H I S T O R Y
BEFORE WWII	DURING WWII	1944 BILL ILES	1944 CURTIS PARTCH	1947 ED SPILMAN	1950 - 1951 GENE WOOLIEVER	1951 - 1969	1970 - 1989	1990 - 1994	HISTORY COMES ALIVE

World War II Part 3

Operation Flintlock-Northern Kwajalein Atoll

Excerpted from the Fourth Marine Division

By Robert Sherrod

There is no doubt in my mind that the historians will decide, when the final returns are in, that the Central Pacific was the main stroke against which the 4th Marine Division fought all its battles - at Roi-Namur, Saipan, Tinian, and Iwo Jima. The 4th Marine Division was in combat a little over 60 days in World War II. But in those 60-odd days, the division sees in 600 days-action as fierce as any troops ever saw. The price the division had to pay was heavy - as it must be on small, vital targets. It amounted to about 75 percent of the original divisional strength. It takes men to stand such losses and come up as determined as ever. The 4th had men.

Setting records

The 4th Marine Division set three new records on its first operation. It became the first division to go directly into combat from the United States; it was the first to capture Japanese mandated territory in the Pacific; and it secured its objective in a shorter time than that of any other important operation since the attack on Pearl Harbor.

For weeks the coming battle had been known only by its code name, "Operation Flintlock." Not until the big convoy had passed the Hawaiian Islands was its destination revealed to all hands - the twin islands of Roi-Namur in the Kwajalein Atoll of the Marshall Islands. Simultaneously, the U.S. Army's 7th Infantry was to invade Kwajalein Island.

During the 18-day voyage to the atoll, the Marines had plenty of time to study their objective. With Tarawa fresh in their minds, the prospect of hitting a small, heavily defended beach was not too cheerful. Operation maps showed numerous installations - coast defense guns, heavy and medium antiaircraft guns, machine guns, blockhouses, a total of 52 pillboxes, numerous antitank trenches, rifle trenches, and barbed wire.

Added to this, the two islands of Roi-Namur were hardly more than overgrown sand spits. Roi measured 1,200 by 1,250 yards at its widest points; Namur was 800 by 900 yards - neither island a square mile in size. An estimated 3,000 enemy troops were there to defend them. It was not a pleasant prospect.

Against this, however, was preponderance of striking power. The task force that accompanied the Marine and Army divisions to the Marshalls was the largest in the Pacific to that time. The assemblage of carriers, battleships, cruisers, and destroyers, which preceded and convoyed the transports, was a reassuring sight to the Marines who lined the rails. Our infantry, furthermore, would out-number the defenders two to one.

The 4th Division was part of the Northern Landing Force, under command of Maj. Fen. Holland M. Smith commanding. The Joint Expeditionary Forces were commanded by Rear Adm. Richmond K. Turner, USN, and the Northern Attack Force, of which the 4th Division was the landing force, was under the command of Rear Adm. Richard L. Conolly, USN.

Pre-invasion Bombing

Two days before D-Day, ships of naval task forces and aircraft of the Fast Carrier Force in support of the 4th Division systematically began to bomb and shell every square yard of Roi-Namur. Three battleships - the Tennessee, Maryland, and Colorado - five cruisers, and 19 destroyers combined in non-stop barrage, which laid 2,655 tons of steel on the islands. It was planned to land the 14th Regiment, with its 75mm pack howitzers and 105mm howitzers, on five small islands that flanked Roi-Namur. Two of these islands flanked the entrance to the lagoon. By seizing them, we could secure passage that would allow us to assault Roi-Namur from inside the lagoon. From these flanking islands, the artillery was to set up its guns, get the ranges, and give close fire support to the assault troops; it took place Jan. 31, 1944.

Phase One

The seizure of the small islands on either side of Roi-Namur fell to the 4th Division's Scout Company and 25th Regimental Combat Team. To the Scout Company and the 1st Battalion of the 25th Marines went the honor of being the first to land on an enemy-defended island in the Marshalls. They went ashore at 0958 on the seaward side of Ennuebing and Mellu islands southwest of Roi-Namur. Ennuebring was secured at 1055 and the larger Mellu at 1209. Artillery came ashore within an hour. The 2nd and 3rd battalions of the 25th landed on three other islands southeast of Roi-Namur - Ennubirr, Ennumennet, and Ennugarret. They were secured by nightfall; artillery landed on the following morning.

Flag on a coconut tree

On Ennubirr, the 2nd Battalion raised the first American flag in the Marshalls - on a coconut tree. This battalion seized an important communication center containing great quantities of American-made radio equipment.

Phase Two

The attack on Roi-Namur was Phase Two of the operation. This was to be made from the lagoon side by the 23rd and 24th Regimental Combat Teams, each landing two battalions abreast on the islands' four beaches. The 1st and 2nd battalions of the 23rd were to strike Beaches Red 2 and 3 on Roi, and the 2nd and 3rd battalions of the 24th were assigned Beaches Green 1 and 2 on Namur. The day was Feb. 1, 1944. For most of the men in the division, this was the first time under fire.

D-Day, Feb. 1, 1944

Early in the morning, the amphibian tractors rumbled down the ramps of the LSTs, and LCVPs were swung over the sides of the transports. The ships were still far out in the lagoon, and the smoking island was but a streak of sand and haze in the distance. H-Hour was set for 1000, but shortly after the boats began to rendezvous, word came that the landings had been delayed. Men in the boats waited nervously. Shortly after 1100, the assault units were waved over the line departure, 4,000 yards from the shore. Naval gunfire began to hurl its final salvos against the beach; dive bombers plummeted to drop 1,000-pound blockbusters on installations not yet completely demolished; fighter planes came over for strafing runs. It was the heaviest and most perfectly coordinated concentration of pre-landing bombardment yet seen in the Pacific.

Planes crippled, enemy fleeing

And it paid big dividends. The first waves his the beach at 1200. On Roi, the large, a three-strip airfield was dotted with crippled Japanese planes and wrecked defenses. All but a few hundred of the enemy had fled to nearby Namur, which afforded better protection against the shelling. When assault companies of the 23rd landed, the situation seemed almost too good to believe. Opposition had been completely disorganized, and the beach was virtually undefended. By 1217 the regiment had reached Phase Line 0.1, and the good news was radioed to the commanding general: "This is a pip. Give us the word and we'll take the island." The order came back to halt and reorganize, but the tanks and two supporting companies had pushed ahead. They were recalled to keep them from being shelled by naval guns.

Tough going on Namur

On nearby Namur the going was not so easy. Here the Japanese had set up a stronger defense in the form of fire trenches and pillboxes. Thick vegetation gave them excellent concealment and served as camouflage. Although the naval shelling had killed and wounded many hundreds, there was still a sizable, although dazed and disorganized, force remaining. The 2nd Battalion, on the right, received only a little scattered small arms fire from the beach and pushed inland some 200 yards against light opposition. The 3rd Battalion, on the left, ran into trouble immediately from several undamaged pillboxes. Many men were hit as they stepped form the landing boats. The assault companies were ordered to by-pass the pillboxes and leave them for demolition teams. The companies reached the Phase Line 0-1 by 1400, paused to reorganize, and waited for tanks and half-tracks to come up.

"The whole island has blown up!"

Meanwhile, the 2nd Battalion moved ahead rapidly. Suddenly a large enemy blockhouse used as a storage place for aerial bombs and torpedo warheads, exploded without warning. An immense tower of smoke and rubble including many torpedo warheads shot into the sky. Concussion felled men in every direction and fragments of metal and cement caught dozens before they could jump into shell holes. An officer vividly described the scene:

"An ink-black darkness spread over a large part of Namur such that the hand could not be seen in front of the face. Debris continued to fall for a considerable length of time, which seemed unending to those in the area who were all unprotected from the huge chunks of concrete and steel thudding on the ground about them."

"Before the explosion, the large blockhouse was conspicuously silhouetted against the skyline. After the explosion, nothing remained but a huge water filled crater. Men were killed and wounded in small boats a considerable distance from the beach by the flying debris."

"Two more violent explosions, but lesser in intensity than the first, occurred among the assault troops during the next half hour."

The battalion suffered more than half of its total battle casualties in this swift moment, and its advance was held up temporarily. By this time, the Japanese were recovering somewhat and beginning to offer fiercer resistance. The battle for Namur was not going to be easy. The 3rd Battalion, with tanks in support, pushed ahead at 1630.

First Medal of Honor

A platoon under Lt. John V. Power soon encountered a pillbox that was spraying death all along the Marine lines. They rushed it, trying to lob grenades through the gun port or to get a place-charge against it. But the fire was too hot. They decided to work around the pillbox and attack from the rear. Lt. Power led the way. As he approached the doorway, a bullet caught him in the stomach, but he didn't stop. To the amazement of the Japanese, he charged forward, emptying his carbine into the narrow slot of a door. A Marine pulled the lieutenant back into the safety of a bomb crater, where he died a few minutes later. Lt. Power was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

There were many other acts of heroism on Roi-Namur that day; not all of them were recorded. Typical was the action of Pfc. Richard Sheidt. A bullet hit Scheidt in the arm a few minutes after he was ashore on Namur. A corpsman bandaged the wound, and Scheidt stayed with his company. At one point, his platoon inadvertently pushed too far forward and was ordered to withdraw.

Upon reaching the new position, Sheidt saw a Marine, Edward Mann, a hundred yards ahead of the lines; wounded in the eyes, unable to see to make his way beach. Bullets were spraying the field. Despite his wound, Sheidt went forward alone. There was no way to lead the blinded comrade back except to stand up; he unfastened the sling of his rifle, gave Mann one end, and started back to his lines. Marines stopped firing to avoid hitting them, and, with Japanese soldiers blazing away, the two men made it. Scheidt was later awarded the Silver Star.

Slow Going

The 24th's 2nd Battalion, held up by the three violent explosions in its midst, got under way again at 1700. The going was slow through stiffening resistance in the rubble of destroyed buildings. By 1530, when the order came to dig in for the night, the battalion had achieved a maximum advance of 300 yards. The 3rd Battalion's forward elements were within a few hundred yards of the island's northern shore. Its right flank, however, angled sharply back to tie in with the 2nd Battalion. The two battalions set up perimeter defense for the night.

A hundred separate flights

Across the causeway on Roi, the 23rd Regiment raced ahead after resuming the attack at 1600. The enemy, thoroughly disorganized from our shelling, put up no single, well-planned defense. Instead, there were a hundred separate flights by individuals and small groups without unified command. Under such conditions, the Japanese soldier is a brave and stubborn fighter. On Roi, the enemy took to the partially covered drainage ditches that surrounded the airstrips, popping up to fire into the rear of our troops. This caused some confusion and not a few casualties, but the position of the enemy was hopeless. Demolitions and flame-throwers routed them out, and riflemen picked off those who did not choose to blow themselves up with their own grenades. By 1800, six hours after the landing, and with less than three hours of actual offensive assault, Roi was declared secured.

Second Medal of Honor

There was little opportunity for individual heroism on Roi, but one man, Pfc. Richard B. Anderson, found himself in a position to save several comrades from death or injury from a hand grenade. He was killed, but his comrades were unhurt, and for this self-sacrifice Anderson was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

By late afternoon, men could pause for breath and look around them for the first time. The ruins through which they had fought were indescribably fascination. There was hardly a recognizable trace of what had been the Japanese headquarters. On Roi, the gaunt skeletons of a hangar and an operation building were all that remained standing. On Namur, only three buildings, all severely battered, had survived our shelling. There were a large administrative building, a concrete radio station, and an ammunition storage building.

Thousands of shells had exploded on the island, leaving the ground pitted with craters. Shattered breadfruit and coconut palms stood at fantastic angles. Japanese dead were sprawled over the island by the hundreds in shell holes, near ammunition dumps, in the ruins of buildings; most of them were horribly mutilated by the bombardment.

Sheets of corrugated iron were strewn everywhere, twisted, ripped, full of holes. Concrete pilings on which barracks had rested stuck out of the ground in rows like tombstones.

On Roi, many Japanese planes, caught when our shelling began, lay like giant birds pinned helplessly to the ground, their wings broken.

Doves, chickens, pig, and goose

Yet, in the midst of this carnage, a few traces of normal life remained. A dovecote on top of the concrete radio station was untouched, and birds nested there, oblivious to the noise of battle. A pig, several chickens, and a very large goose had somehow escaped death and wandered about unconcernedly. But the battle was not over. The last few hundred Japanese on Namur, pocketed against the northern shore, determined to die in traditional Japanese style. Under cover of rain and darkness made eerie by bursting star shells, they staged a Banzai attack against the 24th Regiment's 3rd Battalion. Companies I and L received the brunt of the attack, which lasted, on and off, for several hours. At one point, it was necessary to pull back our lines to a more secure position. This led to one of the most remarkable series of incidents of the battle, and example of the spirit of comradeship between Marines and Navy corpsmen.

Courageous Navy corpsman

Pharmacist's Mate 1st Class James V. Kirby, a member of the 3rd Battalion's aid station on the beach, was sent up to the front during late afternoon to assist company corpsmen. Arriving there, he worked with the wounded for some time and then collected a group of them a short distance behind the lines to await stretcher bearers. But darkness overtook them. Orders had been given to fire on anyone moving about at night, and the litter teams had to stay on the beach. Kirby settled down with his charges to sweat out the night. He didn't know what was coming. When the Japanese counterattack came, and the 3rd Battalion had to pull back, Kirby found himself - and the wounded - between the enemy and his own troops. He could not go back for help without endangering the lives of the wounded. He got them into a large bomb crater, administered first aid, cheered them up, and gave them cigarettes, which they smoked under the blackout of a poncho.

In the crossfire

When the Marines charged forward to regain their old positions, Kirby found himself in the crossfire of battle. He could hear the cries and groans of newly wounded and, crawling out of his hole to find them led them to the safety of the crater. There he dressed their wounds before returning to new cries in the darkness. One of the cries that split the night was that of Pfc. Richard K. Sorenson. He had hurled himself on an enemy grenade to save the six comrades with him in a shell hole. Kirby reached Sorenson in time to tie a severed artery and stop the bleeding, which would surely have cost Sorenson his life. He took Sorenson to the hole where the other wounded lay and treated him throughout the night.

Third Medal of Honor, Bronze Star

When daybreak came, and the Japanese Banzai had been completely broken, a crew of corpsmen advanced to search for Kirby. They found him and a total of 15 wounded. He had won a 12-hour tilt with death. For his meritorious service, he was later awarded the Bronze Star. And Sorenson - whose action had saved his six companions - lived to receive the Medal of Honor.

Father and son

Tragedy struck in many places that night, but no death was more tragic than that of Pfc. Jack Brown, a member of the 24th Regiment's 3rd Battalion. Nineteen-year-old Jack had stowed away on the transport so he could be with his father, Cpl. Earl Brown, 44. Father and son had been in the same company, but when it was time for the division to ship out, Jack was hospitalized with a minor illness and transferred to another outfit. "Pop" had boarded the ship alone. Just before the division sailed, Jack was found stowed away, and was taken off and arrested. Cpl. Brown's wife phoned the commandant's office in Washington and told the story of her husband and son's efforts to be together. The charges against Jack were dropped, and he joined his old company. Father and son were together all during the trip to the Marshalls. Jack hit the beach first and was killed during the night when the Japanese counterattacked. Pop went on fighting - alone.

Isolated bands of enemies

Only a few isolated bands of desperate Japanese were left to oppose the last phase of the battle for Namur. When morning came, tanks and half-tracks moved up to support the final push, blasting pillboxes, blockhouses, and other fortifications. Cpl. Michael Giba told how his tank ran up to the edge of a bomb crater, stopped, and was soon swarming with enemy troops. "I looked out the periscope," Giba said. "A Japanese lay down on the turret and looked me right in the eye. He seemed kind of puzzled about just what to do. Then he rose to a squatting position, removed a grenade from his picket, held it against the periscope, pulled the pin, and lay down on top of it. The periscope was broken, but none of us was hurt. The Japanese was killed." Thus the battle drew to an end. The Third Battalion had jumped off at 0900; the 2nd and 1st moved up at 1000. The island was declared secured at 1215, 24 hours and 15 minutes after the landing.

Fourth Medal of Honor

But there was to be one last minute tragedy before the flag went up officially on Namur. Lt. Col. Aquilla J. Dyess, commander of the 1st Battalion, 24th Marines, was leading his men against the last pocket of Japanese when he was caught in a burst of enemy machine-gun fire. He was killed instantly - the highest-ranking officer to lose his life in the operation. Lt. Col. Dyess was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. His was the fourth for the division during the engagement - probably an all-time record for 24 hours of fighting.

Phase Three

Phase Two of the operation now over, and Phase Three began - mopping up all the islets in the northern two-thirds of the atoll. The battle for Kwajalein Island was still in progress when the 25th Regiment began its sweep down the atoll. The 2nd Battalion followed the arm that extended southeast from Roi-Namur, while the 1st moved to the southwest. During the next seven days, they reconnoitered the string of islets, finding an occasional stray band of Japanese, a few friendly natives, or nothing.

Where the reef curves almost due west, the 3rd Battalion relieved the 1st and continued to drive toward Ebadon, extreme westernmost isle of the atoll. Then they followed the reef in a general southeasterly direction to complete the circuit. Altogether, the 25th Regiment secured 53 islands, with names like Boggerlapp, Marsugalt, Gegibu, and Oniotto harder to pronounce then to capture.

Meanwhile, the 15th Defense Battalion came ashore to garrison Roi-Namur. Marshall Islanders who had lived on the islands were helped back to their homes and paid in U.S. currency to help clear the wreckage and bury Japanese dead. On Roi, tractors, bulldozers, trucks, and jeeps ground endlessly, bringing supplies, ammunition, and material for installations and clearing away debris. Over the blasted Japanese operations building flew a huge American flag.

On both Roi and Namur, much of the reconstruction of the islands was done by Seabees. For the first time in the Pacific, they had been trained and equipped as part of a regular Marine Corps landing force. With the 20th (Engineer) Regiment, they unloaded ammunition, brought in supplies, laid a portable plank road on the beach, recovered unexploded shells, cleared the airfield, and set up a water-distillation plant.

The inferno of Feb. 12, 1944

On Feb. 12, the Japanese hit the jackpot. A small group of planes, flying high, dropped a few incendiary bombs on Roi Island. One of them struck our ammunition dump and a moment later the whole island was an exploding inferno. The raid lasted only five minutes, but the bombardment from the ammunition dump continued for four hours. Casualties were numerous, and it was later estimated that damage to our supplies and equipment amounted to $1 million.

A great victory

With the capture of Kwajalein Atoll, the United States had strategic control of all the Marshall Islands. Japanese garrisons on Mili, Wotje, Maloelap, and Jaluit were by-passed and isolated. Japanese communications south from Wake Island had been severed. We had acquired another stepping stone on our march across the Pacific. The lagoon furnished an excellent staging base. The airfields brought Truk and other islands in the Carolines, within our range. For a small price, we had won a great victory.

The 4th Marines reached Maui during the period Feb. 21-25, but there were some who would not come back. A total of 190 Marines had been killed and 547 wounded during the brief engagement. Overnight, the "green" 4th had become veterans. We had captured 264 prisoners, while another 3,472 enemy troops lay buried on tiny Roi-Namur.

H I S T O R Y
BEFORE WWII	DURING WWII	1944 BILL ILES	1944 CURTIS PARTCH	1947 ED SPILMAN	1950 - 1951 GENE WOOLIEVER	1951 - 1969	1970 - 1989	1990 - 1994	HISTORY COMES ALIVE