(Army 12) Bloody Nose Ridge

I am not positive that I was wounded on Bloody Nose Ridge. But it was close to it. The Japanese had a sniper in the area that had killed some ninety Yanks with head shots. The Marines thought that it was the same guy. Of course they called him "The Sniper of Bloody Nose Ridge".

After we unloaded from the boat I can remember going into the jungle. Three of us shared a shell hole the night before we were to advance up the ridge. We were scheduled to throw our satchel charges on enemy pill boxes the next day. We discussed this and promised that we would back each other up. In the morning we had to walk through a clearing to get to the bottom of the hill. We had to step over several large dead Japanese soldiers. They were Royal Marines. You had to be six foot tall to get in the Japanese Royal Marines. They looked very big, very dead, and very ugly.

We walked in a long single line up a ridge. I was walking along a log lying on the ground to my right when suddenly I felt like I had been hit hard with a 2x4 above each knee. I could feel and see blood running into my socks. I said "I have been shot" and laid down on the ground next to the log. The shots had come from the right. I had a bullet hole a few inches above each knee. When I laid down along the log I had some cover. My Lieutenant came up on the other side of log. I can remember hime smiling at me. Then another shot came and went between his legs. The bullet nipped the log and went over me. The Lieutenant stopped smiling and took cover.

After the shooting had stopped my fellow troops built a stretcher. They cut and trimmed two small trees and pushed them through two buttoned  jackets. Down the hill we went with about six guys carrying me through the jungle. It was terrible terrain for carrying a stretcher! It took a couple of hours or more to get down off the hill. There was occasionally shots at my six carriers, who would have to take cover and fire back. I am glad that no one got shot on our trip down the hill.

Down at the clearing I changed stretchers and was placed on a hospital jeep. There was a hospital tent down on the beach where I spent the night. It was September 17, 1944. Remember I was married on June 3 in San Luis Obispo. Because of my wounds I was sure that I would be home in California in a few short weeks hugging my new wife.

It was not to be. My sad story that I have repeated a thousand times is "they sprinkled sulfa powder in my bullet holes and sent me back up to the front." It would be a year and half before I got a hug.

Could be me back at the hospital on an island close to Guadalcanal.