Show Yanks Had to Blast Japs a s Out o of Holes On n Marshalls airs a s Doughboys of the Seventh infantry division who captured and other islands of the atoll during the invasion of the Marshall Marshall Marshall Mar Mar- shall islands literally had to dig the Japanese out of the ground gro Col Syril E. E Faine Fame infantry of New Straitsville Ohio who Is now in the United States acted as deputy chief of staff stat of the division during the six- six day campaign He said the Japanese Japanese Japanese Japa Japa- nese defenders of the Pacific mid-Pacific coral base had taken refuge In hundreds hundreds hundreds hun hun- of shell craters by the time tune the first waves of infantry hit the shore on January 31 February 1 I Pacific time It was just like killing rats he declared The whole island was rubble after the preliminary bombing bombing bombing bomb bomb- ing and shelling The Japs had crawled underground wherever they could and the infantrymen had to stop at every hole and fire down into it or throw grenades into it it Playing Possum The Japanese were up to their usual nasty tricks went on Colonel Faine Fame Even after they were hopelessly hopelessly hopelessly hope hope- lessly defeated they refused to give up At one point in the action an American aid station was established established established close to a pile of three apparently apparently apparently ap ap- ap- ap dead Japs Only two of them it turned out were really dead The third at the bottom of the heap pulled himself himsel up after playing possum for a long time and fired one ineffectual shot at an American officer Other Japs blew themselves up with grenades The landing on the Marshalls MarshaUs Colonel Faine Fame said was preceded by one of the most intensive bombardments bombardments bombardments bom bom- of the war war- Both army and navy planes participated and later warships pounded the Jap defenses de de- tenses One airstrip on the I atoll was so chopped up Colonel I Faine Fame said that not only couldn't the Japs get a plane off it It but you I couldn't even have run a wheelbarrow row along it II Amphibious Warfare The aerial hammering kept up as the invasion armada containing more ships than there were in our whole navy at the start of the war swept over the horizon As the landings started Seve Seventh th division infantrymen infantrymen in in- who had received special ial amphibious training drove their own alligators and ant ducks toward shore and later ferried supplies back and forth from the mother ships The doughboys had relatively easy easygoing easygoing easygoing going when they first hit the beaches advancing 1300 yards on the first day On the second day they began to run into lines of pillboxes against which they advanced with combat engineers right behind them With flamethrowers grenades and other weapons the Infantrymen calmly cleaned out each pillbox as they got gotto gotto gotto to it The engineers used tons tone of dynamite on on two Islands alone levelling everything on them |