W.e.b. Griffin - The Corps II - CALL TO ARMS

He was convinced that Peatross and his then had been swamped. But they hadn't. The current had taken them a mile farther down the beach than any of the others, where they had made it safely ashore. When they heard the firing, they had literally marched toward the sound of gunfire. And then he and his then had spent the day harassing the Japanese rear. They had burned down his buildings, blown up a radio station, and burned a truck.

And in compliance with orders, still not having made their way through Japanese lines to the others, they had at 1930 gotten back in their rubber boat and made it through the surf to the waiting submarine.

During the afternoon of August 18, Carlson moved what was left of his forces to Government House on the lagoon side of the island. There they found a sloop. And for a short while

(until it was determined that the sloop was unseaworthy), there was a spurt of hope that they could use it to get off the island.

Meanwhile, a radio was made to work long enough to establish a brief tie with the Nautilus. Evacuation would be attempted from the lagoon side of the island at nightfall.

Carlson sent then to manhandle the boats from the seaside beaches across the narrow island to the lagoon. Then he led a patrol toward the Japanese positions. He stripped the deserted office of the Japanese commander of what he had left behind (including his lieutenant general's flag, which the Raiders forwarded to Marine Commandant Holcomb). And then they burned and blew up one thousand barrels of Japanese aviation gasoline.

The fire was still burning at 2308 hours, when Colonel Carlson, believing himself to be the last man off the beach, went aboard the Nautilus.

There was no question of attacking Little Makin Island. For one thing, they would be expected. And the then not only had no weapons, they were exhausted.

The Raid on Makin Island was over. The Nautilus and the Argonaut got underway for Pearl Harbor.

(Two)

Pearl Harbor Navy Base, Territory of Hawaii

26 August 1942

It is a tradition within the submarine service for the crew to stand to on deck as the boat eases up to its wharf on return from a patrol. In keeping with this tradition, then were standing on the deck of the Nautilus. In fact, the deck was crowded; for in addition to the crew, the Marine Raiders who'd been "passengers" on the boat were on the deck, too.

The Raiders would have failed an inspection at Parris Island (or anywhere else in the Marine Corps). And they would have brought tears to the eyes of the gunnery sergeant of a Marine detachment aboard a battleship, a cruiser, or an aircraft carrier.

They were not at attention, for one thing. For another, no two of them seemed to be wearing the same uniform. Some were in dungarees, some in dyed-black khaki, some wore a mixture of both uniforms, and some wore parts of uniforms scrounged from the Nautilus's crew. Some wore steel helmets, some fore-and-aft caps, and some were hatless.

There was a Navy band on the wharf, and it played "Anchors Aweigh" and the "Marines' Hymn," and the Raiders watched with their arms folded on their chests, wearing what were either smiles of pleasure or amused tolerance.

The Pearl Harbor brass came aboard after that. And on their heels corpsmen started to offload the stretcher cases and ambulatory wounded. A line of ambulances, their doors already open, waited on the wharf behind the gray staff cars of the brass and the buses that would carry the Raiders.

Lieutenant W. B. McCracken, Medical Corps, USNR, was wearing, proudly, dyed-black trousers and an unbuttoned Marine Corps dungaree jacket-as if to leave no question that he had been the doc of Baker Company, survivor of the Makin Raid, as opposed to your typical natty, run-of-the-mill chancre mechanic. McCracken walked up to Second Lieutenant Kenneth J. McCoy, USMC, grabbed his dungaree jacket, and looped a casualty tag string through a button hole.

"Go get in an ambulance, Killer," he said.

"I don't need it," McCoy said.

It was neither bravado nor modesty. He had not, in his mind, been wounded. A wound was an incapacitating hole in the body, usually accompanied by great pain. He had been zinged twice, lightly zinged. The first time had been right after they'd started moving down the island. A Japanese sniper in a coconut tree had almost got him, or almost missed. A slug had whipped through his trousers, six inches above his knee, grazed his leg, and kept going. It had scared hell out of him, but it hadn't even knocked him down.

Almost immediately, he had seen another muzzle flash and fired four shots from his Garand into the coconut tree. The Jap's rifle had then come tumbling down, and a moment later the sniper followed it-at least to the length of the rope he'd used to tie himself up there.

After that McCoy had pulled his pants leg up, then opened his first aid packet and put a compress on the hole, which was a groove about as wide as his pinky finger and about as long as a bandage. And then he'd really forgotten about it. Or rather, the wound hadn't been painful until that night, when he'd waded into the surf and the salt water had gotten to it and made it sting like hell.

And he had been zinged again the next morning, when he'd led a squad down the island to see what the Japs were up to. He had been looking around what had been a concrete-block wall when a Japanese machine gun had opened up on them. A slug had hit the blocks about two feet from him, and a chunk of concrete had clipped him on the forehead; It had left a jagged tear about three inches long, and it had given him a hell of a headache, but it hadn't even bled very much. And it was not a real wound.

The doc on the Nautilus had put a couple of fresh bandages, hardly more than Band-Aids, on him; and until now, that had been the end of it. He had spent the return trip trying to come up with a casualty list: who had been killed; who was missing from the fucked-up landing and the even more fucked-up withdrawal from the beach; and who, if anybody, was still unaccounted for. He hadn't thought of much else after it had become apparent to him that they had left as many as eight people on the beach.

"Hot showers," Doc McCracken said, pushing him toward the gangplank, "sheets, mattresses, good chow, and firm-breasted sweet-smelling nurses. Trust me, Killer."

Doc McCracken was smiling at him.

"What the hell," McCoy said. "Why not?"

It took about two hours before he had gone through the drill and was in a room in the Naval hospital with something to eat. A couple of doctors had painfully removed the scabs and dug around in mere as if they hoped to find gold. Then they'd given him a complete physical. And of course the paper pushers were there, filling in their forms.

McCoy was just finishing his second shower-simply because it was there, all that limitless fresh hot water-and putting on a robe over his pajamas, and getting ready to lie on his bed and read Life magazine, when Colonel Carlson pushed open the door and walked into the room. He was still in mussed and soiled dungarees. McCoy supposed he'd come to the hospital to check on the wounded. The real wounded.

"Go on with what you were doing," Carlson said, as McCoy started to straighten up to attention. "Go on, get on the bed. It's permitted. Then tell me how you feel."

"I don't think I really belong here, Colonel," McCoy said, climbing onto the bed.

"Clean sheets and a hot meal," Carlson said, smiling.

"That's what the doc said, sir," McCoy said.

"I'm about to go out to Camp Catlin," Colonel Carlson said. "I thought I'd drop by and say 'so long.'"

"Sir?"

Carlson dipped into the cavernous pocket of his dungaree jacket and came out with a sheet of teletype paper, which he handed to McCoy.

YOU WILL ON RECEIPT ISSUE APPROPRIATE ORDERS DETACHING SECOND LIEUTENANT KENNETH J. MCCOY USMCR FROM COMPANY B 2ND RAIDER BN AND TRANSFERRING HIM TO HEADQUARTERS USMC.