Among the Marines
who fought in World War II were men who neither expected nor sought
recognition of their valor or their sacrifice. This is a story of one,
told by a rifleman in his platoon, a comrade in arms.
About 0830, the landing craft turn for the Peleliu beach. The nearer
they draw, the deadlier it gets. Mortars, anti-boat guns, and artillery
rain shells into the ranks of our beach-bound vessels. Some are hit.
Amtracs hang on coral heads and reefs. Debris and body parts fly
overhead. Marines waist deep in water plunge ahead. Some, badly wounded, stagger
past men floating face down. Trying to back off the beach, amtracs run
over riflemen splashing ashore. In the surf and the chaos, the men are
hard to spot. The amtrac bearing Sergeant Moll and his platoon heads in, full speed,
shells bursting all around. Thirty yards out, a Nambu opens up. The
bullets pepper the armor, just in front of Moll, near the bow.
We are ten yards out now and the machine gun has stopped. The nose hits
the sand and the sergeant is over the starboard side, the first to go.
His leggings catch on something. He falls headfirst into the water. He
gets up, and he runs on. Off to his right, ten feet away, a machine gun is firing from an
emplacement. Moll crawls to it, and sticks his Tommy gun into the slit.
It doesn't fire. Sand must have jammed the bolt. Moll grabs a grenade,
pulls the pin and shoves it in. A moment later, a shard of shrapnel a half-inch square rips through the
sleeve of his dungarees. It lodges under the skin just above his left
elbow. It burns like hell. With his K-bar, he makes a small incision and
removes the smoldering steel. Later, he wonders if he has set some sort
of record; in less than five minutes, Sergeant Moll has stormed a beach,
killed a Japanese, and taken a hit.
Born April 21, 1921, in Clifton, New Jersey, James W. Moll graduated 17
years later from Clifton High School, where he was a gymnast. At 21, he
joined the Corps. He was six-feet tall, 190 pounds, and his athleticism
served him well at boot camp on Parris Island.
He stayed about a year, becoming a drill instructor, and advancing from
private to sergeant. Selected for the V-12 program, Moll requested
combat duty instead, and near the end of 1943 joined the Pacific-bound
43rd Replacement Battalion. On Pavuvu, 60 miles northwest of
Guadalcanal, he transferred to the 1st Marine Division, there to rest
and relax from the Cape Gloucester and New Britain campaigns, and to
train for the assault on Peleliu.
Sergeant Moll went to Able Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines.
Colonel
Herman H. Hanneken commanded the regiment (photo to right).
He was awared the Medal of Honor for
action in Haiti in 1919, Lieutenant Colonel John J. Gormley commanded the
battalion; and Captain Preston S. Parish the company. Moll was put in
the 3rd rifle platoon, commanded by Lieutenant Stewart. Lacey Ward was
platoon sergeant, Moll platoon guide.
Peleliu is a coral bastion in the Palau Islands about 600 miles east of
the Philippines. Its northern half, the Umurbrogol, is a jumble of tall,
jagged coral ridges, some heavily overgrown. Its southern half is flat,
swampy and jungle-like. It ends in two boot-shaped promontories, each
connected to the mainland by a causeway. Temperatures reach 120 degrees
and, in those days, there was almost no potable water.
Thirteen thousand Japanese, most combat veterans, were dug in there.
Their defenses were elaborate, and they had zeroed-in the beaches. The
whole island could be covered by heavy mortar and artillery fire from
the high ground, and that is where most of them were, tucked into caves
and tunnels.
The brass said the island had to be taken to protect General Douglas
MacArthur's eastern flank as his forces returned to the Philippines. To
A 1/7, the objective appeared to be the island?s airfield. Admiral
William Halsey thought Peleliu should be bypassed, but he was overruled,
and Peleliu became a slaughter house.
Our LST, one of more than 400 vessels in the invasion armada, sailed
from Pavuvu on September 4, 1944. More than 2,000 nautical miles stood
between us and D Day, September 15. H Hour was 0830. The Navy used the
interval to pound Peleliu with guns and bombs.
D Day breakfast was the usual steak, eggs, potatoes and toast. After
chow, we returned to quarters to check arms, equipment and supplies.
What we carried had to last two days. Each Marine filled two canteens
with water. We stood by topside to disembark.
A 1/7 was assigned to older amtracs, which meant we had to climb, in
full combat gear, down the side on cargo nets. The vessels pitched and
swayed, and it took timing and luck to drop into the amtracs cleanly.
Some Marines fell on buddies, others in the churning sea between the
hulls.
A sailor shouted into a bullhorn and waved his arms like a traffic cop
to position the landing craft, the coxswains fighting tide and wind to
maintain position. Some Marines lost their steak, eggs and toast before
we steered for the island.
There was mass confusion ashore. Men wading in struggled to find their
units. Shells burst all over. Some wounded were getting medical aid and
others were crying out for it. Landing craft and amphibious tanks from
the first wave were afire. On A 1/7's right flank, Major Arthur M.
Parker, Jr. yelled and cursed trying to get infantrymen to move inland.
He saved lives. Sergeant Moll knew that getting off the beach was
imperative. He gathered men and advanced a couple of hundred yards.
The outfit spent the rest of that day in that spot regrouping, and
adjusting defensive lines for the night. It had lost a lot of good
men. Platoon Leader Stewart and Platoon Sergeant Ward were among the
wounded and there were no replacements. Some of us were running low on
ammo and grenades. Just before nightfall, company headquarters passed
out concussion grenades.
It was dark and overcast. The foliage was dense. Visibility was about
ten feet. The Japanese fired knee mortars and threw grenades into our
positions. They were near. We could hear them talking. To avoid
disclosing their positions, the Marines in the lines were told not to
fire their weapons unless absolutely necessary. It wasn't, but almost
from the start of the push south in the morning, A 1/7 took rifle,
machine gun, and knee mortar fire.
The advance line of a platoon ran into a pillbox on its left flank. Fire
pinned it down. A sergeant crawled forward to drop a concussion grenade
through the window. But before he could release it, a Japanese inside
struck his fist. The grenade exploded and blew off the sergeant's hand.
The terrain became swampy and the foliage more dense. The enemy threw
lots of small arms fire at us, withdrawing before we could return it. We
could not see them?they were dug in and moved through tunnels. The
temperature shot up. Most of us had emptied one canteen and were into
the second. Some had no water at all.
Sergeant Moll was on the extreme right flank with Corporal Lundberg's
squad. Lundberg had made a career of Pacific fighting. A big, tough New
Yorker, he had the mean and unhappy look that comes naturally to a
Marine who spent too much time in jungle combat.
Near day's end, Moll, Lundberg, me, and another Marine from Lundberg's
squad lost contact with the rest of A 1/7. We broke into a clearing and
stopped to wait for the platoon, and sweated out the night in a shell
hole. By dawn, we were out of water, and thirst was overtaking us.
Lundberg found a swine hole nearby full of a slimy green liquid that we
took to be wild hog urine. He filled a canteen, poured in Halezon
tablets, and drank. He looked so relieved, the rest of us partook. Not
long afterwards, the company found us.
Early that day, elements of the 7th Marines reached the approach to the
southwest promontory. All the Japanese on the island?s south end had
retreated there to make a stand. By the toss of a coin, the company
commanders decided which of three rifle companies would hit it first.
Its causeway was a couple of yards wide and a hundred yards long. At the
end, the Japanese had a large blockhouse flanked by pillboxes to lay
down heavy machine gun fire.
Before the assault, the rifle company?s CO asked for Naval gun fire and
artillery to soften up the objective. When the shelling lifted, Baker
Company, followed by Charlie Company, attempted the crossing. Soon the
causeway was littered with dead and wounded, and it was Able Company?s
turn.
Moll's rifle platoon was about half way across when he took off, racing
toward the enemy. He dashed past a friend, a kid they called Jersey Joe,
who lay wounded.
Joe yelled, "Sarge, help me." Moll knew he had to double back.
One of the youngster's legs hung from a small piece of thigh. His face
was an ashen white, and the blood was gushing from the stump. Joe asked
for a cigarette. Moll handed the kid his only pack and lighter, and
started yelling, "Corpsman!" He fashioned a tourniquet from the
youngster's cartridge belt and his trouser belt. Joe handed back the
smokes. Moll patted him on the head. The kid smiled and said, "Thanks,
Sarge, and good luck."
Moll took off again, the Japanese still firing. He made it, plus another
10 or 15 yards, and dove into a shell hole. A rifleman, a BAR man, and
Pfc Ike Smith, a machine gunner, all from A 1/7, were already there and
in a predicament.
Two ports of the blockhouse faced them, and the four Marines were pinned
down. Moll saw that the longer they stayed, the worse it would be. He
proposed taking the blockhouse. Pfc Smith agreed, but asked how.
Moll had his Tommy gun. He and the BAR man would jump up on signal, and
fire into the ports. As soon as Smith set up his machine gun and started
firing, Moll and the BAR man would crawl to the blockhouse and throw in
grenades. Moll's plan worked. The blockhouse fell quiet. Smith didn?t
notice he was hit, twice, until the four exhausted men sat to rest.
The remainder of A 1/7 crossed, and before nightfall, the company had
cleaned out the defenders. While the Marines were setting up defensive
positions along the beach, Moll was checking the bush, where he found a
cardboard box containing six bottles of saki. He took it back to the
platoon and told Corporal Shanahan to keep an eye on it.
Just before dark, Moll visited Shanahan's squad?s to check its defenses.
As he left, he heard ungodly screaming, and ran back. Shanahan was
bashing a Japanese over the head with his shovel. While the corporal was
digging a foxhole, the soldier had come out of the bushes and tried to
kill him.
As soon as night fell, Moll and Shanahan each enjoyed a bottle of saki.
Early the next morning, Moll and Shanahan were having a canteen cup of
coffee and enjoying a K-ration breakfast. There were dead Japanese all
around. It was hot and the sun was rising, and flies swarmed the bloated
and stinking corpses. It was hard to keep insects out of the cup.
Three Marines, strangers, came along. One was old, the others young, and
none wore insignia or stripes. Their clothing was neat and clean; they
hadn't participated in the fighting of the past few days. They seemed to
be looking over the area.
One of the younger Marines approached and asked, authoritatively, who
was in charge. Moll said he was a sergeant, if that helped. Without
disclosing who or what he was, the stranger told Moll to get some men
together and start burying the dead Japanese.
Sergeant Moll looked at him and said, "We only kill them. Somebody else
has to bury them."
So matters stood when the younger Marine spotted the saki box, went
over, and reached out as if to look inside. Shanahan said, "if you touch
that f . . . ing box, you're dead."
The old Marine looked over and said: "Lieutenant, you better not disturb
those men while they are having breakfast," and they left. Later,
Shanahan learned the old Marine was Colonel Hanneken, regimental CO.
Well up in the morning, the remnants of A 1/7 were ordered to get their
gear together. The company was heading north to relieve the 1st Marines
Regiment. Commanded by Colonel "Chesty" Puller, the 1st Marines came
ashore in the first wave. Puller had made repeated efforts to take and
hold the high ground to his front. There the Japanese were dug in
deepest, and the 1st Marines lost many men but made little headway. The
defenders, on the tops and sides of the tallest Umurbrogol ridges, had a
commanding view of all of the maneuvering below.
Into this hell the 7th Marine Regiment was committed. What was left of
the 1st Marines was still under heavy mortar and artillery fire as it
made way for us. Darkness was falling as we took up positions along a
ridge. Word passed to withdraw for the night. Sergeant Moll, with
Corporal Kelty and his squad, were the last to leave.
Moll was halfway down when a mortar shell hit nearby. He woke up in
pitch darkness, suffering from a concussion but nothing else. The last
thing he remembered was being airborne. Kelty found him stumbling around
in a daze.
A 1/7 set up near the base of the ridge. Apparently unaware of the
withdrawal, the Japanese were still lobbing shells up top. Sergeant Moll
noticed a smaller ridge, and shortly after daybreak he began to climb it
to get a better look at the bigger ridge. A few steps up the steep path,
a rock came trickling toward him. Moll looked up and saw a young
Japanese soldier coming down. The soldier saw Moll about the same time,
and they stopped a yard or two apart. Momentarily, the Japanese seemed
not to notice Moll was a Marine, and he smiled. Then his smile faded and
his eyes popped open. Before he could get his rifle up, Moll shot him.
He had not before killed anyone face-to-face.`
Later that day, the company headed into the hills with a tank. The men
in the advance were nearing the top of the ridge and Sergeant Moll
reconnoitered the road ahead. It was narrow and treacherous with no
cover. The track took a sharp bend, straightened for fifty yards, and
bent again just in front of a boulder about 15 feet in diameter.
Unseen, at the base of the rock, commanding the straightaway, was a
machine gun emplacement. The Japanese had tunneled under from behind.
They waited until the advance was about twenty yards away, and opened
up.
Some Marines were hit. The others surrounded the rock and pinned down
the Japanese with small arms as the tank came up. It laid in three or
four rounds while a flame thrower got into position. After three or four
flame thrower bursts, nine Japanese crawled out of the rear, and our BAR
men picked them off.
Near the end of the day we reached the Umurbrogol Pocket, and set up
lines on the left side of the road at the top of the ridge. The right
shoulder sloped down five feet and ran level 30 more to the wall of
another ridge. Bush three to four feet high covered the terrain.
The top of our ridge was coral. We could not dig foxholes. Sergeant Moll
told us to prepare positions for the night as best we could. He crossed
the roadway and worked his way to the other ridge until he was opposite
us.
Edging along the vertical wall, he came upon a Japanese soldier down on
his right knee, a rifle resting on his left thigh. His back was to Moll
and he was looking up to his left, watching our platoon. He was just in
front of a tunnel. Moll could not shoot him in the back. Quietly, the
sergeant said, "Hey, banzai!" As the Japanese turned he was smiling into
a burst from Moll's Tommy gun.
The sergeant moved toward a few corrugated steel sheets sticking out of
the ground 30 feet away. Moll thought it was a fallen down shed. But
crawling up he saw a machine gun barrel poking out from between two of
the sheets.
Moll peeked in, and looked into an eye inches away. The eye blinked.
Moll fired five or six rounds into the metal, grabbed the barrel, and
gave it a good yank. The corrugated steel came flying with a Nambu, the
and the gunner lay dead.
From morning to dusk A 1/7 moved toward the enemy in the hills. We took
constant sniper fire. After dark, the enemy came out of the ground,
firing mortars and throwing grenades. Each day, we scouted and searched
for Japanese in foxholes, caves and tunnels. We burned and blasted them
out with flame throwers, and grenades and other explosives and tried to
seal the openings.
Our ranks thinned daily. There was no respite in the action. Each
Japanese killed as many Americans before he was killed.
Early every morning, company headquarters sent a runner to each platoon
for the casualty count. One day a kid who came to the numbers from
Sergeant Moll stopped to bum a cigarette. A tree knocked down by
shelling lay horizontally, about three feet off the ground, between
them. Moll tossed the kid his pack of smokes and reached over the tree
to give him a light. Just as the runner took his first drag, a sniper's
bullet whizzed by Moll's head and hit the runner in his right front
temple. He was dead before he hit the ground, the cigarette between his
fingers.
Moll and six men were all that was left of our platoon at the end of the
battle in the northern hills. Most had been wounded; all had ringworm
and dysentery; and five had malaria. On October 6, after 21 days of
continuous combat, A 1/7 was pulled out of the lines. But their part in
the battle for Peleliu was not over.
A day or two later Lieutenant Romo approached the sergeant and announced
they were going back into the hills to mop up some of the enemy holding
out in a pocket. A truck carried them to the base of a ridge along the
beach. Romo pointed to a hill high up, and said: "They're up there. Go
and get them," and found a spot to sit and watch the progress through
binoculars.
The climb was long and tiring, the footing bad. At the top, Moll waved
to Romo. A path about 10 feet wide ran the crest. The platoon moved
fifty yards upslope, and came upon a dozen closely spaced pits about
four feet wide. In each were five or six dead Marines. They had been
there since D-Day.
The men could get past the pits without falling in only by straddling
the walls in between and crawling forward inch by inch. They had gotten
about three-quarters of the way through when a Japanese machine gun
opened up. All the Marines could do was hang on and lean into the pits
as much as possible for protection.
Moll knew there was no way to advance. He told the men to turn around.
They were going back and were going to find another approach. Romo was
angry, but he calmed down when the sergeant explained the situation.
Moll said he dreaded the sacrificing the few of his men left, and there
was no chance of taking the ridge with small arms. He also said that if
the lieutenant wanted to lead the platoon back up, they would follow his
orders. They all returned to the rest area.
The next day, Sergeant Moll was offered a commission. Only, he said, if
he could remain in A 1/7. There was no guarantee, so Moll declined, but
back at Pavuvu he was promoted to platoon sergeant. After a week's rest,
the unit began to train for Okinawa. There Moll again excelled, and was
promoted to gunnery sergeant. But for his contributions he received no
decorations, nor a letter of commendation, nor even a Purple Heart.
Sergeant Moll was honorably discharged in Bainbridge, Maryland, in
February, 1946. In civilian life he enjoyed a long and successful career
in business. Retired, he lives with his wife, Sandy, in Laguna Niguel,
California.
Charles H. Owens, M/Sgt. USMC (Ret)
(Charles H. Owens enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps on 7 Oct. 1942 at the age of 14.
He retired on 20 years active service 1962, returned to active duty 1966
because of the buildup of U.S. Marine forces in Vietnam, and retired again
in 1968. He now resides in LaFayette, Georgia).
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