounded into the surf. Raiders would stick with the
wounded and drag them out of the surf back up on the beach. Nowhere
could we see a boat drilling its way through that surf and time
after time the boats would wash up on the shore only to be righted
by the dumped-out crews, and the struggle through the surf would
begin again . . . .
After three or more tries to
penetrate the surf the Raiders would gather in small groups on the
beach and rest before trying again. During all this, [they) . .
. were losing their weapons,
ammunition, packs, and even their shoes. We rear guard Raiders were
wondering just how long this thing could go on before [we]. . . .
represented the remaining firepower.
Many of the boat crews continued in their attempts to get out
until 2300 or later and in their desperation forgot all about noise
discipline. Shouting to make themselves heard over the roar of the
surf, they provided a sound beacon for any surviving Japanese still
seeking to die for their emperor, and there were still some of those
on the prowl. For several minutes members of the covering force had
been hearing noises out in front of their position but, because of
the noise from the surf and the shouting of the boat crews, had been
unable to pinpoint their source.
Suddenly Private, first class,
Jess Hawkins of Company “B” spotted a group of six or eight Japanese
about 10 feet from his position and opened up on them with his
Thompson submachine gun, firing several bursts. The Japanese
returned fire and, although they were armed only with rifles,
managed to hit Hawkins in the chest, wounding him gravely. Although
this was Hawkins’s third wound that day (the first two were
superficial) and his third strike, so to speak, it was by no means
“out” for this indomitable young Raider. Aided by the quick and
expert ministrations of Doctor MacCracken and bolstered by his own
fortitude, he lived to fight another day.
Later investigation revealed
that Hawkins had killed three of the enemy soldiers in the instant
before he was hit, and elsewhere along the perimeter there had been
brief flurries of gunfire as other Raiders exchanged fire with the
survivors of the Japanese patrol. “We must have scored several
hits,” wrote Mel Spotts, “for they yelled like hogs and didn’t
bother us in this position again.”
Shortly after this brief
engagement, things quieted down along the beach, and the exhausted
Raiders sought shelter from the onshore wind and intermittent rain
squalls and tried to sleep. Some were content to burrow into the
sand among the trees behind the beach while others, less exhausted
or more provident, crossed the island to the settlement near
Government Wharf, where the natives generously shared their food and
drink with them and provided them a place to sleep.
Although tired, wet, cold, and
generally miserable, many of the Raiders were not content to find a
place to rest but continued in their efforts to get off the island.
Noteworthy among these was Private Murphree [Craven], whose blinker
request for help I have already mentioned. Murphree, an Army
deserter and one-time communications chief in the reconnaissance
troop of an Army division, borrowed a flashlight from Major
Roosevelt, shinnied up a palm, and after many tries made contact
with the Argonaut. In
response to his request for assistance, the Argonaut replied “Will pick
up at 0300 in the lagoon” however, this was not to be for the
reasons already mentioned.
When the submarines failed to
appear, Murphree along with Corporal Lawrence J. “Red” Ricks and
Private, first class, Sebock sought out Carlson and asked for
permission to try to get away as best they could. Their plan was to
hide in the village until nightfall and, with the natives help, head
for Australia by canoe, traveling by night from island to island.
(Carlson apparently had great trust and confidence in the abilities
of these three, he once having told Murphree: “I would rather have
you with me in combat than any man I know, but out of combat you and
Sebock break ever regulation in the book.”) Upon granting their
request, he added the proviso: “If you make it and we don’t, tell
them what happened.” After discussing their proposed voyage further
among themselves, however, the three “decided to rejoin the colonel
and the rest back at the beach and stayed the rest of the
night.”
For Carlson, the skirmish with
the Japanese patrol undoubtedly had made a bad situation look even
worse and reinforced his conviction that the enemy was still capable
of organized resistance. Consequently, as he discussed their
predicament with several of his officers and men gathered under the
coconut trees above the beach near Government House (the surrender
meeting which Sergeant Lawson described to me), his overall estimate
of the situation was far from optimistic As he wrote in his official
report.
The situation at this point was extremely grave. Our initial
retirement had been orderly, but the battle with the surf had
disorganized us and stripped us of our fighting power. Planes would
undoubted/v return at daylight, and it was probable that a landing
force would arrive . . . . a check showed that 120 men were still on the
beach, and there was no assurance that others had not landed at
points farther away. Rain
and the fact that most of the men had even stripped themselves of
their clothes in the surf added to the general misery. This was the
spiritual low point of the expedition.
Coyte recalls that Carlson was extremely upset by their
failure to get away and was particularly concerned that Roosevelt
was still on the island. He implied that he felt personally
responsible for the safety and well being of the President’s son and
indicated that he felt the death of Jimmy Roosevelt might seriously
hamper the war effort and was ready to go to any extreme to save
him. As far as I have been able to determine, Major Roosevelt was
not present at this meeting and, based on my personal impression of
his character and what I have heard and read about his relationship
with his father, probably would have objected strongly to being a
pretext for surrender, had he been present.
After discussing their
predicament at great length—their lack of weapons, the almost
complete absence of organizational unity, and the plight of the
wounded—and various plans of escape (“My plan,” wrote Carlson, “was
to await daylight, move to the north end of the island and attempt
to find sufficient outrigger canoes to take us to the submarines.”),
Carlson decided that his only option was to surrender. Accordingly,
he ordered Captain Coyte to contact the Japanese commander and
arrange for the surrender of the American troops, if they would be
treated as prisoners of war.
At around 0330, Coyte and
Private William McCall, “a boy. . . in whom. . . [Coyte] had a great
deal of confidence,” set out to the south on their quest for the
garrison commander, dressed only in trousers and shoes and unarmed.
After walking only a short distance, they saw a light in a hut and,
on entering, saw two adult natives, a male and a female, and a
female child. Coyte attempted to find out from the natives where he
could find the Japanese commandant but had trouble communicating
with them; then McCall, who knew some pidgin, assumed the duties of
interpreter.
As the two Raiders were
talking with the natives, and Coyte was beginning to enjoy the
cigarette the natives had given him, a Japanese soldier armed with a
rifle came into the hut. Seeing Coyte smoking, the Japanese became
very angry, apparently not so much at finding two of the enemy in
the hut as at finding one of them enjoying a cigarette, where only a
few minutes earlier he had been told by these same natives that they
didn’t have any cigarettes.
As Coyte recalls the
incident,. “. . he was most unhappy. He kept threatening to shoot me
and was sticking the end of the rifle in my stomach. I was so tired
and exhausted, that it really didn’t make much difference. I would
push the rifle aside and. . . demand that he take me to his
commanding officer.”
With the natives help, Coyte
and McCall eventually assuaged the Japanese soldier’s injured pride
and calmed his anger enough to win his reluctant agreement to carry
a note to his commanding officer. It was nearly daylight when Coyte
addressed himself to the task of composing the offer to surrender,
as ordered by Carlson. Addressed “To the Commanding Officer,
Japanese forces, Makin Island,” the note read:
Dear
Sir
I am a member of the American
forces now on Makin. We have suffered severe casualties and wish to
make an end of the bloodshed and bombings.
We wish to surrender according
to the rules of military law and be treated as prisoners of war. We
would also like to bury our dead and care for our
wounded.
There are approximate/v
60 of us left. We have all voted to surrender.
I would like to see you
personally as soon as possible to prevent future bloodshed and
bombing.
/s/
[obliterated]
When Coyte finished writing the note, he had the natives tell
the enemy soldier that he would wait there for a response and handed
the note to McCall, who passed it on to the Japanese. The latter
accepted the note without comment, which probably wouldn’t have been
understood anyhow, and departed for parts unknown.
Soon after the Japanese
soldier departed, a shot was heard nearby, and when Coyte went out
to investigate, he saw two Raiders coming down the road. The two,
who had one pistol between them, said they had accosted a Japanese
going the other way and shot him. Assuming that this was his
messenger, Coyte returned to the beach and reported to Carlson that
he had been unable to locate the Japanese commandant and that the
one enemy soldier with whom he had talked had been
killed.
Meanwhile, as news of the
surrender decision began to filter down to the troops, it was not
greeted with enthusiasm by any means. Mel Spotts wrote in his diary.
“The word started around here that we would surrender in the morning
[and] this didn’t set so very good with anyone . . . . [but] there
appeared [to be] no choice. Most of the weapons had been lost in our
attempts at getting off.” Calvin Inman remembers that . . . not many
of us accepted the surrender policy,” and Ben Carson remembers it as
“the most terrible message I have ever been given.”
It was this message that
motivated Carson and some others of the covering force to send an
emissary to Carlson to request permission to turn over their weapons
and cartridge belts to exhausted Raiders and have a go at the surf.
The lot fell to Private Sylvester W. Kuzniewski, who later would
regale his buddies with his account of how surprised Carlson seemed
to be to see someone with a weapon and cartridge belt and in a
complete, almost dry uniform asking permission to have a try at
shooting the surf. Even at that late hour (around 0330) Carlson
evidently was still unaware that his boat had not taken off the last
of the covering force.
Although several boat crews
were to continue to battle the surf in the next three hours, only
the four previously mentioned managed to make it to the submarines
before enemy air activity put an end to their efforts. Now the 70 or
so Raiders left on the island would be at the mercy of enemy
aircraft until night came, but at least they would not have to worry
about being attacked by any Japanese ground forces remaining on the
island.
When Captain Coyte left the
native hut to return to the beach with the news of his unsuccessful
surrender attempt. McCall decided to see for himself what enemy
forces remained on the island. Having relieved a dead Japanese of
his rifle and leather cartridge case, he set out to explore and,
after wandering through the underbrush for some time, came upon a
fairly large taro pit. Approaching the pit very warily, he looked in
and saw three Japanese soldiers cowering among the taro
plants:
I guess they knew I was above them and two of them attempted
to make a getaway towards the opposite side of the tarn pit. As they
climbed the side of the pit I shot one, reloaded and shot the other.
One of them had a Nambu pistol which I took (holster and belt, too)
and the other (I’m sure) was the Jap whom we gave the note to
. . . . As I was going through the
pockets I heard the third Nip try to make a break for it. . . He made it out of the pit and
started to run away from me. I leveled the Jap rifle but found out
it was empty. I forgot to check the magazine. So, I whipped out the
jap pistol and fired and got the guy. . .
.
It was unfortunate that McCall did not have time to complete
his search of the bodies in the pit and possibly recover the
surrender note. Had he done so, he might have deprived the enemy of
grist for their propaganda mill. When the Japanese returned to
Butaritari, the note was recovered, and a short time later Tokyo
Rose had begun using it as the centerpiece of her broadcasts. Before
the war was over, a copy of the note with the signature obliterated
appeared in a popular Japanese history
The arrival of daylight and
McCall’s report gave everyone an entirely different view of things,
and there was to be no further talk of surrender, then or
afterwards. According to McCall, “Carlson told me not to say
anything about it.” and Coyte recalls that:
we
[officers] had all prepared written reports
of the operation as it pertained to our participation. After they
had been submitted, they were returned to us by Colonel Carlson who
advised us that Admiral Nimitz had told him that we should re-write
our report, deleting all reference to the offer to
surrender.
Carlson himself made no mention of the surrender incident in
his after-action report, except perhaps cryptically in his
recommendations:
(i) Finally, I would invite the attention of all military
leaders to the illustration provided by our situation at Makin on
the night of August 17th which emphasizes a truth that is as old as
the military profession: no matter how bad your own situation may
appear to be, there is always the possibility that the situation of
the enemy is worse.
Admiral Nimitz also had nothing to say about the surrender
offer in his report to Admiral King, the Commander in Chief, U.S.
Fleet [CinCPac Serial 03064 of 20 October 1942], but in regard to
the paragraph quoted above suggested: “To this might be added
another truth that a few resolute men [presumably referring to the
Japanese survivors] seem like battalions.”
In any event, the Raiders now
began to think that perhaps they weren’t in such bad shape after
all. Mel Spotts recalls that after receiving information on the
absence of organized resistance on the island, “the men were
overjoyed. They said ‘we can lick that many with rocks if we have
to.”’ Fortunately they didn’t have to resort to rocks, but picked up
weapons and ammunition along the beach and from Raiders who had been
killed the day before. Some of the men equipped themselves with
Japanese arms and accouterments, thereby meeting a present demand
for weaponry as well as an anticipated future demand for
souvenirs.
In addition to arms and
equipment, some of the Raiders were in dire need of clothing, having
lost or discarded all of theirs in the surf. These made do with
Japanese blue and pink silk underwear liberated from the trading
station at Stone Pier, and some of them brought back several pairs
to share with friends who had been too rushed to look for souvenirs.
One of the briefly clad Raiders (Dean Winters) was photographed upon
his return to the submarine, and several months later this
photograph appeared among those used to illustrate Le Francois’s
article in The Saturday
Evening Post, giving Winters nationwide exposure.
Although the Japanese sent
over four flights of planes between 0920 and 1730 to bomb and strafe
Butaritari as well as the island to the north, they never came close
to the Raiders. Their heaviest attacks came in the vicinity of
King’s Wharf and On Chong’s Wharf and caused considerable damage to
their own installations there. Natives from the northern part of
Butaritari reported to Carlson that Little Makin also was
bombed.
In spite of the enemy air
activity, Carlson sent out patrols to reconnoiter the island, to
gather food, and to destroy any remaining enemy installations. A
patrol to On Chong’s Wharf destroyed the radio station there and
shot a Japanese marine; a patrol to the north end of the island
killed another. Carlson himself took a patrol over the battlefield
to count and identify our dead and to search the enemy dead for
documents of intelligence value and weapons and equipment with which
to outfit those Raiders who had lost theirs.
Private Cyril A. Matelski of
Company “B,” a member of the patrol that searched the enemy dead,
removed a pistol and wrist watch from a body identified as that of
Sergeant Major Kanemitsu. Matelski later told Ben Carson that
Kanemitsu’s body was the only one he searched that had a watch. Back
aboard the submarine, however, Matelski soon discovered that his
trophy watch would tick only when he shook it vigorously, so at the
first opportunity he took it to a watchmaker in Honolulu to get it
repaired. After a cursory examination, the watchmaker pronounced the
watch to be cheap and not worth repairing. Noting Matelski’s obvious
disappointment, the watchmaker asked him how he had come
by the watch and after hearing the story consulted his reference
books. Comparing the markings on the back of the watch and inside
its back cover with pictures in his book, he announced that the
watch was Japanese military issue, adding: “It’s still cheap and not
worth fixing.”
Early in the afternoon of
August 18, Carlson established his “headquarters” at Government
House where there was water, shelter for the wounded, and some cover
from air attacks in a nearby ditch. The patrol that had been sent to
forage found supplies of canned meats, fish, and biscuits at the
trading station and carried as much as they could back to Government
House. Now with water, shelter, and food available, things really
began to look better.
In the meantime, Carlson had
decided to attempt to evacuate the remaining men by way of the
lagoon and its southwestern entrance, using such means of
transportation as could be found. Having already determined that
there were not enough rubber boats to transport everyone, the
Raiders cast about for additional transport. A small sloop with an
auxiliary diesel engine was anchored off Stone Pier, and from a
distance it looked like it might fill the bill. Charlie Lamb and two
others, one with experience in marine diesels, volunteered to row
out to the sloop and see if it could be used for the
evacuation.
As Lamb and his companions
approached the sloop, a hand suddenly thrust a pistol through a
porthole and fired a shot at them. Fortunately the shot went wild,
and the Raiders quickly pulled alongside the sloop, tossed a hand
grenade through the porthole, then boarded the vessel and finished
off the Japanese marine who had been guarding it or, more likely,
hiding out there. Unfortunately the sloop was half full of water and
so dilapidated as to be unusable. Now they would have to make do
with the four remaining rubber boats and an outrigger canoe provided
by the natives.
After Lamb returned from
inspecting the sloop, Carlson took a patrol to King’s Wharf and
destroyed the nearby fuel dump of 700-1,000 drums of aviation
gasoline. The destruction of this fuel was accomplished by the
simple expedient of shooting the drums full of holes, tossing a
burning fuse lighter into the gasoline pouring out onto the ground,
and moving out of the way quickly. On its way back, this patrol
searched the garrison administrative office and collected a chart
and all the papers it could find. This office was in one end of the
barracks that my boat team had checked early in the morning of the
17th; however, at that time, we were interested only in human
occupancy and couldn’t have cared less about documents, which we
couldn’t have read anyhow.
After the departure of the
last of the Japanese planes around 1800, the four serviceable rubber
boats were carried across the island to the vicinity of Government
Wharf, and Charlie Lamb displayed another of his many talents by
playing the role of Noah in the construction of an ark for the
Raiders. By lashing the four rubber boats to the wooden outrigger
canoe, two on either side, and attaching the only two workable
motors to the outermost rubber boats, Lamb and his crew came up with
a rather shaky looking craft that, although not made of gopher wood
and nowhere near 300 by 50 cubits, was to serve its builders just as
well as had Noah’s divinely inspired creation.
While Lamb and his crew were
struggling to come up with transport, Carlson was out negotiating
with the natives and arranging with them to bury our dead, paying
them in advance with Raider knives and other items that by then were
just so much excess baggage. He also instructed the native Chief of
Police, Joe Miller, and his cousin. William Miller, how to organize
a local constabulary and suggested that they arm it by salvaging the
weapons we had lost in the surf. The Millers of course promised
faithfully to do that, although there probably were several crossed
fingers out of Carlson’s view.
Now all that remained to be
done was to arrange for the submarines to make the pickup off the
lagoon entrance instead of the landing beach, move the wounded to
Government Wharf, go aboard Lamb’s ark, and return to the
submarines. All very simple in concept, but fraught with potential
complications, not least of which was communicating their intentions
to the submarines. Fortunately the problem of means of
communications already had been resolved.
Earlier in the day, Carlson
had discovered that he still had a qualified signalman ashore,
Sergeant Kenneth L. McCullough, a Company “B” radio operator, and,
apparently not wanting to risk losing him, had kept him close by
thereafter. During the day the two of them had talked about a
variety of subjects in the comradely fashion that Carlson encouraged
in the 2d Raiders, but one conversation in particular sticks in
McCullough’s mind.
While discussing the various
aspects of the raid—the only critique of the operation there would
ever be—Carlson suddenly had paused and, almost self critically and
apropos of nothing, interjected: “No commander ever expects to fail
in an operation, but he should have a plan ready, just in case he
does.” He might well have added: “and a signalman too.” It was only
sheer good fortune that there was a qualified signalman with a
workable flashlight still ashore. Otherwise, the story might well
have had a much different ending.
The Nautilus surfaced at 1810
and 14 minutes later sighted the Argonaut surfacing about
five miles to the south. Both submarines then headed for the
predesignated rendezvous point and by 1930 were one-half to
three-quarters mile off the reef. Soon after our arrival, the bridge
lookout sighted a light blinking Morse code from the area where our
troops were last known to have been located--the first intelligible
message we had received from shore since my return almost 24 hours
earlier. (I still hadn’t heard of Murphree’s message to the Argonaut.)
When the Raiders spotted the
submarines just after dusk, Carlson sent McCullough to attempt to
contact them by blinker. Positioning himself on an elevation with an
unobstructed view and using a flashlight salvaged during the day,
McCullough began his message with an interrogatory: “Argonaut or Nautilus?” After he had sent
only a couple of letters, however, the submarine signalman broke in
and began to send “Who. . . ?”
McCullough, thinking he had
been misread, broke and started his interrogatory again, only to
have the submarine interrupt. This break and break was repeated four
or five times, with McCullough growing more and more concerned all
the while. “I was scared stiff,” he recalls, “because I could feel
about a dozen Jap rifles aimed right at me. Although we thought we
had the place secure, I had been through a lot the past two days and
was not quite a believer. I also thought the batteries in the light
would go dead before I could get the message off.”
Although Commodore Haines felt
reasonably certain that this signal was from the Raiders, he wanted
to assure himself that the Japanese were not up to some devious
trick. After all, on the previous night the Raiders had been unable
to communicate intelligibly with the Nautilus, and now they were
coming through loud and clear, so to speak. After some quick
thinking, he came up with an authenticator that he felt Carlson
would be sure to know. In the wardroom a few evenings before Haines
and Carlson had a friendly argument over who had relieved Haines’s
father as Adjutant and Inspector of the Marine Corps. Carlson had
been adamant in his insistence that it had been “Squeegie” Long, so
Haines directed his signalman to send the query, “Who followed my
father as A & I?”
When McCullough finally
decided to see what followed “Who” and read the rest of Haines’s
query, he of course had no idea “Who,” so he relayed the question to
Carlson. At first Carlson also was puzzled by the message; however,
after discussing its possible meanings with Coyte, he recalled the
argument with Haines and realized that the submarine was only
seeking authentication of his request. Obviously relieved, he
chuckled and told McCullough to reply, “Squeegie Long.”
As soon as he had transmitted
“Squeegie,” the submarine broke in with “send your message,” and a
much relieved McCullough transmitted their request for pickup at
about 2130 off Flink Point at the western entrance to the lagoon.
The Commodore immediately acknowledged receipt and advised Carlson
that the submarines would be at the lagoon entrance at the time
requested.
Having confirmed the new time
and place of the pickup, Carlson ordered final preparations for the
departure to begin. The wounded were moved to Government Wharf and
loaded aboard Lamb’s waiting ark; then the others boarded with such
souvenirs and war trophies as the limited space permitted. By this
time Carlson was virtually exhausted and, when his turn came to
embark, had to be awakened and almost forcibly placed aboard by
Coyte and Lamb. He kept insisting that he wanted to remain on the
island to organize the natives to fight the Japanese upon their
return. Nevertheless, he was coaxed into coming along with the rest,
and at about 2030 the Raiders shoved off from Government Wharf and
pointed their ungainly craft toward ‘the lagoon entrance, some three
and one-half miles to the west.
The trip across the lagoon was
uneventful but agonizingly slow, and ages seemed to have passed
before the burning fuel dump at King’s Wharf was broad on their port
beam, marking completion of only the first third of the voyage. One
of the motors worked only intermittently, and the other, aided by a
maximum effort from the nearly exhausted paddlers, provided only
enough power for a speed of advance of less than two knots across
the calm waters. Consequently, it was after 2200 when the tired
Raiders finally reached the lagoon entrance.
Meanwhile the submarines,
having got underway at 2005, hove to off Flink Point near the lagoon
entrance at 2127 and attempted to contact the Raiders. There was no
response, however, to our signal, and once again we prepared
ourselves for an agonizing wait, hoping for the best but expecting
the worst. Finally at 2213, to our indescribable relief, a
recognition signal flashed out of the darkness, and the Nautilus responded
immediately.
As the weary Raiders passed
out of the lagoon into the open sea, their already slow speed of
advance was reduced to a snail’s pace by the opposing force of waves
and the half-knot Pacific equatorial countercurrent. Although the
submarines were positioned less than a mile from the lagoon
entrance, it took the Raiders almost another hour to reach them, and
it was not until 2308 that the 72 exhausted Raiders in four rubber
boats and a wooden outrigger canoe came alongside.
Never before or since have I
seen such a motley looking group of humans or such an outlandish
looking craft as that which came alongside the Nautilus that night. In
comparison, the Raiders who came out the first night would have
looked healthy. As I watched Carlson come aboard, I was astounded at
the change in his appearance. He had always been somewhat lanky, but
now he was gaunt—a walking skeleton. In the 43 hours that had passed
since I put him aboard the Company “A” boat for the trip to the
beach, he seemed to have aged at least 10 years.
Without wasting a second on
commiseration, pleasantries, or protocol, however, we helped the
returnees aboard, wounded first. Insofar as was possible, everyone
returned to the submarine he had come out on, however, intermixing
was unavoidable. There had already been some the first night and the
following morning, and now there was more as Doctor MacCracken and
his corpsmen divided up the wounded, bringing aboard the Nautilus the most serious
cases, irrespective of their units, so he could continue the
treatment he had begun ashore. Since Doctor Stigler and his corpsmen
had returned to the Argonaut
the previous night, and each submarine now had a surgical team,
the other wounded were divided proportionately between the two,
which entailed further intermixing.
As the men came aboard, we of
course made a hasty accounting of names and numbers, however, an
accurate count at that time was impossible because of the mixing of
troops between the two vessels and the fact that no single person
had total knowledge of the killed, wounded, and missing. The Raiders
who had just come aboard, however, had been all over Butaritari that
day without seeing another living Raider; hence there was no reason
to think that anyone had been left ashore. Had there been, it is
almost dead certain that the submarines would have remained “until
we get every living Raider off the island.” as the Commodore had
told the ill-fated rescue party that morning.
Later, after interviewing
nearly all of the Raiders aboard the Nautilus, my best estimate
was that the only men unaccounted for were the five men in the
rescue party, and we had good reason to believe that they had been
killed. Most of the men I interviewed, however, were still in a
state of shock, and their stories were indeterminate and confused
with regard to times and places. For example, Sergeant Lawson had
seen one of the missing men in his boat before it capsized one time
or another, and he believed that the man had drowned. On the other
hand, another Raider was sure he had seen the same man about two
hours after Lawson, but no one aboard the Nautilus had seen him since.
Yet it was very possible that he was aboard the Argonaut. and so it went. A
final and definitive accounting would have to await our return to
Camp Catlin.
Once everyone had been loaded
aboard the submarines, the rubber boats were slashed and the wooden
canoe holed, and every thing was sent to the bottom of the Pacific.
“even my machine gun and ammo.” deplored Calvin Inman. “They didn’t
take time to take it aboard,” notwithstanding all the care he had
taken to bring the gun back. At 2353. having decided that a raid on
Little Makin was now out of the question, Commodore Haines ordered
course set for Pearl Harbor. and the two submarines got
underway.
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