Our Company A was assigned to the 77th Infantry Division. We made an invasion on Guam. Guam was the second island in that area. Saipan was about two hundred miles north of Guam. We mad the invasion of Guam on D-Day. I must admit we were all scared to death. We did not have but one lieutenant on board the little Higginsboat with us and he got so scared or so seasick he never got off. We never saw him again. The Navy corpsman that was running that Higgins boat never found the right hole because he moved us off about four or five hundred yards on a coral reef and we had to wade ashore. Believe it or not, the whole platoon got on shore with the exception of one man. We don't know if he got shot or if he drowned, but we couldn't stop. We had to keep going to the beach where we could be protected and not be shot at in the water.

My daddy began to accumulate the mail and newspapers that had been written about the invasion of Guam and all that had to be done. It's interesting that he kept all the information and I never saw any of this until I got home (I had been hospitalized near the end of the war). I didn't see a lot of it then because I went right back to college. Records of Saipan are in his papers.

When they took us out of the lines it took about four weeks to get Guam under control. That didn't mean we got all the Japanese, because after we had been pulled out about a week or ten days, the Marines came and got us and said, "We need those mortars. We have about two hundred Japanese trapped in that valley and we need for you to bring your mortars up and fire from one end of that valley to the other, and run them up the hills so we can shoot them or at least get them out of those holes they are in." We did do that and I must admit we couldn't get rid of all the Japanese in that valley.

We made that invasion on July 17, 1944 - one year after I had gone into basic training. In early October 1944, they loaded us on a ship and we were told we were going down New Hebrides for a three to six month period, which would have been nice because it was tough on us. We never got a cot, just slept on the ground, never had much food, and the rats on that island were so big that if you had anything they could eat, they'd eat right through your pocket. So we had to have somebody on guard all night, moving around, trying to keep the rats away from us.

Anyway, we loaded on the ship and we got down below the equator and we went through a celebration or an initiation that was done when you went below the equator and almost had a fight on board the ship with the Navy. Anyway, lo and behold, we woke up one morning and that ship was turned back north. We could tell by where the sun was. We said, "Oh, my goodness, what's going on?" It wasn't long before the ship stopped at Admiralties Islands. It's one degree below the equator; the hottest place I have ever been in my life. We worked at night and reloaded on board that ship to go back into combat again, and when we shipped out they told us we were going in to Leyte. The Japanese had decided that they were going to defend Leyte. If we take Leyte, we could have control of the Philippine Islands. The Japanese would fight as hard as they could to keep us from taking Leyte. The Japanese were bringing in replacements every day and every night. They were bringing them around on the other side of the island and to a bay called Ormoc Bay. We had to get on the small boats again and go ashore. After we got there in November we went up into the hills and started getting prepared. They told us they were going to take us back down to the beach to get on a little ship. "You're going to make a surprise landing in Ormoc Bay on the other side of the island behind the Japanese lines.

"You're going to have five days to take control of the town Ormoc so that Japanese can't keep bringing in replacements all during the night. It'll take the pressure off the 7th Infantry Division who are coming up from the south and the 11th Division coming across the mountains." We mad that invasion on December 7, 1944, exactly three years after the war had started. It was amazing that when we hit the beach that morning we had surprised the Japanese so much. There was hot coffee on the table in those little shacks they were living in. They hadn't had enough time to get their coffee. Within thirty minutes our platoon sergeant was shot. I called the captain and he had not come ashore. I said, "What are we supposed to do, Captain?" He said, "Well, you called me because you know you are the ranking sergeant left. You are in command. You can handle it. Now, you've got to look tough and up in front of your platoon take command."

We got the mortars set up. About that time the biggest shell had landed right close to use, but the shell didn't go off. We looked down in the hole and we saw this great big shell that hadn't exploded. It dawned on us right quick that it was just a did, but the next one would explode. We moved out as quick - March Orders - as we could and got across the road in the shadows of the trees. It couldn't have been ten minutes before where we had left that the Japanese realized what had happened. They had a big artillery gun across the bay and they blew that place up where we had been. It would have killed us; probably every man in the platoon if we hadn't gotten out of there. Anyway, we set up and fired the mortars. The next few days we were moving and we were making time moving toward Ormoc. On December 11, we knew the next day we had to take Ormoc because they were going to come in and evacuate us by ships. The Japanese would have still had control. That night, December 11, I had a Colonel come and say, "I need for you to take those mortars and I'll show you exactly where up on that hill. I want one set up to fire straight into Ormoc, one set up to fire down on the beach where the Japanese will be coming in at night, and I want one to fire on the south to protect us, and one to fire on the north to protect us." I said, "Well, there's a great big hole over there. What is it?" He said, "That's where the General is going to be. This is division headquarters. You are to protect it tonight." We got those mortars set up and we fired those mortars all night and the next morning. The General said, "We're going to move out and we're going to take Ormoc today. We moved into Ormoc and there was a river on the other side of Ormoc where the Japanese had their headquarters in a Catholic Church. We got right up to the river and the Captain said, "We've got control now. We'll worry about getting that headquarters knocked out later. Now we've got to get everything set up." We set up the mortars where the town center was. We had two mortars aimed toward the beach where the Japanese might try to enter at night. We had two firing across the river at the Japanese headquarters. We stayed there for about four days, firing night and day. It wasn't long before we broke out and got across the river and the Japanese had pulled back.

The Japanese General that was in control had committed suicide. He knew they had lost and wouldn't let anybody capture him. They wouldn't go back home and admit they failed; so he killed himself. We moved out the next day and we were going down the road; I was on the truck that was carrying the ammo. All of a sudden they came running back and said the lieutenant had been shot. I said, "Oh, Lord!" That meant I was really in command then. We pulled off the road and they said, "Now you've got to dig in here tonight because tomorrow we are going to take the Valencia airstrip and that's where we're going to meet the 7th and 11th Divisions." We knew that we had everything under control on this side of the island, but it's the first and the last time I made a mistake like I made that afternoon. I was tired and I knew I was in command. I wanted to write to my mother, so I sat down beside the Jeep that had belonged to the Lieutenant, but was now mine to have. I started writing a letter and all of a sudden a bullet went right beside my ear. A Jap had spotted me. Now I was just a target for him. I can assure you I never wrote a letter again before I'd dig a foxhole and get in first. I dug a foxhole real quick and I didn't get shot that night, thank goodness.