LIBERATION: Marines in the Recapture of Guam by Cyril J. O'Brien
With the instantaneous opening of a two-hour,
ever-increasing bombardment by six battleships, nine cruisers, a host
of destroyers and rocket ships, laying their wrath on the wrinkled
black hills, rice paddies, cliffs, and caves that faced the attacking
fleet on the west side of the island, Liberation Day for Guam began at
0530, 21 July 1944.
Fourteen-inch guns belching fire and thunder set
spectacular blossoms of flame sprouting on the fields and hillsides
inland. It was all very plain to see in the glow of star shells which
illuminated the shore, the ships, and the troops who lined the rails of
the transports and LSTs (Landing Ships, Tank) which brought the U.S.
Marines and soldiers there.
The barrages, which at daylight would be enlarged by
the strafing and bombing of carrier fighters, bombers, and torpedo
planes, were the grand climax of 13 days (since 8 July) of unceasing
prelanding softening-up. Indeed, carrier aircraft of Task Force
58 had been blasting Guam airfields since 11 June, while the first
bombardment of the B-24s and B-25s of the Fifth, Seventh, and Thirteenth
Air Forces fell as early as 6 May.
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A
threatening 75mm Japanese gun pokes its barrel out of the Gaan Point
pillbox where a companion piece and a 37mm gun wreaked havoc on the
assault waves of the 22d Marines on W-Day, destroying approximately 24
troop-carrying amphibian tractors, before the enemy position was taken
out. Department of Defense Photo (USN) 247618
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Up at 0230 to a by-now traditional Marine prelanding
breakfast of steak and eggs, the assault troops, laden with fighting
gear, sheathed bayonets protruding from their packs, hurried and waited,
while the loudspeakers shouted "Now here this . . . . Now hear this."
Unit commanders on board the LSTs visited each of their men, checking
gear, straightening packs, rendering an encouraging pat on a shoulder,
and squaring away the queues going below to the well decks before
boarding the LVTs (Landing Vehicles, Tracked).
Troops on the APAs (attack transports) went over the
rail and down cargo nets to which theyweighed down with 40-pound
packs as well as weaponsheld on for dear life, and into LCVPs
(Landing Craft, Vehicle and Personnel). These troops would transfer from
the landing craft to LVTs at the reef's edge, if all went as
planned.
Aircraft went roaring in over mast tops and naval
guns produced a continuous booming background noise. Climaxing it all
was the voice of Major General Roy S. Geiger, commanding general of III
Amphibious Corps, rasping from a bulkhead speaker:
You have been honored. The eyes of the nation watch
you as you go into battle to liberate this former American bastion from
the enemy. The honor which has been bestowed on you is a signal one. May
the glorious traditions of the Marine Corps' esprit de corps spur you to
victory. You have been honored.
In the crowded, stifling well decks of the LSTs, the
liberators climbed on board the LVTs and waited claustrophobic until the
LST bow doors dropped and the tracked landing vehicles rattled out over
these ramps into the swell of the sea. As the amphibian tractors circled
(about 0615) near the line of departure, a flight of attack aircraft
from the Wasp drowned out the whine of the amtrac engines and
whirled up clouds of fire and dust, obscuring the landing beaches ahead.
Eighty-five fighters, 65 bombers, and 53 torpedo planes executed a
grass-cutting strafing and bombing sweep along all of the landing
beaches from above the northern beaches of Agana, south for 14 miles to
Bangi Point.
"My aim is to get the troops ashore standing up,"
said Rear Admiral Richard L. Conolly, Southern Attack Force (Task Force
53) commander, who earned the nickname "Close-in Conolly" during the
Marshalls operations for his insistence on having his naval gunfire
support ships firing from stations very close to the beaches.
Private First Class James G. Helt, a radioman with
Headquarters and Service Company, 1st Battalion, 3d Marines, in the bow
of an LVT moving towards shore, wondered, as did many others, if
anything could be still be alive on Guam? Ashore, Lieutenant Colonel
Hideyuki Takeda, on the staff of the defending 29th Division,
said the island could only be defended if the Americans did not land. In
a diary, one Japanese officer noted that the only respite from the
bombardment was a "stiff drink."
The next best thing to a welcome mat for Marine
assault waves had been laid by the audacious Navy Underwater Demolition
Teams 3, 4, and 6, who cleared the beach obstacles. Navy Chief Petty
Officer James R. Chittum of Team 3 noted that these pathfinders were
usually close enough to draw small arms fire. At Asan, they exploded 640
wire obstacle cages filled with cemented coral, and at Agat they blew a
200-foot hole for unloading in the coral reef. Team 3, under Navy
Reserve Lieutenant Thomas C. Crist, also removed half of a small
freighter from a channel blocking the way of the Marines.
Swimmers as well as scouts, the "demos" reconnoitered
right up on the landing beaches themselves. They left a sign for the
first assault wave at Asan: "Welcome Marines USO This Way."
At 0730 a flare was shot in the air above the waiting
flotilla and Admiral Conolly commanded: "Land the Landing Force." At
0808, the first wave of the 3d Marine Division broke the circle of
waiting LVTs to form a line and cross the 2,000 yards of water to the
2,500-yard-wide beach between Asan and Adelup points. At 0829, the first
elements of the 3d Marine Division were on Guam. Three minutes later,
0832, lead assault troops of the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade crossed
the shelled-pocked strand at Agat, six miles south of the Asan-Adelup
beachhead.
General Roy S. Geiger
Major General Roy S. Geiger, as the other general
officers in the Guam invasion force, was a World War I veteran. He also
was an early Marine Corps aviator. He was the fifth Marine to become a
naval aviatorin 1917and the 49th in the naval service to
obtain his wings. He went to France in July of that year and commanded a
squadron of the First Marine Aviation Force. In the war and after, he
saw service with Marine Corps air units. He also was well educated
professionally, for he attended the Army Command and General Staff
School at Fort Leavenworth in 1924-1925 and was a student in the Senior
and Advanced Courses at the Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island,
1939-1941. In August 1941, he became commanding general of the 1st
Marine Aircraft Wing and led it at Guadalcanal during the difficult days
from September to November 1942. Back in Washington in 1943, he was
Director of Aviation, until, on the untimely death of Major General
Charles D. Barnett, Commanding General, I Marine Amphibious Corps, just
prior to the Bougainville landings, General Geiger was rushed out to the
Pacific to assume command and direct the landings at Empress Augusta Bay
on l November 1943. He was the first Marine aviator to head as large a
ground command as IMAC, which was redesignated III Amphibious Corps in
April 1944. He led this organization in the liberation of Guam in July
1944, and in the landings on Peleliu on 15 September 1944. General
Geiger led this corps into action for the fourth time as part of the
Tenth Army in the invasion of Okinawa. Upon the death of Army Lieutenant
General Simon B. Buckner, Geiger took command of the Tenth Army, the
first Marine to lead an army-sized force. In July 1945, at the end of
the Okinawa operation, General Geiger assumed command of Fleet Marine
Force, Pacific, at Pearl Harbor. In November 1946 he returned to
Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, in Washington, and died the following
year. By an act of Congress, he was posthumously promoted to the rank of
general.
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