Three man machine gun squad...and I was in charge.

After being wounded on Peleliu I spent some time in a hospital and then casual camps. I was looking forward to rejoining my old outfit. But no luck. When I arrived at Leyte I found that my old outfit was in New Guinea. I was assigned to another combat engineer battalion. It was the 50th Engineers assigned to the 7th Infantry Division. I was promoted to corporal. I had been reduced from PFC to PVT at a court martial when AWOL in California. I was on my way back up in the Army.

We were loading up for the invasion of Okinawa. I was assigned to a three man machine gun squad. And I was in charge. We were to carry an air cooled 50 caliber machine gun ashore and set it up at a Japanese airport. The gun breaks down for carrying into three parts. Barrel, body, and tripod, The barrel weighs 80 pounds and I believe is the heaviest part. I assigned my self to the barrel. At 19 years old I was proud of being picked to lead a machine gun squad.

The invasion force assembled for the invasion of Okinawa was the largest in history. I will always remember looking out at the ships around our ship. As far as you could see there were shops. At night it was an eerie spooky scene. I had a front row seat at an historic event.

The invasion was on Easter Sunday, the first day of April 1945. We had to carry our gun over several hundred feet of sharp jagged coral which was covered with 3 or 4 feet of water. We were not fired on but saw some action the next day. Unfortunately some of the action was the shooting down of an American Plane by friendly  fire.

After the battle, between games of volley ball I lived in the luxurious camp pictured below. Until we were sent to Seoul, Korea.