Camp Pendleton, Cal.
November 2, 1943
Dear girls,
This last week was again a pretty tough one. Amphibious operations, three two-day problems, each of them starting with a landing – and while the days are still pretty warm here, take off your shirt warmth, the nights are getting damned chilly, especially for sleeping on the beach under one blanket. So cold that I went on patrol all night rather than hit the sack.
Several days ago we had at least two days of rain, and immediately the hills started to get green again. A couple more rains and this country will again look like the paradise it was when we first came – lush green fields, velvety hills dusted with acres of nodding wildflowers.
I’ve been having a series of headaches with my platoon all of a sudden – I had a wonderful record so far as they were concerned – ever since I first got there, not a man AWOL, and in almost a year only one man had to come up before the Captain for reprimand; almost a perfect score, which was amazing. But about a week ago, one of my steadiest and most dependable men – the man who waited on table, mother, at the Officer’s Mess, decided to go on liberty for the first time in three months – got blind drunk, got picked up for disorderly conduct, resisted arrest and knocked down an MP – and he got off comparatively lightly.
Then my very best NCO, my pride and joy – the section leader of the mortars, got all fouled up in his personal life – his girl married somebody else, so he went AWOL back to Utah for four days to tell her what he thought of her, and had to be broken – now a PFC, and as such I have had to put him back in a squad, under the men he was commanding – a bad situation.
Then one of my squad leaders, a new man in the platoon, just back from overseas, refused to jump [from] the 33 foot tower in the swimming course, then in the rubber boat training, trying to launch a rubber boat against a very heavy surf, seeing a big wave coming he jumped out of the boat, deserted his squad, swam in and walked up to the Captain and told him that he just couldn’t take it. I don’t know when I’ve been so furious – I immediately relieved him of his squad, and am sending him out of the company as soon as possible.
And to top it off, my new second in command and I don’t hit it off – he babies himself and bullies the men – if he hasn’t got blisters on his feet then his legs ache, and if his legs don’t ache it’s his stomach. I don’t like him, and neither do the men, yet he’s smart enough not to make any open mistake.
And there won’t be enough furloughs to go around to let all the men get home again before we shove off – one squad leader has an incurable Samoan disease, a section leader is having his tonsils out, one man has chronic appendicitis, and another has bad flat feet and can’t march, another has a trick knee that was ruined on maneuvers.
All this has caused wholesale re-juggling of the squads, which is also bad. I just didn’t realize how lucky I had been for a year. I just wish all this had happened long ago instead of at the last minute.
Oh well, with all of this, I’ve still got a swell bunch of boys, who I know will be a credit to me when the chips are down.
Wrote to Weyer a while ago; have been dating some Navy nurses stationed at the Santa Marguerita Hospital. Got a letter from Ed Keyes the other day, and he is very happy – landed in the First Marine Raider Battalion, which just got back from Kedova, and will surely go out again very soon.
Spent a very pleasant day yesterday, which we had off, back up in the hills, hunting with another Lieutenant and a jeep – strange to say we were successful, we got a deer – successful in a way, that is, for while the chase was very exciting and all that, both of us were overcome with pity when we found out what we had killed – worse yet it was a very pretty little doe – neither of us had any desire to eat it, so we rather sadly buried it. And I’m quite sure that I will never go deer hunting again. It’s got to be something that can fight back, like a great big ferocious grizzly bear – that is, if anything at all. Didn’t exactly feel like great big rugged Marines when we were through, either.
Write soon. Keep writing all the time.
Love,
Phil
The assault boat landings were a constant headache for the battalion, and everyone's patience was wearing thin. Boats overturned, Marines were drenched, and it was even rumored that two men in Charlie Company had drowned. The squad leader's desertion in the face of the incoming tide could not have come at a worse time. George remembered:
"The Sergeant that had just returned from overseas never did really fit in, and it wasn't the tower thing. I was up there a long time before I jumped. It was the rubber boat incident, which was at night and I think what really made Phil go off was the fact that during the same attempt to get our boat passed the breakers, and that bastard bailed out on us, we almost lost Hoppy. And that sent vibrations all the way to the White House, literally. I think Phil would have taken that coward that night if he could have gotten to him."
This would be one of the very few times Phil would lose his temper in front of his platoon. While the sergeant was removed from his command in the weapons platoon, it doesn't appear that Phil followed through with getting him out of the company. No punitive remarks appear in the muster rolls for and sergeants in October or November, 1943, and none were transferred out of the company. Fortunately for him, his name has not been recorded.
The swimming pool at Camp Pendleton. The tall structure at left is the tower which caused so much trouble.
The other enlisted men referenced in the letter are easier to identify. PFC Frank Gosiewski, one of the "most dependable men," was written up in the battalion report as: "October 15 and 16, confined to brig. October 17 tried for: "Being under the influence of intoxicants, using profane and obscene language and striking an MP in Oceanside, Calif. Awarded 30 days restriction with EPD [extra punitive duties, IE, cleaning and fatigue detail during one's liberty time], released from confinement and returned to duty."
The "very best NCO," John Svoboda, was also written up: "AWOL from 7:00 PM Oct. 21 through 6:15 AM Oct. 26. Tried and sentenced to be reduced to next inferior rank (Private First Class) Oct. 28, 1943." Svoboda, already in his third year of service with the Marines, had been "trouble from the day he arrived," according to George. This was a strong punishment for going over the hill - other offenders were incarcerated for a few days at most - but with the Word going around that they were preparing for combat, perhaps the officers needed to make an example as a preventative. Svoboda eventually became the Ammunition NCO for the Weapons platoon.
The best educated guess I can make is that Phil's "new second in command" is a reference to Platoon Sergeant John Yaniga. Although he had been acting platoon sergeant since 1942, many men had less-than-sterling opinions of his abilities. George remembered being singled out for specific abuse:
"He came from western PA, so every morning at roll call he would say "Schmidt!" and I would say "Smith!" - and "Run around!" [For] my punishment, I had to run around the motor pool! Every day it was the same dialogue, he would say "Schmidt" and I wouldn't stand for it, and away I went... I had the best damn legs in the company!"
Yaniga also "wasn't the bravest guy" and panicked on one of the infamous nighttime rubber boat training sessions; yelling "I can't swim! I can't swim!" he promptly fell out of the boat, which capsized seconds later. Quick thinking by Al Perry and DeWitt Dietrich saved the situation, and the squad was rescued at daylight. [Though if the above supposition is true, the question remains as to what Yaniga was doing in a boat with a rifle squad instead of with weapons - though the boats may have landed in assault teams which combined rifles and support weapons. I'm not sure on this.]
Corporal Arthur Ervin, a machine gun squad leader, had previous overseas service and caught filiarisis somewhere along the line. If untreated, the ailment can sometimes develops into elephantitis. His nickname Moo Moo derived from the Samoan word for the disease - mumu.
Sergeant Frank Tucker, machine gun section leader, was sent to a Navy hospital in November to have his tonsils removed.
PFC George Hall's flat feet were so pronounced that they inspired his nickname.
"Hall, he didn't just have flat feet, his arches were lower than the rest of his feet. He had a terrible time. We used to go out to a training area five miles every day, five miles out five miles back, he had a terrible time and finally I think the last couple operations they kept him back, kept him out."
Ed Keyes, Phil's former roommate from New River, had evidently been fast-tracked out to the South Pacific. "Kedova" doesn't appear to exist, though the First Marine Raider Battalion had just returned from Noumea, New Caledonia, and was currently stationed in Auckland. In February of 1944, the Raider battalions were reorganized into the (new) 4th Marines.