From: JPageSpann@aol.com View Contact Details
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 10:39:29 EST
Subject: #244 Richard Keech CHINA MARINES Part 8
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#244 Newsletter December 12, 2004
©copyright 2004 by Richard Keech
Editor's note: This last week we remembered Pearl Harbor. It was Richard's war, and mine and also THE WAR for many of you. Richard's story of those years for the 4th China Marines continues. To make the continuity easier, I am including the last paragraph of Part 7.
CHINA MARINES CONTINUED
This at first made me mad. My sea bag was heavy. It was still full of lots of cold weather regulation clothing. Then I sat down and had something like spiritual revelation. I said to myself, "I don't need all this stuff right now, goods and property are not important assets. My important assets are my health and my ability to act at moments notice." So I pulled my back-pack out filled it with 3 pair of socks, 2 shorts, 2 undershirts, 1 shirt, 1 pair of trousers, a blanket, my mess kit and my shaving gear. I took my name tags off of my big heavy sea bag and threw it back in the stack. END PART 7
That was one of the best decisions I ever made.
The second move I remember had to do with our being temporarily camped out in a part of the officers' family housing area. It was a beautiful location with trees, and grass, and pleasant modest bungalows. McArthur and his wife and son came for a while and spent their evenings in one of these bungalows. McArthur was chauffeured there in a light blue Packard limousine. It had a bar in the back of the front seat. We used to wander over and talk to the chauffeur. We would see McArthur occasionally and also his wife. The chauffeur used to baby sit the young McArthur and would walk him around the area.
This happy existence didn't last for too long. Subsequent bombings damaged these houses and that was the last we ever saw of the general, his chauffeur or his wife.
We did have one interesting final experience regarding this housing. After the bombing raid that wrecked the bungalows we took the opportunity to wander through what was left of one demolished structure. We were partly looking for anything of value that might have been overlooked when they moved out - we found nothing -and we were also simply curious about the life style of our American officer elite.
We discovered an amazing feature in one of the houses, I think it was McArthur's. We found a two person bathtub. It was designed in the form of a large square porcelain tub about five feet by five feet, but it had a diagonal divider separating it into two separate side by side tubs. We mid-western young men were shocked by this apparent evidence of high level decadence.
We soon left this seemingly peaceful area and were finally given a real life war time assignment. We were moved to a hillside location overlooking a section of beach and told we were now part of the island's beach defense. We were instructed on how to dig fox holes and where to locate them. We were told that in the event of an attack we would have to survive some lengthy period of bombing or shelling before we could expect to see actual enemy on the beaches in front of us. We were therefore to locate our foxholes so that we could stay in them while we were fighting off the anticipated landing.
These foxholes were dug chest deep. This gave you enough height above the ground so you could see everything down the hill slope in front of you to the beach: a clear field of fire. It also gave you enough depth so you could crouch down during a shelling and be relatively safe from anything but a direct hit. I should add that we used empty mortar cans filled with sand to roof over our foxholes.
The amazing thing is that these really did help to save us. In spite of the fact that we were bombed for some four months and heavily shelled for over a month, our squad never lost a man due to shelling or bombing (none of the foxholes ever received a direct hit while a man was in it). TO BE CONTINUED
Richard Keech
semper fi
http://www.Richard-Keech.org>
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R.W. "Dick" Gaines
GnySgt USMC (Ret.)
1952 (Plt #437)--'72
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