"I Can't Fully Tell Beth" (37)

The situation was bad.  War is, indeed, hell.

June 3, 1944
     I worked from 12 [noon] yesterday right thru until 1:30 A.M. today, awoke at 6:30 and worked until 1 P.M.  Yesterday afternoon we had quite a raid.  They claim 10 out of 14 were shot down.  Some fellows saw 6 go down.  2 pilots bailed out, one landing on the ridge right back of us (at the place where a Jap patrol tangled with some of our Infantry).  The pilot was trying to destroy his maps when they killed him.  I was working at the time and missed it, as usual.  They dropped a small bomb near the searchlight (200 yards from us) and knocked it out.  Another  landed about 400 yards on the other side of us.  They did some straffing [sic].  We had quite a few casualties and we all worked on them.  Even MacDaniels the dentist worked on some.  It was quiet except for a few alerts, the rest of the night.  When all the concentrated AA is cracking past over your head, it really makes you cringe.

A ward tent on Biak

     This noon was the worst!  these things I just can't tell fully to Beth, for it is bad and apt to get worse.  Several planes straffed [sic] and bombed.  One good sized one hit a few feet from our latrine, and about 150 yards from me - 3 tents were in between, and the kitchen.  I was working on a head wound.  When it began to sound really hot, I got down behind the wall of sand bags, keeping my hands sterile.  Even at that distance the wall bulged inward about 6 inches and rocks hit the tent.  The smell of powder, smoke and dust was strong.  I thought it hit one of the tents, but I went tight back to work on the patient though my hands weren't quite steady.  Fortunately the patient was not quite conscious!  The bomb made a hole in the soft sand about 10 feet deep and 15 across.  Luckily everyone near was in a hole and no one was hurt.  One fellow asleep in a hole about 15 feet from it was partly buried by sand.  He said he dreamt Zeros were bombing him and here they were!  [He] picked up a fragment 2 feet long and 3 to 4 inches wide, laying on the tarp of his foxhole.  It didn't even go thru.  It happened just before dinner and a lot of men were around the mess.  I saw [Col.] Sterling afterwards and I swear he had the wind up [became nervous] more than a little.  He wanted action and he's getting it!
     In the PM I had to go over the 21 patients (chiefly wounded) that had come into my ward.  Then I washed clothes and bathed in the spring on the beach.  But like an old gander, I kept my eye peeled for planes and artillery.  What casualties the Japs must be receiving!  They say some of the fighting is worse than Guadal Canal [sic] or Buna.  The 41st is really catching it.

I'm sure Gene took a deep breath and composed his thoughts before writing Beth.

3 June '44
Beloved,
     I didn't get to write yesterday for I was on from noon yesterday till noon today.  I have a ward in addition now, practically filled with FUO [fever of unknown origin] and malaria [hmm - he said "chiefly wounded" in his diary]!  So I was kept busy.  Yesterday afternoon we had some show.  They claim 10 out of 14 were shot down.  As usual I was busy and didn't get to see any come down, dang nab it!  One parachuted down landing on a ridge back of us.  Baker and some others grabbed their carbines and tore up to get him, but soldiers on the ridge had already finished him just as he was trying to destroy his maps.
     This afternoon I did some laundry [does he do his laundry just so he can talk about it in his letters?] and washed out on the beach.  You know how they picture an old gander, leader of a wild flock, standing on one leg and keeping one eye cocked on the sky!  But a fellow really feels naked, out there naked anyway.  Of course there are foxholes within jumping distance.
     We have something over here they don't have in any other theater, and that is sword wounds!  I worked on one fellow who was cut across the head and into but not thru the skull and across the scapula.  They killed the officer, of course, but it is hard to realize that the Jap Officers really use the sabers they carry.  They carry them on patrol, even, when they wrap their feet in rags.  One was killed like that the other night, and I saw the sword.  They are really curved sabers.  In the handle the history of the sword itself is kept, and how it is passed down thru the family.  Interesting, isn't it?  Certainly they are war minded!
     There is a darn gun right close to us that makes me jump even though I know it is coming!  It is a big one and fires at 15 minute intervals.  The shell does sound sort of like a train rushing along in the distance.  Boy, I'd hate to be on the other end.  Today they've been bombing the devil out of the Jap positions.  It sounds nice to hear those sticks of bombs going "womp, womp, womp!"
     We had the darnedest rain about noon.  It came down in buckets.  Our 8 inches for the month will soon be used up if this keeps on.  Again I'm so glad for the change of shoes!
     I didn't see them but I heard that some P-38's and Liberators knocked off 6 Jap planes somewhere around here today.  That's another thing I'd like to see, a dog fight between planes.  That really must be something.  Of all the flak that goes up, none of it falls around us.  That is a help.
     Next morning - during the night I heard a plane buzzing around way up.  I believe he dropped some bombs into the ocean, probably afraid to come over the guns and afraid to go home with them!  I think the Nips have a great deal of respect for our gunners.  I heard a good one about one of the fellows close [to] here who is exceptional.  A fellow talking to him said he was chewing tobacco unconcernedly and spitting.  When asked who got such and such a plane, he said (spit) "Me and another guy."  Just then a plane came along and he just sat there working his gun and chewing calmly and drawing a careful bead and not wasting his ammunition!
     It certainly is delightful how few skeeters there are here,  I haven't used a net since a week ago and I don't think I've had a bite.  The flies aren't quite as bad here either.  They claim there are lots of alligators around in large streams.  Dick [McIlroy] and I plan to go hunting sometime.
     All my love, Eugene

The newspapers reported on June 4th that most of the fighting was over and the U.S. forces were just mopping up.  Unfortunately, the Japanese were more desperate and dug in than anyone realized.

June 4, 1944 Sunday - Jap naval task force said to be coming to shell us!

June 5, 1944 Monday
     Yesterday morning all looked quiet. I was just catching up on my ward. At 10:30 they called in all the officers. They said part of the Jap fleet - a naval task force - was expected in about 6 hours to shell the beach, and that we had to send all patients possible to duty and take the rest up over the ridge with as much of the hospital we could, to set up another. We were to take a light pack, carbine, water and rations. I dismissed as soon as I could complete their jackets [the patient's records], all my medical patients [the ones admitted for fevers, etc.] They [the ward men?] packed a few sets of instruments, plasma and dressings and put the rest in foxholes, including x-ray, to protect it as much as possible from shelling. All but 2 ward tents were taken down and litter cases moved into 2 wards. All walking patients were sent up on the first slope, and then up the ridge. It was extremely steep, and hard on the patients. Carbines, rifles and pistols and ammunition were given out. I was sent up, with some others, to look after the patients. We were to stay put until we had definite word. Getting up the litter patients would have been a terrible job. We heard that our Navy was on the way, but couldn't arrive in force soon enough. A whole bunch of fighters and Liberators went after them [the Japanese force]. By afternoon nothing showed up, so we all breathed more easily. They brought up litters for the night, blankets, water, food and medicine. We bedded down behind an infantry perimeter. The things I didn't carry, I [had] put in a waterproof bag and put it in Hiram's foxhole. I found on the floor

Hiram's foxhole on Biak

of our tent [in the dirt on the ridge], a small waterproof bag containing an excellent Jap plane clock. The night brought more alerts.  We'd give most of the men amytal [a barbiturate that causes sedation]!  Several planes were fired at, but there was reported there were several destroyers, transports of troops and a cruiser - about 18 in all.  We are opening up again and may more to a quiet island about 3 or 4 miles south.  Today they've been shelling and bombing the very devil out of the Japs.  We had some mail when our refrigerator arrived on an LST.

June 6, 1944  More air attacks and more work.

In a letter to his 14-year-old nephew, Gene sounds quite nonchalant.

6 June '44
Dear Jack,
     Here is a Jap cigarette (from which I took part of the tobacco) and the wrapper.  Also two pieces of paper invasion money and some aluminum invasion money [this was money the Japanese used in the countries they had invaded] (3 coins).
     No, I've not been collecting my souvenirs, but I do have a good clock from a Jap plane.  It is just too much to carry things around.  I'll be glad when we don't have to live out of a pack.  It seems we've been on the move for such a long time.
     I've seen quite a few natives.  They are quite primitive, and a sorry-looking lot.  Most of the children are pot-bellied from enlarged spleens from chronic malaria.
     Things are O.K. here - a bit warm at times but none of us have been injured, unless it was by someone jumping on someone else in a foxhole.
     Love, Eugene

June 7, 1944  We are to move to [the island of] Owi.  I go over to supervise the setting up of surgery.

Map of Biak with Owi circled

Owi is about 4 miles across the water from the location of the 92nd Evac.  It is about 3 miles long and 1 1/2 miles wide.  Most of the island is covered with scrub brush that is inhabited by a particularly nasty type of chigger, the larval stage of a mite.  It attaches itself to a host, bores a hole using enzymes, then eats the skin This causes the host intense itching.  This minor irritation turns major when the chigger transmits bacteria, Rickettsia tsutsugamushi, (tsutsuga means something small and dangerous in Japanese, and mushi means creature). These bacteria cause scrub typhus.  The initial "bite", which first is like a pimple, ruptures and becomes covered by a black scab. The symptoms begin about 10 days after the bacteria get into the person's body: rather sudden chills, fever, and a severe headache.  The lymph nodes swell and the mucous membranes of the eyes get red.  The patient starts coughing, and his fever rises for the first week to about 105°.  After the fifth day the patient develops a rash, which may fade away or become brightly colored.  Pneumonia may develop.  The patient may become delirious, lose consciousness and start twitching.  The heart muscle may become inflamed.  Today it is treated successfully with antibiotics.  In the 1940's it was treated by nursing care, and was often fatal.