Hillbilly, I would like to appologize to you and all other readers of this thread for my obvious confusion and erroneous citation. I can only offer as an excuse my lack of sleep, advanced age, and general state of confusion. General Dolittle, made famous for his Tokyo raid using B-25's AKA Mitchell or Billy Mitchell bombers was the "gentleman" whose cowardice was explained to me by my friend, the WWII Eigth Air Force B-17 tail gunner. With this one exception, I stand behind the veracity and factual accuracy of the account. My deceased friend, James (Jimmy) Smith was in my estimation one of the most honest men to draw a breath and if he said it was so, it was so to the the best of his belief and knowledge.
Another brave American and defender of freedom that I have been priveleged to know is Lenny Premsalaar. (I met both of these guys, Jim and Len through Ham radio but became good friends and our families have spent time together, much to my spiritual enrichment.) Len Was in the Navy in WWII and drove landing craft on D-Day. Three trips in to the beach and back. He too was a target. If you can shoot the driver of a landing craft it becomes an easier target so shooting the driver was a priority for the defenders. Len said that no one explained this strategy to him in advance but it didn't take long to figure it out as you approach the beach and get within accurate range of small arms and machine gun fire. It starts hailing bullets at your end of the boat. He ferried some special Ranger unit ashore that had mortars to fire grappling hooks-lines up the cliffs. Most of the first load he dropped off fired while too far from the cliffs so they couldn't scale the cliffs and were basically shot to pieces on the beach. The second and third waves did better and some guys made it to the top after they got ashore. Getting ashore was not easy as the bottom was irregular and when he got in as far as he could and still back off there was some places where the water between the landing craft and the shore was over 6 ft. He would drop the ramp and the troops would run down it into the water with their heavy packs amid a hail of bullets and try to scramble ashore without being shot or drowned. I don't recall the name of the special outfit he carried ashore but they suffered heavy casualties in prosecuting their mission.
Later Len was on a ship where his "general quarters - battle station" was an anti aircraft gun but that ship was sunk out from under him before he saw much action with it. He was wounded and bleeding as was a shipmate that he was trying to assist. As the sinking had allowed time to deploy the "shark nets" most of the surviving crew were inside them for protection against sharks. The idea was that the nets would keep the sharks from feeding on the crew. Well the guys inside the net wouldn't let him and the buddy he was tending inside the net for fear the blood would attract sharks to them. Len spent many hours outside the net tending to his friend while the sharks moved among them feeding on sailors. Next morning they were picked up and hospitalized. He was not badly injured/wonded but he and his buddy had suffered nervous breakdowns and were kept in a psychiatric ward for a period of time. After being in the water with sharks around them they had begun to halucinate and thought waves coming toward them were sharks. After they were pulled out of the water, just touching them would set them to uncontrolled panic and screaming thinking that a shark was getting them. Len got his head together fairly soon and was given a choice of three assignments. One was UDT (Underwater Demolition Team) training to be a "Frogman".
Len said that he had always been afraid of the ocean with its sharks and his recent experience with sharks had really gotten to him. He was a firm believer in getting back up on the horse that throwed him and wanted to conquer his fears so he volunteered for UDT. Learned about explosives and in training would stand at attention holding a stick of dynamite with a lit fuse until told to toss it, stuff like that. So back in the South Pacific armed with mask, fins, snorkle, knife, compass, and a roll of string with a fishing weight on it, he and his team mates would swim into enemy held waters to island beaches and measure the water depths, locate obstructions to a landing, and rig explosives to clear a path. One standing order was to not go ashore, like they would want to bare foot in swimming trunks armed with a knife. O one of these missions they completed their assigned recon and swam back out to sea to await a small craft to pick them up and return them to the ship which had been anchored about 3 miles out. Ship was gone, no boat came for them. After a while they decided that rather than having a marathon water treading contest followed by multiple drownings they would swim back in to the island and go ashore. They would rather violate the order than drown. Once ashore they found a cave that had been used by the Japanese defenders. There was food for a meal, weapons and a couple days of water. They ended up there for a week hiding out from the Japanese, where ever they were or might have been. At one point they found a stray horse that looked to be starving and killed it for food but couldn't couldn't keep it long in the heat and humidity. After nearly a week one of the guys snapped and sort of went looney tunes for a bit. He climbed up on a rock with a couple Japanese Tommy gun equivalents and started shouting at imaginary enemy soldiers and firing magazines of ammo into the jungle. They were afraid that it would attract an enemy patrol but before they could stop him two Japanese soldiers came running out of the jungle and surrendered to him. This compounded their food and water problem. A couple days later a small group of marines were landed and thought thes UDT guys were a clever Japanese trick to infiltrate. Asked about their NON-oriental eyes one guy said meybe they were surgicaly altered. Eventually they convinced the Gyrenes that they had two authentic Japanese prisoners and that they were authentic US servicemen. A seargent told a corporal to take the prisoners down the beach to the LT. at the command post. the corporal complained it was over a mile one way. the seargent repeated with a wink, TAKE THESE *&*(&$# JAPS to the command post wink wink. Ah sure sarge right away. He took the pisoners and left. About ten seconds later there were two pops and a minute later the corporal was back stating that it wasn't as far to the commend post as he had previously thought.
Some of the UDT guys wanted to go with the marines but the marines just laughed at them and their mulltiple automatic weapons and bandeliers of ammo. First ditch you trip into you'll drown with all that weight. The marines had a M1 carbine, a trencing tool, a canteen, and maybe a candy bar and a pack of smokes. They traveled and fought light. Back at the beach Len saw their ship riding at anchor about 3 miles out and when no one sent a small boat in for them they swam out to the ship. When they got aboard they found that they had been presumed dead, their personal belongings had been distributed, and the message sent out that would generate a war dept telegram to their next of kin as being KIA.
If you want any clarification on this story (I am known to make mistakes) talk to Len Premsalaar. He is a volunteer at the truck museum near San Diego, CA and is a volunteer part time ranger at lake Morena also near San Diego but lives in Bend, Oregon at least in the winter. His ham call is KS6U, he got the FCC to let him switch to his deceased wife's call sign as a memorial to her.
Patrick