The following is the text from an article in "The Baytown Sun" by Jim Kyle, Sunday, March 1, 1987. It's about one of my best Marine buddies -- one of the old gang -- W.C. Reeves....
Nearly 23,000 Japanese soldiers were killed on Iwo Jima. When the smoke settled on the 5-1/2-mile-long and 2-mile-wide island, the U.S. Marines had taken only about 100 prisoners. (Note from Dunc: The Japanese preferred to die rather than surrender.)
On all the islands where W.C. Reeves fought, the Japanese had spent years building underground fortresses, both in natural and man-made caves. What the Americans didn't realize at first is that bombing from planes and shelling from ships had little effect on the Japanese because they had plenty of places to hide. The only way to win was by taking the ground a few feet at a time.
The 4th Marine Division counted nearly 3,500 killed in action and 15,000 wounded in World War II. Few came back unscathed. Baytonian W.C. Reeves was one of those few.
After enlisting in the Marines on April 17, 1943, at the age of 18, Reeves became part of one of the "fighting-est" bunch of men in U.S. military history.
Reeves took part in the invasions of four Japanese islands -- Roi-Namur, Saipan, Tinian, and Iwo Jima.
Casualties soared to 75 percent of the entire Marine division before the final bullets were fired on Iwo Jima, last of the Japanese soldier-held islands to be taken.
Reeves was one of the few who came home unscathed. "I was just lucky", he said.
Reeves commented that his daughter and son would be surprised to read what he had to say about a few of his wartime experiences while he was a Marine.
"I've never really discussed the things that happened to me with my kids or, for that matter, very few."
When Reeves enlisted, he tried to get in the paratroopers. He was 5 feet 7 inches tall and tipped the scales at 128 pounds. The Marine recruiter told him he wasn't big enough to open the chute.
Reeves went on the fight the Japanese in fierce hand-to-hand combat in World War II in the South Pacific.
The Japanese soldier swore allegiance to their commanders they would fight to the death. Proof of their allegiance was shown in every major battle.
Reeves recalled how the enemy would stage Bonzai attacks at night on Iwo Jima. "They would get drunk on saki and run at us screaming and yelling until every last one would die", he said. "Of course, they killed a bunch of us before we could silence them."
Reeves remembered one particular Bonzai attack in which the enemy numbered more than 400. He and a buddy were in a hole when the Japanese came screaming and shouting their blood-curdling sounds.
"We were in this frontline hole in the ground, and our machine gun positions were behind us", Reeves said. "Our orders were to stay down and let the machine guns knock them down as they came in.
"Everything was going good for my buddy and me until a Japanese soldier fell down in the hole with us.
"It was dark, and we were so close to him, we couldn't shoot him with our rifles. He had a sword in his hand, and I can still hear the sound of him swishing that sword, cutting the air around my head. He was so boozed up, he couldn't get out of the hole at first and, when he did, our machine guns cut him down.
"When daylight came, they were all dead -- all 400. A bunch of my buddies were, too."
When asked whether the Japanese took any Marines as prisoners, Reeves said:
"Sometimes, not often, we would have a five- or six-man patrol go out, and maybe a couple of them wouldn't come back. We would assume they had been killed.
"We would sometimes find them and know they had been tortured before they were killed.
"The Japanese would tie a rope around the ankles of our men and swing them out from atop a cliff and let them bang against the side of that jagged rock. We could see this from the distance, and the Japanese knew we could.
"After hearing the screams from a Marine for a time, one of our men would put the poor devil out of his misery with a rifle bullet."
When asked about his closest encounter with death in the war, Reeves told this story:
"Each little cave we would wipe out had to be searched for any survivors.
"One afternoon (on Iwo Jima), a buddy and myself were checking out a smaller cave that had been cleared a day or two before.
"When we got inside, we could see a little bend to our left about 10 feet in there, and my buddy told me he would check it out.
"When he rounded the bend, he screamed, 'There's a Jap in there!'
"He had no more than got those words out of his mouth, when a grenade went off.
"I ran around there and, when I did, that Jap fell over my buddy and was trying to aim his rifle at me.
"I caught him a lick with my rifle butt, right under the chin, and proceeded to beat him to death.
"We got my buddy back in a jeep to the first aid station. He was still alive, but had both legs blown off. He died soon after.
"That's the way things were being a Marine on Saipan and Iwo Jima. Sometimes, fate held your life in its hands. There was no reason it couldn't have been me die in the cave, but I didn't, and that Japanese soldier and my buddy did."
Reflecting on the 42 years that have passed since the action in the South Pacific, Reeves said he could forgive the Japanese for all the misery he went through in the fighting, "but I can't forgive them for killing my buddies."
Reeves remembers one war story that had a "dog-gone" happy ending.
A few Japanese women and children had been captured and brought into their area on Saipan. One of the women was screaming and crying and jibbering, as were a couple of her kids. Reeves asked for an interpreter who was brought up to listen to their story.
The interpreter told Reeves that the family had a dog back at their hut with puppies, and they would all die if we left them alone.
"Now, what could I do, but send their guard back with them and get those dogs?", Reeves said. "They passed by later, grinning and waving as they disappeared behind the lines."
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