| Show I Yanks Had to Blast Japs Out of Holes On Marshalls I Doughboys of the Seventh infantry I division who captured and other islands of the atoll during the invasion of the Marshall Marshall Mar shall islands literally had to dig the Japanese out of the ground Col Syril E. E Faine Faroe infantry of Ne Straitsville Ohio who is now in the United States acted as deputy chief chiel of staff of the division during the six six- day campaign He said the Japanese Japanese Japa nese defenders of the Pacific mid-Pacific coral base had taken refuge in hundreds hundreds hun of shell craters by the time the first waves of infantry hit the shore on January 31 February 1 Pacific time It was just like killing rats he declared The whole island wa was rubble after the preliminary bombing bomb I ing and shelling The Japs ha hac crawled underground wherever the could and the infantrymen had tc stop at every hole and fire into it or throw grenades into it Playing Possum The Japanese were up to their usual nasty tricks went on Colone Colons Faine Faroe Even after they were hope hopelessly hopelessly lessly defeated they refused to give up At one point in the action at ar American aid station was established established established close to a pile of three apparently ap ap- apparently apparently dead Japs Only two o 0 them it turned out were dead The third at the bottom o 0 o the heap pulled himself up after playing possum for a long time ant anc fired one ineffectual shot at ar American officer Other Japs blew bleu themselves up with grenades The landing on the Marshalls MarshaUs Colonel Faine Fame said was precedes by one of the most intensive bombardments born bom of the war Both arm armand arms and navy planes participated ant anc later warships pounded the Jap de One airstrip on the atoll was so chopped up Colone Faine Fame said that not only couldn't couldn the Japs get a plane off it but yoi YOt couldn't even have run a wheelbarrow row along it Amphibious Warfare The aerial hammering kept up a m the invasion armada containing more ships than there were in ow whole navy ate at- atthe the start of the war swept over the horizon As the landings started Seventh division infantrymen in who had received special amphibious training drove their owr alligators and ducks toward towar shore and later ferried supplies b back lck and forth from the ships The doughboys had relatively easy easygoing going when they first hit the beaches beache advancing 1300 yards on the first firs day On the second day they begat began to run into lines of pillboxes against which they advanced with combat engineers right behind them With VitI flamethrowers grenades and weapons the infantrymen calmly cleaned out each pillbox as they got gotto gotto gotto to it The engineers used ton tons of dynamite on two islands alone levelling everything on them I |
