had just come up from Australia, where he had been personally decorated by General Douglas MacArthur with the Distinguished Service Cross. In 1942 when he was a captain, Shofner was captured on Corregidor Island and survived the Bataan Death March. After almost a year in a prison camp, he and a dozen others—American Marines, soldiers, and sailors and Filipino soldiers—escaped into the jungle, where they joined local guerrillas to fight the Japs.
We were down in a creek bed shooting our .45s when someone came thrashing out of the underbrush and the vines. It was Colonel Shofner. He asked what we were doing, then told one of the guys, “Set me up a target.”
We did so. He unholstered his .45 and shot one, two, three, four, five times, leaving a perfect V pattern over the bull’s-eye. Then he stuck his pistol back into his holster and walked back into the jungle without a word. I think you could have taken a ruler and not a shot would have been out of line. I never will forget that.
We went on pulling maneuver after maneuver, but we hadn’t practiced landings with the LSTs and LSMs—Landing Ships, Medium—which for some reason were not yet available. Finally one afternoon late in December we boarded DUKWs and started across the bay.
A DUKW—Ducks, we called them—is not much more than a low-sided amphibious truck, about thirty feet long and a little over eight feet wide. It could carry about twenty troops and was pretty smooth and speedy on land but slow and rough-riding in the water. The only time I ever got seasick was in a DUKW, and that day I was not the only one.
Just as the mortar section was getting ready to board our DUKW for an amphibious exercise, the wind and rain came up. That was nothing new to us. By the time we got out into the bay a gray curtain dropped over us. We couldn’t see thirty yards, much less the other DUKWs. Our coxman lost his bearing, and then he lost his breakfast. I wasn’t feeling so good myself. A wave of seasickness swept over everybody. The diesel exhaust blowing in our faces only made it worse. Pretty soon we all had our heads over the side. I think Jim Burke and P. A. Wilson were the only men in that DUKW who didn’t get sick.
In the middle of everything we got hung up on a reef. We sat in the water going up and coming down, up and down, banging on that reef. I thought, It’s going to knock a hole in the bottom of this thing. We’re in trouble out here.
Fortunately DUKWs had a double hull. But for two hours we were knocked around out in that bay. When we finally wallowed to shore, some of the men were so sick they took them to the hospital on New Guinea.
On Christmas Eve we boarded the USS Noel Palmer and sailed a hundred miles or so up the coast to Oro Bay, the main supply base. The Seventh Marines had already been there and gone. Here we learned we were being held in reserve for the assault on Cape Gloucester, New Britain.
Four days later General William Rupertus, the commander in charge of the invasion, called for his reserves, and K Company, Third Battalion boarded LST 204. There were about 150 of us. None had set foot on an LST before—we hadn’t trained on them. We walked up the ramp and they closed the big clamshell doors behind us, and off we sailed. I felt that we were like a boxer trained for his Friday night fight. We were ready. We had pulled enough maneuvers, done everything humanly possible to prepare every man for combat.
They’d started the invasion without us.
On the day after Christmas, while we were at Oro Bay, the Seventh Marines and the First and Second battalions of the Fifth Marines waded ashore on Cape Gloucester. Their objective was a Japanese airfield at the southwestern tip of New Britain. But instead of landing on the beach nearest the airfield, most of them had gone in several miles southeast, along the shores of Borgen Bay. This took the Japs by surprise, and our men landed without a shot being fired. But just beyond the narrow
We were down in a creek bed shooting our .45s when someone came thrashing out of the underbrush and the vines. It was Colonel Shofner. He asked what we were doing, then told one of the guys, “Set me up a target.”
We did so. He unholstered his .45 and shot one, two, three, four, five times, leaving a perfect V pattern over the bull’s-eye. Then he stuck his pistol back into his holster and walked back into the jungle without a word. I think you could have taken a ruler and not a shot would have been out of line. I never will forget that.
We went on pulling maneuver after maneuver, but we hadn’t practiced landings with the LSTs and LSMs—Landing Ships, Medium—which for some reason were not yet available. Finally one afternoon late in December we boarded DUKWs and started across the bay.
A DUKW—Ducks, we called them—is not much more than a low-sided amphibious truck, about thirty feet long and a little over eight feet wide. It could carry about twenty troops and was pretty smooth and speedy on land but slow and rough-riding in the water. The only time I ever got seasick was in a DUKW, and that day I was not the only one.
Just as the mortar section was getting ready to board our DUKW for an amphibious exercise, the wind and rain came up. That was nothing new to us. By the time we got out into the bay a gray curtain dropped over us. We couldn’t see thirty yards, much less the other DUKWs. Our coxman lost his bearing, and then he lost his breakfast. I wasn’t feeling so good myself. A wave of seasickness swept over everybody. The diesel exhaust blowing in our faces only made it worse. Pretty soon we all had our heads over the side. I think Jim Burke and P. A. Wilson were the only men in that DUKW who didn’t get sick.
In the middle of everything we got hung up on a reef. We sat in the water going up and coming down, up and down, banging on that reef. I thought, It’s going to knock a hole in the bottom of this thing. We’re in trouble out here.
Fortunately DUKWs had a double hull. But for two hours we were knocked around out in that bay. When we finally wallowed to shore, some of the men were so sick they took them to the hospital on New Guinea.
On Christmas Eve we boarded the USS Noel Palmer and sailed a hundred miles or so up the coast to Oro Bay, the main supply base. The Seventh Marines had already been there and gone. Here we learned we were being held in reserve for the assault on Cape Gloucester, New Britain.
Four days later General William Rupertus, the commander in charge of the invasion, called for his reserves, and K Company, Third Battalion boarded LST 204. There were about 150 of us. None had set foot on an LST before—we hadn’t trained on them. We walked up the ramp and they closed the big clamshell doors behind us, and off we sailed. I felt that we were like a boxer trained for his Friday night fight. We were ready. We had pulled enough maneuvers, done everything humanly possible to prepare every man for combat.
They’d started the invasion without us.
On the day after Christmas, while we were at Oro Bay, the Seventh Marines and the First and Second battalions of the Fifth Marines waded ashore on Cape Gloucester. Their objective was a Japanese airfield at the southwestern tip of New Britain. But instead of landing on the beach nearest the airfield, most of them had gone in several miles southeast, along the shores of Borgen Bay. This took the Japs by surprise, and our men landed without a shot being fired. But just beyond the narrow
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