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ORIGINAL: Double Deuce

ORIGINAL: pbear

It's a matter of perspective, any place someone is shooting at YOU! [:(]

Pbear beat me to it. I was going to say "The one you are/were in!"

Honestly though I would have to go with someplace in the Pacific but afraid I can't pick one as there were more then a couple "horrendous" battles in that theater.

This just goes back to my original thought -- I was speaking in general terms, not specific battles. I have often compared the Eastern Front and the Pacific Theater in terms of the brutal weather/terrain conditions, plus the peculiar atavistic fury and no-quarter-given style of combat which produced atrocities on both sides.

For particularly bad Pacific battles, three come to mind -- (1) Tarawa, which produced more casualties in a shorter amount of time than any other Pacific island assault ; (2) Peleliu-- the unrelenting heat, the horrific terrain and the concentrated slaughter were a foretaste of what was to come at (3) Okinawa -- there were numerous incidents of combat pyschosis, as this battle degenerated into a WWI-style murdering machine with rain, continuous defense lines, and the troops wallowing in a horrific morass of mud and festering corpses. Somehow the Battle of Okinawa was been overshadowed by Iwo Jima, but in its own way it was much worse.

Go back one more, Gunny. The Marines that were left hanging On Guadalcanal, the lack of food, ammunition, good water, deplorable living conditions, being shelled nearly every night be marauding cruisers and destroyers, under constant attack from Japanes on all sides and the island, a horror pit in itself. Let me include from something I wrote some time ago based on materials taken from those who were there. Just imagine these things and living in them week after week.

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Guadalcanal - The Ultimate Misery



The island itself was typical of so many in the Pacific. From a distance, it indeed looked like a paradise. Once on the island, however, one's point of view quickly changed. The 90 mile length of the place is drenched with rains, for example on Tulagi, the annual rainfall average is 160 inches! The rains were worst from November to March. Gudalacanal is also volcanic. It has a central spine of jagged peaks, covered with tropical rain forest, rising in places 8,000 feet above sea level. On the southwest the mountains slope fairly sharply to the coast.

In contrast, on the northeastern side, the land is more open, even to the point of some wide plains, with numerous rivers and streams slicing it up. These plains had been partially cleared for coconut plantations. The rest of the area was covered by trees, dense brush, and open spaces covered with kunai grass, at times glowing to a height of seven feet. Calling it grass is a misnomer. The blades are thick and coarse, with cutting edges like a saw. It was definitely not the tropical paradise presented by Hollywood.

On disembarking to the island, the first thing to be noticed was the smell. Guadalcanal stank! Superabundant vegetation, quick to rot in the rich, hot, humidified sea air, turned to queasy slime beneath the thick canopy of trees that blocked out much of the sunlight. The odor was one of continual rot. The smell permeated everything on the island.

This also gave opportunity for the cultivation of every type of oniferous insect alive, including malarial mosquitos and nameless bacteria. Rich in mud and coconuts, the island was wet the year round. This continual dampness, cultivator of every type of creature to make a man's life miserable, only added to human discomfort. The heat, under such humidified conditions was almost unbearable. To men weighted down with equipment, it was physically exhausting just to move in such weighted air.

The tropical jungle was like a malevolent beast, arrogant and cruel. Its foul breath was a hint of what lay within its bosom. This included serpents, crocodiles, and centipedes which could crawl across the flesh, leaving a trail of swollen skin. Land crabs scuttled over the jungle floor in the night, sounding amazingly like an infiltrating Jap. There were also scorpions, lizards, leeches, wasps as long as your finger, and spiders as big as your fist. The mosquitos were everywhere, all the time, and carried with them all sorts of disease, primarily the dreaded malaria. Around its fetid shores, hungry sharks swam, waiting for an unsuspecting meal. They were always hungry.

And that is not even considering the psychological impact of being abandoned and under enemy attack all the time.

WB

Bill, that was brilliant. [&o]

I wanted to bring up Gauadalcanal , or New Britain, or Bougainville. An exasperated (and soaked) Army reporter wrote this: "Bougainville, Nov 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (1943) -- it rained today".

How true! If you've ever lived in a climate of dry and rainy seasons, you know that there is nothing quite like it. The rains began sporadically, a little every day. It builds and builds until you reach a point where it rains...daytime, nightime, all the time. It just never stops. No sun, no dryness, mold, mildew, rot and a small, that damp "tennis shoe" smell.

I love the four seasons much more. Combat was fierce, horrid, but often the living conditions was another type of hell that dogged the soldiers.

On the Eastern Front, I jotted down a few thoughts as to the conditions for the Germans in the winter of 41-42. It makes you think.

Promise, no more of this from me. I just thought you might get a better picture of 1941 deep in Russia. It makes me shiver to think about it.

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THE SOVIET WINTER

For some people, such as an old southern boy like me, the concept of severe winter weather is difficult to grasp. Those who live in this type of climate learn eventually to either adjust to it or cope with it.

Few populated places in the world can boast of a winter as drastic as that of the Soviet Union. When the German military entered into war with Russia, they optimistically calculated that it should all be over in six months. Hitler boasted to General von Rundstedt, "Kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will fall down!"

Well, the door had been kicked in, all right; in fact, it had been shattered, but somehow the structure still stood. It had been shaken to its foundation with the violent earthquake called Blitzkrieg, but somehow it had not yet fallen.

October came and went, and the weather deteriorated rapidly. It consisted of heavy rain, snow showers, damp and penetrating mists, all of which made movement nearly impossible, and living conditions uncomfortable. It would only get worse.

Hitler, in order to avoid giving the idea that he expected a long campaign, had made no provision for winter weather, either for his vehicles or his men. On October 7th, when a quick snowfall came and went, Guderian immediately requested winter gear for his troops. He was told that he would receive it in due course (it never came) and "not to make further unnecessary requests of this type."

Tragically, it would be the winter of 1943, two years later, before winter clothing and equipment in larger quantities would be issued to the Wehrmacht. On this first year the Germans were forced to deal with the situation on their own.

By the first of December, German soldiers found the weather was becoming unbearable. They had never experienced such cold. The temperature plummeted at times to 40 degrees below zero! In desperation, they took the uniforms of the dead to wear with their own. Newspaper, if it could be found, was stuffed within their clothing to offer some insulation.

Thousands of surrender leaflets written for the Russians were instead used by the Germans to try help keep out the cold. When the temperatures reached 50 degrees below zero, the breeches of weapons were frozen solid and could not be fired. Oil in trucks and tanks had the consistency of tar, and the drag on the batteries made it impossible to start their engines. Battery plates were warped, cylinder blocks split open, and axles would not turn. If anything had been packed in grease or oil, it would have to be shaved off with knives.

At this point, there was little shelter available. What buildings that had not been destroyed by German artillery had been leveled under Stalin's burnt earth policy. Nothing is more prized in this type of weather than some sort of shelter from it. There was little to be had.

On December 10th, Guderian recorded a low of 63 degrees below zero. On that kind of day, it was death to squat in the open. One witness of the disaster wrote, "A man seeking to perform natural functions would die as a result of a congelation of the anus." Those who could eat watched hungrily as the axe rebounded off the flesh of a frozen horse as though it had struck a stone. Another instance was related of a man who received his boiling soup from the field kitchen. He searched for his spoon for about thirty seconds. By then the soup was lukewarm. Even though he began to eat as quickly as he could, the last spoonfuls would be frozen in the bottom of the bowl.

Some tried self inflicted wounds to end their plight. Those who did not die immediately suffered a slow death from exposure and gas gangrene. Some chose a hand grenade as the weapon of death. They would pull its pin and hold it to their stomach. If not dead instantly, the charred pulp of what had been their intestines would freeze in minutes and stop the bleeding, thus prolonging the agony of death for the poor soldiers.

Suffering with dysentery, frostbite, and often half drunk on schnapps, or whatever could be found to drink, the German soldier was a picture of the most abject misery. It seemed only fitting that a special medal was struck for those who participated in the first winter campaign. It was known as the Gefrierfleisch Orden, or the Order of the Frozen Meat. Ironically, it was the coldest winter Russia had experienced since Napoleon's invasion in 1812.