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Show Cedar City Soldier Lives "Charmed Life" Tfo. Mac D. Armstrong of Cedar City has been leading a charmed lile in his battle with the Japs on Attu. Kwajakln, and Lejte, according accord-ing to dispatch received frcin the Public Ktlations office somewhere in the Pacific. On .Attu. soon after he stepped ashore, he was pinned down by luavy Jap machine-gun fire for eight long hours. A few days later while carrying a message to his liason section, he became lost In the fog among the weird rock formations form-ations w hich look so similar every- I where on Attu. He searched for six ' hours between his own and the Japs front lines before he found his section. On the foggy night that the Japs st.-ged their fanatical, suicide at- I tack on Attu, Armstrong got his first Jap. Visibility was so poor that he .'hot the Jap Just four feet away from his foxhole. For the next two da; s, Armstrong took over a machine gun and lost count soon of ho many he had accounted for. On Kwaiiileln, he was pinned down by ni.chine gun fire and grenades before he even got ashore. He had to wait in water up to his neck until the Japs were cleared out of the pillbox by a flamethrower. "The last nite of the battle on Kwajalein the Japs got pretty close but all in all, I felt pretty safe on ICwajaletn", said Mac. After the hit tie his section set up their shelter shel-ter h..lf tents on the beach awaiting transportation back. ' "We'd been there resting for two days before we noticed two Japs in a pillbox only ten yards away from us", related Armstrong. "They had a s:.ber. a hari-kari knife, and a broken down machine gun. We didn't have any trouble with them." On Leyte, right soon after the first landings, Armstrong was stand ings under a palm tree near the beach when a ntichine gun started peeling bark off from it. That night a Jap smoke shell burst in front of his foxhole scottering sulphur :.!1 around him. A few days later. Armstrong was .sent from the front lines to a point three miles to the rear, to procure a new radio for his section and to bring up a load of ammunition for the doughboys who were hard pressed. press-ed. Most of the trip was through contested territory. Shells whistled through the grass and trees all iround him. but he made the trip without a scratch. Armstrong won the Bronze Star Medal on Leyte for establishing an emergency line of defense that en-i.Wed en-i.Wed him later to help evacuate a wounded officer. News GHQ Public Pub-lic Relations Office, APO 500, San i Francisco. |