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Henroid talks of his days as a
member of Marines
"I
joined the 1st Division at its home base on Pavuvu Island in early June of 1944 as a membr
of Company C of the 1st Motor Transport Battalion as a truck driver. Shortly some of my friends went over to a Navy
supply base on a nearby island. They
discovered a portable power plant, with wire, sockets and bulbs. They came back home and
with a larger boat and some help, promptly stole the power plant and brought it back home. We had electric lights in our camp. Nine years later and nine thousand miles away, I
was reminded of that. More on that later.
"About
the last of June some of us went to the movies. Before
the show began we listened to Tokyo Rose, she would play a record of the sweet music of
the day then talk about our wives and sweethearts back home out running around having a
good time.
"This
night she talked to us in particular and told us we would soon meet on an island called
Peleieu. It would be Sept. 15th. The first wave would hit the beach at 8:05.
"She
was correct to the minute. No one knew at the
time, except high ranking officials, the target or date.
Also she said the ones to get away would be prisoners of war. Most resistance ceased in about six weeks, I was
there two and one-half months. We suffered
terrible casualties there.
"We
returned to Pavuvu for rest and received replacements for our dead and for our destroyed
equipment. Late, we left Pavuvu for Okinawa, where we landed Easter Sunday morning, April
1. The landing was almost unopposed. The airfield was captured in about an hour. About 3 p.m. a Japanese pilot landed a Betty bomber
on the field. He apparently didn't know the
field belonged to the U.S.
"He
and his crew got out of the plane and started to the operations building. They did not know that at leaast a hundred rifles
were aimed at them. All of a sudden the
fellows opened fire, they all died at once.
"On
April 27, 1945, my luck ran out. Snipers were
waiting for me at a sharp curve in the road, they hit me three times. I then spent the next year in a Navy hospital,
mostly at Norman, Oklahoma.
"In
1954, I was working in St. Louis for the government. One
day, a fellow came down stairs to talk to me. He
said he had been looking at my records. He
asked me what outfit I had served in during the war. I
told him C Company, 1st Motor Transport Division. He
got a funny look on his face and finally said, 'Those thieving So-and-Sos. I was a Navy Chief in charge of a supply dump. They stole a power plant from me. I sure got into a lot of trouble over that."
