"Soldiers of Today and Yesterday"
" Honor,Dignity & Hope "

Some Thoughts and Memories of serving the greatest nation on earth and being a member of the greatest military force ever assembled.

I graduated from Rochelle High School in May of 1941, and went to work for Embry Electric Co. in June 2, 1941.

On December 7, 1941 on late Suanday evening, as my mother and I were keeping warm by an old wood burning stove, we heard the news of Japan bombing Pearl Harbour. I told my Mother that I would be going to war soon,  as I was 18 years old at that time. I received three 3 months deferments from being drafted as I was doing electric work on training basis at Camp Bowie n Brownwood, Camp Barkley at Abilene and Sloan Field in Midland. After those deferments I told my Grandmother that I was joining the Navy before they drafted me. Grandmother said, " Son, you don't know what you are getting into."

As I left home in September 1943, I could hear my Mother crying. I finally got to Chicago (Illinois) then made my way to Williamsburg, Virginia. All my ealry life I never wante to be away from home, so I was not feeling too well during all of this. My Bootcamp in Virginia lasted until December and was sent to Camp Indicot in Rhode Island. There we formed the 144th C.B. (Construction Batallion). We trained at this place until March 1944 and went to Gulfport in Mississippi. There the 144th was broken up and I volunteered to join the 133rd Batallion. From Mississippi the 133rd went to Port Hueneme in California.

As we came from Mississippi, we went through San Antonio, Texas, which is only 150 miles from my home town, Brady, TX. I had to control myself and not jupmp off that train and go home! We remained in California until May 1944. I had a "weekend leave" just before we were shipped overseas. I remember how lonely and homesick I was walking down a lonely street on Sunday morning in Los Angeles and hearing aa Church bell ringing in the distance. Knowing we were to be shipped out son, didn't help either.

From California we sailed to Honolulu, Hawaii, while at the Honolulu Naval Air Station, the 133rd Sea Bee Batallion was assigned to the 4th Marine Division. Once on leave in Honolulu, two Marines got into a fist fight. The officer that stopped the fight said that they would get plenty of fighting soon enough. The Officer knew we would be getting into battle soon.

In November 1944 we left Honolulu and went by ship a short distance to Maui Island. We stayed there and rested (doing nothing) until December 1944 and boarded a Troop Transport ship (USS Leonardwood) and where all we went, I don't know, but being cramped on that ship for 62 days was extremely uncomfortable. We knew we were headed for an invasion but they had not said when it would be. I told one of my friends that it would be one of the Bonin Islands because the B29 bombers were bombing them everyday. Iwo Jima is one of the Bonin Islands.

On February 16th we came to the Mariana Islands. This is when we were informed where we were going. While we were at the Mariana Islands, we heard on the radion that the US had invaded Iwo Jima and were driven off. My thinking was a special Sea Bee outfit landed and either destroyed the landmines installed by the Japs or had put little red flags by the mines. We laughed when we heard that the US had invaded Iwo Jima when we were still at the Mariana Islands.

We had been together for over a year and you get the feeling you are just a member of a large family and get to love your Buddies. Kinda as if they were your brothers in the flesh. Being close to one another took away lots of homesickness.

We left the Mariana Islands on February 17, 1945 and headed for Iwo Jima. On the night of February 18th, i went up on the deck of our transport ship and could see what looked like lightning. What I was looking at was a large fleet of destroyers in battle ships which were shelling the island of Iwo Jima. On the night of February 18th we were told to go to bed early and get rest because we would get up early in the morning and go down in the nets on the ship and get into landing boats and go ashore. We all had Carbine riffles and a large pack to put on our backs. With water and one large piece of chocolate candy of some kind to last us a day or twol. They got us up very early in the morning of February 19th and we had a large steak and eggs for breakfast. I made a foolish statement that regardless of how it was when we landed, I would never want to be back on that terrible crowded transport ship. I changed my mind before we hit the beach! It was about 7 o'clock in the morning of February 19th, 1945 that we went down the nets and into the landing boats.

I don't know how many warships our Navy had, but to me it looked 30 or more. The USS Texas was there and many distroyers. I saw the big 16 " guns on the USS Texas firing again and again. The noise was terrific. The Japs were dug in and in caves. Apparently the shelling were not hurting them. I did not see a s single building on the Island. We circled around and around for an hour or two before we headed for the beach. There was only one place a few hundred yards long that anyone could go ashore on the Island. Apparently every large gun that the Japs had, was aimed at the place we were to land. 

There were 36 of us on our landing boat, just before we landed I saw one of my Buddies ope a pint of whiskey and take a few swallows! There had been a wave or two landing boats go in before we went in. I was standing up and looked to my right when we were about one hundred yards from landing. I saw a a landing boat which had just left the beach and a Marine was holding a wounded Marine on the edge of the boat. And it looked as if the wounded Marine's leg was almost blown off. Blood covered both men. Then as we went on toward the beach, I saw a shell hit the water just to our right. Then another shell hit the water to our left. No damage was done as the shells hit the water and not us! I saw some boats which had been hit and out of commission.

I doubt if very many survived who landed the first few hours that day. The noise was extemetaly loud. You could hear the shells coming. If the hiss of the shell lasted a second or two, I knew it went on past, but the one exploded about the same time you heard the hissing sound, you know it hit very close by. We hit the beach running. I ran about fifty feet from the water and saw a huge crater where one of our B29's had dropped a large bomb. My thinking was that the crater might offer some protection, but it was completele full (about 25 Marines and Seabees), so I ran about 40 more feet and saw a large pice of concrete and a Marine Lieutenant hugging the concrete. I jumped in close to the Marine and we were completely pinned down until about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Many shells landed very close to us and not even a minute of time did the shelling stop. In the afternoon a Marine Officer came by and asked me what Unit I was with. I told him I was a Seabee and he told me to get back closer to the beach. He told the Marines to go on up toward the Airstrip which was two or three hundred yards away. I took off running toward the beach and came to the bomb crater with twenty five Buddies and they were all dead. There were no dead taps. Just our men as they had carried their dead off the beach.

There was continually shelling from the Japs, so removed enough black sand to get kinda dug in and stayed there until about 3 A.M. I was close to the water but a Marine came by and said, "Get back a l ittle further because the Japs had broken through." During all of this a piece of shrapnel had blown a hole the size of a baseball through my pack.

Our job was to guard the beach, as the Japs might try to come in from behind us. Also we were taking boxes of ammunition off of landing ships and getting them up to the Marines on the front line. It took two men to each box of ammunition. On the third day there were six men in front of me carrying ammunition boxes. One Jap's bullet knocked the six men in front of me down.

On the evening of the 3rd day, I was feeling like I could not take it anymore. If I had any sleep in the last three days, I did not know about it. In the late evening of the 3rd day, a LST ship came in and let its ramp down to unload ammunition. I ran in the ship and decided to wash my face and hands before I picked some ammunitions. Just as I got in the ship, a condition red (Air raid alert) came on the speaker system on the ship and the ship lifted its ramp and took off from the beach with you on it.

The ship stayed out there all night and I crawled into a jeep on deck and slept all night. The first shut-eye in three days. The next day the ship came back to the beach and I helped unload the ammunition. I was listed as missing in action! The Marines had a very hard time advancing against the Japs. On the third day after we landed, one of our dive bomber dove down about 75 years from where I was and dropped his bomb when he was 15 feet above the ground. On the fifth day, about 11 p'clock in the morning, I was close to the bottom of Mt. Suribochi and began to hear men cheering. It sounded more like a cheer of relief and they were pointing up to the top of the mountain. The Marines were raising the American Flag! What a wonderful sight and that put an  end to the shelling from the mountain. I have never see such bravery and as far as I was concerned, I prayed a lot and gave thanks to God that my life was spared and the Island was finally conquered. We were told to expect it would take 72 hours to take the Island but it took more than 30 days.

We spent 42 days in our fox hole, two or three men in each hole. Two close friends were staying in one fox hole and their wifes were staying together in the States, waiting for them to come home. One night one of the men got out of the fox hole to go to the outdoor toilet, when he came back to the fox hole, his Buddy shot him 17 times with his carbine riffle, he thought his mate was a Jap coming in.  We were talking about invaded Japan when 2 big bombs were dropped on Japan, which ended the war. I came back to the States in December 1945. I love to hear the leaders of our Land turn to God for guidance. We know that Rightiousness exalts a Nation, but sin is reproach to any people.

Sincerely,

Wade L. Gamblin.

PS

When on Oahu Island (Honolulu) my battelion spent one week on the northside of the Island taking commando training. It rained everyday. We had to crawl in ditches which was covered with wire and machine guns firing live ammunitions over our heads. We would come to signs which read, "Kill or be killed." That was a tough week as we lived in tents. Also let me mention the burying of our dead. At the bottom of Mt. Suribochi, a bulldozer made a ditch in the sand about 100 yards long and 6 feet deep. Trucks would come (completely loaded) with those who had been killed and were laid side by side and take names from their dog tags. Then cover their bodies with sand. The cemetory looked to be about 100 yeards square with thousand crosses and markers. Trucks reminded me of large loads of bundled hay being hauled from the field.