It Was Our World War Too

Enroute

Not only did I get most of the schooling that the Marine Corps had to offer here at Pendleton, but on several occasions I went with other groups to different bases.

A quote from one of my letters to Anita stated, “Yesterday, at a little after noon, we, all sergeants, had to fall out in clean khaki. We loaded into a ‘Doggie’ bus with 60 Air Corps officers and went to an army camp, miles away, for training regarding a new type of judo-bayonet fighting.”

Anita had to celebrate her 19th birthday without me. My letters indicated a card was the best I could do.

Finally at the end of September my time ran out. We received our shipping orders. I called Anita. I also wrote a number of letters, and on September 22nd I was classified as being in the field. The information about my having to turn in my M-1 was true. I was issued a new carbine and had to give up my best friend, 849439. But as I mentioned earlier, I really liked the carbine.

Our sea bags were packed; we had to turn our lockers in. Our tents were stored and we accepted “good luck” comments from those who were staying.

About a hundred of us were in the group that was loaded into trucks and driven off to the pier.

When we arrived there was nothing in sight that looked like a troop ship. We decided we would have a long wait, maybe hours or, as some of us thought, days. We were lined up and had roll call. Twenty-two of us were called out and marched off with our gear. We marched right to the edge of the pier and onto this little craft.

It was called an LSM, Landing Ship Medium.

The LSM was similar to the landing craft we were training on but was somewhat larger. It was wide enough to accommodate the large 6x6 trucks as well as tanks. Surely this would take us out into the bay where we would board our troop ship.

Unfortunately this was not the case. Twenty-two of us Marines plus the ship’s crew of a dozen or so sailors, four 6x6 trucks, and some other equipment headed west to Hawaii on LSM No. 26.

By the time we could see land disappearing in the background we were all beginning to feel a little seasick. Our ship had a flat bottom so it could go right up on the beach.

That meant every wave we encountered resulted in a thump or a pitch or a roll. By the next morning, everyone, including the skipper, was sick, sick, sick.

By the third day some of us began to feel better and actually began to eat. We joined the sailors in a cleanup party and tried to get rid of the mess and the smell that was everywhere on their new ship. There were five LSMs in our convoy.

Even though we were in relatively safe waters, we continued to act as if the war could involve us at any instant. We broke formation regularly and had practice drills daily. Almost a full week after leaving California, we arrived at Oahu, Hawaii. Pearl Harbor is located on this island. We pulled into the harbor and stopped for instructions before docking at Ford Island, the site of the Pearl Harbor Navy installation.

We docked alongside where the battleship Arizona lay. The Arizona was sunk by the Japanese on December 7th with many crew members on board. Most of the land-based damage had been cleared from the area we saw. Aside from the Arizona, which we could see, few signs of the attack remained.

I remember being held speechless as all of us Marines stood on the pier as we watched a submarine move past us yards away. Pictures can’t compete with seeing the real thing.

Crew members were topside as the sub silently glided by, headed into the main harbor and to a destination unknown to us and maybe unknown to them.

How we reached our next station, Kauai, about 100 miles northwest of Pearl Harbor, remains a mystery to me. My official Marine Corps records do not cover small details like that.

However, I have a vague recollection of having ridden a ferry with civilians during that period, and it could have been how we were transported to Kauai.

On our first payday at our new station, we were surprised to find that our money was marked. Each bill had the word HAWAII stamped on the back in large, one-inch-high outline letters, stretching from end to end.

The front also had the words stamped at each end in smaller, solid letters. The purpose of having our money stamped was that in the event the Japanese captured the Hawaiian Islands, our government would declare all such money illegal so the Japanese government could not use it.

I had written letters to Anita every day while traveling from California and had quite a stack of them to mail, all with cartoons on the outside.

I had been told that all mail would be censored as soon as we left the states.

No one told me that nothing could be put on the outside of the envelopes except the addressee’s and the sender’s address.

I was called before our captain and given a brief but firm lecture about the prohibition of drawing on the outside of any envelopes. He gave me a large folder to address to Anita and all my letters were placed inside. My envelopes with the cartoons were thrown away.

No doubt these subtle secret love implications were destroyed in the proper manner. My package of letters was then sent to another officer to be censored.

My address on the packet of the accumulated letters to Anita was Sgt. Thomas Kolesa, Provisional Signal Co., Service Battalion, Transient Center, Fleet Marine Force Pacific, c/o Fleet Post Office, San Francisco, California. Some of my letters were cut up and marked, but most of them passed without incident.

On October 11th I was assigned to the 8th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion and was attached to the Searchlight Battery. This was to be my assignment for the remainder of my overseas duty. My new address was Sgt. T. J. Kolesa, Searchlight Battery, 8th AAA Bn., FMF Pacific, c/o FPO, San Francisco, Calif. I thought they finally knew what they were going to do with me and dozens of other Marines and a lot of Mark XX radar units.

Our second wedding anniversary was approaching, and I knew Anita was worried about me with all of the fighting going on in the Pacific.

The fighting was heavy in the Philippines and MacArthur had returned there. To make it even more worrisome, the Japanese had started their kamikaze suicide program.

Because I had been told no cartoons on the envelopes, just my address and the addressee’s, I followed orders. My first letter to Anita to let her know I was safe was addressed to Mrs. K. Kolesa, followed by the next letter addressed to Mrs. A. Kolesa, and so on until I had spelled out KAUAI. No cartoons. She saved these envelopes.

After the war was over we heard of many other similar arrangements that were used to let family know where they were. It was always after the fact, as was with my case. Anita had written me, informing me that her dad told her I was in Hawaii. He didn’t know which island.

Anita’s dad said he knew I would be going to Hawaii when I left California. He likewise told Anita that I was on Okinawa when the first report of the landing was announced.

We never told anyone where we were going because we never knew until we got there.

In addition to my letter to Anita on our anniversary, I wrote a V-mail letter to my mom and dad.

Referring to our anniversary I commented, “Two years ago today you and Anita’s mom and dad were wondering why Anita and I didn’t get home that night.” I added, “It sure doesn’t seem like two years, does it?”

Kauai is the fourth largest of the islands making up the Hawaii group and lies northwest of the main island, Hawaii.

Kauai is known as the Garden Island because its tropical climate and rainfall enable the residents to grow flowers, fruits, and vegetables in great quantities all year long.

It has many mountains and canyons that add to its beauty. The highest mountain is about a mile high, 5,170 feet.

Because the island is so small, about 30 miles across, the mountain looks higher. They were growing great quantities of pineapple and sugarcane while I was there.

Flat land was at a premium and was mostly along the ocean. The searchlight battery was bivouacked on one of these flat areas on the eastern side of the island just outside of Wailua, a small village located between the cities of Kapaa on the north and Lihue on the south.

We had one very well used SCR-268 radar unit to practice on.

One advantage to its being old was that it was always breaking down and our technicians and operators had a lot of practice solving problems.

Some units of the 8th AAA had their SCR-584 radar units and were able to practice working as a team. They told us to stand by. The new Mark XX units were on their way.

The native Hawaiians were very friendly and always spoke to us or waved greetings. Fraternizing was off limits, so they just watched us and we watched them.

Pineapples were processed near the fields and we were encouraged to help ourselves and eat as many as we wanted.

Eating was a very important part of my life even then. So I was very pleased when we were encouraged to establish a mess club for sergeants. For a few dollars a month we were able to hire local help to prepare, serve, and clean up. Breakfasts were usually dried eggs, potatoes, canned bacon, and coffee. Lunch was always more potatoes, canned vegetables, Spam, and canned fruit, all government issue.

My happiest time of day, other than mail call, was when our server cut me a slab of Spam an inch thick. I really liked it. I still eat Spam on a regular basis.

Dinner was special. We usually had fresh meat and a dessert.

Swimming has always been one of my favorite activities. Therefore, it is not surprising that I did as much of it as I could. During boot camp it was limited to training operations.

At Lejeune and Pendleton I was able to swim in the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans respectively. Here on Kauai, with all the water around, I thought I would really enjoy myself.

A few days after getting our camp squared away, several of us decided to test the water. I don’t remember if I was the first in or not, but I was the first surprised.

A few yards from the rocky shoreline the water got waist deep. A vicious undertow grabbed me.

I felt myself being dragged along the bottom against all my efforts to get back on my feet and back to shore. In seconds, I was in water too deep to touch bottom and was being pulled out to sea. I tried to swim back. I wasn’t making any progress and was actually getting farther and farther from shore. Fear began to take hold.

I swam as hard as possible but I was still heading away from the beach. Then panic set in. At the most I was only about twenty yards from shore but was moving out to sea fast.

Fear and desperation took over as I realized I had to give up the fight. I can’t say that my entire life flashed before my eyes, but a good part of my current life did. I wondered how Anita, now about eight months pregnant, was getting along.

As I drifted farther out, I thought of or maybe remembered a plan I had heard about to let the tide take me out to calm water.

It seemed that I was about fifty yards from shore before I was able to take control of my movements. It was as calm as an inland lake.

Then I picked a spot south of the beach where I started from and swam back. It seemed to be a piece of cake. There was no undertow anywhere and I gracefully and quickly swam to shore.

Needless to say, that was the end of my swimming in uncharted waters off the coast of Kauai. Somewhere, maybe in boot camp, I must have heard about this survival method because I can’t imagine me thinking it up myself under such duress.

As the days wore on, we did a lot of things over and over again. Starting the unit, checking it out, fine-tuning it, and making sure our log was kept up to date.

This repetition was probably the cause of what could have been a serious accident on one of the day shifts.

A technician was making adjustments without shutting down the power.

As he was reaching into the set, 26,000 volts arced through his hand to the main frame. The force was so great that it knocked him from the set.

We believe what saved him was the fact that he was wearing a wedding ring and the electricity passed through the ring to the frame he was holding on to.

Without the metal path for the electricity to follow, it probably would have continued through his body.

The boredom may have caused this next event also. It was here on Kauai that I had my first and only encounter with a homosexual Marine.

While writing a letter one quiet afternoon in my tent, I was approached by a friend I had known for many months.

He came up behind me and planted a kiss on the back of my right ear. He told me he liked me a lot. Gus thought maybe I liked him too. I told him very quietly that I did like him but I didn’t participate in that kind of activity. If we were to remain friends he couldn’t behave that way with me. He knew that I was married and probably knew as much about Anita as anyone other than me. That was the end of that.

We continued to share the same tent, went to eat together, and stayed friends as we had been. Neither of us mentioned the incident again.

Another good friend was just the opposite. Joe was a sex fanatic, constantly talking of the girls he had back home, describing everything in great detail. He always had an off-color joke to tell and pictures to show.

Between all of the stories he told he always came back to tell us a story of his favorite girl. She always seemed to have a different name each time he told us about her.

Joe was a street kid from New Jersey who didn’t like authority. He was very smart and very likable but wanted to get out of the Marines and go home. He realized this as soon as we left California. Joe said he latched on to me because I was always willing to listen to him.

December 1944 was almost over. Anita and I had exchanged letters regularly.

One from her contained 22 pages. Most of her comments related to our baby and what we would do after the war.

The first week in January I was sitting on my bunk reading another long letter from Anita.

It was written on December 23, telling me about Leslie Ann. Leslie was born at 10:12 p.m. on December 22nd at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Alton, Illinois. Her doctor was Cecelia M. Hellrung and her nurse was Nina.

Leslie Ann checked in wearing a little light-brown hair, blue eyes, and a pink complexion. At birth she weighed seven pounds and one-half ounce.

According to Anita she was “beautiful.” While I was reading the letter, for the second or third time, a messenger from the Red Cross came with a telegram advising me that I was a father.

The Red Cross worker stood by as I read the telegram, and when I had finished reading it, I said, “Yes, I know. I’m reading about it now.”

I thanked her very much for the news and told her how much I appreciated the help Red Cross had been in getting me a leave when Anita was having trouble during her pregnancy.

From that day on my letters were written to two people. I even received several letters from Leslie.

Before I left Kauai, I bought grass skirts for Anita and Leslie and was able to mail them home. Anita sent me pictures taken in their skirts. Can you believe I could buy and mail Hawaii grass skirts but I couldn’t draw a picture of one on my envelope?

Finally the Mark XXs came to Kauai. There were dozens of them. Six were assigned to our battery.

They were unloaded in a very secure area and were accompanied by quite a few civilian personnel.

Six of us, all sergeants, were assigned a unit and a crew. We were told to set them up and check them out operationally.

Our crew got our set working and operational along with four of the other units even though we had never seen a complete unit in operation. We did see pictures at school and had instruction manuals.

The one unit that would not work properly was assigned to one of the sergeants I had known since school at Lejeune. Clayton was competent, but he was beginning to get very frustrated. After the officers were convinced that a unit was working properly and was in good shape we were told to shut it down, secure it, and return to our area. I secured my unit but didn’t go back to my tent because I wanted to see if I could help Clayton.

All of the civilian employees were also trying to help Clayton get his unit going. They had spent most of the day taking things apart and replacing parts that could be suspect.

It was late in the afternoon and I was talking with Clayton, trying to keep his spirits up, when an officer asked the staff sergeant in charge what I was doing there. The sergeant explained that I was one of those hotshot technicians from the first Mark XX class at Lejeune and I had studied all of the fire-control and searchlight units and was a good friend of Sergeant Clayton’s. The officer turned to me and asked if I had any suggestions.

Not being intimidated by the sergeant or the officer, I walked up to the unit, turned everything off, and restarted it.

I observed the faulty operating conditions. While doing this I asked dozens of intelligent questions like, “Did you change all of the GL444s? How about the magnetron? The unit connectors?”

I asked these questions and many more to let them know I knew what made the Mark XX tick.

After getting what I thought were satisfactory answers to my questions, I reached into my wallet, took out my fingernail file, and unscrewed the connector that returned the signal to the receiver. I left the set on.

With my file, I started very carefully to work on the male connector and blew into the female connector several times. I cleaned both with alcohol. The officers and civilians just looked at me.

We had been instructed never to do that. You just cleaned them with alcohol. I learned to do the unusual from Joe, who was never afraid to hit a tube or kick a set to try to make it work.

You know, like kicking your automobile tires or hitting the desk your computer sits on.

Having completed my delicate operation, I put the connector back in place. Even as I was tightening it up it was obvious that the unit was going to work. I finished tightening the connection, put my fingernail file away, and fine-tuned the reception.

It was the best I ever saw on a Mark XX, or would ever see again. No wonder it worked so well; after all almost every part had been checked and serviced by the experts that designed and built the Mark XX.

The questions I had asked involved the obvious. The answers they gave me confirmed my suspicions that we both suspected the problem was related to the return feed.

I even asked twice if they checked all of the connectors. The answer was that they did.

They cleaned them with alcohol several times. All parts, to and from, were deemed to be perfect. The cleaning with alcohol missed something. The fingernail file cleared the obstruction or dislodged it. I walked away pleased with myself. But as a result of this incident I lost my radar unit, which I only had for a few hours.

They made me NCO in charge of all Searchlight Battery Mark XX units and promised me a jeep. They didn’t mention the headaches. Joe was put in charge of what had been my unit.

Our orders to sail finally came. We traded our Hawaiian money for military currency issued “Pursuant to Military Proclamation.” These were small bills exactly half the size of U.S. currency and were issued for the same reason as the Hawaiian money was issued: to make our money useless in the event we were captured.

We packed our new Mark XX and our personal gear and boarded a troop ship that was docked at a port in Kauai. I didn’t know where they put our radar units. We went to Pearl Harbor, then headed west. While on the ship we had all kinds of free time. We ate well and often. We were able to go to the movies almost any time we wanted and had a well-stocked shipboard library that I used quite often. I also had plenty of time to write letters, which I did.

While on the LSM going from California to Pearl Harbor, we could see and feel every maneuver the ship made.

This ship was so big compared to the LSM that I hardly knew we were maneuvering as we headed west. I didn’t get seasick.

Even though they tried to fill our spare time, it was no picnic being confined on a ship with hundreds of other Marines and sailors for over a month. There was hardly enough room to squeeze in your physical body, let alone have any room left over to stretch out. There were plenty of arguments aboard. None of them were serious. Card games were everywhere and anytime. The ship’s PA system kept us informed about what was going on in the rest of the world, like the situation in the Philippines and of our bombing attacks on the Japanese mainland.

Some of the Marines had radios, but they didn’t work well during the day. At night they could receive quite well and were much appreciated. It enabled us to keep up on the latest songs that were being played and sung. You could always hear several versions of “Beer Barrel Polka,” “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” “A String of Pearls,” “Bye Bye Blackbird,” “Coming In on a Wing and a Prayer,” and dozens of others.

I had a secret hiding place, under a lifeboat, that I could go to and be alone. It was out of the way and provided me with just enough room to read, write letters, and take naps.

The slight roll of the ship could be detected but was comforting rather than annoying. I think the trip from California to Hawaii on the LSM gave me immunity from getting seasick again.

When we left Hawaii the scuttlebutt really began to fly. Some of the Marines thought it was going to be Japan. Others, including me, expressed the opinion that there were still too many islands between us and Japan’s mainland.

One of the sailors said he heard our course was set for Guam. Guam? What happened, did the Japanese recapture it?

As a sergeant, they thought I might have some inside information. It couldn’t be Guam because if the Japanese had returned, we would have heard about that. So back to the rumor mill.

Somebody produced a map of Japan and bets were flying. Half thought it was going to be reinforcements for Iwo Jima. A few picked Okinawa. The rest had no thoughts or preference.

Before all the bets were down, the “Now hear this” came over the PA. “We are approaching Guam. Marines will prepare to disembark at 1400 hours for exercise. There will be no need to take anything with you as you will return to these quarters for chow and sack time.”

This announcement was followed with scheduling instructions and other details. This was the first of a number of exercising sessions held on the island.

Guam is a narrow island approximately thirty miles long and 10 miles wide. Historians aren’t positive, but they think Magellan discovered it and claimed it for Spain.

They ceded it to the United States under terms of the Spanish-American War.

The Japanese army captured Guam while their navy was bombing Pearl Harbor. It was retaken by the Marines during August 1944.

We spent many days here along with other troop ships as we gathered for our assault on Okinawa.

The invasion of Okinawa had the code name Operation Iceberg.

I remember that it seemed to rain every hour while we were on Guam. No one paid any attention. Work, exercise, play, drill, and eating just continued. In a few minutes the sun returned. Guam was a supply station for all branches of the service. The nearby island of Saipan was the base for the Superfortress, the B-29, that was bombing Japan’s military might.

Guam and Saipan were centered in the Pacific theater of operations. We were 3,500 miles from Hawaii, almost 7,000 miles from Illinois. We arrived in Guam the middle of February and were to be a part of the scheduled March 1st invasion of Okinawa. However, the Japanese proved very capable of defending themselves and the bombing of Iwo Jima did not produce the anticipated results. The schedule for taking Iwo was delayed, as was the invasion of Okinawa. It was now set for April 1st.

The year 1945 was fast moving and costly to both sides. The Japanese were being defeated in all the encounters with American troops. As they felt their backs being pressed to the wall they increased their desperate measures. Early in January they launched their largest assault yet of kamikaze attacks on our ships and troops in the Philippines, sinking seventeen ships and damaging fifty others in one week.

Iwo Jima was invaded on February 19th and would cost 6,800 American lives with thousands more wounded. It took a month to secure the island that would eventually provide two airfields for our bombers to use in emergencies.

It was also used to provide fighter cover during raids on Japan and Okinawa.

Iwo Jima, the site of one of the most costly battles of the Pacific war, is the largest of the Volcano Islands, 28 square miles, about 5.5 miles long and 2.5 miles wide. The inactive volcano Mt. Suribachi is just under 500 feet high. That is where the famous picture of the Marines raising the American flag after securing Iwo Jima was taken.

The capturing of Iwo Jima took longer than expected, which delayed our landing on Okinawa. A number of ships began to move out of the Guam area early in March in preparation for the assault force that would follow.

When it was time for us to leave there was no special excitement or fanfare. We headed north the middle of March along with hundreds of other ships.

At first we could see many alongside, but in a few hours we began to spread out and get into our designated formation, putting distance between Guam and us.

We separated into groups, each one of which seemed to have at least one battleship, a cruiser, and several destroyers. Some were lucky enough to have an aircraft carrier. We didn’t. It wasn’t long before we couldn’t see any of the other groups and our convoy seemed to be all alone, headed north.

All the sailors that I talked to were very friendly in spite of the fact that we dirtied up their facilities, ate their food, took over their recreation area, got in their way, and some got seasick.

This was a pleasant trip. The ocean was blue by day and glowed with phosphorus at night in the moonlight. During the day I spent hours just watching the waves and the flying fish that were always beside us.

At night I read and wrote letters or went to the show. We had been subjected to battle-station drills on our way from Hawaii to Guam, but we knew they were just practice. As soon as we left Guam for Okinawa we had many more drills, and because we knew we were getting close to the war, we took them seriously.

It is a very weird feeling to be ordered to your quarters below the waterline and hear the hatches close and then hear them locked. By this time we knew we were headed for an Easter morning invasion of Okinawa.

As we got closer and the time got shorter, tension built among the sailors and the anxiety was passed on to us Marines.

I had come from Kauai. Others had come from the Solomons, the Marshalls, the Marianas, the Philippines, and some even came direct from Iwo Jima without a break.

A British armada guarded the south approach to the island. The Navy protected the invasion force from attacks by the Japanese based in Japan. The mainland was only 325 miles away. That’s less than the distance from St. Louis to Chicago.