Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
3:55 | The Japanese were defeated for the first time by a few Marines. The battle fought at the Tenaru River marked not only the beginning of the Guadalcanal campaign but the turning point in their dominance in the Pacific. Frank Pomroy explains why they lost.
Keywords : Frank Pomroy Guadalcanal Corpsman Japanese banzai Alexander Vandegrift Battle of Tenaru River Chesty Puller
After the Pearl Harbor attack, seventeen year old Frank Pomroy tried to enlist in the Marines but was told he was too young. Undaunted, he and another eager teen concocted a scheme to get in.
Boot camp was compressed early in the war to get Marines ready for fighting. Frank Pomroy recalls how the drill sergeant was tough as nails but bought them beer after the graduation.Then he was off to Camp Lejeune, which was being built as the men trained. A long train ride to California gave many of the young Marines their first sight of the West.
After a stop in New Zealand where the men made their own liberty, the Marines of the 1st Regiment went to the island of Guadalcanal. It had been chosen for the initial confrontation with the Japanese. Frank Pomroy was ordered to stay on the transport to help unload but an enemy torpedo bomber crashed into it and the crew abandoned ship. Part 1 of 2.
Frank Pomroy was on a raft with another Marine after their troop transport was consumed by fire. They were fortunately rescued by a US destroyer just in time to witness the Battle of Savo island, a disastrous defeat for the US Navy. Part 2 of 2.
Frank Pomroy had been rescued at sea and was at New Caledonia trying to get passage to rejoin his unit on Guadalcanal. He didn't know it yet but they been all but abandoned by the Navy and were fighting the Japanese with very few supplies.
He was on the 37mm gun and he only had 55 rounds to last the night. Frank Pomroy chose his targets carefully and the grapeshot he was firing from what was really an anti-tank weapon was mowing down the charging enemy. Finally the Banzai attacks ended. This was the first defeat for the Japanese in the Pacific.
It was supposed to be an easy day. After a period of patrolling in the jungle Frank Pomroy and his buddy Jim Mangin were going to be part of a work detail at the Guadalcanal air field. When the Japanese bombers showed up, that was the end of that.
There was little or no food for the Marines on Guadalcanal. Frank Pomroy recalls how they all ate a lot of coconuts and battled malaria and a host of other ills. Once the island was secure, they had a nice recuperation in Australia.
Guadalcanal marked a turning point in the war in the Pacific. The Marines had proved that the Japanese could be beaten. Now the industrial output of America could rise and smother the enemy, which was already suffering attrition of men, ships and planes. Frank Pomroy contrasts the long struggle there with the highly compressed action he would face later on Peleliu.
There was a warrant officer in charge of Frank Pomroy's platoon at Cape Gloucester. When Pomroy woke him up to tell him the Japanese were assembling in front of their position, he scoffed but got up anyway. As they stared out into the night he lit a match and held it in front of his face. No Japs out there. See?
Guadalcanal was now a huge rear echelon area and Frank Pomroy's unit was gearing up for the next landing on Peleliu. There was a drawing to determine which men could be sent home but he didn't participate. He wanted to make one more landing.
As he approached Peleliu, Frank Pomroy rose up a bit and looked out of the landing craft to see the entire island covered in black smoke. After going ashore under a hail of machine gun fire, the Marines began one of the toughest battles they had faced. Part 1 of 5.
After his machine gun was crushed by a Japanese tank, Frank Pomroy had to scramble around to find another one on the battlefield. He located one but a raiding party stormed in and he took a bayonet to the knee when he shot one of them at close quarters. He got that bandaged up just in time to attack the high coral ridges above the air field. Part 2 of 5.
During the pitched battle for the high coral ridges on Peleliu, Frank Pomroy was on an ammo run to the beach when he encountered Chesty Puller and his command group. When a shell hit nearby, the feisty commander was the only one who didn't duck. Meanwhile, the Marines had no water. It was all contaminated. All they could do was keep fighting. Part 3 of 5.
After surviving artillery fire from US ships that had mistaken his group for Japanese, Frank Pomroy fell in with a Lieutenant who was organizing a patrol through a swamp. They were not very far along when they became completely pinned down by Japanese artillery and sniper fire. Part 4 of 5.
He was making a lone stand on Peleliu. He had a bayonet wound, had taken three bullets and was starving and dehydrated. Frank Pomroy had seen dozens fall around him and he was all alone with plenty of ammo but no food or water. After shooting two Japanese who stumbled on his position, he was too weak to crawl over and look for a canteen. Part 5 of 5.
Frank Pomroy had left a man for dead on the Guadalcanal battlefield. Everyone agreed that he was dead and they pressed on. But he wasn't and, after almost being buried alive because he could not speak, the two encountered each other in the rear area. This was only the beginning of his sad story.
