Close Call at Sugar Loaf Hill

[jacobtowne]

Okinawa, May 18th, 1945.
Lt. Francis X. Smith, a young platoon leader in the 29th Marines, tells of one experience in the bloody fighting for this hill. From Killing Ground on Okinawa: The Battle for Sugar Loaf Hill by James H. Hallas.

As the enemy fire subsided, Lt. Smith waved his men forward. “Let’s move down and clean this thing up,” he called. Accompanied by his runner, Smith walked around toward the front of the hill “to make sure we were really holding it” and to check on the Japanese caves. The next thing he knew, someone grabbed him. He assumed it was one of his marines trying to get his attention, but when he glanced around, he found two Japanese soldiers trying to drag him into a cave. A couple of marines grabbed Smith on the other side and pulled the other way. “It was a tug of war,” said Smith. “A ridiculous thing you would see in a Keystone comedy. Nobody could shoot for fear of hitting us and we were all pulling and shoving.”
Fortunately for Smith, his men won the tug-of-war. The two Japanese ducked back into a hole, followed by a couple of grenades. The incident left even the fearless Smith shaken. “If I was a little older, I would have had a heart attack,” he admitted. “But I wasn’t smart enough to have a heart attack.”

Smith was fortunate indeed. Had he been taken by the Japanese, he almost certainly would have been tortured to death, as happened to captured marines on Iwo Jima.

JT